Mediaboss Marketing

As developers, we use our browsers every day for all sorts of things, from googling, finding solutions to our problems on stack overflow, to wasting time on Reddit.But we also browsers to test and run the applications were developing. This is whyits crucial to have the right tools for the right job.

In this post, well be looking at some of my favorite browser extensions toboostproductivity as a web developer.

This simple yet effectiveextension does exactly what the name suggests. It allows you to change the size of your screen. Its simple but extremely useful if you need to validate your website among different resolutions and viewports. The extension comes with a predefined set of options, but you can modify them to fit your needs, this last option makes it better than simply using the Chrome Developer Tools.

Did you ever wonder which technologies are being used by a particular site? Wonder no more with Wappalyzer. This extension is more than a CMS detector or framework detector: it uncovers more than a thousand technologies in dozens of categories such as programming languages, analytics, marketing tools, payment processors, CRM, CDN, and others.

Dont let appearances fool you, this may not be the most beautiful toolbar ever but its certainly powerful. This extension adds a toolbar to your browser with options for many useful web development functions such us activating/de-activating scripts, popups, functions to control cookies or to look up for methods to build forms, images, styles, etc.

I personally dont use the extension anymore but it has been very useful in the past when I was still very unfamiliar with many of the HTML & CSS ways.

This extension allows you to easily inspect which fonts and font properties that are being applied to any text on a website. Fonts can make a huge difference when it comes to the design of your site, and you can use this tool to make sure theyre all as they should be, or perhaps to even get information about a font a particular website is using so you can also use it on yours.

Similarly to What Font, the ColorZilla extension allows you to get the color of any pixel on the website. But additionally comes with handy toolssuch as a palette browser and gradient generator.

Its a super interesting tool to have handy.

Disclaimer: This is a toolI dont regularly use. While its not widely used, and has a relatively low rating, it has been greatly recommended on twitter in the past.

This extension changes the CSS of all your elements so you can very visually see where are each element boundaries. This can be crucial when debugging CSS layout issues.

You dont need an extension for this, it can easily be achieved with some CSS, so if you dont want to use this extension (as myself), check out my articleCSS Tricks for Validating Layouts.

Extensions can make our lives easier, as is the case with the ones I listed today. Why not rely on a little extra help when developing?

This article was originally published on Live Code Stream by Juan Cruz Martinez (twitter: @bajcmartinez), founder and publisher of Live Code Stream, entrepreneur, developer, author, speaker, and doer of things.

Live Code Stream is also available as a free weekly newsletter. Sign up for updates on everything related to programming, AI, and computer science in general.

Read next: Google Photos' new AI-powered editor will retouch your images for you

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Here are the best Chrome extensions for web developers in 2020 - The Next Web

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As you may or may not already know, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. It's one of many digital marketing practices that companies and individuals use to rank their websites higher on specific search engines, such as Google, when people type keywords, phrases, questions, and even sentences into the search engines.

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Excerpt from:
Learn How to Get More Traffic to Your Website By Becoming An SEO Expert - IGN Nordic

If youre reading this, I dont particularly have to convince you of the importance of search engines. You know this.

Your paychecks are the manifestation of research and analysis.

We as humans want answers.

With schools, libraries, and sources of record all closed or operating by appointment only, were doing the best we can: were asking Google.

Heres the thing: Why do you trust search engine results?

As SEO professionals, we tend to have a bit more discerning eyes.

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We can spots the more subtle (than dinosaur gender black) elements dont seem quite right.

Its what our clients pay us to do.

Its more important than ever for clients to know and curate how they are represented in search results.

Silly things happen.

What do we do when misrepresentations contort from silly to intentional deception?

What do we do when the fundamental structure of a political system is under threat of disinformation?

Disinformation is false or misleading information that is spread deliberately to deceive.

The information spread is false with the intent to harm a person, social group, organization, or country.

It has a sister, mal-information.

Mal-information uses information-based in reality in a context intended to inflict harm.

Google publicly addressed the grandeur of government-backed phishing.

Smaller but equally as threatening are attempts to alter maps so people cant find their polling station.

The SERPs themselves are a battlefront.

SEO-savvy propagandists can spread disinformation and even muddy up the search results in many ways.

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You could argue the entire webspam team is dedicated to fighting disinformation, but theres another Google team you might not be familiar with.

Jigsaw is a unit within Google that forecasts and confronts emerging threats.

As part of their efforts to research and document disinformation, they paired with Atlantic Councils DFRLab to create a Data Visualizer tracking disinformation.

Search engine manipulation is listed in Googles glossary of methods, but no data is available on actual attacks.

The absence is notable, particularly when paired with the disclaimer modal that pops up when opening the tool.

Endorsement and transparency have never particularly been strong suits for Google when it comes to search engine marketing.

It seems a fair response in light of the sordid history of SEO, when it comes to manipulation.

Have you heard of Dr. Bukkake, the renowned facial expert?

The name is enough to be a red flag in 2020, but back in 2008, this persona became an SEO legend.

Dr. Bukkake was a fictional *ahem* facial dermatologist.

The character had a website complete with fake research and a fake research fund.

Real medical sites and funds linked to it!

The doctor was created by an SEO seeking to drive traffic to a porn site client.

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Once the link builder had enough credibility, cloaked redirects began taking users clicking SERP results and from external links (like those from trusted medical research centers) to the clients explicit content.

In July 2020, U.S. Jewish newspaper The Algemeiner published an article from Oliver Taylor.

The student from Englands University of Birmingham already had bylines in the Jerusalem Post and the Times of Israel. He seemed credible.

The article accused London academic Mazen Masri and his partner Ryvka Barnard, of being known terrorist sympathizers.

Marsi, best known for his role in an Israeli lawsuit against surveillance company NSO, was taken aback and denied the claims. He never had a chance to confront his accuser though.

Oliver Taylor doesnt exist. His headshot was deepfake.

His University has no records of such a student. Taylor gained enough credibility to be seen as a reputable author by pitching articles over email.

Reuters elaborates on the scam. The article reads agasp at the deceptive tactics.

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These are the same strategies I used back in 2010 when I worked as a link outreach manager.

When my cold-call pitches worked, the articles never used my real name or photo.

Instead, the agency I worked for attributed them to personas they could continue to bolster after I left.

Technically, the gentleman kind enough to hop on a call with me doesnt do black hat SEO its gray.

Gray enough that Ill simply refer to him as K.

I tell K about the article Im working on and shared the details of Oliver Taylor.

K specializes in local SEO and online reputation management (ORM).

His voice sounds like a grin as he says, Heres the thing. ORM can be manipulated. People can be faked.

Fake personas are part of his everyday tactics.

He introduces me to This Person Does Not Exist and SpeechLeo for user images and voices.

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MugJam is a new favorite tool. It allows K to make fake video reviews with unique faces and voices.

Google puts a great deal of credibility behind video reviews because they foster user trust.

K explains how MugJam uses Amazon poly to fake the voice.

Im equal parts impressed and horrified at the ease of the process.

How can I spot a fake review like this?, I ask.

Fake voices sound tinny, he says. Listen for the s and th sounds.

These sounds are known as splosives in audio engineering.

Robotic audio smooths it out.

While Wikipedia was once the black hat go-to for manipulation, Googles partnership and crackdown on the tactic required black and grey hats to evolve.

They didnt have to go far.

Why go through the trouble of manipulating the Knowledge Graph when you can simply bind keywords to an entity via a knowledge panel result?

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The weakness was known and talked about by SEO professionals for years.

You could simply bring up a sites knowledge panel in Google and click on the share link.

The share link contained parameters for the Knowledge Graph ID of the entity and the original query.

By manipulating the q= parameter, you could associate that knowledge graph with any keyword.

K shares with me how he used the vulnerability to disambiguate the knowledge graph.

Imagine I tied the keywords dance studio to Not a Robot. Googles no longer confident in what Not a Robot does. You drop the entity below the confidence threshold and it drops from SERP.

He shares over a screenshot from an ambiguation experiment he ran on a rival SEO agency.

The tactic was effective and the loophole only closed earlier this year.

Ks new favorite trick is baking information in the data layer of images using Google Cloud Vision API or Google Lens.

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Hes placed 10-15,000 word articles in the metadata.

This information is invisible to humans but as long as he spoofs the correct required data points, Google sees the image as a direct upload of a Pixel device and passes the keyword-stuffed data directly to the index.

I ask K how this is possible. He says hes leveraging Googles assumed trust in image publishers.

Is Amazon a trusted authority? Azure? What about Google? Theres no check-in place for this kind of manipulation.

Assumed trust in a source allows K to leverage iframe stacking, nesting hidden manipulative data in trusted sources.

For Google if theyre going to target iframes, YouTube is built on iframes. If you destroy iframes you dismantle YouTube. It is a calculated risk.

In the years Ive spent as a Product Owner, Ive had similar conversations with my C-levels during roadmapping and risk analysis.

There is always risk in digital. We simply place our bets on the best path forward.

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Search engines are vulnerable to disinformation because of technical dependencies and assumed trusted sources.

What about the human aspect?

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Digital & Disinformation: What the SEO Industry Can Do to Fight Manipulation - Search Engine Journal

New training and tools for digital commerce will give small businesses, especially in the tourism sector, the support they need to adapt and innovate in a COVID world.

Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis and Small Business Minister Stuart Nash have announced details of how $20 million digital capability funding set aside earlier this year will be allocated.

The $20 million package includes:

$10 million specifically for SMEs, announced in Budget 2020.$10 million announced in August as part of the Tourism Recovery Package: $5 million to boost digital capability in the tourism sector through existing digital enablement programmes, and $5 million for Qualmark to help operators develop strategies and skills.

"Recent Qualmark analysis of 700 tourism businesses found more than half needed support with digital capability. This investment in digital tools and training will help tourism businesses develop digital strategies, increase their visibility and appeal, and tap into new markets," Kelvin Davis said.

"In the past, many smaller tourism businesses haven't had to invest in strong digital marketing to find customers, because of the volume of international visitors and the role of travel agents and tour operators to bring people to their door.

"Tourism businesses are now pivoting towards the intrepid domestic traveller who likes to shop around online and book their own holiday, so operators now find their websites, booking systems and social media platforms need to be redeveloped or outsourced to a specialist provider as they feel they lack the capability and resources to take on the job themselves.

"This funding will make a real difference and builds on the support we're delivering through the Tourism Transitions Programme, which has already provided business support and advice to over 1,500 tourism businesses impacted by COVID-19," Kelvin Davis said.

Stuart Nash said the tourism sector is not alone in finding its activity is held back by limited awareness or use of digital tools and processes.

"Recent research by McKinsey suggested that over the course of eight weeks, COVID had caused the equivalent of five years' worth of advances in digital transformation for both customers and businesses," Stuart Nash said.

"Big businesses like supermarkets, banks, professional and corporate service providers and manufacturers have made the transformation, but small and medium enterprises are at risk of lagging behind. The wider use of digital commerce by SMEs will help them adapt and innovate in order to thrive in the COVID economy.

"The package will help small businesses and tourism operators transition in the COVID-19 world by lifting digital capability.

"The private sector has great leadership and vision in this space, and the Government will support this with initiatives to take New Zealand small businesses forward on their digital journey."

"This package will help deliver on our vision of New Zealand's small businesses being the most digitally engaged in the world," Stuart Nash said.

Key initiatives within the package include:

A 'Spotlight Series' where small business owners, including tourism businesses, who have transformed their business by becoming digital can share their experiences.

Digital skills training and support focused on enabling SMEs, including tourism SMEs, to benefit from digitising their business.

Working with the private sector to put together the most relevant digital tools, technologies, products and services to support small businesses with becoming digital, including offerings tailored for the tourism sector.

Industry specialists appointed by Qualmark to provide a series of workshops and one-on-one advice. Key areas are strategic digital marketing, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), organic growth, website performance and online booking system audits, online advertising and paid media, social media content and creation, conversion optimisation, lead generation and measuring success.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is working with the Ministers' Small Business Advisors and Digital Industry Leaders to ensure the design of these initiatives is driven by business, and are useful, accessible and build digital confidence for small businesses.

Tourism operators can find out more about Qualmark support by visiting the Qualmark website.

(With Inputs from New Zealand Government Press Release)

Read this article:
New digital training and tools to give small businesses support in COVID world - Devdiscourse

Once trained, Hitchhikers whether they are developers, digital marketers, SEO specialists, IT professionals, or another profession become official Yext administrators and have the skills to build custom search solutions that meet their brand's unique needs. As part of this launch, Yext is also offering its revolutionary site search product, Yext Answers, in a new self-serve format to allow for more autonomous and faster learning, development, and deployment.

The program is inspired by Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy specifically, "The Ultimate Question of Life" that is discussed in the iconic novel. Yext's mission is to put more truth online by enabling businesses around the world to directly answer their customer's "ultimate" questions about them with official answers.

"The trifecta of Yext's Knowledge Graph, Answers, and Pages products allowed Yext to become a full-fledged technology platform, opening the door to a limitless number of solutions that brands can build on top of it," said Marc Ferrentino, Chief Strategy Officer at Yext. "We're thrilled to launch Hitchhikers another major milestone in Yext's history because it marks the first time that anyone in the world can specialize in implementing tailored solutions with our platform, no matter what their role inside the company might be."

Hitchhikers will be able to guide themselves through detailed, interactive modules and participate in hands-on challenges related to the full suite of Yext products. Whether a healthcare organization needs to make doctors easier to find on its website, a CPG company needs to accelerate its hiring, or a bank needs its branch locations and hours of operations to be correct across the Internet, Hitchhikers within those organizations will learn the specific skills to solve for their company's unique priorities and business objectives.

The self-serve version of Answers connected to the program allows Hitchhikers to immediately start adding their brand's information to a brain-like database of millions of facts called the Yext Knowledge Graph, and is available as a 90-day free trial at yext.com/free-trial. Users can upgrade to a paid account with no additional setup or integration needed for the Answers experience they build.

In addition, Hitchhikers will get access to special content, community forums, and virtual events to help them as they embark on developing solutions for their respective businesses.

"One of the most important aspects of this program is the community," said Liz Frailey, Vice President of Developer and Admin Experience at Yext. "We envision Hitchhikers becoming the epicenter for innovation, and we're thrilled to see what our clients and partners start building."

Visit the Hitchhikers website to learn more.

About YextThe ultimate source for official answers about a business online should be the business itself. However, when consumers ask questions on company websites, too often they are left in the dark with wrong answers. Yext (NYSE: YEXT), the Search Experience Cloud, solves this problem by organizing a business's facts so it can provide official answers to consumer questions wherever people search. Starting with the company website, then extending across search engines and voice assistants, businesses around the world, like T-Mobile, Jaguar Land Rover, BBVA USA, and Kiehl's as well as organizations like the U.S. State Department and World Health Organization trust Yext to radically improve the search experience on their websites and across the entire search ecosystem.

Yext's mission is to help businesses and organizations around the world deliver official answers everywhere people search. Yext has been named a Best Place to Work by Fortune and Great Place to Work, as well as a Best Workplace for Women. Yext is headquartered in New York City with offices in Amsterdam, Berlin, Chicago, Dallas, Geneva, London, Miami, Milan, Paris, San Francisco, Shanghai, Tokyo, and the Washington, D.C. area and work-from-home offices all around the world.

CONTACT: Amanda Kontor, [emailprotected]

SOURCE Yext, Inc.

http://www.yext.com

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Yext Launches "Hitchhikers" Program to Spur The Next Generation of Platform Builders - PRNewswire