Shopping Cart Software by MonsterCommerce - Ecommerce Solutions

Join the MC newsletter, e-commerce tips delivered to your inbox. Your Email:

How Google Can Make or Break A Small Business

Slashdot: How Google Can Make or Break A Small Business For those of you too young to remember the days before Google, there were other search engines, such as Altavista (the first big one) and Yahoo. The reason Google became the most popular is that they do a very good job of ranking the interesting items first, which is important when there are 39000 hits for your query. The Search Engine Promotion business, when it's not just a scam sold by spammers, is mainly about doing artificial things to make Google's robots think your page would be interesting to humans; it's much better to actually make your page interesting to actual humans, and hope Google's robots pick up on that.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Of course, every web site promotion company will tell you that is exactly what they do; 'make your page more interesting.' What I like best about our web promotion department is the level of dedication and research that goes in to improving the site's features, researching the specific company's industry and creating or placing relative content onto the site. They also stay away from so-called 'black-hat' tactics that inevitably get a site banned.

For more information, check out our team's work at MonsterWebPromotion and prepare for more qualified traffic!

Security Update: PCI and CISP

The following is a copy of an email sent out from our CTO, Jen Heil, to all clients concerning security updates and other exciting changes at MonsterCommerce. "Dear MC Storefront Owner,

I would like to thank you all for your warm responses to our first security update email. Many of you took the suggestions seriously and have already improved the security of your online store. This email is the second email aimed at informing you about how you can ensure the complete security of your storefront. In this letter, I will cover the details of PCI standards, CISP compliance and what this means to you. The credit card industry has joined together to help fight credit card theft and fraud. In response to the growing occurrence of these illegal practices, the PCI (Payment Card Industry) data security standard was created. This was developed to establish a 'minimum security standard' with regards to the protection of cardholders' credit card account and transaction information. MonsterCommerce will be releasing a software upgrade that brings our software to the PCI security standard in early May. Our next security update will contain complete information regarding this upgrade. Although the four major credit card brands are all concerned with security, Visa has taken the lead in this effort and has developed a program entitled CISP. This stands for Cardholder Information Security Program. This program is built around the PCI standard but additionally requires businesses to certify and file proof that their company is compliant with this standard. The depth of the certification process and the required documents to prove compliance vary based on the number of transactions processed by a business within a calendar year. To learn more about the merchant levels, visit Visa's CISP site. Regardless of your level, all merchants who collect, process or store credit card information are required by Visa and MasterCard to meet the new PCI security standard by June 30, 2005. At a minimum, Visa recommends that you submit a ROC (Report on Compliance) and undergo a vulnerability scan. Whether required to submit or not, it is a good idea to do so as it shows Visa and your customers your commitment to the security of credit card data. Through an alliance with ScanAlert, the world's leading web site security certification service, MonsterCommerce has become the first full service ecommerce platform provider to provide easy one-click compliance at no additional cost. This new program will allow you to undergo the required vulnerability scan and complete the ROC in a few easy clicks. In the next few days, you will receive a welcome email from Scan Alert containing a login link. Once logged in, you will be able to answer a preliminary set of five questions to help Scan Alert understand your business. After these five questions are answered, you will be asked any necessary follow up questions and then will be prompted to print a PDF document that is a fully completed ROC in the proper format. All you have to do is print this document and send it to your merchant service provider. In the coming weeks, you can expect to receive letters from your merchant service providers informing you of these requirements. With MonsterCommerce and Scan Alert, you will be well ahead of the curve as the MonsterCommerce platform will be certified against the standard by mid May and you will be able to complete your ROC beginning in just a few days. The next step in gaining your compliance is to look for the welcome email that will be sent to you directly from ScanAlert within a few days. Simply click on the link in the welcome email and you will be just minutes away from achieving your compliance.

Sincerely, Jen Heil CTO, MonsterCommerce.com"

Albino Blacksheep » Text Files » CSS Background Tutorial

Here is a useful link to a brief tutorial file covering how to add a background image or color to your website using CSS. MonsterCommerce storefront software uses CSS automatically as part of the Site Layout menu. This menu controls the layout as saved in a file called "/style.css" in the root folder. Clients can add additional rules or overriding rules in the file named "/custom.css" from the file manager.

This tutorial will explain how to set backgrounds on web pages using (X)HTML or CSS. You should have at least a very basic understanding of how to read source code and understand HTML and CSS syntax to follow along with this tutorial.

• Background Tutorial
• 1997 Overview
• CSS Background
• CSS Background Color
• CSS Background Image
• CSS Background Image Position
• CSS Background Image Repeat
• CSS Background Image Attachment
• CSS Background Shorthand
• CSS Multiple Backgrounds

Disclaimer: ABS is host to a lot of information such as this tutorial, as well as video files usually created in flash. Not all of them are very funny.. or suitable for a family friendly audience. Albino Blacksheep » Text Files » Background Tutorial

Dropdown

--- Select a site --- MonsterCommerce MonsterSSL MonsterWebPromotion MonsterWebDesign MonsterMerchantAccount MonsterDomainRegistration MonsterMarketplace Monster Small Business Portal Monster Small Business Forums MonsterCommerce Knowledgebase MonsterCommerce Support Portal MonsterCommerce VIP Site

MonsterCommerce shopping cart software powers online stores. MonsterCommerce offers small business information and a comparison shopping marketplace. MC's e-commerce software solutions include shopping carts for building your e-business, website promotion to earn top 10 placement in search engines and logo design. MC also offers merchant accounts for accepting secure online payments, e-commerce web hosting and a cheap domain name registration service.