Author: Ash Nallawalla

About Ash Nallawalla

Ash Nallawalla is a consultant enterprise SEO with a long background in large companies with complex websites. He is a published author of several books and thousands of magazine articles.

Australia’s top 100 government websites

Reading Time: 3 minutes

It is useful for an SEO to check from time to time which Australian government websites are considered by Google’s ranking algorithm to have trust and authority. These sites show good toolbar PageRank and have quality backlinks. Well done to their webmasters!

According to a Google.com.au search for “www” and limiting it to .gov.au sites, here is Google’s verdict:

1. www.gov.au
2. Department of Immigration and Citizenship
3. Medicare Australia
4. Parliament of Australia
5. Innovation.gov.au
6. Centrelink
7. Australian War Memorial
8. Australian National Maritime Museum
9. Australian Taxation Office
10. National Museum of Australia
11. National Parks and Wildlife Service
12. City of Melbourne
13. Better Health Channel
14. Department of Veterans’ Affairs
15. Australian Bureau of Statistics
16. Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
17. AIATSIS
18. Department of Education, Employment and Workplace
19. Bureau of Meteorology
20. Customs
21. Department of Health and Ageing
22. Office of the Privacy Commissioner
23. Austrade – Australian Trade Commission
24. Department of Human Services
25. Department of the Environment, Water and Heritage
26. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
27. Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service
28. IP Australia
29. National Library of Australia
30. Australian Securities and Investments Commission
31. affa.gov.au
32. Biotechnology Australia
33. ACCC
34. AusAID
35. business.gov.au
36. australia.gov.au
37. Department of Climate Change
38. Community Water Grants
39. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
40. Reserve Bank of Australia
41. Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy
42. Northern Territory Government
43. AusIndustry
44. Going to Uni
45. Victoria Police
46. Geoscience Australia
47. workplace.gov.au
48. Food Standards Australia New Zealand
49. dewr.gov.au
50. Victoria Online
51. ACT Government
52. Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy
53. Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
54. Queensland Government
55. Workplace Authority
56. City of Sydney
57. ACMA
58. Australian Sports Commission
59. National Archives of Australia
60. Australian Antarctic Division
61. NSW RTA
62. National Health and Medical Research Council
63. Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government
64. Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
65. NSW Government Portal
66. Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO)
67. Internet Visa Services Australia
68. Superannuation Complaints Tribunal
69. HealthInsite
70. ascc.gov.au
71. Therapeutic Goods Administration
72. Attorney-General’s Department
73. Australian Electoral Commission
74. Wagenet
75. Prime Minister of Australia
76. NOIE (AGIMO redirection page)
77. NTIS
78. Art Gallery of New South Wales
79. Government Education Portal
80. Endeavour Awards
81. The Treasury
82. NT WorkSafe
83. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)
84. National Gallery of Australia
85. Productivity Commission
86. Australian Federal Police
87. Department of Defence
88. Australia Council for the Arts
89. GreenPower
90. South Australia Central
91. Australian Institute of Criminology
92. Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation
93. SCAMwatch
94. Australian Government Emergency Management Australia
95. Brisbane City Council
96. Australian Institute of Marine Science
97. Australian Museum Online
98. ComLaw
99. Energy Rating
100. NSW Health

Since government departments tend to follow similar guidelines within their own level, e.g. a particular state or the Federal government, it was interesting to observe a variety of labelling practices. Not surprisingly, many webmasters still use the phrases “Welcome to …” or “home page” in the title tag. There is nothing wrong being neighbourly to web visitors, but SEO best practice advises against wasting this most valuable part of a web page on something non-essential.

There was no consistency with the way the titles were phrased – many used the official name, e.g. “Department of Blah”, while some used the contraction. Do you know what is AIATSIS? Now I know it is the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. My preference would be to see the official title first in the title text. Since Google does not show more than 62 characters in the results heading, the viewer is left guessing what comes after “The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development …”

The Federal government and national heritage websites have done a lot better than have the state governments when it comes to ranking. This is probably because they have a lot of quality incoming links, including from some state websites and large companies, whereas not many Federal sites would link to the various states. Local government has fared very poorly, again because of a lack of quality inbound links. At a quick glance, the first city council websites appear below #400.

This ranking is largely of academic interest, as the query looks for trust and authority. It does not attempt to show where a site would rank for a targeted search, such as “Waverley council rates enquiries” – the NSW council of that name ranks in the top two results. Each marketing manager of the representative departments should identify such important keyphrases and see if they rank in the top 20 results in Google, Live, Yahoo or Sensis. This is not something for the “IT department” to solve, even though they might nominally control access to the website.

Australia’s top 100 organisation websites

Reading Time: 2 minutes

It is useful for an SEO to check from time to time which Australian organisational websites are considered by Google’s ranking algorithm to be the best. Best in this context means trust and authority. These sites show good toolbar PageRank and have quality backlinks. Well done to their webmasters!

According to a Google.com search for “www” and limiting it to .org.au sites, here is Google’s verdict:

1. Standards Australia
2. Australian Computer Society
3. Beyond Blue
4. A C O S S
5. Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia
6. PBS FM
7. Oxfam Australia
8. Australian Copyright Council
9. Heart Foundation
10. Australian Red Cross
11. Bicycle NSW
12. FBi Radio
13. Australian Institute of Refrigeration Air Conditioning and Heating
14. Lungnet
15. Sydney Festival 2008
16. Lifeline Australia
17. Ian Potter Foundation
18. WSC
19. Engineers Australia
20. Institute of Chartered Accountants Australia
21. Alzheimers Australia
22. Vision Australia
23. The Cancer Council
24. AusCERT
25. ACF
26. Australian Psychological Society
27. Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
28. Zoos Victoria
29. Bayside Health
30. Triple R FM
31. Black Dog Institute
32. C31
33. Greening Australia
34. Amnesty International Australia
35. WWF Australia
36. 3CR Community Radio
37. Royal College of Nursing, Australia
38. National Prescribing Service Limited
39. Australian Labor Party
40. The Australia Institute
41. Quit Victoria
42. MEAA
43. Australian Drug Foundation
44. St Vincent de Paul Society Australia
45. Phillip Island Nature Park
46. Greenpeace Australia Pacific
47. RSPCA Australia
48. World Federation Of Occupational Therapists
49. Salvos.org.au
50. National Institute of Accountants
51. NAPCAN
52. Mensline Australia
53. Royal Australian College of General Practitioners
54. The Wilderness Society
55. National Breast and Ovarian Cancer Centre
56. CARE Australia
57. Starlight Foundation
58. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology
59. Kidney Health Australia
60. Australian Dental Association
61. The Official Great Ocean Road website
62. Leukaemia Foundation
63. Australian Academy of Science
64. Reconciliation Australia
65. 3MBS Radio
66. Ecotourism Australia
67. The Cancer Council
68. Liberal Party of Australia
69. Refugee Council of Australia
70. Sydney Writers’ Festival
71. VECCI
72. The Pharmacy Guild of Australia
73. Banking and Financial Services Ombudsman
74. Minerals Council of Australia
75. Variety, The Childrens Charity
76. Philanthropy Australia
77. The Career Development Association of Australia
78. National Asthma Council Australia
79. Green Left
80. Australian Independent Records Labels Association
81. Australian Medical Council
82. Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation
83. GetUp!
84. Arthritis Victoria
85. Lawstuff.org
86. National Breast Cancer Foundation
87. Medecins Sans Frontieres Australia
88. The Centre for Independent Studies
89. Franchise Council of Australia
90. Australian Nursing and Midwifery Council
91. Save the Children Australia
92. The Salvation Army in Australia – National
93. JOY 94.9
94. Australian Film Institute
95. Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry
96. Friends of the Earth Australia
97. St John Ambulance Australia
98. COTA
99. auDA
100. AVN

Note that this list does not imply that one website is better than another. After all, the only ranking that matters is where your website appears in a search for your typical search terms, e.g. “first aid classes in Richmond VIC” (ranking for fewer words in the phrase is harder). As long as your site is within the top 10 or top 20 for your most valuable keyphrases, you are a winner!

Australia’s top 100 business websites

Reading Time: 2 minutes

It is useful for an SEO to check from time to time which Australian business websites are considered by Google’s ranking algorithm to be the best. “Best” in this context means trust and authority. These sites show good toolbar PageRank and have quality backlinks. Well done to their webmasters!

According to a Google.com.au search for “www” and limiting it to .com.au sites, here is Google’s verdict:

1. Qantas
2. SEEK
3. Optus
4. Virgin Blue
5. Regional Express
6. www.standards.com.au
7. Foster’s Group
8. News.com.au
9. RACV
10. Australia Post
11. Commonwealth Bank Group
12. Crown Casino
13. SBS Online
14. Australian Grand Prix
15. Budget Rent a Car
16. Sydney Morning Herald
17. Greenfleet
18. Skybus Super Shuttle
19. Lend Lease
20. Google
21. Transport Infoline
22. Deep Purple OnLine
23. ‘Coca Cola’ 600 ml Buddy
24. Diabetes Australia
25. Australian Securities Exchange
26. Courier Mail
27. Skywest Airlines
28. RealEstate.com.au
29. Vibe Hotels
30. Stockland Trust Group
31. Ansett Australia (not kidding!)
32. Choice Hotels
33. Yellow.com.au
34. Ticketmaster
35. Adelaide Festival
36. Domain.com.au
37. Mirvac Group
38. VisitCanberra
39. Australian Venture Capital Association
40. National Australia Bank
41. Ticketek Australia
42. Builder AU
43. YHA Australia
44. Westpac
45. Melbourne IT
46. Whitepages.com.au
47. Nova100
48. The Menzies Hotel
49. CareerOne
50. Mooloolaba Underwater World
51. The Australian
52. Triple M Sydney
53. MyTalk
54. Kids Help Line
55. Australian Hearing
56. TransLink
57. Heart Foundation
58. Greyhound Australia
59. Cargo
60. Reach Out!
61. Museum of Contemporary Art
62. moshtix
63. Medibank Private
64. Metlink
65. Win Television
66. BestRestaurants
67. CPA Australia
68. Centro Properties Group
69. Airnorth
70. Conservation Volunteers
71. Mirvac Hotels and Resorts
72. Sydney Airport
73. Australian INfront
74. MacAir Airlines
75. CHOICE
76. Fox
77. Tony Attwood
78. eBay Australia
79. CeBIT Australia
80. Queensland Tourism & Travel
81. Harris Technology
82. 2DayFM
83. Australia’s Great Train Journeys
84. Graduate Careers Australia
85. Public Relations Institute of Australia
86. DA Information Services
87. Relationships Australia
88. NetComm Australia
89. The Medical Journal of Australia
90. Australian Football League
91. Macquarie Group Australia
92. Nova969
93. NAATI
94. The Good Guides
95. ourcommunity.com.au
96. rugby.com.au
97. Harvey World Travel
98. Challenger Financial Services Group
99. Sydney.com.au
100. Penfolds

Quality content writing – an elusive beast

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This headline made me smile and I wondered if the writer can see the irony in his post:

New Indian Generation Loosing Quality??

Well in my case its true. New generation of designers and writers which is coming in the market are becoming money minded and just want MONEY with no Quality return. In last few months I am facing this issue with my regular writers and designers. I used to believe them so much that I add stuff which they have given with a simple go through and without confirming the details. I think why should I check with so much detail when I am paying them! BUT BUT BEWARE! never believe anyone in the market. These people out there are are doing nothing but NO QUALITY WORK.

The rest of the post laments the lack of quality in outsourced written content and programming and is equally amusing to read. It begs the question, “Who is fit to judge quality?”.

I found the post via a comment on a post by Amit Patel entitled, “Stay Away from [company name] Content Writers”. It too is full of ironic prose such as:

Getting work done by freelancers is not always the best thing because there are always negative factors of the same. Recently i was in need of some huge content and i was referred to a content writer who was running a company from New Delhi on the name of [company name and URL] and this lady who added me on Yahoo took my first articles order and then came back with the articles set after a huge amount of time, though i was in a idea that she ran away.

The writers didnt knew the spelling of ‘Chennai’, ‘beautiful’ kind of simple words and called themselves real professions, which may be in their dream.

It is not my intention to critique bloggers who are seeking quality written content, as I support their call for better quality control from freelancers, particularly content writers.

In the West, the consensus among SEOs is that one cannot expect good writing from the Third World, even though the price might be cheap. I am pleased to say that all rules have exceptions and that I have found such a quality supplier in India. They have provided hundreds of articles for some of Australia’s well-known SEO companies and others. I am about to send them a large order, so I am not ready to share their identity yet.

In the meantime, I recommend that content writers take some of the following advice, which should not add a lot to their workload:

  • Offer a free written sample to the customer before taking the order, as this offers a level of comfort that the supplied content will be at least of the same quality.
  • Offer money back on any content that is rejected.
  • Write the content in Microsoft Word or a similar word processor and set the language to the locale of the customer, e.g. Australian English. Run the spelling and grammar checker and follow its recommendations carefully but not blindly.
  • The writer should famililarise himself with the style of English used in the target country in that particular industry. Trust me, English isn’t always the same the world over.
  • Before delivering the content to the client, check unusual sentences with a Google search, to satisfy yourself that the writer didn’t copy something from another website.
  • Check everything on your own website and your emails for writing excellence. You are not credible if your own website contains spelling and grammatical errors.

Thought-provoking SEO quiz at SEOmoz

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SEO QuizI have to admire Rand Fishkin – he seems to be doing everything right in SEO-land, no matter where I look. His latest link bait is a fairly difficult SEO quiz. It has something for everyone – quality, controversy, content. There are 75 questions, which I think few SEOs will get 100% right, even if they know their stuff. That’s what makes it controversial.

QuizThere are questions with borderline answers — there is one about Alexa, where the correct response would have been correct until Alexa announced last week that it is changing its data collection methodology. Many questions have been asked in the negative, so you need to slow down and read the question carefully.

I wish the test had been loaded with 500 questions, so that no two people could get the same set of questions. Then the responses would not enable them to raise their score by taking the test many times.

But Rand is a genius. I have seen him and his lovely mum at Pubcon but have never spoken to him or exchanged an email, so I can only go by the genius exemplified on his websites. Yes, Rand would want the link bait benefit and no more than two visits per person who took the quiz. Any more would be a waste of bandwidth. Give it a go.

Alexa changes measurement methodology

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SEO conversations won’t be the same again. Everyone who knows about Alexa’s ranking system has an opinion about it. Most are not complimentary, because Alexa relied on traffic measurement based on people who had installed its toolbar, or others like me, who use a third-party tool such as the SearchStatus extension for Firefox, which sends usage data to Alexa. Toolbars tend to be installed by advanced computer users and the Alexa toolbar has a large North American following, so it might not show reliable traffic trends for a site with an Australian focus.

Alexa has just announced that it will now use a new measurement technique rather than rely entirely on the toolbar. Without giving anything away, it said, “We now aggregate data from multiple sources to give you a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users.

Until Alexa is ready to share details of those multiple sources, we can only speculate that some of it will come from major ISPs, either directly or through other services that already have such an arrangement and are permitted to share it with Alexa.

For the time being, you can only see six months’ worth of historic data. Alexa says that soon the older data will be available, with better normalisation of non-USA data.

AdWords phishing email from Brazil

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This isn’t new, but new to me. I got my first phishing email that purported to be from Google AdWords. It came to one of my accounts at a US non-profit I am involved with, so I didn’t even need to think if it was genuine.

Subject: Submit your payment information
———————————————————————————
Dear Google Adwords Customer,

Your ads have stopped running because we were unable to process your billing information. To activate your account and start running your ads, enter your billing information.

In order to activate your account and start running your ads, enter your billing information. Please sign into your account at http://adwords.google.com/select/login, and update your billing information.

Once your account is reactivated and your billing information has been processed, any your ads and campaigns can begin running immediately on Google.

———————————————————————————-
This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.

———————————————————————————-

Google Adwords Team

The real URL beneath the one in the email points to www.adwords.google.com.3ppi3o.cn/select/Login – even when you hover on the link, your eyes will notice the left part of the URL (shown in green), but the domain name is further to the right (shown in red). It hosts a realistic copy of the AdWords login page, but Firefox knows it is a phishing site and blocks it. So does Internet Explorer 8.

The email was apparently sent via a Yahoo account from 189.59.233.22, which is allocated to Brazil. I didn’t bother to investigate if it was spoofed, sent via an open proxy or whatever. If you get one of these, don’t get caught out.

SpeedPPC 3 secret feature revealed

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I don’t know why this had to be a secret, but the RTM version of SpeedPPC3 adds support for a raft of other PPC ad networks. (For those of you in the advertising industry but who never actually use the damn technology, substitute “SEM” for “PPC” and it will make more sense).

Click to enlargeJay Stockwell’s SpeedPPC 3 now supports 11 known ad networks (I can’t call the additional eight “well-known”.):

  • ABCSearch
  • Affiliate Radar
  • Ask
  • Enhance
  • GoClick
  • Google AdWords
  • LookSmart
  • Miva
  • MSN adCenter
  • Yahoo! Search Marketing
  • Search123
  • ValidClick

Actually, SpeedPPC 3 now handles 12 or more ad networks – It will support any other service that can accept a file upload. Now there is a fourth tab marked “Custom”, which covers the minor 8 players plus any Custom ones you want to process.

For example, I created one for Sensis BidSmart and the settings were saved for future use. Such configuration details are appended at the end of the CustomOutputs.xml file. Get your copy of SpeedPPC here.

PR7 for $18? Suckers born every minute.

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Latest gem from somewhere in South Asia:

Click to enlargeGrab your own Permanent Pr4, Pr5, PR6 & PR7 Text Links!

I am going to offer you 20,000 High PR Links Resource Package in $18 only.

Geting your site in to the top 10 results on Google, Yahoo & MSN search engines
relies heavily on getting good quality high Pagerank (PR) links back to your site.

Your site will get top position in all search engines with in 2 months. Even If
your site is new. Only 20 spots available.

At his website you will learn that there are “only” six spots left. Take a close look at the bottom of the image if you can appreciate irony. I think he should save one spot for his own website. Stay away from such offers.

Old WordPress may be vulnerable to spammers

Reading Time: 2 minutes

A friend of mine who runs some quality sites got this email from Google:

Dear site owner or webmaster of example.com,

While we were indexing your webpages, we detected that some of your pages were using techniques that were outside our quality guidelines, which can be found here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html In order to preserve the quality of our search engine, we have temporarily removed some webpages from our search results. Currently pages from example.com are scheduled to be removed for at least 30 days. Specifically, we detected the following practices on your webpages: * The following hidden text on example.com: e.g. payday loan (several more spammy links) […]

We would prefer to have your pages in Google’s index. If you wish to be reconsidered, please correct or remove all pages that are outside our quality guidelines. When you are ready, please visit: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/reinclusion?hl=en to learn more and request a reconsideration request.

Sincerely,
Google Search Quality Team

This is enough to send a shiver down the proverbial. My friend suspected WordPress to be the culprit, as it is present on his sites and it is out of date. But he could not find the problem in the templates. I took a quick look.

First I suspected a proxy hijack. I searched for inurl:example.com in Google and among a few results, there was this:

blah.com/blah/nph-search.pl/010110A/http/www.example.com/blog/

Turns out to be a proxy script with just a form on the home page. It was likely to be another site that contained a link to the above URL. The latter site was probably crawled and therefore the link was indexed.

Then I searched for his domain name with some of the spammy words and found a single article. In a single location in the first paragraph there was a long string of linked URLs whose HTML code looked like this (spaces deliberately inserted below):

<u style="display:none"><a href="http://www.spammysite .com/wp-content/1/ payday-loan-in-georgia.html"><font style="color:black; background-color:99ff99">payday</font> loan in georgia</a> (more than 100 similar links followed)</u>

My friend has cleaned out this code and upgraded WordPress to the latest version. I am waiting for Fantastico to catch up, as I am only one version behind, and will follow suit. Suggest that you check your version soon.

Was Skype abused as a child?

Reading Time: 3 minutes

When you try to pay for a Skype service, you will soon discover it is paranoid beyond belief, suggesting some deep-seated childhood trauma. Perhaps it was bullied in the school playground?

Click to enlargeMy SkypeIn service expires in a month, so I thought I should extend it. I am attracted by some other offerings, such as SkypeOut and SkypePro, so I try to upgrade and proceed to PayPal. This is where the fun begins. You will discover the following gems, which defy business logic:

  • You cannot pay for two Skype accounts with one credit card. Imagine walking into a department store and being told, “Sorry, sir, your card was used to buy one pair of jeans in 1986. You will need to use a different credit card to buy one more pair of jeans from our store and you will need a new credit card for every additional item.” Well, it is true if the department store is called Skype. At their forum an ex-Skype customer posted the contents of the explanation:

    === Why was my payment cancelled? ===
    To protect both ourselves and you from fraud, restrictions apply when using your debit or credit card to purchase Skype products. In this instance your payment failed because we don’t allow you to purchase Skype products with a credit or debit card that is already used by another Skype account.

    === What can I do? ===
    Try again with another card or one of our other payment methods such as Moneybookers, regular bank transfer or retail vouchers. View the different ways to pay for Skype products at http://www.skype.com/go/waystopay .

    Or why not ask one of your friends on Skype to buy a Gift Certificate for you? Find out more about Gift Certificates at https://secure.skype.com/store/buy/giftcertificates.html

  • You cannot pay with Paypal credit, even if you had a zillion $ in your account. Skype’s knowledgebase has these gems:

    Your Skype account is not linked to a PayPal account.

    A Skype account will become linked to a PayPal account if it has successfully received money from a Skype contact. (Ash: Skype means, “Unless you can get your family and friends to pay you money via PayPal, we don’t trust you.” Does the average Joe receive money via PayPal?)

    I have a PayPal account but I cannot use Send Money, why is this the case?

    Send Money is not currently available in all PayPal supported countries. Please continue to check the PayPal website for updates.

    Alternatively, you can Send Money directly from PayPal. (Ash: What do you mean “alternatively”? You just said it isn’t available in all PayPal supported countries… Click that link. There is a picture of “Send Money” on the Australian site.)

    To send money using your PayPal account, follow these steps:

    1. Log in to your PayPal account on www.paypal.com.

    2. Click the Send Money tab.

    3. Fill out the form.

    4. Click Continue.

    5. Review the details of the payment.

    6. Click Send Money to send the payment.

Click to enlargeSkype was definitely traumatised as a child. Or perhaps it was a an incident involving a hoodlum from Eastern Europe.

Paypal has an office in Australia, which is very much a “supported” country and currency (AU$). My PayPal account has plenty of funds in it. It has received PayPal payments from another Skype user for years (this is another of Skype’s crazy security requirements). Yet I cannot pay from my existing credit. PayPal is telling me to add a second credit card. What is wrong with the existing one? It has a zero balance (It has funds). Yet, if I try to pay some other website with PayPal, it is happy to take my PayPal balance.

Click to enlargeWhile it doesn’t apply to me, I couldn’t buy a Skype account for my family members unless I had four credit cards – and I don’t. Help me out here – does buying a new account with an existing card linked to a Skype account imply that it is stolen or somehow fraudulent? Wouldn’t a stolen card be cancelled by its owner?

I get it – someone steals my wallet and before I have a chance to cancel all my cards, the thief rushes to an Internet cafe and opens a Skype account with it! Perhaps this is the MO of terrorists who are about to discuss their next plot over Skype using a stolen card. Yeah, right.

PayPal payments to Skype are a hot topic in the Sype forum. Clearly, Skype’s management prefers to annoy its customers than risk some fraud (and I’d love to know what type of fraud occurs in this case). How do other companies survive in the e-commerce world? Comments?

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