Tryangled Solutions web designing tips tricks

Introduction

This page contains a testimonial of my extremely poor experiences with a particular web host, drawing upon these experiences to highlight ten basic rules for choosing a web host. The aim of the page is to help prevent you from making the same mistakes I did.

So what is a web host? A web host is a company which provides a valuable service on the Internet: the physical storage and distribution of website pages on behalf of website owners. Basically they provide the hardware and software, and website owners provide the information. For a certain fee, the web host agrees to rent website owners space on their server, and the accompanying bandwidth they provide for Internet users the world over to download web pages from their server.

I threw this page together as another resource on TweakGuides.com to help out potential webmasters in perhaps choosing a web host more wisely than I first did. A wrong choice can have terrible consequences for your website and its reputation. Keep the following in mind if you’re considering purchasing web hosting services on the Net.

Ten Basic Rules

Suffice it to say, Oktagone.net is the web hosting company which kicked off the creation of this page. Their absolute lack of professionalism, and the (almost irreparable) damage they did to TweakGuides.com still makes me angry, and it’s been quite a while since I escaped their clutches! We will use Oktagone to neatly demonstrate what makes a truly terrible web host.

The basic story goes like this: I was looking for a web host in April 2004 for my new site TweakGuides.com. As with most websites, things start out small, so I didn’t want to invest in a dedicated server package costing hundreds of dollars per month. I just wanted some cheap but reliable shared web hosting (that is my site would be on the same server as many other websites, lowering costs). Oktagone was recommended to me because they were cheap and supposedly reliable. Basic Rule Number One - Never rely on one or two pieces of advice when purchasing hosting services. Aside from the fact that people may not really know what they’re talking about, nothing replaces decent research when choosing a web host. Some unscrupulous hosting companies even resort to joining forums under pseudonyms and then giving their own services glowing testimonials to con unsuspecting potential customers (though I am not suggesting Oktagone.net did this).

So I joined Oktagone in April 2004 and instantly noticed the unprofessional setup - they had no formal billing system. You had to PayPal your monthly fee to them, without any way of checking your account balance, the actual service you had purchased, when your next bill was due (or overdue) etc. In fact at one point I upgraded my service (and paid extra) yet still got the old service for a month or two until I noticed the difference in my bandwidth allowance. Basic Rule Number Two: - Never rely on a web host which can’t even automate or administer the most important aspect of a business: billing and payments!

Then there were the outages…long and short. Sometimes only a couple of hours, sometimes a day or two. Basic Rule Number Three: - Never ever rely on a web host which has “mysterious” outages frequently, always promising that it is “just a glitch”. Your website relies on a smooth and consistent presence on the Internet to be successful. Would you frequent a supermarket or a bookstore which had odd trading hours and/or which regularly closed down without any word of why? Unreliable web hosts can cause irreparable damage to your website’s traffic. Of course if you actually earn revenue from your site, this can be even worse - you will lose income, sometimes for days a time, and you won’t be able to do a thing about it since the web hosting company controls if and when your site comes back online.

After many months of problems with Oktagone, there was a relatively stable period during which my site flourished. I topped 200,000 unique visitors a month, millions of hits and a reputable presence on the Internet. I thought things were good because I didn’t have any hosting problems to damage my growing reputation. I now know this was the calm before the storm. Oktagone had a final blow lined up for my site: Oktagone was actually a reseller - that means they bought services from another company, and resold it at a profit. It turns out Oktagone did not pay their own bills for two months in a row, so the main company simply shut down all their servers. I suddenly found my site was offline and inaccessible without a single word of warning, without any explanations. It remained offline for around two days, until which time I found this thread on the WebHostingTalk Forums, detailing the debacle which had befallen all of Oktagone’s US-based customers. Within a day of the thread appearing, Oktagone sent out an official email saying that the problem was due to a “power outage in New York”, and that a technician was on the way to resolve problems within 36 hours. Needless to say this was a blatant lie, and Oktagone’s owner later admitted - when confronted with the facts by the reseller on WebHostingTalk Forums - that he had simply not paid his bills and the servers had been shut down.

So some more things to note: Basic Rule Number Four: - If your host goes down for more than 24 hours, start getting very worried. This is not normal, and if you have had no warning, and no explanation, it is even worse. At this point start shopping for another webhost immediately. That is precisely what I did on the 2nd day. Basic Rule Number Five: - If you do receive a story about why your site is down, try to corroborate it with other people on the same host. Use the WebHostingTalk Forums for example to search for and/or post a question on whether the web host is down and why. Don’t trust the web host to tell you the truth about the situation, and don’t just sit and wait. Basic Rule Number Six: - Once your site is down for several or more days, don’t wait - switch your host. Simply put, if your web host hasn’t taken steps to protect against long outages by having appropriate emergency backup systems, then you need to get away from them ASAP. In Oktagone’s situation, their outright lying was bad enough, but the fact that they left some of their customers offline for over two weeks (!) means that I will never trust them again, especially given they still maintain the same owner.

I was very lucky to get away from the situation relatively unscathed. I shopped around for, and quickly found another cheap (but more reliable) host called HostingOnNet.com. I was able to do so thanks to some simple precautions: Basic Rule Number Seven: - Always back up your website regularly to your own PC. I made daily backups of every page, picture and file I uploaded to my site onto my hard drive, so my backup was literally up-to-date and readily accessible. Others hosted on Oktagone were not so lucky, and had to rely on the generosity of the reseller to turn the servers back on for a while so they could backup their data. Incredibly, during this period Oktagone actually went out of their way to prevent customers backing up their data, which was thwarted by the reseller which owns the servers.

However one of the most important tips is a common mistake made by people new to web hosting: Basic Rule Number Eight: - Never register your domain name through your web host. This is the single biggest problem Oktagone customers ran into. Those that had also purchased their domain name through Oktagone couldn’t switch to another web host with their existing domain names. Why? Because the Oktagone Domain Name Servers were offline, meaning that the addresses to which the domain names pointed to couldn’t be changed! This meant that some sites were down for a week or two or more with no recourse whatsoever. Luckily I had registered TweakGuides.com through another domain name seller than my web host (Godaddy.com), a very smart thing to do and strongly recommended.

Ok so what happened in this situation. What was the permanent damage through all this melodrama? For starters I had a lot of concerned people trying to contact me during what was a peak period in my site’s usage wondering what had happened. Yet of course because my site was physically offline, they couldn’t email me. I couldn’t put up any form of notice to tell them why TweakGuides.com was now inaccessible. Two days of this was bad enough, but two weeks would have broken my site’s back. Some unscrupulous people had already tried during earlier outages to rip off my guides and host them on their own sites with the explanation “TweakGuides.com is no longer online, so we are ‘archiving’ their guides.” Gee, how generous of them - all without my permission of course. I lost a few dollars as well because I’d paid in advanced, and despite assurances of getting a refund, to date Oktagone has not returned a cent, nor responded to my emails politely requesting a refund. This is despite the fact that I did not use one day of the months’ hosting I paid for, and that they had already said they would pay me a refund (in principle) on the WebHostingTalk forums. Another telling sign of what kind of people run these sort of businesses, and my Basic Rule Number Nine: - Never pay in advance for hosting, even if it entails a large discount. You may find you lose all your money if/when the host goes down forever, and/or if they decide simply not to refund you. Consumer protection agencies may help you recover your money, but for small sums below a few hundred dollars you’re going to spend more money trying than the amount you’d ever get back. Pay for your hosting by the month, and do it through a Credit Card so you can always cancel the payment if need be, or turn to the Credit Card company’s fraud protection mechanisms to prevent losing large amounts of money.

The whole experience was very unpleasant, and for a site like TweakGuides.com which is still firming its reputation around the Net, one which I would have gladly done without. I hope the information above helps you decide on an appropriate web host. I personally did a fair bit of research before finding another host after Oktagone, although being placed in a pressure situation (i.e. my site was already down for two days) didn’t help. My final rule is simple Basic Rule Number Ten: - Don’t wait until something bad happens - if you’re not happy with your current host, start researching for a better host straight away. Even if you decide to stay with your current host, at least you will have some options in case some emergency comes up and you have to switch at short notice. Never make the decision in a pressure situation as you’re likely to just switch to another poor quality host.

Well, that’s pretty much it from me. I got to tell my story, and hopefully provide ten basic tips at the same time! Hope you found it handy.

Search engines are internet venues where BILLIONS of people congregate to search for information. The most prominent search engine giants are Google and Yahoo. The kind of traffic these dot-com companies receive per hour is phenomenal.

So naturally, companies would gravitate towards placing their links and sites in an attempt to garner more visits to their web sites.

In order to maximize ranking and PLACEMENT, companies have used tools such as search engine optimization or SEO. Search engine optimization is the method or process of improving a web site’s ranking in a search engine listing.

Legitimate search engine optimization practices focus on the improvement of a page’s ranking in the search engine list by improving site content, usability and using legitimate methos of promotion through web phenomena such as viral marketing.

Search engines all use complex algorithms in keeping their relevancy in the web and to keep illegal and abusive search engine optimization methods from prospering. However, “black hat” SEO users will always be around so it is expected that search engine giant such as Google and Yahoo will continue to make more complex algorithms to filter the garbage out.

Search engines display different kinds of listings on a result page. The more common ones are adverts, paid inclusion, and organic listings. Of all these listings, SEO concerns itself foremost with organic listings for a variety of keywords. This can increase the quality and quantity or visitors to a desired web site.

We’ve transcribed all 101 tips here. To fit our Mac-centric audience a little better, we’ve switched everything around to the default Mac keyboard commands.

1. Want to copy a Layer? Jump it: Command-J
2. You a Windows user? Press Control instead of Command.
3. For a new Layer: Command-Shift-N
4. To Delete a Layer, hit the Move Tool (v) and       Command-Delete.
5. Every letter selects a tool. Except for:
6. F for Fullscreen.
7. Q for QuickMask.
8. D for Default colors.
9. X for Switch colors.
10. Press a Number to change Opacity.
11. …or Two Numbers for better Control.
12. Shift-Plus (+) to Advance a Blend Mode.

13. Shift-Minus (-) to Go Back one Blend Mode.

14. Shift-Option+[a letter] for a specific Blend Mode(Dissolve=I, Multiple=M, Screen=S, Overlay=O, Soft Light=F, Hard Light=H, Linear Light=J, Vivid         Light=J, Pin Light=Z, Color Dodge=D, Color Burn=B, Darken=K, Lighten=G,Difference=E, Exclusion=X,   Hue=U, Saturation=T, Color=C, Luminosity=Y, Behind=Q)
15. Windows Folks, Option means Alt for shortcuts.
16. Command-Plus (+) Zooms In.
17. Command-Minus (-) Zooms Out.
18. Spacebar gets the Hand so you can drag the image around.
19. Command-Spacebar = Zoom Tool In.
20. Option-Spcebar = Zoom Tool Out.
21. Command-Spacebar-Drag to zoom in on a specific area.
22. Command-Z for Undo.
23. Command-Option-Z Steps Back one action.
24. Command-Shift-Z Steps Forward one action.
25. Command-Shift-F Fades the last edit.
26. F12 = Revert Document.
27. Hey! You can even Undo a Revert!
28. Command-X = Cut.
29. Command-C = Copy.
30. Command-V = Paste.
Deke sings about how wonderful he is…
31. Image Size = Command-Option-I.
32. It’s partner, Canvas Size = Command-Option-C.
33. Command-F repeats the last Filter.
34. Command-Option-F repeats last Filter with Different Settings.
35. Using Selection Tools: Drag to start a new selection.
36. …or drag to move a selection outline.
37. …add to a section using Shift.
38. …delete from a selection using Option.
39. …find the intersection holding down Shift-Option.
40. …Press Spacebar to move the selection on the fly.
41. Command-A = Select All.
42. Command-D = Deselects Everything.
43. Command-Shift-I Inverts the existing Selection.
44. Command-Option-R brings up Refine Edge.
45. Option-Click with Lasso tool to select a straight-sided selection.
46. Shift-Click with Brush to draw straight lines.
47. Press Option with Brush to get the Color-Lifting Eyedropper.
48. Press Command to get the Move tool.
49. Command-H = Hide Selection.
50. Command-1 shows 1st channel (Red or Cyan)
51. Command-2 shows 2nd channel (Green or Magenta)
52. Command-3 shows 3rd channel (Blue or Yellow)
53. Command-Tilde (~) shows a Full-Color Composite. (Read about the tilde if you like.)
54. Command-L for Levels.
55. Command-M for Curves.
56. Command-B for Color Balance.
57. Command-U for Hue/Saturation.
58. Add the Option-key to bring up last settings for those last four.
59. Command-Shift-Option for Black and White.
60. In Levels & Curves, Option-drag that White Slider to preview your clip highlights…
61. …Option-drag the Black Slider to preview clip shadows.
62. DekePod-DuplicatefromHistory.pngWant to duplicate an image? Cool tip! Click this Icon at the bottom of history palette.
63. Command-W to Close an image. Then…
64. …Y to save changes. (Windows Only)
65. …N to abandon changes. (Windows Only)
66. …On a Mac: S=Save and D=Don’t Save.
67. …ESC to Cancel on both Mac and Windows.
Deke sings some more… (whew! Lots of typing!)
68. Press Command-T to invoke Free Transform…
69. …Enter to Apply, or ESC to Cancel.
70. Command-Option-T will Transform a Copy!
71. Command-Shift-T repeats the last Transformation.
72. Command-Shift-Option-T plays a Transformation sequence.
73. Press the Bracket keys [ or ] to change the size of a Brush.
74. ..add the Shift key to change the brush hardness.
75. Caps Lock for Precise cursors.
76. Option key switches from Dodge to Burn or Burn to Dodge.
77. Hitting the Period in Gradient tool switches between gradients.
78. Here’s a tip: The Sharpen Tool Sucks! Don’t use it!
79. Command-Click the Thumbnail in Layers or Paths palette to Load a Selection.
80. Type Slash (/) to lock/unlock a Layer’s Transparency.
81. Press Tilde (~) to hide an image while Viewing a Mask.
82. Press Backslash (\) to view a Layer’s Mask.
83. Command-Delete fills selection with the Background Color.
84. Option-Delete fills selection with the Foreground Color.
85. …add the Shift key to fill just the Opaque pixels. (cool!)
86. Shift-Delete to bring up the Fill dialog box.
87. Filling using the Behind mode locks out “preserve transparency”.
88. Command-Brackets ([ or ]) moves Layers up or down.
89. …add Shift to move Layers all the way to top or bottom.
90. Option-Brackets ([ or ]) Selects Layers.
91. …add Shift to select multiple layers.
92. Command-Option-A to select All Layers.
93. Command-G groups Layers into a group.
94. Command-E will Merge Selected Layers.
95. Command-Shift-E will Merge Visible Layers.
96. Command-Option-E will Merge selected Layer onto the Layer below.
97. Command-Shift-Option-E will Merge Everything onto a New Layer.
98. Command-Shift-C Copies a Merged version of Layers.
99. Command-Shift-V will paste an image into a Selection.
100. Hit Tab to Hide all Palettes.
101. Hit Shift-Tab to Hide just the Right-side Palettes.

First, make sure your site, especially your homepage, is frequently updated. Google seems to like frequently changing websites, this might be why weblogs tend to score very well at Google.

Second, make sure to have a lot of incoming and outgoing links (especially to and from big, relevant, high-quality websites). If something can be a link, make it a link! By doing so, Google will rank you pages higher as others who are not that embedded. This link relevancy system is called Google Pagerank. You can check out your pagerank at pagerank.net. Pagerank works on a scale from 1 to 10. If you have a rank of 1 or 2, you’re likely to be way down the search results. If you have a higher rank, your site will appear at the top of the search results, even if there are a lot of competitors for your specific keywords or business.

Third, make sure your site is clean and correctly formatted, preferably in web standards / xhtml. Avoid certain technologies the Google robot doesn’t understand. Don’t use a frameset for your website. Robots may skip frames or only index the upper one (refering will be a mess anyway). Avoid javascript or Flash menus, only a.href links are followed by a robot. Additionally, all javascript and comments are skipped by search robots.

For the same reason, full-flash websites should be avoided if search accessibility is important (actually, if ANY accessibility is important). If you do feel the strong need to use Flash, all you can do is to make sure you have a keyword descriptive URL and page title.

“I can find what I need on Google” – Is this a common refrain amongst staff
and students in your college? Whilst Google is certainly far and away the
most commonly used search engine currently available, it is often not used in
the most effective way. There are many useful extras in Google that are
under-used, but which go towards making it a far more complete and effective
search tool than you would imagine. Here are some of the more interesting,
useful and quirky features that you might like to explore in order to get more
out of Google

For millions of people Google is an indispensable search tool that they use every day, in all facets of their lives. From work or school, research, to looking up movies and celebrities to news and gossip, Google is the go-to search engine.

But instead of just typing in a phrase and wading through page after page of results, there are a number of ways to make your searches more efficient.

Some of these are obvious ones, that you probably know about. But others are lesser-known, and others are known but not often used. Use this guide to learn more about, or be reminded of, some of the best ways to get exactly what you’re looking for, and quickly.

1. Either/or. Google normally searches for pages that contain all the words you type in the search box, but if you want pages that have one term or another (or both), use the OR operator — or use the “|” symbol (pipe symbol) to save you a keystroke. [dumb | little | man]

2. Quotes. If you want to search for an exact phrase, use quotes. ["dumb little man"] will only find that exact phrase. [dumb "little man"] will find pages that contain the word dumb and the exact phrase “little man”.

3. Not. If you don’t want a term or phrase, use the “-” symbol. [-dumb little man] will return pages that contain “little” and “man” but that don’t contain “dumb”.

4. Similar terms. Use the “~” symbol to return similar terms. [~dumb little man -dumb] will get you pages that contain “funny little man” and “stupid little man” but not “dumb little man”.

5. Wildcard. The “*” symbol is a wildcard. This is useful if you’re trying to find the lyrics to a song, but can’t remember the exact lyrics. [can't * me love lyrics] will return the Beatles song you’re looking for. It’s also useful for finding stuff only in certain domains, such as
educational information: ["dumb little man" research *.edu].

6. Advanced search. If you can’t remember any of these operators, you can always use Google’s advanced search.

7. Definitions. Use the “define:” operator to get a quick definition. [define:dumb] will give you a whole host of definitions from different sources, with links.

8. Calculator. One of the handiest uses of Google, type in a quick calculation in the search box and get an answer. It’s faster than calling up your computer’s calculator in most cases. Use the +, -, *, / symbols and parentheses to do a simple equation.

9. Numrange. This little-known feature searches for a range of numbers. For example, ["best books 2002..2007] will return lists of best books for each of the years from 2002 to 2007 (note the two periods between the two numbers).

10. Site-specific. Use the “site:” operator to search only within a certain website. [site:dumblittleman.com leo] will search for the term “leo” only within this blog.

11. Backlinks. The “link:” operator will find pages that link to a specific URL. You can use this not only for a main URL but even to a specific page. Not all links to an URL are listed, however.

12. Vertical search. Instead of searching for a term across all pages on the web, search within a specialized field. Google has a number of specific searches, allowing you to search within blogs, news, books, and much more:

* Blog Search

* Book Search

* Scholar

* Catalogs

* Code Search

* Directory

* Finance

* Images

* Local/Maps

* News

* Patent Search

* Product Search

* Video

13. Movies. Use the “movie:” operator to search for a movie title along with either a zip code or U.S. city and state to get a list of movie theaters in the area and show times.

14. Music. The “music:” operator returns content related to music only.

15. Unit converter. Use Google for a quick conversion, from yards to meters for example, or different currency: [12 meters in yards]

16. Types of numbers: Google algorithms can recognize patterns in numbers you enter, so you can search for:

* Telephone area codes

* Vehicle ID number (US only)

* Federal Communications Commission (FCC) equipment numbers (US only)

* UPC codes

* Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) airplane registration number (US only)

* Patent numbers (US only)

* Even stock quotes (using the stock symbol) or a weather forecast regarding the next five days

17. File types. If you just want to search for .PDF files, or Word documents, or Excel spreadsheets, for example, use the “filetype:” operator.

18. Location of term. By default, Google searches for your term throughout a web page. But if you just want it to search certain locations, you can use operators such as “inurl:”, “intitle:”, “intext:”, and “inanchor:”. Those search for a term only within the URL, the title,
the body text, and the anchor text (the text used to describe a link).

19. Cached pages. Looking for a version of a page the Google stores on its own servers? This can help with outdated or update pages. Use the “cached:” operator.

20. Answer to life, the universe, and everything. Search for that phrase, in lower case, and Google will give you the answer.

Over at Yahoo’s Search Marketing blog, Marketing Communications Manager Roger Park is offering up tips on converting your search ads. He breaks down a bunch of best practices principles to three main steps: Optimize, Navigate and Track.

Optimize

Optimizing your landing pages is crucial to a profitable search marketing campaign. Park advises:

* Have a “deep link” to a product on your site
* Offer several contact methods
* Online shopping carts should be secure and easily visible
* Remove broken links
* Have good server availability

Navigate

Park encourages site owners and developers to put themselves in the shoes of their web site visitors. I personally have found that many of my clients have a difficult time being able to do this. They’re just too close to their business. So, it was nice that Park also served up some tangible tips:

* Create an obvious pathway to the product that the visitor searched for
* Don’t have too many layers between the landing page and the end goal - no more than 2 clicks
* If the end goal is sale, move non-commercial content below the fold

Track

Successful marketing campaigns are built on solid data. Consistently evaluate your data and tweak your paid search campaigns accordingly. Yahoo’s conversion-only analytics tool can help you do that. The tool can help you analyze keywords, tweak landing pages, and improve under-performing ads.

For the purpose of these tips a search engine is something like google. It scans the web for sites to include in its index. It will follow links and find new sites all on its own. A directory (such as Yahoo or DMOZ) includes sites one at a time, with a human being looking at each site.

You can learn a lot about different types of search engines at Search Engine Watch.

# Put your keyword/key phrase in the title tag of your page. It can be the only thing there, or you can make a complete sentence out of it. The title is also what appears in your bookmarks list. So a good title will help people remember you when they bookmark your site.

# Google doesn’t care what you put in the description tag, but other engines do. Put in a sentence which tells the viewer why the heck they should visit your site. What’s in it for them?

# Google doesn’t care about what’s in your keywords tag, but the other engines might. Put in a few words and phrases appropriate to your page. Include common mis-spellings.

# Your primary keyword/phrase should appear in the headline at the top of your page.

# Skip the graphics and banners. Write a page that’s cool and interesting and is appropriate to your keywords. So if your keyword is cell phones write a cool, informative page about cell phones.

# Skip the java, javascript, heavy graphics, etc.

# Links to your page, either from your other pages or from other sites, should contain your keyword.

# Any graphics should have keywords in the alt tag. This will help describe the image.

# Links from your page should also contain your keywords.

# Don’t use your keywords too many times on a page. How do you tell? If your page starts to read badly, then you’ve used your keyword too many times. Links to your page count for far more than how many times your keywords appear.

The top 4 search engines are as follows:

1. Google.com - The best of the best, what can we say about Google that others haven’t Read our detailed review of Google with tips on submission and ranking.
2. Yahoo.com - Yahoo is getting better and better! Their Yahoo Directory is also very popular.
3. MSN.com - Microsoft’s attempt to get a piece of the search engine pie. They are also catching up fast.
4. Teoma.com - A search engine to look out for. Their results do seem to vary considerably from the above.

In order to not be repetitive in our advice we recommend you read our article on Google Submission, Ranking and Tips. You should be able to do well on all the other search engines too, though ranking and time period for updations may vary.

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.