Previous ci-Insider News
Winter 2005
Sticky Sites
RSS
Website Traffic Analysis
Bots and Botnets
Google Lays Down the Law
Summer 2005
ICE your Mobile Phone
Adware - Spyware - Malware - Scumware (cont)
Increasing Website Traffic
Writing Articles
Spring 2005
Email Marketing - Helpful Tips
Adware - Spyware - Malware - Scumware
Search Engine Spam (Spamdexing) (cont)
Helpful Tools - Download Free - IE6 - Flash Player v7 - Acrobat Reader
Winter 2004
Resetting Your Monitor
Search Engine Spam (Spamdexing) (cont)
July 2004
Alexa and Google Toolbars
Search Engine Spam (Spamdexing) (cont)
April 2004
Search Engine Spam (Spamdexing)
January 2004
Looking back at 2003 - What did we learn?
November 2003
WayBackMachine - a look back at Naples and Marco Island area websites
October 2003
Changes Coming to Internet Explorer
August 2003
Scumware Revisited
A Tale of 2 Islands
Anti-Spam programs
May 2003
It's Your Web - Help Clean it Up!
March 2003
Increasing Website Traffic
January, 2003
Security Alert: Fake Email Greeting Cards
Yahoo and Google - New Search Results
SpamNet from www.cloudmark.com
October, 2002
Virus Hoaxes
Who are you doing business with? Check them out!
Google and cached copies
August, 2002
Using Email Signatures
FLASH sites - How to Avoid Search Engine Roadblocks
June, 2002
Calculating Customer Acquisition Cost
Don't Believe the Email FROM Line
Google's Page Rank Formula
April, 2002
SCUMWARE
HOAXBUSTERS
Latest Computer Virus Threats and Global Virus Tracking
How to Check Who is Linking to Your Website
February, 2002
Reliable Web Host - Discount Prices???
Link farm Scam
Search Engines and Paid Submissions
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Computer Viruses And How To Protect Yourself
Listed below are some of the guidelines you can follow in order to keep those nasty viruses from making a mess out of your computer and your life.
• Purchase and install a well respected antivirus software program and be sure to set it up so that it automatically runs when the computer starts up each time.
• Make sure to keep your antivirus software up to date by either using the automatic update feature that many come with or make it a habit to manually check at least once or twice a week for updates on your own.
• Set your antivirus program to scan for potential viruses each time you open a word-processing document like the ones that get sent through email. Viruses found in word-processing documents are called Macro Viruses.
• When purchasing software make sure to only buy from vendors that are well known and from ones you trust.
....read more about protecting from computer viruses
What You Need To Know About Spyware
• ADWARE – is an invisible program that sends specific banners for you to see. It may sound innocent, but this program actually compels your PC to send personal details to the mother source so that the latter may know which ads to display. Get a free trial spyware remover here: http://eauthorresources.com/naw.htm
• HIJACKERS – these are programs that take control of your browsers, opening up pages which you do not choose to view.
• MALWARE – these are programs which are not spyware per se, but operate under the same principle. They are persistent scripts that don’t seem to stop until your data are destroyed. Examples of these programs are Trojans and worm viruses.
....read more about spyware
Advantages Of RSS Websites
RSS can 'power' your website, providing you with the following:
·Valuable, updated, and relevant resources for site visitors and potential clients - RSS is ideal for websites that contain (and syndicate) a lot of information that has to be changed or updated regularly.
·Search engine optimization for the website.
·Increased traffic for the website - your website can 'harvest' and display information from other sites, driving more traffic to your own website.
·A wide selection of 'channels' for content distribution, such as PDA's, cellular phones, voice mails, and email ticklers.
·A reliable way to have your web content delivered to Internet users and potential clients - RSS ensures that your site is viewed by the people who are interested in them
....read more
Design: Which Screen Resolution to Design for?
With over 40 different screen resolutions, it is extremely important to optimise your web pages for the most popular screen resolutions so that your web pages can be viewed by a greater number of online visitors.
Here are some basic facts to consider when designing for screen resolutions:
- 800x600 is the minimum resolution offered on most PCs and notebooks. 800x600 is also the preferred viewing option for 14% of internet users.
- The most popular resolutions used by approximately 60% of online users is 1024 x 768, followed by 1280x1024 and other resolutions, with 26% of internet users.
Designing for a wide spectrum of resolutions is therefore essential. But how is this achieved?
The process of designing for all resolutions is achieved through a “lowest-to-highest” resolution technique.
....read more about website design and screen resolution
Reasons to Review your Web Traffic Analysis
Understanding your Website's traffic logs is a crucial component of your online marketing mix. It tells you what your visitors do, of their own volition, so it's "market research that cannot lie!"
If you understand what you're seeing, you can make some great strategic and marketing decisions, not only for your Website, but for your business as a whole.
Here are seven key marketing elements to study in your traffic analysis:
1. General Statistics
Remember that a "hit" is recorded every time the visitor gets an image or some text from your site -- what you need to know is unique user sessions, and how much time people spend on the site -- how "sticky" and engaging it is. If you have tons of traffic, but the average time spent on your site is less than a minute -- you've got a problem!
2. Most and Least Requested Pages
So what's really hot, and what's not on your site? The most popular pages give you great clues as to what to offer more of. The least viewed pages may tell you that some of your content isn't as fascinating as you think, or this maybe a heads-up that your navigation isn't driving traffic as effectively as it should.
3. Top Entry and Exit Pages
These are great reminders that not all your visitors come through your home page, so you need complete navigation on every entry point to your site. And if people are leaving from pages that you don't want them to, perhaps you need stronger calls to action in those areas.
4. Single Access Pages
These are the pages where a visitor looks at the site then leaves immediately. Since the job of your home page is partly to filter the traffic that's not right for you, there'll always be some of these. But if you have a splash page, and significant numbers of visitors don't stay through it... perhaps it shouldn't be there?
5. Cities, States and Countries
No, your site isn't a huge hit just in Virginia -- those are all the AOL users! Unfortunately, because this information depends on where the ISP is based, it can be pretty misleading. But if you are getting a lot of hits from other countries, that might be a hint for some second language
content.
....read more about website traffic analysis >>
SEO Basics
Web Site Structure and Page Layout –The way you structure your site and design your Web page layout will have a large impact on your site's search engine ranking. This includes how you serve your Web pages (e.g., as static HTML or XHTML pages or dynamically from a database or Web script), the directory structure of your site, the names of your site's directories and individual HTML or XHTML files, and the URLs you choose when selecting your domain names. Also, each Web page on your site needs to be optimized individually to most effectively present the content it contains to the search engines. Thus, the elements of a page's layout, including navigation, site maps, graphics and multimedia elements such as Flash and QuickTime movies, need to be placed correctly on every Web page. Using W3C Web standards such as XHTML and CSS can allow you to place unique content for a given page above its navigational elements, while at the same time reducing the file size of these Web pages. Other factors that affect a Web site's ability to be successfully indexed are the use (and sometimes non-use) of Image Maps, Frames, JavaScript and, most importantly, your Web page title tags.
....read more about SEO
All this talk about Link Building
Many seem to believe that link building will get you the desired ranks in no time. That is quiet wrong. Whilst there is a lot of talk about link building, many seem to forget the basics of website optimisation (content, coding and tags). Search engines like Yahoo! place strong emphasis on these basics whilst Google may favor factors outside our control such as link popularity. So how do we satisfy all search engines?
Notes are as follows:
1. Focus on the things that can be done at your end. This includes:
- Writing efficient code with as much scripting placed into external files.
- Select targeted keywords that do not have a large number or competing pages so that you have more chance to win position for them.
- Write keyword rich content.
- Have Title and Meta tags that are keyword rich and reflect what is written for a page.....read more
Selecting Good Domain Names
In this digital age, your company's web site is your electronic business card. A strong domain name is the key to your Internet presence. It should be recognizable and relate to your business name, brand, product, and/or activities. Make sure it fits on a business card and is easy to remember whether seen in print or mentioned over the phone.
Use the name people know you by. Don't abbreviate, unless the abbreviation is your company's trademark. Ask your co-workers, your customers, your friends, and your family what domain name they'd expect your company to have.
Don't forget to include your domain name in your site's logo. And put your domain name on all company promotional materials such as business cards and stationary.
Length Matters
Conventional wisdom states that a good domain name is easy for customers to remember, easy to spell, and short. That said, it's increasingly difficult to secure short domain names among top level domain names such as .com, .net and ,org. In these cases (and you have 67 characters to choose from), it's preferable to choose a meaningful statement such as Lawreferralservice.com" or Hotelreservationservice.com," rather than lrs.com or hrs.com
...read more about selecting domain names >>
What is Wikipedia?
Wikipedia is a multilingual Web-based free-content encyclopedia wiki service. Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers, allowing most articles to be changed by anyone with access to a web browser. The project began on January 15, 2001, as a complement to the expert-written Nupedia and is now operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia has more than 3,380,000 articles, including more than 957,000 in the English-language version, and as of February 2006 it has more than 890,000 registered users. Since its inception, Wikipedia has steadily risen in popularity,[1] and its success has spawned several sister projects. There has, however, been controversy over its reliability.
....read more about Wikipedia >>
ci-Interactive accepts article submissions for publication on our travel and leisure portals - Authors and travel writers interested in submitting articles should email patti@cyberisle.com - Currently our portals include New England, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Islands (worldwide), Florida, California and New York - Florida Fishing, Florida Golf and Florida Outdoors, and Tropical Island Weddings or Unique Destination Weddings. Sites that will be launched in Spring 2006 are Washington D.C., Chicago, Tropical Island Spas, Georgia Golf, and Florida Artist's Gallery. Please check our submission guidelines - click here.
Outlook Tips To Clean Your Inbox!
One of the biggest distractions for most business owners is email. And when you get hundreds (or even thousands) of emails a day, it's really easy for it to quickly overwhelm you. Just as it's hard to concentrate in a messy office, a messy inbox can send you running in a hundred different directions if you are not careful. Here are some power tips to organize your inbox and help you stay focused.
1) Create categories in your inbox.
....read more about organizing your Outlook Email Inbox
Clearing your Cache - What is cache? Plus, step by step instructions and screen shots for CLEARING your cache.
Avoiding Click Fraud
Click fraud is the act of clicking on ads for the purpose of costing the advertiser money. It is simply the same as paying out cash for false leads. Many website owners are aware of this fraud, and share the same sentiment that this is the one big problem that Adsense is facing.
....read more about avoiding click fraud
BotNets
A current newsletter from wxpnews.com warns "Beware of the BotNets...'Bots have been used to commit "click fraud," where the 'bot pretends to be a Web user clicking on an ad, to generate a high number of pay-per-click fees paid by the advertiser to the site owner.
'Bots can collect information such as the passwords, credit card numbers and other confidential information that users type into Web forms for the purpose of identity theft.
Another malevolent use of 'bots is to relay spam, to hide the identity of the sender.
'Bots can sniff network packets to read the data inside, and use keyloggers to capture everything a user types.
'Bots can spread new 'bots, thus propagating themselves through HTTP, FTP or email.
'Bots can manipulate online polls and ratings, so that the 'bot can greatly increase - or decrease - the apparent popularity of a book on Amazon, an article on a Web site, or a candidate in a political poll. Each 'bot has a different IP address, so the votes seem to be coming from different, legitimate voters."
read the entire article at wxpnews.com
Bots and BotNets - What are they?
The late nineties and the beginning of a new millennium brought a new strategy of attack against network systems. The notorious Distributed Denial of Services (DDoS) was born. Many important dotcoms felt the rage. The reason why such attacks are so widespread is mainly their simplicity and difficulties in tracking down the parties involved. This type of attacks, despite our vast experience and knowledge, still represent a severe threat today, and still give an attacker the edge. Let's see what these attacks are all about and let's look into the product of their evolution: botnet attacks.
Introduction to Bots and Botnets
The word bot is an abbreviation of the word robot. Robots (automatized programs, not robots like Marvin the Paranoid Android) are frequently used in the Internet world. Spiders used by search engines to map websites and software responding to requests on IRC (such as eggdrop) are robots. Programs which respond autonomously to particular external events are robots, too. This article will describe a special kind of a robot, or bot (as we will call them from now on) – an IRC bot. It uses IRC networks as a communication channel in order to receive commands from a remote user. In this particular case the user is an attacker and the bot is a trojan horse....read more >>
Google Lays Down the Law
In a post at ineedhits blog on February 6, 2006, Rene Merele tells us "Google has flexed its clout by dropping BMW Germany from its search engine after realizing the iconic car manufacturer's German website (bmw.de) was artificially boosting its popularity ranking.
This sends out a strong warning to all online businesses employing aggressive optimization techniques to maximize their exposure and traffic in the search engines. Whilst most company's are using ethical procedures that are acceptable in the eyes of Google and other search engines, it's fair warning to anyone using black-hat techniques (those not in line with the search engine's guidelines).
Google has openly stated they will be clamping down on web spam this year. Many smaller, or lesser known websites have probably suffered the consequences of these anti-spam efforts already, but BMW Germany is the highest profile company to experience the true impact of Google flexing its muscles.
JavaScript re-directs were the reason that BMW's website was dropped from Google's search engine. As Matt Cutts highlighted, this is in violation of Google's Webmaster Quality Guidelines, which clearly address the issue of deceiving users or search engines by showing different content to each - also known as cloaking......This situation highlights two very important facts. When large companies are resorting to these tactics, it reinforces the importance that is placed on getting a top ranking in the organic search results.
Secondly, it should be a clear warning that, whether you are undertaking your own optimization efforts or employing a company to conduct your search engine marketing for you, you need to confirm that the techniques being used are ethical and inline with Google's (and Yahoo!'s) guidelines. Most professional search engine marketing companies will promote this fact somewhere within the product or service pitch."...read the complete post at SEM Blog at ineedhits
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