Recently, the personal Gmail accounts of top U.S. government officials were hacked into using a targeted phishing attack. That means that the officials were tricked into divulging their Gmail account user names and passwords, which the hackers then used to read their emails. That incident made the news, but phishing goes on day and night and targets all of us. And when it works, the hackers can gain access to all kinds of personal information, including access to your bank accounts, which they can then drain dry.

So what is phishing and spoofing?

Phishing is an attempt to acquire sensitive information, such as user names, passwords, and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Phishing is typically carried out by email or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter personal details at a fake web site.

There are two main types of spoofing: email spoofing and web site address spoofing. Email spoofing is email activity in which the sender's address and other parts of an email are altered to appear as though the email originated from a different source. It is very easy to impersonate and forge emails. Web site spoofing is creating a web site as a hoax, misleading users so they believe the web site is legitimate when it is a fake.

When these two nefarious techniques are used together, the result can be an email that looks like it came from someone you know or an institution with which you are affiliated—like your bank. The email will have an attachment or link that entices you to click it and then enter personal information. The evildoers perpetrate these schemes by exploiting the flaws in current online access systems, and they have become amazingly good at it. They fool many smart people, including top U.S. government officials.

To keep from getting caught in their web (pun intended!), follow this simple guideline: Do not click on a link in an email unless you are expecting that email from a trusted source. If you aren’t sure, contact the sender directly to verify that the message came from that sender before you take any other action.

Remember the Golden Rule of email: If in doubt, just delete!

The goal of our Mangelsdorf Professional Services newsletter is to provide you with practical information that you can apply to your business and to help you save money. We do not intend it to be a sales pitch. However, we have had several clients ask about this subject and how much we charge, so this article includes fee–related information.

A site map is simply a list of all the pages on a web site, usually organized hierarchically. Here’s one from a recently launched web site. Some people like a site map to help them navigate around a web site, but we include one in all of the sites we code because search engines use them to find all the site’s pages and assign higher relevance to sites that have one. All of the largest search engines (Ask, Bing, Google, and Yahoo) specifically look for site maps as they index.

An XML site map goes one step further. XML file formats are both machine and human readable. Various apps can generate an XML site map programmatically. We then submit that file to Google using a specific series of steps. (We can submit the XML site map to other search engines if you wish, but until now we have only bothered with the biggie—Google.)

The reason an XML site map is important is because it ensures that Google is aware of every page on your web site. It doesn’t mean for certain that Google will index every page; however, it is your best bet, short of paying Google for AdWords to advertise the page.

For a 50–page web site, it takes about 45 minutes to generate and test the XML site map, then about 45 minutes to create a Google webmaster account, submit the map to Google, test that it worked, and report to you. After two weeks, we take about 30 minutes to follow up to see how many pages Google indexed and report that information. Total time: 2 hours.

We recommend a new XML site map be submitted to Google twice a year. We also recommend submitting an XML site map after a large number of updates have been made to your site, a number of new pages have been added, or after a new web site has been launched.

We have seen an improvement in Google search performance for our clients’ sites after we submitted an XML site map. Please contact John for more information or for a quote to add management of XML site maps to your site.

Well, yes, address–list management is a snore of a subject. But saving money is not! For clients who ask us to manage their email campaigns, we spend a lot of time updating and organizing their mailing list data. If you follow these suggestions, you won’t get billed for the time we would normally spend prepping address lists in Excel before uploading them to the email campaign platform. Most clients set up their address–list database software or Excel document to record first name, last name, and email address, which works well as this is the format we use to upload to the email campaign platform. But first or last names are sometimes two words or include a nickname, middle name, or title, which can cause spreadsheet formatting problems. When a client sends us a file downloaded from their address–list program or software, we review it, correct name variations and email addresses, and neatly organize the information into data cells in the spreadsheet. Here are a few simple tips to cut down on the time needed to clean up address lists:

• Replace the space between double names such as "Mary Ann" or "Van Gogh." Excel sees the space and splits the name into two cells, shifting the data and requiring manipulation before the list can be uploaded. To avoid this, use an underscore or hyphen instead of a space when you enter double names, for example, "Mary_Ann" or "Van–Gogh." Excel will then recognize these as single items and put the double name into one data cell.
• Use a separate cell for nicknames and titles so you can include or ignore them depending upon the purpose of your list. For example, if you are using your list to print envelope address labels, we can include titles such as "Dr." For email campaigns, we can easily remove the titles column from the spreadsheet with one click.
• Include a separate cell for middle names or initials or use an underscore or hyphen to connect the first name with the middle name or initial (for example, "William_K").
• Double–check that all email addresses are correctly formatted. We often get addresses missing the ".com" or the "@."