(Google MAIL) Google's free Web-based e-mail service, which is supported by text advertising similar to Google's Web search. Launched in beta in 2004, Gmail offers 2.8 gigabytes (as of February 2007) of mailbox storage, allowing users to keep their mail on Google servers indefinitely for future reference. Gmail provides sophisticated searching of message content and keeps message threads for easy review. In 2006, Gmail chat integrated instant messaging with the e-mail, also taking advantage of the same save and search features.
Gmail is currently rolling out a new chat feature. It’s like Google Talk, except that it’s browser-based and integrated right into Gmail. Which makes sense, because Gmail often-times already feels like chat due to its “conversations” view (if the other person has Gmail too, that is). read more…
Find more about Gmail chats visit www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk
For more details on Books at www.lookbookstores.com
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
What are channels?
Channels enable you to view detailed reporting about the performance of specific pages and ad units. By assigning a channel to a combination of pages or ad units, you could track the performance of a leader board versus a banner, or compare your motorcycle pages to your automobile pages. You can even create a channel to track each of your separate domains, so you can see where your clicks are coming from. While channels can be used to track performance and revenue, they won't have any effect on your earnings or ad targeting.
It’s easy to set up a Google AdSense account, generate the code needed to display ads on your site, and paste the code into the source for your blog template or web site pages. By doing so, you can start earning advertising revenue immediately—or as soon as someone starts clicking the ad links on your pages, anyway. But if you’re interested in learning more about which ads are most successful for you, you need to take another step:
Set up and use Google’s channels feature.
Channel Basics
The channels feature enables you to assign a unique identifier to a domain name or specific URL, or to a type of ad unit. The channel name is included in the code that utilizes it. Google tracks Ad Sense activity by channel for your account. You can easily display activity by channel, thus making it possible to analyze Ad Sense revenue by channel. read more..
Find more Channels visit www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk
For more details on Books at www.lookbookstores.com
It’s easy to set up a Google AdSense account, generate the code needed to display ads on your site, and paste the code into the source for your blog template or web site pages. By doing so, you can start earning advertising revenue immediately—or as soon as someone starts clicking the ad links on your pages, anyway. But if you’re interested in learning more about which ads are most successful for you, you need to take another step:
Set up and use Google’s channels feature.
Channel Basics
The channels feature enables you to assign a unique identifier to a domain name or specific URL, or to a type of ad unit. The channel name is included in the code that utilizes it. Google tracks Ad Sense activity by channel for your account. You can easily display activity by channel, thus making it possible to analyze Ad Sense revenue by channel. read more..
Find more Channels visit www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk
For more details on Books at www.lookbookstores.com
Monday, February 26, 2007
Internet Directories as a Link Building Tool
WebLink SEO is a powerful software package that enables you to analyze your competitor's websites and promote your website on the Internet to generate improved search engine results. Search Engine Optimization used to be a time-consuming and difficult process, but WebLink SEO makes light work of it by providing you with a wide variety of tools that not only help to analyze and optimize your website, but also promote your website on the Internet.
Directories have far more possibilities hidden within their listings than is generally thought. Many webmasters, and even some search engine optimization experts, ignore the less obvious value residing in the various categories. Some of the very useful directories for link research include the Open Directory Project, better known as DMOZ; the Yahoo! Directory; the Google Directory; and the many specialty directories directly related to the searcher's area of business.
Selecting Directories
The most obvious Internet directory to start with when beginning a comprehensive link search is the well known DMOZ directory. With its complete category and sub-category classification system, any website owner can find numerous sites within their area of business. If your website is already listed in the DMOZ directory, the first step is to go directly to your own site's category. Within those pages of listings, whether you are in the global or regional category will be some of your direct competitors.
The Yahoo! Directory provides a similar opportunity for the website owner. The Yahoo! Directory has many of the same sites listed as DMOZ. That is a given. There are, however, many more sites listed in Yahoo! that are not part of the Open Directory Project. That fact opens up many more possibilities for the webmaster. When you go to the Yahoo! Directory, as with DMOZ, go first to your category if you are already listed. Select the most probable one, if your site is not included. Note that the listings are also in alphabetical order, and may have somewhat different descriptions than the DMOZ directory employs. Use the same procedure as before, and your list of potential linking partners will grow larger.
A third important Internet directory is the Google Directory. Using listings supplied by the Open Directory Project, the listings are very similar to those found in DMOZ. Google offers a major and important difference, however. Google orders the results from the highest PageRank listing to the lowest, making your sorting that much easier. Keep in mind that some of the PageRanks on display are possibly out of date, and may not reflect the site's current PageRank.
Work on Specialty Directories
A powerful alternative source of directory link leads is found in the sometimes overlooked specialty directories. The first step is to search for the specialty and minor directories in the search engines. Enter combinations of "directories" and "your industry" and lists will appear. It won't matter if the directories are paid or free for inclusion, as you are searching for link exchanges. If one of the newly discovered directories is free, however, be certain to get your own website included. After all, a directory is a valuable incoming link too.
How to Exchange Directories
• Simply click on the links, one by one, and examine the sites carefully. Know something about the site. Look for contact information and find the webmaster's name if possible. In your e-mail to the prospective exchange partner, be certain to offer some strong indication that you have actually visited the site in question.
• Tell your prospective partner that you have already linked their site and you feel your site would be beneficial to their site visitors as well. A really good idea is to tell the webmaster of a part of their site that you found especially interesting and informative.
• Place a link on your own site to the sites you have decided to contact first, prior to any requests. That is simply proper linking etiquette. It also displays your professionalism to the recipient who is probably tired of link exchange spam.
• Be sure to always visit the site as well. It is never a good idea to link partner with a site you wouldn't feel comfortable recommending to all of your customers. Your business and personal reputations are at stake.
• Don't threaten to remove the link to their site if they fail to reciprocate. If the site was interesting and helpful enough to offer a link partnership, it should be one you intend to keep, as a permanent link. Be sure to know your potential partner sites well.
The use of directories for finding linking partners will benefit your website and your online business more than employing the commonly used random approach. Most website owners do not have a plan for finding link exchanges that make sense for their site. A link only has real value to your visitors, if it has something in common with the overall theme and interest of your website.
Directories are an excellent source of theme related link partners for any website. If the directory used for the search is a major one such as DMOZ, the Yahoo! Directory, or the Google Directory, sites with your main topics are readily categorized. Finding potential linking partners is very easy, using the major directories.
For more details on Internet Directories visit at http://www.halfvalue.com and http://www.halfvalue.co.uk
For more Books information visit at http://www.lookbookstores.com
Directories have far more possibilities hidden within their listings than is generally thought. Many webmasters, and even some search engine optimization experts, ignore the less obvious value residing in the various categories. Some of the very useful directories for link research include the Open Directory Project, better known as DMOZ; the Yahoo! Directory; the Google Directory; and the many specialty directories directly related to the searcher's area of business.
Selecting Directories
The most obvious Internet directory to start with when beginning a comprehensive link search is the well known DMOZ directory. With its complete category and sub-category classification system, any website owner can find numerous sites within their area of business. If your website is already listed in the DMOZ directory, the first step is to go directly to your own site's category. Within those pages of listings, whether you are in the global or regional category will be some of your direct competitors.
The Yahoo! Directory provides a similar opportunity for the website owner. The Yahoo! Directory has many of the same sites listed as DMOZ. That is a given. There are, however, many more sites listed in Yahoo! that are not part of the Open Directory Project. That fact opens up many more possibilities for the webmaster. When you go to the Yahoo! Directory, as with DMOZ, go first to your category if you are already listed. Select the most probable one, if your site is not included. Note that the listings are also in alphabetical order, and may have somewhat different descriptions than the DMOZ directory employs. Use the same procedure as before, and your list of potential linking partners will grow larger.
A third important Internet directory is the Google Directory. Using listings supplied by the Open Directory Project, the listings are very similar to those found in DMOZ. Google offers a major and important difference, however. Google orders the results from the highest PageRank listing to the lowest, making your sorting that much easier. Keep in mind that some of the PageRanks on display are possibly out of date, and may not reflect the site's current PageRank.
Work on Specialty Directories
A powerful alternative source of directory link leads is found in the sometimes overlooked specialty directories. The first step is to search for the specialty and minor directories in the search engines. Enter combinations of "directories" and "your industry" and lists will appear. It won't matter if the directories are paid or free for inclusion, as you are searching for link exchanges. If one of the newly discovered directories is free, however, be certain to get your own website included. After all, a directory is a valuable incoming link too.
How to Exchange Directories
• Simply click on the links, one by one, and examine the sites carefully. Know something about the site. Look for contact information and find the webmaster's name if possible. In your e-mail to the prospective exchange partner, be certain to offer some strong indication that you have actually visited the site in question.
• Tell your prospective partner that you have already linked their site and you feel your site would be beneficial to their site visitors as well. A really good idea is to tell the webmaster of a part of their site that you found especially interesting and informative.
• Place a link on your own site to the sites you have decided to contact first, prior to any requests. That is simply proper linking etiquette. It also displays your professionalism to the recipient who is probably tired of link exchange spam.
• Be sure to always visit the site as well. It is never a good idea to link partner with a site you wouldn't feel comfortable recommending to all of your customers. Your business and personal reputations are at stake.
• Don't threaten to remove the link to their site if they fail to reciprocate. If the site was interesting and helpful enough to offer a link partnership, it should be one you intend to keep, as a permanent link. Be sure to know your potential partner sites well.
The use of directories for finding linking partners will benefit your website and your online business more than employing the commonly used random approach. Most website owners do not have a plan for finding link exchanges that make sense for their site. A link only has real value to your visitors, if it has something in common with the overall theme and interest of your website.
Directories are an excellent source of theme related link partners for any website. If the directory used for the search is a major one such as DMOZ, the Yahoo! Directory, or the Google Directory, sites with your main topics are readily categorized. Finding potential linking partners is very easy, using the major directories.
For more details on Internet Directories visit at http://www.halfvalue.com and http://www.halfvalue.co.uk
For more Books information visit at http://www.lookbookstores.com
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Make your Web Page loading fast
Studies have shown that if a web site takes more than 8-10 seconds to load on a 56k modem then you risk losing the visitor. This means that the web page design needs to be less than 30 kilobytes in size. Web surfers hate to wait for slow loading web pages. If your web pages don't load fast enough, many web surfers will go away without taking a look at them. No matter how great your product is: if your web site is not fast enough, web surfers won't see it. Fast loading web pages are crucial if you want to sell something on the Internet. There are several things you can do to speed up your site. Of course, you should make sure that your web host provides fast and reliable servers. In addition to hosting your web site on a fast server, you can do the following to improve the loading time of your web pages:
Reduce the number of graphics:
A large number of graphics on your web pages can considerably slow down your page. For each graphic on your web page, the web browser has to make another connection to your server. If you cannot reduce the number of graphics on your web page, then try to combine several graphics to a single bigger one. Use the same graphics on your other web pages so that web browsers can load the graphics from the browser cache.
Optimize all heavy files:
As much as possible optimize heavy graphics, Flash files and scripts. In editors like fireworks and flash you can see the various options in the preview panel to reduce the sizes. See how popular web sites like google and yahoo have pages that are very small in size and thus load in seconds.
Specify the dimensions of your graphics:
Always make sure to include the height and width dimensions of your graphics in your HTML code. This means that every IMG tag should have the WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes specified. If web browsers don’t have to figure out the dimensions of your graphics, they can already display placeholders and start displaying the text of your web page before loading the graphics from the server.
Spread out your content:
In case you find yourself having very long pages of content, break them down into separate sections and thus bring down the sizes of the individual pages.
Make the top of your page interesting:
If a web page takes a long time to load, make sure that the top of the page contains something interesting because visitors will see that part first.
Optimize your HTML code:
Make sure that your site doesn't have any unwanted tags and that it is optimized.
Divide your tables:
Web pages that use a single large layout table take a long time to render in web browsers. Break up huge tables into several smaller ones.
Specify the dimensions of your tables
If you specify the WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes for your tables, then web browsers don't have to load the complete table code to calculate the dimensions of the table.
Double check cell widths:
Take a moment to check the individual widths of each table cell. If the total is more than the specified table width, then web browsers will have problems displaying your table.
It's important to know the download times of your web pages. In general, your home page should load in 20 seconds on a dial-up connection and the top of your page should be displayed within 5-8 seconds.
For more details on Web Page visit at www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk
For more Books information visit at www.lookbookstores.com
Reduce the number of graphics:
A large number of graphics on your web pages can considerably slow down your page. For each graphic on your web page, the web browser has to make another connection to your server. If you cannot reduce the number of graphics on your web page, then try to combine several graphics to a single bigger one. Use the same graphics on your other web pages so that web browsers can load the graphics from the browser cache.
Optimize all heavy files:
As much as possible optimize heavy graphics, Flash files and scripts. In editors like fireworks and flash you can see the various options in the preview panel to reduce the sizes. See how popular web sites like google and yahoo have pages that are very small in size and thus load in seconds.
Specify the dimensions of your graphics:
Always make sure to include the height and width dimensions of your graphics in your HTML code. This means that every IMG tag should have the WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes specified. If web browsers don’t have to figure out the dimensions of your graphics, they can already display placeholders and start displaying the text of your web page before loading the graphics from the server.
Spread out your content:
In case you find yourself having very long pages of content, break them down into separate sections and thus bring down the sizes of the individual pages.
Make the top of your page interesting:
If a web page takes a long time to load, make sure that the top of the page contains something interesting because visitors will see that part first.
Optimize your HTML code:
Make sure that your site doesn't have any unwanted tags and that it is optimized.
Divide your tables:
Web pages that use a single large layout table take a long time to render in web browsers. Break up huge tables into several smaller ones.
Specify the dimensions of your tables
If you specify the WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes for your tables, then web browsers don't have to load the complete table code to calculate the dimensions of the table.
Double check cell widths:
Take a moment to check the individual widths of each table cell. If the total is more than the specified table width, then web browsers will have problems displaying your table.
It's important to know the download times of your web pages. In general, your home page should load in 20 seconds on a dial-up connection and the top of your page should be displayed within 5-8 seconds.
For more details on Web Page visit at www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk
For more Books information visit at www.lookbookstores.com
Monday, February 19, 2007
How to Convert Web Site Visitors into Clients?
There are a number of ways that integrating consumer reviews into your site can substantially increase your conversion rates. These include answering common questions to help skeptical or ‘on-the-fence’ visitors close a purchase decision, introducing additional uses for a product and helping to up sell additional products.
Not only do consumer product reviews have a long history of increasing sales, they can also make your site stand out from your competitors. If your site provides the consumer with the answers they need, this builds their confidence in your product and increases your credibility. If you combine this with a competitive price, the chance of the customer making the purchase from you has increased substantially.
Make sure that your web pages have a professional design
Your web pages have to look perfect. If necessary, hire a professional web designer. Don't use blinking text, funny animations or flashy banners on your page. Make sure that all links on your web site are intact. Don't use automatically created web pages. Some software programs allow you to automatically create pages that are "optimized" for a special keyword. These doorway pages don't work anymore on search engines.
In addition, human web surfers are turned away by that kind of pages. While doorway pages might look attractive to software programs, web surfers usually hate them. Automatically created doorway pages usually look ugly to human web surfers. Often, they consist of nothing more than a list of buzz-words. You won't get good results with this method because human web surfers will quickly close such a web page.
Effective Content
Content is the most important aspect of a web site. Effective content draws visitors in, speaks to their problems, and resonates with them on an emotional level. Most web sites are terrible at this – they are designed from the perspective of “all about us”, when the appropriate style is “what’s in it for you”.
Gather Information and Respond Quickly
Perhaps the most important tactic agents can use to keep the dialogue alive is to respond to the prospect quickly. Doing that requires that the prospects provide some contact information at your Web site, and that the information gets immediately emailed to you. Therefore, it's important to include data-capture points throughout your Web site. I recommend prompting visitors to provide only as much information as you need for a follow-up call: Name, ZIP code, email address and phone number, for example.
Asking for more information than that, such as street address and personal data, call intimidate prospects and is usually best saved for later in the sales or application process While most consumers have been conditioned to expect slow responses -or none at a1l- from companies they contact on the Web, the Internet's potential for instant communication between agent and client is a fantastic selling tool. Agents who respond to Web inquiries immediately have a much higher conversion rate than agents who wait even a couple of days.
Killer headlines will grab your visitors attention
Nobody will read your entire page. Make it easier for your customers by dividing your page into paragraphs where each paragraph has a headline. Your headlines should make clear what to expect in the next sentences and they should grab your visitors' attention.
Using Your Site as an Online Brochure
If you are able to follow up right away, not only will you wow your prospect, you also will be able to use your Web site as a real-time discussion guide. Walk the prospect through the key pages of your site and use your online information to help answer their questions. Even better, if your site offers an online application and your prospect is ready to buy, walk him or her through the insurance application. Doing so offers several benefits:
• Convenience
The client doesn't have to wait for a personal visit from the agent, or for forms to arrive in the mail, to apply.
• Accuracy
Because the form is automated - and you're there to answer questions - online applications tend to yield cleaner data and require less follow-up than paper forms.
• Speed
The application can be forwarded electronically from agent to carrier, so the policy can be under- written faster.
• Cost
Transferring documents online eliminates the need to pay for postage and mailing.
Once your Web site is functioning as an online brochure, keeping it up-to- date can create significant cost savings, eliminating the need for printing and mailing hard-copy marketing materials year after year.
For more details on Web Site visit at www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk
For more Books information visit at www.lookbookstores.com
Not only do consumer product reviews have a long history of increasing sales, they can also make your site stand out from your competitors. If your site provides the consumer with the answers they need, this builds their confidence in your product and increases your credibility. If you combine this with a competitive price, the chance of the customer making the purchase from you has increased substantially.
Make sure that your web pages have a professional design
Your web pages have to look perfect. If necessary, hire a professional web designer. Don't use blinking text, funny animations or flashy banners on your page. Make sure that all links on your web site are intact. Don't use automatically created web pages. Some software programs allow you to automatically create pages that are "optimized" for a special keyword. These doorway pages don't work anymore on search engines.
In addition, human web surfers are turned away by that kind of pages. While doorway pages might look attractive to software programs, web surfers usually hate them. Automatically created doorway pages usually look ugly to human web surfers. Often, they consist of nothing more than a list of buzz-words. You won't get good results with this method because human web surfers will quickly close such a web page.
Effective Content
Content is the most important aspect of a web site. Effective content draws visitors in, speaks to their problems, and resonates with them on an emotional level. Most web sites are terrible at this – they are designed from the perspective of “all about us”, when the appropriate style is “what’s in it for you”.
Gather Information and Respond Quickly
Perhaps the most important tactic agents can use to keep the dialogue alive is to respond to the prospect quickly. Doing that requires that the prospects provide some contact information at your Web site, and that the information gets immediately emailed to you. Therefore, it's important to include data-capture points throughout your Web site. I recommend prompting visitors to provide only as much information as you need for a follow-up call: Name, ZIP code, email address and phone number, for example.
Asking for more information than that, such as street address and personal data, call intimidate prospects and is usually best saved for later in the sales or application process While most consumers have been conditioned to expect slow responses -or none at a1l- from companies they contact on the Web, the Internet's potential for instant communication between agent and client is a fantastic selling tool. Agents who respond to Web inquiries immediately have a much higher conversion rate than agents who wait even a couple of days.
Killer headlines will grab your visitors attention
Nobody will read your entire page. Make it easier for your customers by dividing your page into paragraphs where each paragraph has a headline. Your headlines should make clear what to expect in the next sentences and they should grab your visitors' attention.
Using Your Site as an Online Brochure
If you are able to follow up right away, not only will you wow your prospect, you also will be able to use your Web site as a real-time discussion guide. Walk the prospect through the key pages of your site and use your online information to help answer their questions. Even better, if your site offers an online application and your prospect is ready to buy, walk him or her through the insurance application. Doing so offers several benefits:
• Convenience
The client doesn't have to wait for a personal visit from the agent, or for forms to arrive in the mail, to apply.
• Accuracy
Because the form is automated - and you're there to answer questions - online applications tend to yield cleaner data and require less follow-up than paper forms.
• Speed
The application can be forwarded electronically from agent to carrier, so the policy can be under- written faster.
• Cost
Transferring documents online eliminates the need to pay for postage and mailing.
Once your Web site is functioning as an online brochure, keeping it up-to- date can create significant cost savings, eliminating the need for printing and mailing hard-copy marketing materials year after year.
For more details on Web Site visit at www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk
For more Books information visit at www.lookbookstores.com
Google's New Web Page Spider
Search engines use automated software programs that crawl the web. These programs called "crawlers" or "spiders" go from link to link and store the text and the keywords from the pages in a database. "Googlebot" is the name of Google's spider software.
Types of Google Spiders:
Many webmasters have noticed that there are now two different Google spiders that index their web pages. At least one of them is performing a complete site scan:
• The normal Google spider: 66.249.64.47 - "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 1227 "-" "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)"
• The additional Google spider: 66.249.66.129 - "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 38358 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"
Difference between these two Google spiders
The new Google spider uses a slightly different user agent: "Mozilla/5.0". This means that Googlebot now also accepts the HTTP 1.1 protocol. The new spider might be able to understand more content formats, including compressed HTML.
AdWords Spider
Google is using a new crawler software program for their AdWords advertising system that automatically spiders and analyzes the content of advertising landing pages. Google tries to determine the quality of the ad landing pages with the new bot. The content of the landing page will be used for the Quality Score that Google assigns to your ads. Google uses the Quality Score and the amount you are willing to pay to determine the position of your ads. Ads with a high quality score can rank higher even if you pay less than others for the ad.
Purpose of Google Spider
Google hasn't revealed the reason for it yet. There are two main theories:
• The first theory is that Google uses the new spider to spot web sites that use cloaking, JavaScript redirects and other dubious web site optimization techniques. As the new spider seems to be more powerful than the old spider, this sounds plausible.
• The second theory is that Google's extensive crawling might be a panic reaction because the index needs to be rebuilt from the ground up in a short time period. The reason for this might be that the old index contains too many spam pages.
What does this mean to your web site?
If you use questionable techniques such as cloaking or JavaScript redirects, you might get into trouble. If Google really uses the new spider to detect spamming web sites, it's likely that these sites will be banned from the index. To obtain long-term results on search engines, it's better to use ethical search engine optimization methods. General information about Google's web page spider can be found here.
Receive Email When Google Spiders Your Page
A search engine spider is an automated software program that locates and collects data from web pages for inclusion in a search engine's database. The name of Google's spider is "Googlebot". If you have a web site that allows you to use PHP code then your web pages can inform you when Google's spider has indexed them. This little piece of PHP code recognizes Googlebot if it visits the web page, and it informs you by email when Googlebot has been there.
For more details on Google’s Spider visit at www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk
For more Books information visit at www.lookbookstores.com
Types of Google Spiders:
Many webmasters have noticed that there are now two different Google spiders that index their web pages. At least one of them is performing a complete site scan:
• The normal Google spider: 66.249.64.47 - "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 1227 "-" "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)"
• The additional Google spider: 66.249.66.129 - "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 38358 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"
Difference between these two Google spiders
The new Google spider uses a slightly different user agent: "Mozilla/5.0". This means that Googlebot now also accepts the HTTP 1.1 protocol. The new spider might be able to understand more content formats, including compressed HTML.
AdWords Spider
Google is using a new crawler software program for their AdWords advertising system that automatically spiders and analyzes the content of advertising landing pages. Google tries to determine the quality of the ad landing pages with the new bot. The content of the landing page will be used for the Quality Score that Google assigns to your ads. Google uses the Quality Score and the amount you are willing to pay to determine the position of your ads. Ads with a high quality score can rank higher even if you pay less than others for the ad.
Purpose of Google Spider
Google hasn't revealed the reason for it yet. There are two main theories:
• The first theory is that Google uses the new spider to spot web sites that use cloaking, JavaScript redirects and other dubious web site optimization techniques. As the new spider seems to be more powerful than the old spider, this sounds plausible.
• The second theory is that Google's extensive crawling might be a panic reaction because the index needs to be rebuilt from the ground up in a short time period. The reason for this might be that the old index contains too many spam pages.
What does this mean to your web site?
If you use questionable techniques such as cloaking or JavaScript redirects, you might get into trouble. If Google really uses the new spider to detect spamming web sites, it's likely that these sites will be banned from the index. To obtain long-term results on search engines, it's better to use ethical search engine optimization methods. General information about Google's web page spider can be found here.
Receive Email When Google Spiders Your Page
A search engine spider is an automated software program that locates and collects data from web pages for inclusion in a search engine's database. The name of Google's spider is "Googlebot". If you have a web site that allows you to use PHP code then your web pages can inform you when Google's spider has indexed them. This little piece of PHP code recognizes Googlebot if it visits the web page, and it informs you by email when Googlebot has been there.
For more details on Google’s Spider visit at www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk
For more Books information visit at www.lookbookstores.com
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Importance of Keywords in SEO
A good web page contains information that people are looking for. When you write the page you need to take a step back and think about what search terms or keywords people would enter to find it. Once you have determined those keywords, you need to narrow them down to 3 to 5 main words. Then you can start to write the page, keeping these words in mind while you develop the content.One of the first things anyone embarking on a search marketing effort learns is that effective selection and use of keywords can make or break a campaign. Keyword research is an art, but the appropriate use of tools can help you practice the art much more effectively.
Keyword Research:
Keyword Research is the building block for search engine optimization. Search engines utilize keywords or key phrases to identify web pages which are relevant to these terms. Finding keywords / phrases which are relevant to your website and implementing them in your pages and links will help a search engine identify your webpage when a search is conducted for that particular keyword / phrase. Keywords have to be implemented on-page as well as off-page for higher ranking.
Building links is essential to gain more traffic and obtain a high ranking on search engines. But building links which are effectively optimized can score you extra points. Search engines analyze a link based on several factors, one being the text of the link itself. If your linking text, commonly referred to as anchor text, contains relevant keywords it indicates clearly what the link is connecting to.
Keyword research is not as simple as putting down a bunch of words which users may search for. Today people commonly use advanced tools to find appropriate keywords. Wordtracker, Overture Search Suggestion Tool and Keyword Discovery are some of the more commonly used tools. These tools will not only help you find keywords but will also help you determine the competition these keywords attract.
How to select keywords:
• Using generic terms to optimize your website and links is not a smart idea. Keywords which are most commonly searched for will be used by several thousands websites; competing with these already established websites may not improve your ranking at all.
• It is important that you select keywords which are not overused. Include keywords which receive a fair number of searches but have minimal competition. Optimize your website with these keywords and once you have established yourself, you will have the liberty to include more general keywords.
• When selecting less searched terms, one may always run the risk of less traffic. But this may be better than no traffic at all if the keywords used are highly competed for. One way to solve this problem is to go as specific as possible with your keywords.
• Finding the right keywords is not as easy as it may seem. The success of your website may depend on traffic directed from search engines; and to figure on a search engine you will have to optimize your site with relevant keywords. It also does not end with optimizing your site once; one has to continually analyze the popularity of keywords and make appropriate changes to your website.
Keyword Density:
Improving the keyword density on your website is one of the fastest and simplest ways to increase your site's visibility in the search engine results pages. To better explain this reasoning, we will refer to a "keyword" as a word that your typical web surfer will input in the search box when searching for specific information about a product or service.
The true definition of keyword density is the ratio of the word that is being searched for, ie the keyword, against the total number of words appearing on a given web page. If your keyword occurs only once or twice in a page of 500 or more words, obviously it has a lower keyword density than a keyword that would occur six or seven times in a page of similar length.
For more details on Keywords visit at http://www.halfvalue.com and http://www.halfvalue.co.uk
Find more about Books at http://www.lookbookstores.com
Keyword Research:
Keyword Research is the building block for search engine optimization. Search engines utilize keywords or key phrases to identify web pages which are relevant to these terms. Finding keywords / phrases which are relevant to your website and implementing them in your pages and links will help a search engine identify your webpage when a search is conducted for that particular keyword / phrase. Keywords have to be implemented on-page as well as off-page for higher ranking.
Building links is essential to gain more traffic and obtain a high ranking on search engines. But building links which are effectively optimized can score you extra points. Search engines analyze a link based on several factors, one being the text of the link itself. If your linking text, commonly referred to as anchor text, contains relevant keywords it indicates clearly what the link is connecting to.
Keyword research is not as simple as putting down a bunch of words which users may search for. Today people commonly use advanced tools to find appropriate keywords. Wordtracker, Overture Search Suggestion Tool and Keyword Discovery are some of the more commonly used tools. These tools will not only help you find keywords but will also help you determine the competition these keywords attract.
How to select keywords:
• Using generic terms to optimize your website and links is not a smart idea. Keywords which are most commonly searched for will be used by several thousands websites; competing with these already established websites may not improve your ranking at all.
• It is important that you select keywords which are not overused. Include keywords which receive a fair number of searches but have minimal competition. Optimize your website with these keywords and once you have established yourself, you will have the liberty to include more general keywords.
• When selecting less searched terms, one may always run the risk of less traffic. But this may be better than no traffic at all if the keywords used are highly competed for. One way to solve this problem is to go as specific as possible with your keywords.
• Finding the right keywords is not as easy as it may seem. The success of your website may depend on traffic directed from search engines; and to figure on a search engine you will have to optimize your site with relevant keywords. It also does not end with optimizing your site once; one has to continually analyze the popularity of keywords and make appropriate changes to your website.
Keyword Density:
Improving the keyword density on your website is one of the fastest and simplest ways to increase your site's visibility in the search engine results pages. To better explain this reasoning, we will refer to a "keyword" as a word that your typical web surfer will input in the search box when searching for specific information about a product or service.
The true definition of keyword density is the ratio of the word that is being searched for, ie the keyword, against the total number of words appearing on a given web page. If your keyword occurs only once or twice in a page of 500 or more words, obviously it has a lower keyword density than a keyword that would occur six or seven times in a page of similar length.
For more details on Keywords visit at http://www.halfvalue.com and http://www.halfvalue.co.uk
Find more about Books at http://www.lookbookstores.com
Friday, February 16, 2007
Factors Effecting the Page rank
PageRank is a link analysis algorithm which assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of "measuring" its relative importance within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and references.
Google might use the following to determine the ranking of your pages:
• The frequency of web page changes
• The amount of web page changes (substantial or shallow changes)
• The change in keyword density
• The number of new web pages that link to a web page
• The changes in anchor texts (the text that is used to link to a web page)
• The number of links to low trust web sites (for example too many affiliate links on one web page)
Domain Name Consideration:
• The length of the domain registration (one year vs. several years)
• The address of the web site owner, the admin and the technical contact
• The stability of data and host company
• The number of pages on a web site (web sites must have more than one page)
How Google might rate the links to your web site:
• The anchor text and the discovery date of links are recorded
• The appearance and disappearance of a link over time might be monitored
• The growth rates of links as well as the link growth of independent peer documents mightbe monitored
• The changes in the anchor texts over a given period of time might be monitored
• The rate at which new links to a web page appear and disappear might be recorded
• The distribution rating for the age of all links might be recorded
• Links with a long life span might get a higher rating than links with a short life span
• Links from fresh pages might be considered more important
• If a stale document continues to get incoming links, it will be considered fresh
• Google doesn't expect that new web sites have a large number of links
• If a new web site gets many new links, this will be tolerated if some of the links are from authorative sites
• Google indicates that it is better if link growth remains constant and slow
• Google indicates that anchor texts should be varied as much as possible
• Google indicates that burst link growth may be a strong indicator of search engine spam
For more details on Page Rank visit at www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk
Find more books information at www.lookbookstores.com
Google might use the following to determine the ranking of your pages:
• The frequency of web page changes
• The amount of web page changes (substantial or shallow changes)
• The change in keyword density
• The number of new web pages that link to a web page
• The changes in anchor texts (the text that is used to link to a web page)
• The number of links to low trust web sites (for example too many affiliate links on one web page)
Domain Name Consideration:
• The length of the domain registration (one year vs. several years)
• The address of the web site owner, the admin and the technical contact
• The stability of data and host company
• The number of pages on a web site (web sites must have more than one page)
How Google might rate the links to your web site:
• The anchor text and the discovery date of links are recorded
• The appearance and disappearance of a link over time might be monitored
• The growth rates of links as well as the link growth of independent peer documents mightbe monitored
• The changes in the anchor texts over a given period of time might be monitored
• The rate at which new links to a web page appear and disappear might be recorded
• The distribution rating for the age of all links might be recorded
• Links with a long life span might get a higher rating than links with a short life span
• Links from fresh pages might be considered more important
• If a stale document continues to get incoming links, it will be considered fresh
• Google doesn't expect that new web sites have a large number of links
• If a new web site gets many new links, this will be tolerated if some of the links are from authorative sites
• Google indicates that it is better if link growth remains constant and slow
• Google indicates that anchor texts should be varied as much as possible
• Google indicates that burst link growth may be a strong indicator of search engine spam
For more details on Page Rank visit at www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk
Find more books information at www.lookbookstores.com
Thursday, February 15, 2007
The Most Common Reason for Dropped Ranking
A duplicate website is a website that has many if not all of the same pages as another live website. Duplication is the most common reason for dropping the ranking of websites.
The major search engines are constantly trying to improve the quality of their search engine results in an effort to provide the best quality content for users. When duplicate content is indexed by search engine spiders, valuable time and processing power is wasted. As a result, search engines have blocked sites that used duplicate content from their database, ultimately favouring the site that either had the content first, or I believe, the one site that has the greater online history.
In addition, the major search engines have a bad taste after dealing with so much duplicate content created by spammers over the past several years. As a result, posting a duplicate website is an offense that can quite literally blacklist a domain; there are few things the search engine properties dislike more than being gamed by spammers.
Deleting the site is the only option unless you want to create an entire new website with unique content and a unique purpose. That said, by deleting the website you can still ensure the effort you put into promoting the old site does not go to waste by pointing the domain to your new website’s domain using a 301 redirect. A 301 is a term used to describe a server protocol which Google and other search engines will ‘see’ when they visit the old site. The protocol essentially says that your content from the old site can be found on the new site and that this is a permanent forwarding of all traffic. 301 redirects are by far the best way to minimize your losses from shutting down a website that just might have traffic or inbound links.
It is very important that you keep the website that has the most backlinks and has been online the longest. Switching a website to a new domain is a dangerous step. This is because of Google’s famed ‘sandbox’. The ‘sandbox’ is really only an overused turn of phrase that represents a portion of the Google algorithm which considers the age of the domain as a signifier of trust. Generally, new websites will require 6 months to a year before substantial rankings are evident; this is kind of a right of passage that Google appears to be enforcing on the average website. Sites that are obviously popular and quickly gain a load of legitimate link popularity will easily avoid the sandbox (because Google can not afford to miss a ‘great’ website) but this is not the common scenario.
How to avoid Duplicacy:
In most cases the amount of duplicate content used within a template in a content management system (CMS) is negligible. If, however, you have a large number of pages created using a page where 90% of the text is duplicated and only 10% is unique you do have a reason to make some changes. In my opinion it is crucial that every page within a website be composed mostly of unique content with the exception of catalogues and shopping carts where text simply has to be reused over and over.
For more details on Website Ranking visit at http://www.halfvalue.com and http://www.halfvalue.co.uk
For more Books information visit http://www.lookbookstores.com
The major search engines are constantly trying to improve the quality of their search engine results in an effort to provide the best quality content for users. When duplicate content is indexed by search engine spiders, valuable time and processing power is wasted. As a result, search engines have blocked sites that used duplicate content from their database, ultimately favouring the site that either had the content first, or I believe, the one site that has the greater online history.
In addition, the major search engines have a bad taste after dealing with so much duplicate content created by spammers over the past several years. As a result, posting a duplicate website is an offense that can quite literally blacklist a domain; there are few things the search engine properties dislike more than being gamed by spammers.
Deleting the site is the only option unless you want to create an entire new website with unique content and a unique purpose. That said, by deleting the website you can still ensure the effort you put into promoting the old site does not go to waste by pointing the domain to your new website’s domain using a 301 redirect. A 301 is a term used to describe a server protocol which Google and other search engines will ‘see’ when they visit the old site. The protocol essentially says that your content from the old site can be found on the new site and that this is a permanent forwarding of all traffic. 301 redirects are by far the best way to minimize your losses from shutting down a website that just might have traffic or inbound links.
It is very important that you keep the website that has the most backlinks and has been online the longest. Switching a website to a new domain is a dangerous step. This is because of Google’s famed ‘sandbox’. The ‘sandbox’ is really only an overused turn of phrase that represents a portion of the Google algorithm which considers the age of the domain as a signifier of trust. Generally, new websites will require 6 months to a year before substantial rankings are evident; this is kind of a right of passage that Google appears to be enforcing on the average website. Sites that are obviously popular and quickly gain a load of legitimate link popularity will easily avoid the sandbox (because Google can not afford to miss a ‘great’ website) but this is not the common scenario.
How to avoid Duplicacy:
In most cases the amount of duplicate content used within a template in a content management system (CMS) is negligible. If, however, you have a large number of pages created using a page where 90% of the text is duplicated and only 10% is unique you do have a reason to make some changes. In my opinion it is crucial that every page within a website be composed mostly of unique content with the exception of catalogues and shopping carts where text simply has to be reused over and over.
For more details on Website Ranking visit at http://www.halfvalue.com and http://www.halfvalue.co.uk
For more Books information visit http://www.lookbookstores.com
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Google’s New Sitemap Protocol
The Sitemap Protocol allows you to inform search engine crawlers about URLs on your Web sites that are available for crawling. A Sitemap consists of a list of URLs and may also contain additional information about those URLs, such as when they were last modified, how frequently they change, etc.
Sitemaps are particularly beneficial when users can not reach all areas of a Web site through a browseable interface i.e. users are unable to reach certain pages or regions of a site by following links. For example, any site where certain pages are only accessible via a search form would benefit from creating a Sitemap and submitting it to search engines.This document describes the formats for Sitemap files and also explains where you should post your Sitemap files so that search engines can retrieve them.
Please note that the Sitemap Protocol supplements, but does not replace, the crawl-based mechanisms that search engines already use to discover URLs. By submitting a Sitemap (or Sitemaps) to a search engine, you will help that engine's crawlers to do a better job of crawling your site.Using this protocol does not guarantee that your Web pages will be included in search indexes. In addition, using this protocol may not influence the way your pages are ranked by a search engine.
XML Sitemap Format
The XML Sitemap Format allows you to provide a list of URLs and include additional information about those URLs in your Sitemap. This additional information includes the date the content at that URL last changed, how often that content can be expected to change and how important that URL is relative to other URLs on your site.
The XML Sitemap Format uses the following XML tags:
changefreq : how frequently the content at the URL is likely to change
lastmod : the time the content at the URL was last modified
loc : the URL location
priority : the priority of the page relative to other pages on the same site
url : this tag encapsulates the first four tags in this list
urlset : this tag encapsulates the first five tags in this list
New "Google Sitemaps" Web Page Feed Program
Today, Google has unveiled a new Google Sitemaps program allowing webmasters and site owners to feed it pages they'd like to have included in Google's web index. Participation is free. Inclusion isn't guaranteed, but Google's hoping the new system will help it better gather pages than traditional crawling alone allows. Feeds also let site owners indicate how often pages change or should be revisited.
How the new feed program will work?
Webmasters create XML files containing the URLs they want crawled, along with optional hints about the URLs such as things like when the page last changed, and the rate of change. They host the Sitemap on their server and tell us where it is. We provide an open-source tool called Sitemap Generator to assist in this process. Eventually, we are hoping webservers will natively support the protocol so there are no extra steps for webmasters. When a Sitemap changes, we support auto-notifying us so we can pick up the newest version.
For more details on Google’s sitemap Protocol visit at www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk
For more information on Books visit at www.lookbookstores.com
Sitemaps are particularly beneficial when users can not reach all areas of a Web site through a browseable interface i.e. users are unable to reach certain pages or regions of a site by following links. For example, any site where certain pages are only accessible via a search form would benefit from creating a Sitemap and submitting it to search engines.This document describes the formats for Sitemap files and also explains where you should post your Sitemap files so that search engines can retrieve them.
Please note that the Sitemap Protocol supplements, but does not replace, the crawl-based mechanisms that search engines already use to discover URLs. By submitting a Sitemap (or Sitemaps) to a search engine, you will help that engine's crawlers to do a better job of crawling your site.Using this protocol does not guarantee that your Web pages will be included in search indexes. In addition, using this protocol may not influence the way your pages are ranked by a search engine.
XML Sitemap Format
The XML Sitemap Format allows you to provide a list of URLs and include additional information about those URLs in your Sitemap. This additional information includes the date the content at that URL last changed, how often that content can be expected to change and how important that URL is relative to other URLs on your site.
The XML Sitemap Format uses the following XML tags:
changefreq : how frequently the content at the URL is likely to change
lastmod : the time the content at the URL was last modified
loc : the URL location
priority : the priority of the page relative to other pages on the same site
url : this tag encapsulates the first four tags in this list
urlset : this tag encapsulates the first five tags in this list
New "Google Sitemaps" Web Page Feed Program
Today, Google has unveiled a new Google Sitemaps program allowing webmasters and site owners to feed it pages they'd like to have included in Google's web index. Participation is free. Inclusion isn't guaranteed, but Google's hoping the new system will help it better gather pages than traditional crawling alone allows. Feeds also let site owners indicate how often pages change or should be revisited.
How the new feed program will work?
Webmasters create XML files containing the URLs they want crawled, along with optional hints about the URLs such as things like when the page last changed, and the rate of change. They host the Sitemap on their server and tell us where it is. We provide an open-source tool called Sitemap Generator to assist in this process. Eventually, we are hoping webservers will natively support the protocol so there are no extra steps for webmasters. When a Sitemap changes, we support auto-notifying us so we can pick up the newest version.
For more details on Google’s sitemap Protocol visit at www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk
For more information on Books visit at www.lookbookstores.com
Monday, January 01, 2007
Capability Maturity Model
The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is a methodology used to develop and refine an organization's software development process. The model describes a five-level evolutionary path of increasingly organized and systematically more mature processes. CMM was developed and is promoted by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), a research and development center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense. SEI was founded in 1984 to address software engineering issues and, in a broad sense, to advance software engineering methodologies. More specifically, SEI was established to optimize the process of developing,
acquiring, and maintaining heavily software-reliant systems for the DoD. Because the processes involved are equally applicable to the software industry as a whole, SEI advocates industry-wide adoption of the CMM.
The CMM is similar to ISO 9001, one of the ISO 9000 series of standards specified by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The ISO 9000 standards specify an effective quality system for manufacturing and service industries; ISO 9001 deals specifically with software development and maintenance. The main difference between the two systems lies in their respective purposes: ISO 9001 specifies a minimal acceptable quality level for software processes, while the CMM establishes a framework
for continuous process improvement and is more explicit than the ISO standard in defining the means to be employed to that end.
Levels of the CMM:
Maturity Level 1 - Initial
Maturity Level 2 - Repeatable
• Requirements Management
• Software Project Planning
• Software Project Tracking and Oversight
• Software Subcontractor Management
• Software Quality Assurance
• Software Configuration Management
Maturity Level 3 - Defined
• Organization Process Focus
• Organization Process Definition
• Training Program
• Integrated Software Management
• Software Product Engineering
• Intergroup Coordination
• Peer Reviews
Maturity Level 4 - Managed
• Quantitative process management
• Software quality management
Maturity Level 5 - Optimizing
• Defect prevention
• Technology change management
• Process change management
• Structure of CMM
• Maturity Levels
Framework of Capability Maturity Model:
A layered framework providing a progression to the discipline needed to engage in continuous improvement (It is important to state here that an organization develops the ability to assess the impact of a new practice, technology, or tool on their activity. Hence it is not a matter of adopting these; rather it is a matter of determining how innovative efforts influence existing practices. This really empowers projects, teams, and organizations by giving them the foundation to support reasoned choice.)
Key Process Areas
Key process area (KPA) identifies a cluster of related activities that, when performed collectively, achieve a set of goals considered important.
Goals
The goals of a key process area summarize the states that must exist for that key process area to have been implemented in an effective and lasting way. The extent to which the goals have been accomplished is an indicator of how much capability the organization has established at that maturity level. The goals signify the scope, boundaries, and intent of each key process area.
Common Features
Common features include practices that implement and institutionalize a key process area. These five types of common features include: Commitment to Perform, Ability to Perform, Activities Performed, Measurement and Analysis, and Verifying Implementation.
Key Practices
The key practices describe the elements of infrastructure and practice that contribute most effectively to the implementation and institutionalization of the key process areas.
For more details on Capability Maturity Model visit at www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk
For information on Books visit: www.lookbookstores.com
acquiring, and maintaining heavily software-reliant systems for the DoD. Because the processes involved are equally applicable to the software industry as a whole, SEI advocates industry-wide adoption of the CMM.
The CMM is similar to ISO 9001, one of the ISO 9000 series of standards specified by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The ISO 9000 standards specify an effective quality system for manufacturing and service industries; ISO 9001 deals specifically with software development and maintenance. The main difference between the two systems lies in their respective purposes: ISO 9001 specifies a minimal acceptable quality level for software processes, while the CMM establishes a framework
for continuous process improvement and is more explicit than the ISO standard in defining the means to be employed to that end.
Levels of the CMM:
Maturity Level 1 - Initial
Maturity Level 2 - Repeatable
• Requirements Management
• Software Project Planning
• Software Project Tracking and Oversight
• Software Subcontractor Management
• Software Quality Assurance
• Software Configuration Management
Maturity Level 3 - Defined
• Organization Process Focus
• Organization Process Definition
• Training Program
• Integrated Software Management
• Software Product Engineering
• Intergroup Coordination
• Peer Reviews
Maturity Level 4 - Managed
• Quantitative process management
• Software quality management
Maturity Level 5 - Optimizing
• Defect prevention
• Technology change management
• Process change management
• Structure of CMM
• Maturity Levels
Framework of Capability Maturity Model:
A layered framework providing a progression to the discipline needed to engage in continuous improvement (It is important to state here that an organization develops the ability to assess the impact of a new practice, technology, or tool on their activity. Hence it is not a matter of adopting these; rather it is a matter of determining how innovative efforts influence existing practices. This really empowers projects, teams, and organizations by giving them the foundation to support reasoned choice.)
Key Process Areas
Key process area (KPA) identifies a cluster of related activities that, when performed collectively, achieve a set of goals considered important.
Goals
The goals of a key process area summarize the states that must exist for that key process area to have been implemented in an effective and lasting way. The extent to which the goals have been accomplished is an indicator of how much capability the organization has established at that maturity level. The goals signify the scope, boundaries, and intent of each key process area.
Common Features
Common features include practices that implement and institutionalize a key process area. These five types of common features include: Commitment to Perform, Ability to Perform, Activities Performed, Measurement and Analysis, and Verifying Implementation.
Key Practices
The key practices describe the elements of infrastructure and practice that contribute most effectively to the implementation and institutionalization of the key process areas.
For more details on Capability Maturity Model visit at www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk
For information on Books visit: www.lookbookstores.com
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a lightweight XML format designed for sharing headlines and other Web content. Think of it as a distributable "What's New" for your site. Originated by UserLand in 1997 and subsequently used by Netscape to fill channels for Netcenter, RSS has evolved into a popular means of sharing content between sites. RSS solves myriad problems webmasters commonly face, such as increasing traffic, and gathering and distributing news. RSS can also be the basis for additional content distribution services.
RSS is the hottest thing in Web communication. It powers many popular applications such as weblogs, knowledge management networks, and news syndication.
Weblogging, a term coined by Jorn Barger in December 1997, is one of the most popular and fast growing applications of RSS. A blog is someone's personal dated 'log' frequently updated with new information about a particular subject or range of subjects.RSS is changing the world of publishing news and searching for news.
RSS File Format:
RSS defines an XML grammar (a set of HTML-like tags) for sharing news. Each RSS text file contains both static information about your site, plus dynamic information about your new stories, all surrounded by matching start and end tags.
Each story is defined by an item tag, which contains a headline TITLE, URL, and DESCRIPTION.
RSS Contains:
• Blogs Feed
Many blogs are catalogued in an RSS feed, with each blog entry summarized as a feed item. This makes it easy for visitors to scan blog posts for items of interest.
• Article Feed
Articles are often placed into feeds to alert readers when new articles and content are available. The feed entry is typically an article summary or introduction. Readers can then ascertain if the article is of interest and read further.
• Forum Feed
Many forums now have add-ons that allow participants to receive forum posts via RSS. The RSS feeds often will show the latest discussion topics; if users are interested they simply click to enter the forum to participate in the discussion. As the topic is updated they will see new entries in the RSS feed.
• Schedule Feed
Schools, clubs and organizations will often use feeds to communicate meeting times, places and events that might be occurring. The RSS feeds are often used to publicize events, notify the community of schedule changes or meeting agendas.
• Discounts / Specials Feed
Retail and online stores have begun using RSS feeds to deliver their latest specials and discounted offers. Some online retailers have taken this a step further, allowing user to create their own feeds based on keywords or phrases.
RSS feeds can be used by realtors to communicate the time and location for open houses, announce new property listings or promote decreased mortgage rates. Content feeds can also be used by universities to communicate sports scores or event schedules. Computer service professionals can create feeds to notify clients of potential security breaches, virus risks or outbreaks. Ultimately, RSS is molded to meet the communication needs of many sectors. Consider how RSS can benefit your business and supplement your communication needs.
For more details on RSS visit us at www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk
For Books information : www.lookbookstores.com
RSS is the hottest thing in Web communication. It powers many popular applications such as weblogs, knowledge management networks, and news syndication.
Weblogging, a term coined by Jorn Barger in December 1997, is one of the most popular and fast growing applications of RSS. A blog is someone's personal dated 'log' frequently updated with new information about a particular subject or range of subjects.RSS is changing the world of publishing news and searching for news.
RSS File Format:
RSS defines an XML grammar (a set of HTML-like tags) for sharing news. Each RSS text file contains both static information about your site, plus dynamic information about your new stories, all surrounded by matching start and end tags.
Each story is defined by an item tag, which contains a headline TITLE, URL, and DESCRIPTION.
RSS Contains:
• Blogs Feed
Many blogs are catalogued in an RSS feed, with each blog entry summarized as a feed item. This makes it easy for visitors to scan blog posts for items of interest.
• Article Feed
Articles are often placed into feeds to alert readers when new articles and content are available. The feed entry is typically an article summary or introduction. Readers can then ascertain if the article is of interest and read further.
• Forum Feed
Many forums now have add-ons that allow participants to receive forum posts via RSS. The RSS feeds often will show the latest discussion topics; if users are interested they simply click to enter the forum to participate in the discussion. As the topic is updated they will see new entries in the RSS feed.
• Schedule Feed
Schools, clubs and organizations will often use feeds to communicate meeting times, places and events that might be occurring. The RSS feeds are often used to publicize events, notify the community of schedule changes or meeting agendas.
• Discounts / Specials Feed
Retail and online stores have begun using RSS feeds to deliver their latest specials and discounted offers. Some online retailers have taken this a step further, allowing user to create their own feeds based on keywords or phrases.
RSS feeds can be used by realtors to communicate the time and location for open houses, announce new property listings or promote decreased mortgage rates. Content feeds can also be used by universities to communicate sports scores or event schedules. Computer service professionals can create feeds to notify clients of potential security breaches, virus risks or outbreaks. Ultimately, RSS is molded to meet the communication needs of many sectors. Consider how RSS can benefit your business and supplement your communication needs.
For more details on RSS visit us at www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk
For Books information : www.lookbookstores.com
Monday, December 18, 2006
What is Anchor Text Optimization?
Anchor Text:
Anchor text is the visible text in a hyperlink. Anchor text is weighted (ranked) highly in search engine algorithms, because the linked text is usually relevant to the landing page. The objective of search engines is to provide highly relevant search results; this is where anchor text helps, as the tendency is, more often than not, to hyperlink words relevant to the landing page. Anchor text is the hyperlinked text found on a Web page which link site users to detailed page that contains full information about the linking page.
Anchor text optimization can be done externally and internally:
The inclusion of important keywords in the anchor text can make a big difference in the final ranking of your site pages. All search engines that matter, give significant weight to the anchor text on your pages. In fact Google even has a special operator: allinanchor: keyword', which picks up text only from within the anchor text of indexed pages.
Benefits of Anchor Text Optimization:
Anchor text is the visible text in a hyperlink. Anchor text is weighted (ranked) highly in search engine algorithms, because the linked text is usually relevant to the landing page. The objective of search engines is to provide highly relevant search results; this is where anchor text helps, as the tendency is, more often than not, to hyperlink words relevant to the landing page. Anchor text is the hyperlinked text found on a Web page which link site users to detailed page that contains full information about the linking page.
Anchor text optimization can be done externally and internally:
- External anchor text involves getting inbound links form other websites, directories, forums and blogs using necessary keywords as anchor text.
- Internal optimization of anchor text can be done by using specific keywords on the links that link the various pages within the website.
If Anchor text is used wisely it can help a website rank high in search engine. One can optimize a Web page with targeted keywords in the form of anchor text and link it with various related pages within the site and thus, increase the relevancy of a web page in search engine ranking.
The inclusion of important keywords in the anchor text can make a big difference in the final ranking of your site pages. All search engines that matter, give significant weight to the anchor text on your pages. In fact Google even has a special operator: allinanchor: keyword', which picks up text only from within the anchor text of indexed pages.
Benefits of Anchor Text Optimization:
- Proper use of anchor text can help you show the relevancy of your web pages to key search engines to help rank for desired keywords. You can use this knowledge to build the relevance of each page of your site, through anchor text optimization containing important keywords, relevant to the theme of such pages, from other pages of your site.
- Inclusion of keywords in the anchor text helps your website achieve higher ranks in all search engines, especially in Google, MSN, and Yahoo. All search engines for that matter, give significant weight to the anchor text on your pages. Google gives heavy weight to anchor text and thus improves the ranking. However, inclusion of important keywords will make a big difference to the existing website by improving its ranking position in search engines.
- Want to optimize your anchor text for higher ranking of your website? At LSF Network exploit all resources to help you reap benefits of anchor text optimization. Request a free quote now to see how LSF Network can help you optimize anchor text and improve Search Engine Rankings of your web site.
Anchor text optimization is an important off-page optimization factor as it tells search engine what the linking page is all about. Among the search engines Google gives more weight to anchor text and Google Page rank being the targeted issue, Anchor text optimization becomes an unavoidable subject.
Find more about Anchor Text Optimization visit at www.halfvalue.com
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Now register your Web Address through Google
GOOGLE INC. will join the crowded field of services registering website addresses in a move aimed at encouraging more usage of the online search leader's free software products.
The Mountain View-based company is offering its latest service in a partnership with GoDaddy.com and eNom, two of the many administrators that help websites officially register their names under domains like .com and .net.
Google's service will charge a $10 (euro7.60) annual fee and only handle addresses ending in four suffixes — .com, .net, .biz and .info. There are more than 250 other suffixes in the Internet's master directories.
Websites that register their domains through Google will be automatically set up to work with several other company products, including e-mail, calendaring and instant messaging. The configuration won't prevent the websites from using services offered by Google rivals like Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Time Warn er Inc.'s AOL. Meanwhile, Google and Baidu.com Inc., its biggest rival in China, are exploring options to expand their online video services in the world's fourth largest economy.
Industry sources told Reuters this week that the two Internet search leaders have independently had early discussions with some local video websites for potential business cooperation or possible acquisitions. However, neither Internet giant has secured a specific target yet, said the sources with knowledge of the situation.
The moves come after Google last month closed its $1.65 billion acquisition of top online video-sharing site YouTube. Baidu also launched its own Chinese-language video Web channel on a trial basis a few months ago.
“Google and Baidu have the same idea of expanding their online video business in China, though they are still studying a variety of business proposals,” said an Internet industry source close to the two Web sites in China.
For more details on Google visit us at www.halfvalue.com Our Partner sites: www.halfvalue.co.uk and www.lookbookstores.com
The Mountain View-based company is offering its latest service in a partnership with GoDaddy.com and eNom, two of the many administrators that help websites officially register their names under domains like .com and .net.
Google's service will charge a $10 (euro7.60) annual fee and only handle addresses ending in four suffixes — .com, .net, .biz and .info. There are more than 250 other suffixes in the Internet's master directories.
Websites that register their domains through Google will be automatically set up to work with several other company products, including e-mail, calendaring and instant messaging. The configuration won't prevent the websites from using services offered by Google rivals like Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Time Warn er Inc.'s AOL. Meanwhile, Google and Baidu.com Inc., its biggest rival in China, are exploring options to expand their online video services in the world's fourth largest economy.
Industry sources told Reuters this week that the two Internet search leaders have independently had early discussions with some local video websites for potential business cooperation or possible acquisitions. However, neither Internet giant has secured a specific target yet, said the sources with knowledge of the situation.
The moves come after Google last month closed its $1.65 billion acquisition of top online video-sharing site YouTube. Baidu also launched its own Chinese-language video Web channel on a trial basis a few months ago.
“Google and Baidu have the same idea of expanding their online video business in China, though they are still studying a variety of business proposals,” said an Internet industry source close to the two Web sites in China.
For more details on Google visit us at www.halfvalue.com Our Partner sites: www.halfvalue.co.uk and www.lookbookstores.com
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
The usability of website and Search Engine Optimization
My focus is on how website usability goes hand in hand with good SEO. Usability science, or human factors, pursues the quest for human-computer interface designs that are easy to use. While Usability Day is about technology as a whole, and how that technology makes our lives easier, this article will turn its attention to website usability, and how it can be important in search engine optimization.
Usability Testing
Web site usability focuses on what happens after users arrive on a Web site. When usability professionals perform formative tests on Web page prototypes, the initial assumption is users have already landed on a specific page. Usability professionals observe what people do once they arrive on that page. Do they take the desired call to action? Do they understand what page they're viewing? The focus of formative usability testing is to create a user-friendly interface. It isn't how to encourage people to visit your Web site. That responsibility is usually relegated to the marketing department.
Search Engine optimization:
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of methods aimed at improving the ranking of a website in search engine listings, and could be considered a subset of search engine marketing. The term SEO also refers to "search engine optimizers," an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients' sites.
For more information on Usability of Website and SEO visit at http://www.halfvalue.com and http://www.halfvalue.co.uk.
- Website usability deals with ease of navigation, how colors work together to enhance a user experience without hurting the eyes, the size of fonts, and design. But some of the concepts of website usability have a direct effect on how search engines crawl your website, and index it accordingly.
Usability Testing
Web site usability focuses on what happens after users arrive on a Web site. When usability professionals perform formative tests on Web page prototypes, the initial assumption is users have already landed on a specific page. Usability professionals observe what people do once they arrive on that page. Do they take the desired call to action? Do they understand what page they're viewing? The focus of formative usability testing is to create a user-friendly interface. It isn't how to encourage people to visit your Web site. That responsibility is usually relegated to the marketing department.
Search Engine optimization:
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of methods aimed at improving the ranking of a website in search engine listings, and could be considered a subset of search engine marketing. The term SEO also refers to "search engine optimizers," an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients' sites.
- It is the process of analyzing and optimizing your web site's design in order to ensure its indexing and increase its positioning in search engines.
- The goal of this analysis and optimization is to make your web site and its content more attractive, relevant and visible to search engines and web searchers.
- It would be terrible to have a beautifully designed web site with excellent written content, yet receive little traffic simply because your site cannot be easily found, if at all, by using a major search engine.
- We will provide you with our expert advice on your site's architecture in order to make it search engine friendly.
- A higher search ranking is what many website owners dream of. What they don't realise is that by optimising their site for the search engines, if done correctly, they can also optimise it for their site visitors.
- Ultimately this means more people finding your website and increased sales and lead generation. But are search engine optimization and usability compatible? Aren’t there trades-offs that need to be made between giving search engines what they want and giving people what they want? Read on and find out.
For more information on Usability of Website and SEO visit at http://www.halfvalue.com and http://www.halfvalue.co.uk.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
What is the Difference Between http and https?
http is hyper text transfer protocol which is responsible for transmitting and receiving information across the Internet where as https is secure http, which is used exchanging confidential information with a server, which needs to be secured in order to prevent unauthorized access.
HTTP is Hyper Text Transport Protocol and is transmitted over the wire via PORT 80(TCP). You normally use HTTP when you are browsing the web, it’s not secure, and so someone can eavesdrop on the conversation between your computer and the web server. HTTP can support the client asking for a particular file to be sent only if it has been updated after a certain date and time. This would be used if the client has already retrieved a copy of a file by that name from that server, but wants to check to see if it has been updated since then. The server responds either with the updated file, with a message to say the file has not been changed, or with a message that the file no longer exists.
HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure Socket Layer or HTTP over SSL) is a Web protocol developed by Netscape and built into its browser that encrypts and decrypts user page requests as well as the pages that are returned by the Web server. HTTPS is really just the use of Netscape's Secure Socket Layer (SSL) as a sub layer under its regular HTTP application layering. (HTTPS uses port 443 instead of HTTP port 80 in its interactions with the lower layer, TCP/IP.) SSL uses a 40-bit key size for the RC4 stream encryption algorithm, new-age browsers use 128-bit key size which is more secure than the former, it is considered an adequate degree of encryption for commercial exchange. HTTPS is normally used in login pages, shopping/commercial sites.
How it Work
Https is not a separate protocol, but refers to the combination of a normal HTTP interaction over an encrypted Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) transport mechanism. This ensures reasonable protection from eavesdroppers and (provided it is implemented properly and the top level certification authorities do their job properly) man-in-the-middle attacks.
The default TCP port of an https: URL is 443 (for unsecured HTTP, the default is 80).To prepare a web-server for accepting https connections the administrator must create a public key certificate for the web-server. These certificates can be created for Linux based servers with tools such as Open SSL's ssl or SuSE's gensslcert. This certificate must be signed by a certificate authority of one form or another, who certifies that the certificate holder is who they say they are. Web browsers are generally distributed with the signing certificates of major certificate authorities, so that they can verify certificates signed by them.
Main Features
- Dedicated to HTTP protocol, show a wide range of HTTP related information, request and response header, content, sent and received cookies, stream, query strings, post form values...
- Request builder, Users can handcraft an HTTP request by using the HTTP Request Builder, or they can use a drag-and-drop operation to move an existing request from the session grid to the Request Builder to execute it again.
- Hex Viewer allows users to view and edit binary files in hexadecimal and textual format.
- Displays Winsock traffic originating from Java applets and JavaScript embedded in a Web page, displays Winsock traffic originating from ActiveX controls and COM objects instanced by an application (Stand-alone Edition Only)
- "Before request and after response" browser cache comparisons
- Support HTTPS, show you unencrypted data sent over HTTPS / SSL connections, HTTPS is available if the application uses the Microsoft WININET API (ex. ie, outlook) or Mozilla NSS API. (ex. firefox, thunderbird)
- Selectively clear caches and cookies which are related with HTTP/HTTPS session.
For more information on http and https visit at http://www.halfvalue.com and http://www.halfvalue.co.uk websites.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Best way to Search the Internet
The Internet is the worldwide, publicly accessible network of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a "network of networks" that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which together carry various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer, and the interlinked Web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web.
Contrary to some common usage, the Internet and the World Wide Web are not synonymous: the Internet is a collection of interconnected computer networks, linked by copper wires, fiber-optic cables, wireless connections, etc.; the Web is a collection of interconnected documents, linked by hyperlinks and URLs. The World Wide Web is accessible via the Internet, as are many other services including e-mail and file sharing.
Uses:
The internet is an amazing resource that provides quick access to all sorts of information. The amount of information, however, is so vast that being able to find what you are looking for is a daunting task. Search engines are the answer. Our favorite search engine is Google because it does an remarkable job of listing relevant search results.
Tips & Suggestions:
Although Google is powerful and easy to use, here are some tips you can use to get the best results:
• Don't get stuck on one search term or phrase; if your first search does not give you the type of results you are looking for, try different words or different phrases.
• Putting quotation marks around a phrase in the search box requires all resulting pages to include that exact phrase to be located somewhere on the page.
• Keep in mind that most search engines work with AND as the default operator; this means that any words you enter in the search box must exist on the resulting pages (unless you put a hyphen before a word).
• Including a hyphen before a word means that pages that include that word will be omitted from the search results.
• The order of the words you enter into the search box affects results, so try to enter the most important word first.
• If you enter dictionary words, your search terms are listed in the bar below the search box on the results page, and clicking on the word sends you to the definition of the word itself.
• You can enter math equations such as 27/3 and Google will provide the answer.
• You can enter a unit conversion such as 33 Celsius in Fahrenheit and Google will provide the answer
Perhaps the best tip to getting the most out of the internet, is to realize that it is there and to realize the breadth of information that is available. Before the rise of the internet, people were used to going on with their lives without plenty of relevant information.
You would go to the movies without knowing where you could find parking, or you would have a discussion about India without knowing the population. Once you realize that there are answers to virtually any question you could possibly have, you can start thinking about the gaps in your knowledge and using the internet to fill them. You can start to focus on the things you don't know about a particular subject, and instead of proceeding with ignorance, you can learn and explore.
For more details on Search the Internet visit us at http://www.halfvalue.com and http://www.halfvalue.co.uk .
Contrary to some common usage, the Internet and the World Wide Web are not synonymous: the Internet is a collection of interconnected computer networks, linked by copper wires, fiber-optic cables, wireless connections, etc.; the Web is a collection of interconnected documents, linked by hyperlinks and URLs. The World Wide Web is accessible via the Internet, as are many other services including e-mail and file sharing.
Uses:
The internet is an amazing resource that provides quick access to all sorts of information. The amount of information, however, is so vast that being able to find what you are looking for is a daunting task. Search engines are the answer. Our favorite search engine is Google because it does an remarkable job of listing relevant search results.
Tips & Suggestions:
Although Google is powerful and easy to use, here are some tips you can use to get the best results:
• Don't get stuck on one search term or phrase; if your first search does not give you the type of results you are looking for, try different words or different phrases.
• Putting quotation marks around a phrase in the search box requires all resulting pages to include that exact phrase to be located somewhere on the page.
• Keep in mind that most search engines work with AND as the default operator; this means that any words you enter in the search box must exist on the resulting pages (unless you put a hyphen before a word).
• Including a hyphen before a word means that pages that include that word will be omitted from the search results.
• The order of the words you enter into the search box affects results, so try to enter the most important word first.
• If you enter dictionary words, your search terms are listed in the bar below the search box on the results page, and clicking on the word sends you to the definition of the word itself.
• You can enter math equations such as 27/3 and Google will provide the answer.
• You can enter a unit conversion such as 33 Celsius in Fahrenheit and Google will provide the answer
Perhaps the best tip to getting the most out of the internet, is to realize that it is there and to realize the breadth of information that is available. Before the rise of the internet, people were used to going on with their lives without plenty of relevant information.
You would go to the movies without knowing where you could find parking, or you would have a discussion about India without knowing the population. Once you realize that there are answers to virtually any question you could possibly have, you can start thinking about the gaps in your knowledge and using the internet to fill them. You can start to focus on the things you don't know about a particular subject, and instead of proceeding with ignorance, you can learn and explore.
For more details on Search the Internet visit us at http://www.halfvalue.com and http://www.halfvalue.co.uk .
Friday, October 20, 2006
What is Google Blog Search Pinging Service?
About Google Blog Search Pinging Service
Google just recently launched the Google Blog Search Pinging Service, which allows individual bloggers to inform Google of their content changes. This new service enables for faster inclusion in Google Blog Search.
The Google Blog Search Pinging Service API allows users who frequently update their blog to programmatically inform Google Blog Search about changes to their blogs. Blogging provider admins can also use this API to notify Google of changes to blogs on their platform(s). To set up automated pinging of Google Blog Search, create either an XML-RPC Client or a REST Client which sends requests as noted below. It doesn't matter which method you choose for notification; both are handled in the same way. We all know that search engines love fresh content; that's why many of us have started blogs and encourage our clients to have blogs on their web sites. Now Google has made it easier to let it know when you've added fresh content to your blog. It's called the Google Blog Search Pinging Service, and there are a lot of good reasons to use it.
Google Blog Search Adds Ping Service
Google has added a pinging service to its Blog Search offering. Dubbed Google Blog Search Pinging Service, now bloggers and blog providers can now instantly inform Google Blog Search of new posts and content changes. Besides its own new Pinging Service, Google Blog Search uses other ping services to update its index as to when blogs are updated. Sure, manual pinging is very 2003/2004 as most blog software pings automatically, but by using the Google Blog Search Pinging Service, bloggers will no longer have to wait for Google to crawl their blogs in order for new posts to show up in the Google Blog Search index. By doing so, blogs get updated faster in Google Blog Search and Google can consolidate its blog crawling more efficiently. Blogs can be manually submitted to the Google Pinging Service and most blog providers should soon start pinging Google automatically.
Good reason to use it
For one thing, it's not just for Google. To quote from the FAQ, "These updates are then published and shared with other search engines to allow them to discover the changes to your weblogs."
It's also a great way to add your blog to the list of blogs that Google Blog Search crawls and indexes. Incidentally, if you run a blogging service, you might want to provide this service to your blog writers.
In the FAQ, Google gives a URL to let you manually ping the service. It's a one-time notification, however, so you'll need to resubmit every time your blog content is updated. You might find it much easier to use the API (also included in the FAQ) to automatically inform Google of every update to your blog.
Be patient when checking Google Blog Search for your blog updates though; the process is automated, but a number of factors can delay your blog's inclusion.
If you're really impatient, Google does publish the last five minutes of ping activity for its Blog Search as an XML file.
Should you use the pinging service if you already use Google Sitemaps? Google is a little unclear on this point. If you're a blogging service provider, it's a good idea.
What search operators are supported?
All of the standard Google Search operators are supported in Blog Search. These include:
Link:
Site:
Intitle:
Additionally, Blog Search supports the following new operators of its own:
Inblogtitle:
Inposttitle:
Inpostauthor:
Blogurl:
The Google Blog Search Pinging Service is for bloggers who wish to have their blogs crawled by Google and have them updated in Google Blog Search. It is also for blogging services that wish to provide the service to their blog writers. Google currently monitors other pinging services and will continue to do that. However pinging Google directly will potentially reduce latency when crawling your blogs.
For more information on Google Blog Search Pinging Service visit our http://www.halfvalue.com and http://www.halfvalue.co.uk websites.
Google just recently launched the Google Blog Search Pinging Service, which allows individual bloggers to inform Google of their content changes. This new service enables for faster inclusion in Google Blog Search.
The Google Blog Search Pinging Service API allows users who frequently update their blog to programmatically inform Google Blog Search about changes to their blogs. Blogging provider admins can also use this API to notify Google of changes to blogs on their platform(s). To set up automated pinging of Google Blog Search, create either an XML-RPC Client or a REST Client which sends requests as noted below. It doesn't matter which method you choose for notification; both are handled in the same way. We all know that search engines love fresh content; that's why many of us have started blogs and encourage our clients to have blogs on their web sites. Now Google has made it easier to let it know when you've added fresh content to your blog. It's called the Google Blog Search Pinging Service, and there are a lot of good reasons to use it.
Google Blog Search Adds Ping Service
Google has added a pinging service to its Blog Search offering. Dubbed Google Blog Search Pinging Service, now bloggers and blog providers can now instantly inform Google Blog Search of new posts and content changes. Besides its own new Pinging Service, Google Blog Search uses other ping services to update its index as to when blogs are updated. Sure, manual pinging is very 2003/2004 as most blog software pings automatically, but by using the Google Blog Search Pinging Service, bloggers will no longer have to wait for Google to crawl their blogs in order for new posts to show up in the Google Blog Search index. By doing so, blogs get updated faster in Google Blog Search and Google can consolidate its blog crawling more efficiently. Blogs can be manually submitted to the Google Pinging Service and most blog providers should soon start pinging Google automatically.
Good reason to use it
For one thing, it's not just for Google. To quote from the FAQ, "These updates are then published and shared with other search engines to allow them to discover the changes to your weblogs."
It's also a great way to add your blog to the list of blogs that Google Blog Search crawls and indexes. Incidentally, if you run a blogging service, you might want to provide this service to your blog writers.
In the FAQ, Google gives a URL to let you manually ping the service. It's a one-time notification, however, so you'll need to resubmit every time your blog content is updated. You might find it much easier to use the API (also included in the FAQ) to automatically inform Google of every update to your blog.
Be patient when checking Google Blog Search for your blog updates though; the process is automated, but a number of factors can delay your blog's inclusion.
If you're really impatient, Google does publish the last five minutes of ping activity for its Blog Search as an XML file.
Should you use the pinging service if you already use Google Sitemaps? Google is a little unclear on this point. If you're a blogging service provider, it's a good idea.
What search operators are supported?
All of the standard Google Search operators are supported in Blog Search. These include:
Link:
Site:
Intitle:
Additionally, Blog Search supports the following new operators of its own:
Inblogtitle:
Inposttitle:
Inpostauthor:
Blogurl:
The Google Blog Search Pinging Service is for bloggers who wish to have their blogs crawled by Google and have them updated in Google Blog Search. It is also for blogging services that wish to provide the service to their blog writers. Google currently monitors other pinging services and will continue to do that. However pinging Google directly will potentially reduce latency when crawling your blogs.
For more information on Google Blog Search Pinging Service visit our http://www.halfvalue.com and http://www.halfvalue.co.uk websites.
How to Increase Your Traffic with Web Directories?
A web directory is a directory on the World Wide Web. It specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links. Web directories often allow site owners to submit their site for inclusion, and have human editors review submissions for fitness.
A web directory is not a search engine, and does not display web pages based on keywords, instead listing web pages in convenient categories and subcategories. The categorization is usually based on the whole website, not one page or a set of keywords, and there is often a limit of one or two categories for site inclusion.
Web traffic is the amount of data sent and received by visitors to a web site. It is a large portion of Internet traffic. This is determined by the number of visitors and the number of pages they visit. Sites monitor the incoming and outgoing traffic to see which parts or pages of their site are popular. There are many ways to monitor this traffic and the gathered data is used to help structure sites, highlight security problems or indicate a potential lack of bandwidth – not all web traffic is welcome.
Increasing Traffic through Web Directories:
• Most directories attract considerable traffic. Surfers access specific categories of interest to them and open websites within the category. By default, the website submitted by you will get “click through traffic.”
• Directories are not search engines; directories do not send out spiders that index individual pages and nothing is added to the directory autonomously. Directories rely on websites being submitted to them; then a team of actual people looks at the site to categorize it and check its quality and relevancy before adding it to the directory in the appropriate categories and sub-categories.
• Web pages in directories are not found using keywords (although some directory sites, like Yahoo! and DMOZ will let you search the directory and Yahoo! also proves directory listings at the top of its search results pages), but by drilling down through relevant categories until they find the category that the site resides in.
• Web traffic can be increased by placement of a site in search engines and purchase of advertising, including bulk e-mail, pop-up ads, in-page advertisements and traffic generators. Web traffic can also be increased by purchasing non-internet based advertising.
• If a web page is not listed in the first pages of any search, the odds of someone finding it diminishes greatly (especially if there is other competition on the first page). Very few people go past the first page, and the percentage that go to subsequent pages is substantially lower. Consequently, getting proper placement on search engines is as important as the web site itself.
• There are a number of other things you can do to increase your web traffic, including but not limited to building link popularity, webrings, offering free e-books or articles and classified advertisements.
One of the best known and biggest directories in existence is probably the Open Directory Project (ODP), sometimes (most times in fact) known as DMOZ. This directory has been around for years and now lists over four million organized and categorized web sites. DMOZ has also been around for a very long time (in web terms). This directory is maintained by a huge number of volunteer editors that add new URLs of submitted sites to the relevant categories.
Many other directories on the Internet take content from the ODP, including Google, so getting your site into it can reap huge benefits as your URL will be shared with many other directories, which means that your site will have many more inbound links and therefore greater link popularity.
For more details on Web traffic Visit us at http://www.halfvalue.com and http://www.halfvalue.co.uk .
A web directory is not a search engine, and does not display web pages based on keywords, instead listing web pages in convenient categories and subcategories. The categorization is usually based on the whole website, not one page or a set of keywords, and there is often a limit of one or two categories for site inclusion.
Web traffic is the amount of data sent and received by visitors to a web site. It is a large portion of Internet traffic. This is determined by the number of visitors and the number of pages they visit. Sites monitor the incoming and outgoing traffic to see which parts or pages of their site are popular. There are many ways to monitor this traffic and the gathered data is used to help structure sites, highlight security problems or indicate a potential lack of bandwidth – not all web traffic is welcome.
Increasing Traffic through Web Directories:
• Most directories attract considerable traffic. Surfers access specific categories of interest to them and open websites within the category. By default, the website submitted by you will get “click through traffic.”
• Directories are not search engines; directories do not send out spiders that index individual pages and nothing is added to the directory autonomously. Directories rely on websites being submitted to them; then a team of actual people looks at the site to categorize it and check its quality and relevancy before adding it to the directory in the appropriate categories and sub-categories.
• Web pages in directories are not found using keywords (although some directory sites, like Yahoo! and DMOZ will let you search the directory and Yahoo! also proves directory listings at the top of its search results pages), but by drilling down through relevant categories until they find the category that the site resides in.
• Web traffic can be increased by placement of a site in search engines and purchase of advertising, including bulk e-mail, pop-up ads, in-page advertisements and traffic generators. Web traffic can also be increased by purchasing non-internet based advertising.
• If a web page is not listed in the first pages of any search, the odds of someone finding it diminishes greatly (especially if there is other competition on the first page). Very few people go past the first page, and the percentage that go to subsequent pages is substantially lower. Consequently, getting proper placement on search engines is as important as the web site itself.
• There are a number of other things you can do to increase your web traffic, including but not limited to building link popularity, webrings, offering free e-books or articles and classified advertisements.
One of the best known and biggest directories in existence is probably the Open Directory Project (ODP), sometimes (most times in fact) known as DMOZ. This directory has been around for years and now lists over four million organized and categorized web sites. DMOZ has also been around for a very long time (in web terms). This directory is maintained by a huge number of volunteer editors that add new URLs of submitted sites to the relevant categories.
Many other directories on the Internet take content from the ODP, including Google, so getting your site into it can reap huge benefits as your URL will be shared with many other directories, which means that your site will have many more inbound links and therefore greater link popularity.
For more details on Web traffic Visit us at http://www.halfvalue.com and http://www.halfvalue.co.uk .
Thursday, October 12, 2006
What are eight magical SEO techniques?
I know most of you will be surprised to read the title of this article. Actually this is what search engine optimization is all about. There are a few points which every search engine optimization engineer should remember. Going through this will not only get you a better SERP's ranking but also will increase your Google PR.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is very important to websites. If you rank high in search engines, your website are shown to a huge number of target users. To start with, you have to pick a list of target keywords. Try the overtones keyword tool provided by www.SEOChat.com
1. Submit to as many quality directories, article sites and Press Releases as possible like this site <<>>. While doing so the most important factor to remember is that all these should have a unique content and anchor text. As this is what I am using for several years successfully and which I am promoting as "8 magical SEO Technique
2. Many people do submit articles to various sites and think there job is over. But if you really want your article to make headlines, you should make it as unique as possible like the title above which is "8 magical SEO techniques
3. Getting Link backs: Most SEO's think the more the link backs the better the PR and SERP's which is one of the biggest rumors going around in the world of SEO.
4. Don't place common anchor text on hundred's and thousands of sites as these can be identified by Search engines as link spam or a Black hat technique.
5. Avoid Link Farms: Avoid sites which offer thousands of links instantly by placing a folder on your site. This is one of the worst methods of getting link backs. While submitting to directories, have a close look at the PR and the quality of the back link.
6. Make use of all tags in your pages like title, description, keywords, header 1, header 2, alt of images by focusing on 10 main keywords for optimization.
7. Install a sitemap script for your website if it has thousands of pages and set a corn to update it daily if you wish search engine's to crawl your site regularly. You can find many such scripts on the internet today.
8. The more your websites content is unique the more chances are that it will rank at the top. So place your website content with some unbelievable words like for example - thought provoking content.
What DOES Work?
So after I’ve dashed your dreams, the least I can do is give you some insight into how write SEO copy. I don’t do any or all of these in any particular order. I don’t do them all every time I write. I am NOT saying that you should do all of these things every time you write.
For more information on SEO Techniques visit at http://www.halfvalue.com and http://www.halfvalue.co.uk websites.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is very important to websites. If you rank high in search engines, your website are shown to a huge number of target users. To start with, you have to pick a list of target keywords. Try the overtones keyword tool provided by www.SEOChat.com
1. Submit to as many quality directories, article sites and Press Releases as possible like this site <<>>. While doing so the most important factor to remember is that all these should have a unique content and anchor text. As this is what I am using for several years successfully and which I am promoting as "8 magical SEO Technique
2. Many people do submit articles to various sites and think there job is over. But if you really want your article to make headlines, you should make it as unique as possible like the title above which is "8 magical SEO techniques
3. Getting Link backs: Most SEO's think the more the link backs the better the PR and SERP's which is one of the biggest rumors going around in the world of SEO.
4. Don't place common anchor text on hundred's and thousands of sites as these can be identified by Search engines as link spam or a Black hat technique.
5. Avoid Link Farms: Avoid sites which offer thousands of links instantly by placing a folder on your site. This is one of the worst methods of getting link backs. While submitting to directories, have a close look at the PR and the quality of the back link.
6. Make use of all tags in your pages like title, description, keywords, header 1, header 2, alt of images by focusing on 10 main keywords for optimization.
7. Install a sitemap script for your website if it has thousands of pages and set a corn to update it daily if you wish search engine's to crawl your site regularly. You can find many such scripts on the internet today.
8. The more your websites content is unique the more chances are that it will rank at the top. So place your website content with some unbelievable words like for example - thought provoking content.
What DOES Work?
So after I’ve dashed your dreams, the least I can do is give you some insight into how write SEO copy. I don’t do any or all of these in any particular order. I don’t do them all every time I write. I am NOT saying that you should do all of these things every time you write.
For more information on SEO Techniques visit at http://www.halfvalue.com and http://www.halfvalue.co.uk websites.
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