Australian Search Engine and Business Directory
Monday, 24 March 2008
Thursday, 20 March 2008
Free Article Site
Clickfind will soon be rolling out something new that has not been done before in the local search industry. We’re going to allow anyone to write articles related to listings on clickfind. Sort of like a wiki, but different…
No, we’re NOT looking for articles about your new logo, your sick pet budgie or your world travels.
We’re looking for USEFUL CONTENT – by that we mean articles that Australian consumers or businesses would find useful. All articles submitted must relate to at least one business, product or service listed on clickfind. This can be your own business, or somebody else’s.
These are the sort of articles you could contribute:
- how to do a particular task (design a website, set up a business, change a tap washer, etc)
- best practice in a particular industry (safety guidance, design standards, regulations, etc)
- how to brief or select suppliers (managing contractors, understanding builder’s estimates, etc)
- new developments and industry trends (new products, materials, technologies, fashions, thinking)
- useful hints and tips or learning points (general tips, things to look out for, case studies, etc)
- training in specific products or services (step-by-step guides, where to go for info, etc)
- facts, statistics, research (survey results, useful stats, etc)
- anything else that Australian consumers or businesses would find useful
The more relevant your article is, the more people will read it.
This allows writers and SEO people to create and submit free articles with links back to their website.
No, we’re NOT looking for articles about your new logo, your sick pet budgie or your world travels.
We’re looking for USEFUL CONTENT – by that we mean articles that Australian consumers or businesses would find useful. All articles submitted must relate to at least one business, product or service listed on clickfind. This can be your own business, or somebody else’s.
These are the sort of articles you could contribute:
- how to do a particular task (design a website, set up a business, change a tap washer, etc)
- best practice in a particular industry (safety guidance, design standards, regulations, etc)
- how to brief or select suppliers (managing contractors, understanding builder’s estimates, etc)
- new developments and industry trends (new products, materials, technologies, fashions, thinking)
- useful hints and tips or learning points (general tips, things to look out for, case studies, etc)
- training in specific products or services (step-by-step guides, where to go for info, etc)
- facts, statistics, research (survey results, useful stats, etc)
- anything else that Australian consumers or businesses would find useful
The more relevant your article is, the more people will read it.
This allows writers and SEO people to create and submit free articles with links back to their website.
Friday, 14 March 2008
Brisbane Biz draws Yellow Blood and Google Gold Rush
Brisbane based Clickfind.com.au has launched a direct attack on the established Yellow Pages Online & Microsoft’s Mylocal business models offering advertising free directory listings that help secure top Google rankings for Australian business owners.
Since the major site launch 90 days ago Clickfind has indexed 32000+ pages in Google and has been rushed by Australian and Asian companies looking to list immediately. Free listings are scheduled to close on
Interview and press packs available from:
Contact: Taco Fleur
Monday, 4 February 2008
Content Management System Australia
Most people will know clickfind™ as an Australian Business Directory and Search Engine for products and services. But… it doesn’t stop there, clickfind™ can easily be used as a CMS (Content Management System).
Think about it for a minute, you can upload your business description, which is the “About us” for your website, your contact details and other business info is the “Contact us” for your website, and the products and services you can upload is the content for the website. With an easy to use interface, clickfind™ is your one and only option for managing your own content in Australia.
Not only can you get your very own Content Management System for $19.95 a month, you also get heaps of exposure, as your listings will be searchable from the main search engine of the site.
clickfind™ already has 17,900 pages indexed in Google, see the search results for yourself. http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=site%3Aclickfind.com.au&btnG=Search&meta=
Pages on clickfind™ are indexed quite quickly, which means you don’t need to do the hard SEO work yourself.
As of 4 Feb. 08 the functionality that allows you to setup a dedicated website with your own domain is still under development. But you can already get your own clickfind™ URL, which is something like http://websitedesign.clickfind.com.au but pointing directly to your listings.
Think about it for a minute, you can upload your business description, which is the “About us” for your website, your contact details and other business info is the “Contact us” for your website, and the products and services you can upload is the content for the website. With an easy to use interface, clickfind™ is your one and only option for managing your own content in Australia.
Not only can you get your very own Content Management System for $19.95 a month, you also get heaps of exposure, as your listings will be searchable from the main search engine of the site.
clickfind™ already has 17,900 pages indexed in Google, see the search results for yourself. http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=site%3Aclickfind.com.au&btnG=Search&meta=
Pages on clickfind™ are indexed quite quickly, which means you don’t need to do the hard SEO work yourself.
As of 4 Feb. 08 the functionality that allows you to setup a dedicated website with your own domain is still under development. But you can already get your own clickfind™ URL, which is something like http://websitedesign.clickfind.com.au but pointing directly to your listings.
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
Quality Controlled Business Directory
Did you know that clickfind™ is a quality controlled search engine / business directory?
clickfind™ is not your average run of the mill search engine, we do things a little different compared to other directories and search engines. For us it is not about getting 1.3 million listings as quickly as possible, no, for us it is more about getting high quality listings on the site, listings that are of value to Australians looking for a business, products or service.
Every listing added or edited on clickfind™ triggers a notification that is send to all editors and administrators involved. The editor or administrator will then review the listing and rate it from 1 to 10.
Example; 0 bad, 2.5 not to bad, 5.0 average, 7.5 good, 10 excellent
Rewarding
We also reward members for well written listings. If a clickfind™ member has an average score of 7.0 or over, they get access to additional functionality and more exposure.
Rating
Listings are rated on the way they are written, grammar and the information presented.
A listing with one paragraph would most likely be rated between 1 and 3.5, a listing with several paragraphs of well written information about the business, product or service will most likely get a rating of 6.5 and up.
Community
Something else a little different, is the fact that anyone can apply to be part of it all and help out. Our developer’s directory explains more about how to help out and be part of a select group with rewarding benefits.
What will you not find on clickfind™?
You won’t find personal listings, recipes (unless someone is selling a cook book, which is a product), blogs, something outside of Australia, or anything else that is not a business, product or service. If you are after recipes you should use a web search engine like Google, which searches the whole Internet for your keywords.
clickfind™ is not your average run of the mill search engine, we do things a little different compared to other directories and search engines. For us it is not about getting 1.3 million listings as quickly as possible, no, for us it is more about getting high quality listings on the site, listings that are of value to Australians looking for a business, products or service.
Every listing added or edited on clickfind™ triggers a notification that is send to all editors and administrators involved. The editor or administrator will then review the listing and rate it from 1 to 10.
Example; 0 bad, 2.5 not to bad, 5.0 average, 7.5 good, 10 excellent
Rewarding
We also reward members for well written listings. If a clickfind™ member has an average score of 7.0 or over, they get access to additional functionality and more exposure.
Rating
Listings are rated on the way they are written, grammar and the information presented.
A listing with one paragraph would most likely be rated between 1 and 3.5, a listing with several paragraphs of well written information about the business, product or service will most likely get a rating of 6.5 and up.
Community
Something else a little different, is the fact that anyone can apply to be part of it all and help out. Our developer’s directory explains more about how to help out and be part of a select group with rewarding benefits.
What will you not find on clickfind™?
You won’t find personal listings, recipes (unless someone is selling a cook book, which is a product), blogs, something outside of Australia, or anything else that is not a business, product or service. If you are after recipes you should use a web search engine like Google, which searches the whole Internet for your keywords.
Saturday, 26 January 2008
Google Base in Australia
Looking for Google Base in Australia? Look no further! It doesn’t exist yet. There is Google Base for America, United Kingdom and Germany, but no Google Base in Australia as of yet.
So, what do you do with your products and services in the meantime, where do you upload your products and services to while waiting on Google Base to come to Australia?
There is an all Aussie alternative called clickfind™ (www.clickfind.com.au), it allows you to upload up to 500 products and/or services with your business listing.
The good news is, when Google Base does open up in Australia, we’ll be ready to upload your products and services for you, directly from your clickfind control panel with the push of a button. How good is that!?
Google only lists your products and services for up to 30 days, we’ll make it easy and allow you to re list them automatically from your control panel. By the way, clickfind itself does not put a time limit on the listings, other than those imposed by your subscription, as long as you have a subscription, your listings will be displayed.
clickfind™ has a web interface to upload individual items to the search engine, but when there is enough demand we will make available an API that will allow developers to upload directly to clickfind™. api-request@clickfind.com.au let us know!
clickfind™ only lists products, services and businesses, it does not allow you to create any customized items like Google Base, so if you’re looking for freedom to create items with your own attributes, then Google Base is the way to go.
So, what do you do with your products and services in the meantime, where do you upload your products and services to while waiting on Google Base to come to Australia?
There is an all Aussie alternative called clickfind™ (www.clickfind.com.au), it allows you to upload up to 500 products and/or services with your business listing.
The good news is, when Google Base does open up in Australia, we’ll be ready to upload your products and services for you, directly from your clickfind control panel with the push of a button. How good is that!?
Google only lists your products and services for up to 30 days, we’ll make it easy and allow you to re list them automatically from your control panel. By the way, clickfind itself does not put a time limit on the listings, other than those imposed by your subscription, as long as you have a subscription, your listings will be displayed.
clickfind™ has a web interface to upload individual items to the search engine, but when there is enough demand we will make available an API that will allow developers to upload directly to clickfind™. api-request@clickfind.com.au let us know!
clickfind™ only lists products, services and businesses, it does not allow you to create any customized items like Google Base, so if you’re looking for freedom to create items with your own attributes, then Google Base is the way to go.
Tuesday, 15 January 2008
A secure website in ColdFusion
Well, it’s official! We’ve got a hacker safe site…
I’ve always been pretty careful in regards to security when it comes to ColdFusion programming, SQL programming, web server setup etc.
We’ve had our site checked by members of CFAUSSIE before we launched it. There were two issues that came up. One was reported by Steve Bentley who really did an awesome job in discovering the hole.
We’re not scared to put our site out there and let people try and break it, I believe it’s the only way to go if you want to run a successful and high traffic Australian Search Engine. It’s better to discover the security holes before launch and fix them, than discover them after launch and get a bad name.
OK, even though we had the site checked by members of the ColdFusion community, I still did not feel a 100% safe about it all. So, we’ve become a member of www.scanalert.com and just had our site and server scanned for thousands of vulnerabilities. It’s not cheap becoming a member of ScanAlert, but I reckon it is well worth the money if you want to be notified about potential security holes (if any) before anyone else discovers them.
So, everything went as planned, even our own methods of securing the site and reporting worked, the scan was requesting a high number of pages within a time frame that can only be automated. This gets detected by our application, we get notified, the IP gets logged and also banned from accessing further content. We’re planning to eventually integrate this with the web server so it puts the IP in the access denied list.
The scan report from ScanAlert is pretty comprehensive, if they find something they’ll also help with explaining and fixing the hole. It so happens we had a couple of low alerts. The alerts range from Low to Urgent and in between is Medium, High and Critical. The low alerts were things like allowing ICMP request, which we have to; because we also have the site monitored externally, if and when it goes down we like to be notified! ;-)
Another alert had something to do with cookies not being set over a secure channel. I will have to read up a bit more about that one. Not sure how that would work since we can’t put SSL over the whole site.
I’ll report more about this when information becomes available.
I’ve always been pretty careful in regards to security when it comes to ColdFusion programming, SQL programming, web server setup etc.
We’ve had our site checked by members of CFAUSSIE before we launched it. There were two issues that came up. One was reported by Steve Bentley who really did an awesome job in discovering the hole.
We’re not scared to put our site out there and let people try and break it, I believe it’s the only way to go if you want to run a successful and high traffic Australian Search Engine. It’s better to discover the security holes before launch and fix them, than discover them after launch and get a bad name.
OK, even though we had the site checked by members of the ColdFusion community, I still did not feel a 100% safe about it all. So, we’ve become a member of www.scanalert.com and just had our site and server scanned for thousands of vulnerabilities. It’s not cheap becoming a member of ScanAlert, but I reckon it is well worth the money if you want to be notified about potential security holes (if any) before anyone else discovers them.
So, everything went as planned, even our own methods of securing the site and reporting worked, the scan was requesting a high number of pages within a time frame that can only be automated. This gets detected by our application, we get notified, the IP gets logged and also banned from accessing further content. We’re planning to eventually integrate this with the web server so it puts the IP in the access denied list.
The scan report from ScanAlert is pretty comprehensive, if they find something they’ll also help with explaining and fixing the hole. It so happens we had a couple of low alerts. The alerts range from Low to Urgent and in between is Medium, High and Critical. The low alerts were things like allowing ICMP request, which we have to; because we also have the site monitored externally, if and when it goes down we like to be notified! ;-)
Another alert had something to do with cookies not being set over a secure channel. I will have to read up a bit more about that one. Not sure how that would work since we can’t put SSL over the whole site.
I’ll report more about this when information becomes available.
Tuesday, 8 January 2008
TrustWatch.com – doesn't look so trustworthy!
I have to write about our experience with trustwatch.com, I just have to!
A website that should stand for TRUST on the Internet should be contactable via email, right? Especially if it’s powered by http://www.geotrust.com/
We felt there might be some synergy between www.clickfind.com.au and www.trustwatch.com as we only list real Australian businesses, and verify the ABN details with the government registry. Therefore we only have real businesses listed, which should instil some trust with the users of clickfind.
Since all partners on http://www.trustwatch.com/get-verified.html are US based and mostly deal with US based companies only, we felt that it would be a good thing to approach them and see what partnership is possible. If no partnership was possible, we’d still be interested in their API, which they list somewhere on the site.
So we compiled our first email:
The email got returned because their mail server is either down or doesn’t exist anymore.Please see attachment for the Delivery Status Notification.
OK, that can happen to the best of us, so I started searching their website for a contact form. I found one http://www.trustwatch.com/feedback.html
So I figured provide some feedback, the feedback link went to a survey that was closed. OK, report an error then! The link went to a survey that was closed. Nothing but dead links. Hmm, certainly doesn’t instil a lot of trust so far.
See attachments for a screen shot.
TrustWatch screenshot 2 - TrustWatch screenshot 3
That’s when I figured I’d write about this experience. Before I did so, I figured I’d better make darn sure there is no other email address to contact them on. After searching all the pages I finally found another address: info@trustwatch.com I wrote another email:
Please see attachment for the Delivery Failure Notice.
TrustWatch screenshot 4
That was the end of us trying to bring trustwatch to Australia ;-)
Yes, I could have contacted them by telephone (that’s if it wasn’t disconnected), but that’s not the point here. The emails we're also days apart.
A website that should stand for TRUST on the Internet should be contactable via email, right? Especially if it’s powered by http://www.geotrust.com/
We felt there might be some synergy between www.clickfind.com.au and www.trustwatch.com as we only list real Australian businesses, and verify the ABN details with the government registry. Therefore we only have real businesses listed, which should instil some trust with the users of clickfind.
Since all partners on http://www.trustwatch.com/get-verified.html are US based and mostly deal with US based companies only, we felt that it would be a good thing to approach them and see what partnership is possible. If no partnership was possible, we’d still be interested in their API, which they list somewhere on the site.
So we compiled our first email:
Dear Sir/Madam,
We like to enquire how we can become a partner http://www.trustwatch.com/partners.html
Our company lists Australian businesses only, and requires each one to
provide ABN details, we then retrieve their business details from the government
registry. Only registered businesses have an ABN which gives people searching
the site the confidence knowing they are dealing with a real Australian
business.
Please see an example on https://www.clickfind.com.au/business/listing.cfm?businessIdentity=45717 please
scroll down till you see "Registered business" on the left hand
side.
Looking forward hearing from you.
The email got returned because their mail server is either down or doesn’t exist anymore.Please see attachment for the Delivery Status Notification.
OK, that can happen to the best of us, so I started searching their website for a contact form. I found one http://www.trustwatch.com/feedback.html
So I figured provide some feedback, the feedback link went to a survey that was closed. OK, report an error then! The link went to a survey that was closed. Nothing but dead links. Hmm, certainly doesn’t instil a lot of trust so far.
See attachments for a screen shot.
TrustWatch screenshot 2 - TrustWatch screenshot 3
That’s when I figured I’d write about this experience. Before I did so, I figured I’d better make darn sure there is no other email address to contact them on. After searching all the pages I finally found another address: info@trustwatch.com I wrote another email:
Hello,
There are a couple of reasons for contacting you.
1. we are interested in the trustwatch API
2. we've been trying to contact you via other channels in regards to
partnership, please see below;
1. we've emailed you on partners@trustwatch.com and the
email got returned, see screenshot trustwatch_01.jpg2. we've tried the feedback
links on your site which all lead to screenshot trustwatch_02.jpg and
trustwatch_03.jpg
We think your company is great, and what you are doing, we are completely
behind it. But having dead links and hard to find emails is not a great public
image ;-)
So, I thought you might like to know about it and I took the time to go
through all your pages till I came across this email address.
Following is a copy of the first email I sent:…[removed the rest]
Please see attachment for the Delivery Failure Notice.
TrustWatch screenshot 4
That was the end of us trying to bring trustwatch to Australia ;-)
Yes, I could have contacted them by telephone (that’s if it wasn’t disconnected), but that’s not the point here. The emails we're also days apart.
Sunday, 6 January 2008
Those spammers again!
We've had some shady activity on our site again!
Our system detected lots of 404 requests for
/mysql-admin/main.php
/phpMyAdmin-2.2.3/main.php
etc.
Obviously we're not running PHP or MySQL so it's someone trying to find a hole, probably to spam or do other things that are not very nice ;-)
So, we've decided to start collecting those URL and create some functionality that in the future will look up the 404 url and if its one of the shady ones, we'll just ban the IP in IIS right away! Where as at the moment we just display them with a blank page after x number of requests.
This post is related to http://australian-search-engine.blogspot.com/2007/12/hackerscrackers.html
If there is any demand for it, I'm more than happy to publish a list of the URLs we're collecting that MOST of these automated scanners seem to search for...
Our system detected lots of 404 requests for
/mysql-admin/main.php
/phpMyAdmin-2.2.3/main.php
etc.
Obviously we're not running PHP or MySQL so it's someone trying to find a hole, probably to spam or do other things that are not very nice ;-)
So, we've decided to start collecting those URL and create some functionality that in the future will look up the 404 url and if its one of the shady ones, we'll just ban the IP in IIS right away! Where as at the moment we just display them with a blank page after x number of requests.
This post is related to http://australian-search-engine.blogspot.com/2007/12/hackerscrackers.html
If there is any demand for it, I'm more than happy to publish a list of the URLs we're collecting that MOST of these automated scanners seem to search for...
ColdFusion tutorial to create same hash as CF, but in MS SQL!
How cool would it be, being able to create the same MD5 hash as ColdFusion, directly in the MS SQL RDMBSH?
I know there’s been quite some demand for this function, most people create the MD5 hash in ColdFusion and then pass it the Database, this mean a couple more round trips to the db, which we prefer to avoid at anytime.
We’ll make some assumptions in this article to make things easier, and they are;
- you are running MS SQL 2005
- you are running ColdFusion
Ready to get started?
The first thing to do is go into your MS SQL database and create the following function that creates the hash and return a string value.....
Because our blog doesn't maintain formatting and colour coding, we'll just make this tutorial available in a Word document ;-)
You can download the document here.
I know there’s been quite some demand for this function, most people create the MD5 hash in ColdFusion and then pass it the Database, this mean a couple more round trips to the db, which we prefer to avoid at anytime.
We’ll make some assumptions in this article to make things easier, and they are;
- you are running MS SQL 2005
- you are running ColdFusion
Ready to get started?
The first thing to do is go into your MS SQL database and create the following function that creates the hash and return a string value.....
Because our blog doesn't maintain formatting and colour coding, we'll just make this tutorial available in a Word document ;-)
You can download the document here.
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