Eric Gehler SEO Richmond Virginia

WordPress Plugin Reviews

As WordPress continues to gain traction in the e-commerce website market, the number of plugins which are being made available is exponentially increasing to cater for demand. In this brief article, we’ll take a look at some of the plugins which have tweaked our curiosity and fired our imagination.

PhPurchase
Easy integration of any wordpress blog into a full service shopping cart. The Wp plugin is only $49.00 and makes your WP Blog into a 24/7 shopping cart option. The back end support is fantastic and is a reliable shopping cart solution for an incredible one off price.

WP Auctions

The WP Auction plugin lets you hold an auction on your site – you can sell anything you want and have as many auctions as you wish – all without the fees and charges which an online site such as eBay is going to entail, and best of all, you keep the traffic flowing around your own e-commerce site instead of navigating over to someone else’s.

Integrated payment options are included depending on whether you load the trial or paid versions, and the paid version includes the ability to accept bank wire transfers which is pretty neat, especially for big ticket items. The latest version is 3.5.2 and the full plugin costs $29.99 with support provided.

ArtPal

ArtPal is a free plugin for WordPress and aimed initially at artists looking to sell their work online. ArtPal integrates with PayPal, the popular and almost universal web payment mechanism, and there is no need for any technical expertise on the part of the user. All they need is a valid PayPal address to start a seamless integration set-up and allows you to control your sales inventory. As many handmade or artisan items are unique and one of a kind, ArtPal will control the displayed availability of your stock – once a painting is sold, no one else is able to order it or pay for it in anticipation of buying it. Professional support is available (for a fee) through Digital Sublimity.

PayPal Shortcodes

PayPal Shortcodes allows you to display PayPal payment buttons on your WordPress site without the need for full-blown coding. The plugin is free but there are some shortcomings – for instance, there is no management dashboard available at the moment and unless you really know what you’re doing, you will need a coder to help you unravel some of the more advanced features offered by PayPal.

Easy Donation

Another PayPal inspired plugin – Easy Donation allows for WordPress sites to add a PayPal donation button whenever there is a cause you are supporting. Simple to use and simple in execution – this is a good addition when you are trying to demonstrate your corporate responsibility and are supporting good works and causes. Needs no coding knowledge and simple to install.

WP Live Shopping

WP Live Shopping plugin allows site owners to display and promote all of their special offers available within the WordPress site using just one widget. The plugin is added to the WordPress sidebar and it is easy to install, even better, it is very simple to customize to your own taste and site style. A handy promotional tool which will help you generate interest in product offerings and maximize the impact of your sales and discount offers.

Not Showing Up In Google Search

Contact Big Oak Inc

Outing a BlackHat Scammer for Google Maps Spam

Looking through some SERPS the other day I was looking into the Gold Niche.  What struck me as odd was a a Google Maps listing a local location here in Richmond Virginia.  The location turned out to be a parking garage adjacent to the VCU Siegal center.  The listing was showing in the 3 Box Location for the SERP result of the keyword term I was investigating.

As I investigated this Black Hat website of  cashgoldjewelry dot com it is a website set up with a Geo Targeted Location Generator script with Doorway pages to many major cities and towns.

Further Investigation I came across Newark result that was a vacant lot A Louisville result that was another parking garage, a Miami result that was a House for sale on the intersection corner, and another parking garage in Wilmington Delaware.

Looking further into the website for SEO factors we see Google has indexed Results 1 – 10 of about 241 from cashgoldjewelry dot com.

This blackhatter is targeting major cities in Alabama Arkansas Delaware District Of Columbia Florida  Georgia Kentucky Louisiana Mississippi  Missouri North Carolina South Carolina Tennessee  Virginia West Virginia with his Google Maps Spam.

I even went so far as to call the phone number on his website.  It lead to a geeky sounding guy’s answering machine asking you to press 1 more information. After I pressed 1, the phone hung up.  I called today and there was no Message this time at all.

So Black Hat scammer used a location generator to create many doorway pages.  Scraped more them likely the Yellow pages for addresses of Parking Garages, Cemeteries, Houses for sale to acquire the physical address city and zip codes. Then created a mass XML file to upload to Google Maps to generate the Google Map’s Listing.   Quite a nice bit of black hat work I must say.

The results, many first position listings via Google Maps, many 4 Box Map SERP Listings and I am sure many click through to his website.

The question is will GOOGLE do anything about it and how long?

The interesting this is I reported several of the locations to see them removed and in 24 hours like a bad episode of Ground Hog Day to return to their full Black Hat Scammy Spammy Spots in the SERPS.

If you see one REPORT IT!!

Will keep you updated on the progress if any Google makes.