Posts Tagged ‘free’
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008
Just about anybody can create a presence on the Internet. Building a web site can be as simple as using a word processor, but once you have the site you need a way to publish it on the World Wide Web. This is where web-hosting companies come in.
A web host rents you disk space and provides all the services necessary for others to see your web site on the Internet. Barring technical problems, a web host operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so that anybody in the world can access your web site at any time.
There are literally thousands of web hosts to choose from so choosing an appropriate host can be a difficult task. The prices range from free to hundreds of dollars a year. Hosting companies can offer a multitude of services that can be confusing to a newcomer. This series of articles will help you to sort out all the information available and give you the confidence to make the proper decision about choosing a web host.
Free or Paid?
There are plenty of hosting companies that provide free hosting, so why bother paying for it? The old adage ‘You get what you pay for’ is just as valid in the electronic age as it was 100 years ago. In web hosting, when you pay nothing you sometimes end up with nothing.
Most free web hosts offer limited services. Even though they are not charging you to host your website, they still need to make money. They often do this by placing advertising on your site. You probably won’t have any control over what kind of ads show up – it’s a matter of take it or leave it.
In addition, free hosts may restrict the content you place on your site. You may not be allowed to sell things or have certain content such as videos or music. Finally, your web site could simply disappear overnight. New companies that offer free hosting pop up almost everyday, but they also vanish with astonishing regularity. When your hosting company vanishes, your web site goes with it.
If you are serious about having a web site you need to use a reliable web host. Prices range considerably – some companies offer rates as low as $2 a month while others charge $60 or more. Be careful, though. High rates don’t always translate as high service. Some of the lower priced hosts offer reliable, stable environments that allow your website to be accessed day in day out for years.
Generally speaking the more you pay the more you get. Higher rates should bring you more storage space, more bandwidth to handle Internet traffic, and more services such as databases, email accounts, mass mailers, and the ability to add custom scripts. Higher rates can also mean better technical service if you have problems with your website.
What is a Web Server?
Whichever hosting company you choose, it helps to understand some of the technical details about their service. Every host has dedicated computers called servers which connect to the Internet and ’serve’ pages when they are requested. That is, whenever anyone wants to see a certain web page by clicking on a link the request is sent to the particular server where that web page is stored. The server responds by sending HTML data across the Internet. A web server must have fast connections to be able to serve pages quickly. For the greatest speed and reliability try to find a host that has multiple high-speed connections as well as reliable back up power supplies in case of power outages.
Tags: companies, free, Introduction, necessary, Paid, paying, presence, Processor, services, technical problems, time, web hosting, web site, World Wide Web
Posted in tricks, web hosting | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008
<gmail.com>: Google’s attempt at free e-mail. Instead of the 2-6 MB of free space that Yahoo and Hotmail used to provide, Gmail gives you 2,600 MB (and growing) of space (this has already caused Hotmail and Yahoo to raise their amounts to 250 MB and more; AOL.com now gives you 2,000 MB free). I have been using it for 1.5 years and it’s terrific and fast. One caveat: Google runs small, text-ads on the side of the screen, based on content of your e-mail messages. That’s scary to a lot of people, though Google promises no human will ever see your messages, just those Google servers (remember, however, that all e-mail can potentially be scanned by various systems). I don’t use it as my primary e-mail. I use it in two ways, with two accounts. One is an account to which I send messages, photos, PDFs, I want to save for future access, including big messages that I don’t want taking up space in my regular inbox - kind of a “greatest hits” collection. The other is an account that get a copy of every e-mail message I get, so that it’s all backed up and available in one place.
Tags: been using, content, free, gMail, google, Google promises, Google servers, Hotmail, messages, PDFs, people, photos, primary, send messages, Space, Yahoo
Posted in google, tricks | No Comments »
Monday, July 14th, 2008
Every website needs a Sitemap big or small. Sitemap should be linked to from every page on your site. A site map will help users and search engine robots find all the important pages on your site with just two clicks. This is especially helpful if your site has a hard-to-crawl navigation menu like java script or images based navigation. For WordPress blogs I recommend downloading this free sitemap generator plugin. You can see example on my sitemap page.
Smaller sites can use second navigation bar in the footer that will act as a small mini site map. This is nothing more than all your important pages as links in the footer.
By submitting a XML Sitemap to a search engine, you are making easier for that engine’s crawlers to crawl and index pages of your site. As Google describes it in this article
“Sitemaps are particularly beneficial when users can’t reach all areas of a website through a browseable interface.”
For regular websites there are many free online xml sitemap generators, just Google it but for your WordPress blog you can use this free Google XML sitemap generator plugin as it will also create Robots.txt file which is the next Free SEO Tip.
Tags: bar, Create, Every website, footer, free, google, images, java script, Map, menu, navigation, page, robots, Site Map, Sitemap, WordPress, XML
Posted in SEO, google, tricks, web designing | No Comments »
Monday, July 14th, 2008
Nowadays I think pretty much every webmaster and web site owner knows that if you can get more quality backlinks to your web site, it can help you improve your rankings in search engines (especially Google). The higher your rank in search engines, that is to say the nearer the top of the search results you are for searches on relevant keywords, the more traffic that your web site will get. And, the more traffic that your web site gets, the more money you can make, whether it is from selling your own products and services, from commissions on sales of affiliate products, or from advertising programs such as Google AdSense.
One obvious way to get links to your site is to exchange links with other sites. As much as anything is, this might be considered a traditional form of web site promotion. Exchanging links is however time consuming, since you need to spend time finding sites to swap links with, and you must then set up the links and monitor them on an ongoing basis. Another disadvantage of each exchanging links, is of course that you are not just links coming into your site, you also linking to, and sending traffic to, other sites.
If you want other sites to link to you, without having to link back, there are several options:
1. You may be able to find some directories that accept free submissions. Of course, the number of good quality directories that accept free submissions is usually quite limited - as too many free submissions will tend to result in a good quality directory quickly turning to junk.
2. You may be able to pay other sites to link to you. Of course this can cost quite a bit of money, and you may also find that search engines take a dim view of such activity - perhaps penalizing or evening banning your site from their listings!
3. You can provide interesting content on your site (known as “link bait”) and simply hope that people choose to link to it. Of course, you may get lucky, but this approach is hit and miss to put it mildly.
4. You can write articles and submit them to article directories. This is actually the best option, since writing a few hundred words about a topic which relates to your business and which you already know something about, is not too difficult. When you submit your article to a directory, you will be allowed to include a “resource box” or “bio” section, which may contain a backlink to your own web site. Additionally, since there are hundreds of article directories, even writing a single article can result in hundreds of backlinks. Of course, the difficulty is that submitting to hundreds of directories can take a lot of effort if done manually - so I’d suggest you invest in some article submitter software, and automate the process. Don’t expect massive results from just one article, but if you make writing and submitting articles a regular activity, over time, it can lead to some impressive results.
Tags: backlinks, exchange, free, google, impressive results, links, promotion, regular activity, submissions, submitting, swap, Way
Posted in SEO, google, tricks, web designing | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
What to watch out for with some SEO companies
First of all, when you are choosing a search engine optimization company you want to find one that has a website with up-to-date information. If you are on a website and see a company stating that Yahoo charges $199 per year to index your site, this is old information. Yahoo now charges $299 per year. If the SEO website you are on states Alltheweb.com or Altavista.com have a basic free submit service, this is out-of-date information. These two search engines have gone over to the “dark side” and have joined Overture in the pay-per-click business model.
Of all of the websites on the Internet that should display the latest information, the SEO companies should be at the top of this list. This is our game. Old information on any website is bad news (except for archived information that is).
Some search engine optimization companies will guarantee that you see significant results within 15 days for a new website. This is an unrealistic statement that no reputable SEO company would make. Most significant results from search engine optimization and submission will occur in months, not days. Some search engines like Google and MSN may index your site within 30 days, but if you have a new site, your search engine placement will be in a sort of “holding tank” for a while and may be buried in the search engine database for another 30-60 days. Sure, your site may be listed, in short order but it will take additional time to gain prominence in the search engine rankings.
Also, some search engine optimization companies will guarantee newbies high-ranking results on low-traffic keywords that have little competition in the search engines. If you are an SEO company who is not concerned about your customer, this approach makes sense. There are fewer high-traffic keywords than low-traffic keywords and the high-traffic keywords generally have much more competition.
There is an SEO scam on the Internet that consumers need to be aware of called the “I’ll host your optimized pages” scam. In the “I’ll host your optimized pages” scam you do not have control of your own web pages and basically pay ransom to the host company on an ongoing basis. Once you miss a payment your web pages may disappear or the optimization you had previous paid for will be wiped clean.
Have you been unfortunate enough to receive the SEO spam scam? This is the email scam that starts out, “I’ve noticed you are not listed on some search engines.” You may have gotten this email even though you are listed number 1 on all of the major search engines. First, any reputable SEO company will not spam you to gain business. The first quest of any SEO company is to try to get to the top of the search engines, not send out spam. Second, this email is not specific to you or your company. Like all spam, the spammers send out thousands of emails hoping a small percentage pay off for big profits. Many of the reputable SEO sites now have ethics statements on their sites. Ethical website optimization includes no cloaking, no deceptive practices and no spamming.
This list is not comprehensive so it is a good idea to ask your SEO company questions upfront and that you receive answers to your satisfaction before you jump onboard. Also, if you have had any bad experiences with some SEO companies not covered here, please send us an email so that we may include what to watch out for in this section and warn other consumers.
Tags: Alltheweb, Altavista, companies, customer, free, game, google, information, MSN, Ranking, Search, SEO, SUBMIT, tricks, Watch, website
Posted in SEO, tricks | No Comments »
Monday, June 30th, 2008
* Submit Corner
You’ll like this submission tool because it allows you to choose the search engines you want to submit to. This wizard usually takes under 30 seconds and you’ll have your site submitted to the top engines instantly. It also has other cool tools you can use to optimize and improve your web site. It’s a great resource site!
http://www.submitcorner.com/Tools/Submit/
* SubmitPlus
Good tool because you have to fill only two fields (Email and URL) and their service effectively submits your web site to the top 10 search engines in less than 1 minute! Its other cool features include real time status reporting, live confirmation link and an email report.
http://www.submitplus.com/top10.htm
Tags: Effectively, Email, engines, free, optimize, Search Engine, search engines, seconds, SEO, sites, submission, Submit Corner, SubmitPlus, submits, Tool, Tools
Posted in SEO, google | No Comments »
Monday, June 30th, 2008
Build quality links to your site pages from other well ranked sites on your target search engine.
Make sure you provide quality content that have something unique to offer and that have keywords or key phrases people might search to find your site.
Optimize you web site pages by making sure your top keywords appear in your title, meta tags and content.
If you sell products, give something away free (The word “free” is one of the top most searched words on the internet).
Keep a track of your listings/ranking in the top 10 search engines and analyze it periodically. Some tips on this:
Indexed Pages: To know which pages on your site are listed in the search engine and to see how they will appear to searchers type site:www.yourdomainname.extn in the search box, You might need to use host: instead for some of the search engines.
Link Popularity: To keep a track of sites that link to you (and also see their page rank), type link:www.yourdomainname.extn in the search box,You might need to use url: instead for some of the search engines.
Tags: appear, free, Host, Indexed Pages, keywords, Link Popularity, Meta, optimization, people, provide, quality links, search box, Search Engine, search engines, SEO, site, site pages, Target, Tips, unique, web site
Posted in SEO, google | No Comments »
Saturday, June 28th, 2008
What is ASP?Active Server Pages (ASP) is Microsoft’s scripting language for building dynamic web sites, web applications and web services., First released in January 2002 , along with the version 1.0 of the .NET Framework, ASP.net is the successor to Microsoft’s Active Server Pages (ASP) technology. ASP.NET is made on the Common Language Runtime, allowing programmers to write ASP.NET code via any supported .NET language such as VBScript and Jscript.What is PHP?PHP or (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a PC scripting language designed for the construction of dynamic web pages. PHP is largely used in server-side scripting, but can also be used from a command line interface or in standalone graphical applications.PHP commonly runs on a web server, taking the PHP code as its input and creating web pages as output. It can be set up on most web servers and on almost every operating system and platform for free.To be Continued…
Tags: ASP, better, command, designed, dynamic, every, free, Microsoft’s, operating system, PHP, web pages, web servers
Posted in PHP | No Comments »
Thursday, June 26th, 2008
By far the easiest top 10 SEO tips you will ever do as it relates to search engine optimization is include a robots.txt file at the root of your website. Open up a text editor, such as Notepad and type “User-agent: *”. Then save the file as robots.txt and upload it to your root directory on your domain. This one command will tell any spider that hits your website to “please feel free to crawl every page of my website”.
Here’s one of my best top 10 SEO tips: Because the search engine analyzes everything it indexes to determine what your website is all about, it might be a good idea to block folders and files that have nothing to do with the content we want to be analyzed. You can disallow unrelated files to be read by adding “Disallow: /folder_name/” or “Disallow: /filename.html”. Here is an example of the robots.txt file on this site:
Tags: command, content, easiest, File, free, good, Include, optimization, robots, robots.txt, SEO, Top, website
Posted in SEO | No Comments »
Thursday, June 26th, 2008
Just about anybody can create a presence on the Internet. Building a web site can be as simple as using a word processor, but once you have the site you need a way to publish it on the World Wide Web. This is where web-hosting companies come in.
A web host rents you disk space and provides all the services necessary for others to see your web site on the Internet. Barring technical problems, a web host operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so that anybody in the world can access your web site at any time.
There are literally thousands of web hosts to choose from so choosing an appropriate host can be a difficult task. The prices range from free to hundreds of dollars a year. Hosting companies can offer a multitude of services that can be confusing to a newcomer. This series of articles will help you to sort out all the information available and give you the confidence to make the proper decision about choosing a web host.
Free or Paid?
There are plenty of hosting companies that provide free hosting, so why bother paying for it? The old adage ‘You get what you pay for’ is just as valid in the electronic age as it was 100 years ago. In web hosting, when you pay nothing you sometimes end up with nothing.
Most free web hosts offer limited services. Even though they are not charging you to host your website, they still need to make money. They often do this by placing advertising on your site. You probably won’t have any control over what kind of ads show up – it’s a matter of take it or leave it.
In addition, free hosts may restrict the content you place on your site. You may not be allowed to sell things or have certain content such as videos or music. Finally, your web site could simply disappear overnight. New companies that offer free hosting pop up almost everyday, but they also vanish with astonishing regularity. When your hosting company vanishes, your web site goes with it.
If you are serious about having a web site you need to use a reliable web host. Prices range considerably – some companies offer rates as low as $2 a month while others charge $60 or more. Be careful, though. High rates don’t always translate as high service. Some of the lower priced hosts offer reliable, stable environments that allow your website to be accessed day in day out for years.
Generally speaking the more you pay the more you get. Higher rates should bring you more storage space, more bandwidth to handle Internet traffic, and more services such as databases, email accounts, mass mailers, and the ability to add custom scripts. Higher rates can also mean better technical service if you have problems with your website.
What is a Web Server?
Whichever hosting company you choose, it helps to understand some of the technical details about their service. Every host has dedicated computers called servers which connect to the Internet and ’serve’ pages when they are requested. That is, whenever anyone wants to see a certain web page by clicking on a link the request is sent to the particular server where that web page is stored. The server responds by sending HTML data across the Internet. A web server must have fast connections to be able to serve pages quickly. For the greatest speed and reliability try to find a host that has multiple high-speed connections as well as reliable back up power supplies in case of power outages
Tags: accessed, appropriate, companies, electronic, free, Free Hosting, hosting, internet, Introduction, multitude, newcomer, outages, Paid, power, scripts, services, technical, web hosting, Web Server, web-hosting companies, website, World Wide Web
Posted in web hosting | No Comments »