James Saunders asked:


Did you know that you can dramatically increase the number of visitors that come to your site on a daily basis from Google?

Web Content (Mass + Keywords) + Links = SEO

Image Text or Javascript?

Question: Navigation is based on images, again if these are images of text?

Answer: Search engines obtain links very considerable and only read text. they like to match the topic of the target page to the text in the link that pointed to the page. Avoid Javascript.

what to do: Use text only navigation. the text and containing elements can by styles with CSS to set up them look like images, give a background image, or at least rearrange them look a little fancier. The optional is to ensure that there is some text based navigation elsewhere on the page.

Gains: Search engines will be able to match the topic of the target page with the reputation (link text). A higher relevancy is better. Ensuring there is text on the page will also help the visually impaired who use text only browsers in conjunction with braile output devices or text to speach software.

Links, and Link Relevancy

Question: You want lots of links to your website?

Answer: Although links may be great for visitors and search engine spiders, the true appraise of the link may not be fully clear to you. Visitors are unlikely to click on irrelevant links and search engines hate them. Reciprocal links (you link to me, and I’ll link to you) can be of use when associated, but carry less weight in the search engines than one way inbound links.

what to do: Avoid link farms (pages of links, for the sake of links), treat reciprocal link requests with anticipation and stay associated.

Gains: Spending time and thought on your link profile will ensure natural growth of links. Search engines hate anything that looks artificial, or anything that could be interpreted as ‘Search engine Trick’.

Duplicate Content

Question: A webmaster copies content from another website, or sets up numerous sites which are identical, or very similar. Is this mechanism works?

Answer: search engines apply echo content filters to the search results. Although the idea of increasing the market share is a bona fide idea, thousand similar sites is not the way to go about doing it. Efforts put into the secondary sites will be forfeited.

what to do: endorse all of the pages on each of your sites are unique. Querying a search engine for an exact match of long strings of text will show you if the content is bring up elsewhere. If a webmaster does have facsimile pages and wishes to avoid any penalties or filters, the webmaster must choose one page to have the other identical pages redirect to. Redirects are covered later. You may also use random RSS Feeds that are mixed before show up on each page. The RSS have the ability that are always have fresh content but only if you mix 3 or more RSS feeds you will get a unique result and not what all the other sites have that are using the same RSS feeds.

Gains: Your efforts are not wasted, time and money can be saved. Always Fresh content from the RSS Feeds.

Numerous Sites

Question: Following on from identical content, there are numerous sites. A single webmaster has a certain number closely themed sites, all inter-linked and hosted on the same IP address.

Answer: This is seen as search engine Frame-up, the linking structure and numerous sites just isn’t natural. Penalties can apply.

what to do: Such site structures can work if set out properly. this means that each site must reside on it’s own IP address where, at least, the C class is different. IP address are covered later.

Gains: Increased market share, effectively linked and spiderable sites, no penalties applied.

Unfriendly URLs

Question: The URL (web address) of some of your sites pages look like domain dot com/product.php?id=2346&category=665&sid=f29a3483270cc10b3783706916216e3a

Answer: Search engine spiders are getting better and following and indexing these form of URLs, bit not all of them. The spiders are scared of getting caught in an endless loop of identical pages with 1000s of different URLs. they are also off putting to your site visitors who could surely remember mydomain dot com/products/cars/boostvalves.

what to do: Use Search Engine Friendly URLs. If you are running the Apache webserver on Linux enabled server use mod_rewrite to translate the URLs into something nicer

Gains: Higher chance of being indexed by more of the search engines, keywords in your URL, higher chance of being clicked on in the SERPs

Redirects

There are two main redirects, based on the HTTP specification

301 - moved permanenty

302 - moved temporarily

You should use 301 redirects where ever possible. this can be done in your server side scripting, eg

Code: php

header(”HTTP/1.1 301 Found”);

header(”Location: w w w newdomain dot com/”);

redirects can also be set up in your .htaccess file, if you run the Apache web server

IP addresses (C class)

IP addresses are the numerical addresses of computers connected tot he internet. For ease of reading they are broken down into four parts, each called an octet as they contain 8 bits of data when written in binary form. An example my be 62.85.68.114. in this case the C class is 68 (and everything up to it), so if you have a few sites hosted on this IP they would all have identical IP addresses. If each had a single IP address that started 62.85.68. then they all share the same C-class IP address. As the allocation of IP addresses within a server involvement is usually configured so that each server has it’s own C-class; this means that a search engine knows hat all sites on the same C-class IP address are all located on the same server

Your competitors might not be standing still; neither should you.



Timothy

Wouter Van Dyck asked:


Link Building has become a part and parcel of modern day world. Due to link building, businesses are being helped by a large extent today. As a result, link builders are coming up very rapidly and growing because of the modern day demand of link builders. They are trying to provide the best facilities for the users for their exposure as well. VRE Link Builder is such a link builder. It really is an effective link builder as it tries to provide benefits to the users and with a very cheap rate as well.

If anyone wants to see himself/ herself not to pay huge amounts for high PR links, not to have to beg for back links, and with a lot more additional facilities, then, he/ she has to chose VRE Link Builder to get unlimited links for his/ her website. It gives his/ her virtual real estate a boost. If an owner chooses VRE link builder, then, he/ she can increase his/ her both traffic and income. If an owner gets more links pointing at his/ her website, then, he/ she can increase his traffic obviously. Having more traffic means, his/ her site will get more exposure and it will be placed higher in the search engine results. It means, his income will increase drastically and the price of the program will be very negligible factor compared to its output.

Now, the question arises to a site owner’s mind is why should he/ she opt for VRE Link Builder. The answer is not short but, simple. It has more than 800 blogs which are of very high quality. The whole linking system was built and now being built constantly as well. The blogs are rotated quite frequently to keep the quality as it is now.

A user, who has chosen VRE Link Builder, will get a lot of exclusive features as well. He/ she will get hundreds of sites at his/ her front to post his/ her links. All these sites are trusted and relevant sites. It provides permanent solution as all the provided sites are designed as SEO friendly sites. These sites also have more than one backlinks. All sites are just out of ‘the sandbox’. More than 50 themes, 50 posts without back links are available in VRE Link Builder. These blogs do not have any other links. Also, a user will get over 30 varied C class IP addresses. There are many additional features such as, different hosting, different registrars, manually created etc.

The possibility of VRE Link Builder is worth hundreds per month if not thousands per month. It enables us not to buy those costly pr5, pr6, and pr7 links. It only requires to pay only once in a lifetime. So, it is worth to have loads of these high pr links. It also has the facility of returning money within two weeks. If a user does not like VRE Link Builder’s service, he/ she can get his/ her money back.



Randall

Vikram kuamr asked:


An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a logical address assigned to devices participating in a network that utilizes the IP for communication between nodes. Although normally stored as binary numbers, an IP address is usually displayed in forms or notations that are readable by humans.

Every time someone requests a webpage or sends emails, a part of the information includes the IP address. At the other end, the recipient can see the IP address of the one that sent an email or requested an HTML webpage.

In short, the role of an IP address is characterized as a name that indicates what we are looking for, an address where one can be able to locate it, and the route that one needs to get there, without any further hassle.

The original designers of the IP address came up with a 32-bit Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4), which is still widely used today. But due to the huge growth of the Internet, they have developed a new addressing system, the 128-bit Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).

An IP address specifies the locations of the sources and destination nodes of the routing system. This is why some of the bits in an IP address are used to comprise a subnetwork. An IP address may be private for use on a Local Area Network (LAN), or for the use on the Internet thus making it public.

The Design

The IP address was earlier intended to be uniquely designed for a single computer or device but this isn’t always necessary, since some private networks create their own addresses. Besides, some technologies redesigned their system to be able to allow multiple hosts for a single address but its place depends on the request of the clients in the network.

More Info

In an isolated network, one can assign an IP address at random as long as each one is unique but if one is about to connect to a private network, a registered IP address is needed so as not to be hassled with duplicates.

In the early stages of Internet protocol, the administrators interpreted IP address as a structure of host and network number.

The Parts

The IP address has two parts, which is the identifier of the particular network and the device within that network. On the Internet though, especially when administrators ping IP, only the network part is important because it is the only one that is looked at.

The Classes and Their Formats

Networks vary in size and that is why there are four formats of IP addresses:

?        CLASS A addresses are for large networks with many devices

?        CLASS B addresses are for medium sized networks

?        CLASS C are for smaller networks which have fewer than 256 devices

?        CLASS D are multicast address

The address class format is indicated by the first few bits of the IP address itself.

Usually, the IP address is written as four decimal numbers each of them representing 8 bits and is separated by periods. This form is more technically known as the dotted quad notation.

To put it bluntly, an IP address is a 32-bit number that identifies either the sender or receiver of certain information. When you use the command ping IP, this is usually sent in packets that pass through routes across the Internet.



Rodney

Michael Small asked:


years ago if you wanted to make money from a niche market you were in for quite a task. First there came the research to see if your niche of choice was big enough to support your efforts and turn a decent profit. Then you needed a shop of some kind, whether it was a shop on Main Street, small mall kiosk, or run a mail order company run from your kitchen table. It was tough! But thanks to the Internet those days are long gone.

Today, with a little basic information and $50 you can have a nice niche thing going. Or with that same $50 and some hard won insider tips you can OWN any niche you want. That’s what we’ll focus on.

First things first, spend wisely. Setup a budget early on and find ways to stay within it. Use free tools whenever possible and when you do need to spend money on something, make sure it’s a bargain.

Okay, now for the good stuff. Let’s start with finding our keywords…

Part One: Finding Keywords

Finding Keywords 1: We can use a free tool to do this part. Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and type in a common word or phrase that describes your niche (check the Use synonyms box to get the best variety of results.)

Finding Keywords 2: Now click on the “Approx Avg Search Volume” header to sort by the average monthly volume. You are going to take each of the search terms that look like good possible keywords and run a search on Google for them. But lets keep track. Take a sheet of paper (or Excel doc) and jot down the keyword, then the “Approx Avg Search Volume” and finally the number of pages returned on Google.

Finding Keywords 3: When you have that information for a good handful of keywords you want to come up with a success potential ratio for each. It’s easy. Just divide the “Approx Avg Search Volume” by the number of pages on Google. This is your success potential ratio. The higher the number; the better.

Example A: Approx Avg Search Volume (6,500) / Matching Pages on Google (100,000) = .065 is your Success Potential Ratio

Example B: Approx Avg Search Volume (9,750) / Matching Pages on Google (233,000) = .042 is your Success Potential Ratio

Example B has a lot more searches performed but with even more competition than A. Long story short, this means the keyword from Example A is likely our best bet to target.

Part Two: Securing Domain Names

Securing Domain Names 1: Now go to your favorite domain registrar (like Godaddy.com Register.com or whatever) and run a domain registration availability search for the keyword phrase with the highest Success Potential Ratio.

Securing Domain Names 2: Use dashes! And don’t feel like the splits need to be perfect. For example, if you have a possible domain that is three words long, first try it without any dashes. That will be gone, I can almost guarantee. Next try separating each word with a dash. Maybe it’s taken, maybe not. If not, grab it! If it is taken, don’t despair. Try just one dash between the first two words and let the second and third run together. If that version is taken, move the dash so it is between the second and third while the first and second run together. Chances are you will find one that works. Ad the best part is the search engines read it as the same keyword!

Securing Domain Names 2: Keep in mind, this domain and resulting Website is for SEO purposes NOT branding. Who cares how long it is or how many dashes it has? Certainly not you. The search engines will love it!

Securing Domain Names 3: A word of advice… Get your domain name as quickly as possible. The older it is, the better in Google’s eyes. And they actually run date scans on domains using a Whois registry so they know the exact date and minute the domain was registered.

If you’ve never used one check out AllWhoIs.com or BetterWhoIs.com and enter any domain name. It tells you plenty of of important information, including the owner, registrar, date or registration and even the owner’s home phone address if that’s what he or she used to register.

Securing Domain Names 4: As for the domain type, .com is best bet and .net and .org extensions also do well. I don’t bother with the others and I really strive for .com whenever possible.

Part Three: Deciding on Website Type

Deciding on Website Type 1: Do you want a blog or a regular static site? For quickest results I recommend setting up a WordPress blog (free technology with thousands of free templates.) Google loves blogs because they are fresh, dynamic and already nearly perfectly optimized for their spidering bot.

Deciding on Website Type 2: If you do go with WordPress I also recommend installing the free WordPress plugin “All in One SEO Pack” by Michael Torbert. It’s amazing and totally free. You can get it at http://semperfiwebdesign.com/category/portfolio/wordpress/wordpress-plugins/

Part Four: Finding Web Hosting

Finding Web Hosting 1: There are tens or thousands of companies you can go with or you can even just host your site at WordPress.com.

Finding Web Hosting 2: Personally I would rather keep full control of my site for future expansion and customization. And I have so many niche blogs in service that saving even just a few bucks is a big deal. I use the starter blog package available at http://www.vortexhost.com/hosting/blog-hosting.php for $25 per year. It’s also got push button WordPress installation, which is nice. So I’m up and running in about five minutes.

Finding Web Hosting 3: But again, there are literally tens of thousands of hosts to choose from. Shop around and stick with one you really like. It’s much easier to track each of your niche blogs with a single host (control panels, stats, etc.)

Part Five: Optimizing Your Site

Optimizing Your Site 1: So far we’ve covered how to select the most profitable keywords, purchase unbeatable domain names, use the Website type most revered by Google for quickest results and how to get reliable inexpensive hosting with bonus features. And we have only spent about $35 ($10 for the domain and $25 for hosting.)

Optimizing Your Site 2: Now we move onto the actual optimization part. I will laundry list the things you need to keep in mind for a competitive edge and recommend a tool bargain if you decide you need one.

Use two of your most important keywords per page; the primary and a secondary.

Use your main and secondary keyword in the page or post title.

Try to make each page about 500 words in length or more, using at least five paragraphs.

Mention your main keyword about four time one the page as follows: Once at the beginning of the first sentence, once in the second paragraph, once in the third paragraph and once towards the end of the final paragraph.

Mention your second most important keyword about four times one the page as follows: Once toward the end of the first sentence, once in the third paragraph, once in the fourth paragraph and once towards the beginning of the final paragraph.

Add your keywords and META descriptions to the WordPress plugin “All in One SEO Pack” and let that do the heavy lifting for you.

Optimizing Your Site 3: If you have an SEO analyzer tool, use it. This is a tool that goes through you site just like Google will, and does the same to your top competitors that dominate your search engine of choice, then tells you EXACTLY what you need to do to steal their top positions.

Optimizing Your Site 4: If you don’t have a tool like that but think it would help, you can download a free trial version of one of the better ones at http://www.iBusinessPR0M0TER.com. If you decide to buy it, you will have the same tool that makes eBay number one all over the world. And for about $250.

Well that’s it. You can dominate any niche you want with little time, effort or expense. Why do I feel so confident about it? This is the exact process I have used to dominate over fifty niches from Bass fishing to coin collecting and, of course, search engine optimization.

Above all else enjoy the ride. Best of luck!



Jo

IC asked:


One of the main discussion topics among webmasters and social sites (forums, blogs, chat, etc.) is hosting. It is widely argued that monthly bandwidth as well as disk space allowance catch most user’s attention because they seem like such big numbers for such a small monthly fee, and in some cases if it sounds too good to be true then, it probably is.

The most important step is to slowly read all the features offered, fee disclosures, support availability, upgrade options as well as special restrictions. It is an understatement to say webmasters should know about hosting, but the truth is that most of us start knowing virtually zero about all the tasks and concepts needed to master to be successful in our online ventures.

Since the web is a fairly new concept and it is continuously evolving, webmasters need to adapt to these changes and be constantly updated as well as synchronized with online communities, and this is exactly where the most valuable feedback form can be found. The reason message boards and blogs pull so much attention to them is the the features they offer are viral in nature, so webmasters can take full advantage of these tools to discuss the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ of these services.

As most people know, the best service is always the one which provides the best support and turn around times, so it is important to research companies which fit this description, a secondary requirement is for the hosting company to provide several upgrade plans which can be adjusted according to the web site and webmaster’s needs.

Another extremely important feature which needs to be taken in consideration seriously is SEO hosting. Besides hosting, search engine optimization is always in the tip of every webmaster’s tongue. Proper search engine optimization can bring considerable traffic to a web site and increase the webmaster’s earning potential, but very little is known about SEO hosting.

When we say SEO hosting we do not imply that the hosting provider should have a ‘organic optimization services’ but to provide optional tools which can be used to create link authority among web sites. Webmasters know that links can be divided as: one-way, reciprocal or two-way, three-way, etc. The average webmaster will always have more than 2 domain names and sites associated with them but they are located in the same machine with the same IP address and one C block. SEO hosting should provide the option of having different IPs for each web site with additional C block locations, which will often help a webmaster’s link campaign.

Summarizing, the most important features which need to be found in a hosting provider are: top-notch support, SEO features, upgradeable packages and pricing.



Bernice

Michael Small asked:


Since the day Tim O’Reilly (founder of O’Reilly Media) first used the term “Web 2.0″ rumors have flown faster than fact could catch up. Within weeks there were dozens of so called “definitions.” So what is Web 2.0? It’s really just a concept. Web 2.0 is the idea that the Internet can be used for bigger business than viewing simple Websites and sending email, if the right technologies are employed. Chances are you’ve been using Web 2.0 technology for a couple years already via shared multi media, social networking, and online collaboration sites.

Primary tools of Web 2.0 include video sharing sites such as YouTube; Wiki sites like Wikipedia; blogs and various “live face” technologies. We will cover 3 of the quickest, easiest ways to optimize for Web 2.0, beginning with blogs.

1.) SEO for Blogs

Optimizing a blog is one of the absolute best ways to capture Google’s most coveted top spots very quickly. You can hit number 1 on Google in a matter of days. Here’s how you do it…

a.) First, find a good blogging tool. There are plenty out there. I use WordPress (http://www.WordPress.org.) I originally picked it because it was so quick and easy to setup. And soon I realized the platform does 50% of SEO by its very nature. It’s free and you can get thousands of themes, to fit any style you wish, also for free.

b.) Next, make sure your hosting provider can support your blog. I’ve never seen one that can’t. If you are starting fresh, do a Google search for “WordPress blog hosting” and you’ll find great packages that only cost $25 for a whole year. Just avoid the freebie hosts since you are almost guaranteed to be sharing server space (and likely an IP range) with sites banned by Google, which can cost you your ranking.

c.) Once your blog app is installed, turn on the “permalink” option from the control panel. This way each posting you enter will also get its own URL. Finally, begin entering posts of 200 or more words, focusing on only 1 or 2 keywords per post. Try to begin each post title with the primary keyword for that topic.

d.) To best optimize your keywords and content follow the steps outlined in SEO cbt’s release “Google Domination” (http://www.SEOcbt.com). This is a free computer based training module for SEO do it yourselfers that works extremely well. It was not written specifically for blogs but all the information is perfectly suited to them.

Inside Tip: Register your domain name for a five year period or longer. Just extend it if needed. Google has been known to check “whois” records and assumes the longer the domain is registered in advance, the more “real” the site is.

2.) SEO for YouTube Videos

YouTube accounts for more than 60% of ALL online videos watched in the US. And your YouTube videos can be found in Google’s search results just like any normal Web page. This means they can rank number 1 in just days, with the right SEO.

If you’re looking to capitalize on SEO for Web 2.0, this is a fast and free way to do it. I won’t get into how to upload the videos and optimize the frame size, etc. That said; let’s assume you have signed up for your free account at YouTube.com and are ready to upload your first video using their easy to follow instructions. This is all the SEO you need to know…

a.) When forming your title, think in terms of “long tail” keywords, meaning keyword phrases of three or more words. Be sure these are in the same order people would search for them (eg/ “long tail keywords” not “keywords long tail.”) Also try to anticipate what the user will type in his search. “How to” is one of the most common search phrases people use in Google and YouTube to get answers quick.

b.) Think of “tags” as keywords and enter them like you would the Meta keyword tag of a web page. Select only the most likely search terms people are using and keep the words in the order people use them. Don’t just use random words separated by commas. Use full length search phrases exactly how people search for them. And don’t go too crazy here. Excessive tags tend to confuse the YouTube engine. Incidentally, if you have “how to” as a tag, also add “howto” (without the space.) If “how to” returns a bunch of unrelated junk your “howto” tag can better cut to the chase in YouTube’s search engine.

c.) The description is where you have the most freedom. It’s best to begin the description with your main keyword (and title) as close to the beginning as possible. Something like this works well… “Learn how to…” then follow up with several sentences rich in long tail keywords (the same ones from your tags.) Good grammar isn’t the biggest deal but try to make it friendly for people who might actually read the description before they decide to watch the video. Also remember that Google uses a natural text algorithm that can spot unnatural keyword spamming a mile away.

Real Life Example: I just saw a commercial on TV for a spy movie and someone threw a knife. I went to Google and entered “how to throw a knife” (without quotes.) The top three matches include a YouTube video and Wiki entry. Wow! Welcome to Web 2.0!

3.) SEO Using “Live Face” Technology

One of the biggest reasons for the dot com crash of ‘01 was that Websites became way too impersonal. One of Web 2.0’s strengths is the ability to help people relate to people once again. One of the most successful technologies leading the way is “Live Face.”

Live Face allows a video spokesperson to meet, greet and inform your Web page visitors. As far as SEO benefits, any sort of video has usually involved heavy RealTime or Flash files that block search engine spiders and hurt rankings. Now however, there are services like Live Face for Web (http://www.LivefaceForWeb.com) that can add full length videos to your site without it interfering with onsite SEO one bit (due to the file’s location) while greatly enhancing offsite efforts such as acquiring the highest quality one way and reciprocal links.

Most sites employing this technology report conversion increases of up to 5x. This means they are converting up to five times the number of sales they did before using Live Face technology.

Real Life Example: The SEOcbt.com site mentioned earlier uses Live Face for Web and they hit number one on Google for all of their major keywords within two weeks of site launch.

That’s a good start to SEO for Web 2.0. Good luck!



Elsie

John Buchanan asked:


If you are new to the internet, often times things can seem quite overwhelming. People throw around terms like IP Addresses, Nameservers, hosting, ftp, etc.

In this article we are going to cover IP Addresses. You’ll learn exactly what they are and how they apply to search engine optimization (SEO).

IP Address stands for Internet Protocol Address and is currently made up of four “octets” or numbers separated by a period. Each octet can be a number from 0 to 255

Some examples of valid IP addresses are - 1.123.150.243, 35.35.36.10, 240.216.1.80

There is also a new standard for IP addresses that is slowly being launched called IPV6 (IP version 6). IPV6 numbers look quite different from our current IP addresses.

An example of an IPv6 IP address is - 2001:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7334

You will notice each it is much longer with MANY more possible variations. The new IP system is designed to give us enough IP addresses so that we will not run out of unique IP addresses any time in the foreseeable future.

So why do we need IP addresses? Quite simply, an IP address is like your physical home address. It designates a specific computer that is connected to the internet. Every computer connected to the internet has an IP address. This is necessary for it to send and receive information.

When you type in a website name, for example mine, http://www.sesecrets.com that name is translated into an IP address that is then used to “find” my site. In the current set of IP addresses, going from left to right, the first “octet” is the most broad, with each successive octet getting more and more granular or specific.

To explain that a bit better.

134 - is VERY broad

134.125 - is still quite broad, but getting more specific

134.125.244 - is getting more specific and probably refers to a specific web host.

134.125.244.1 - is as specific as you can get and refers to a specific computer

You will often hear different classes such as class A, class B, and class C talked about when dealing with IP addresses. Below I’ve given some examples of what people are referring to when talking about classes.

Class A

134.XXX.XXX.XXX

240.XXX.XXX.XXX

22.XXX.XXX.XXX

Class B

134.254.XXX.XXX

36.36.XXX.XXX

36.37.XXX.XXX

Class C

254.210.135.XXX

36.36.1.XXX

36.36.2.XXX

It’s often easiest to think of IP addresses as physical addresses, with the Class A octet being similar to country, Class B, being a city in that country, Class C being a street in that city, and the last octet being a specific house on that street.

So, by looking above you should be able to see that when some talks about a Class A IP address they are referring to the first “octet” and when they say that two IP addresses are on different Class A subnets, it simply means the first set of numbers are different.

So for example

255.123.124.255

34.123.124.255

Are on different Class A’s. While the rest of the IP addresses are the same, because they are on different Class As, they are VERY far apart (remember, Class A is the most broad).

The same goes for Class B. Class B refers to the second octet of numbers. When someone says that two IP addresses are on different Class B’s it simply means that the the second octet’s of each IP is different. The IPs may be on the same Class A or it may be different, but the second Octet of numbers is different. To better explain…look below.

255.123.124.255

255.34.124.255

34.34.124.255

In the above example, the first two IP addresses are on the same Class A, but different Class B’s. The third IP address, has the same Class B number (34), but because the first Octet is different, it is also on a different Class B ( as with physical addresses, two countries can have the same city names, but they are still different cities).

For class C we are looking at the third octet.

255.123.124.255

255.123.34.255

34.42.124.255

Again, the first two above are on different Class C’s, while the third has the same class C number as the first, but it’s first and second octets are different, so it’s also on a different Class C.

I hope the above makes since to you. I’ve tried to give plenty of examples to make it clear no matter what your tech background is.

The good news is, that you hardly ever have to mess with IP addresses. When you get a web hosting account for your domain name, your host will assign your domain name an IP address. You often don’t even HAVE to know it. Generally your host will set all this up for you without you having to understand any of it. From that point on, when someone types in your domain name, that name will then be converted to your assigned IP address and voila…your visitor winds up at your site.

I’ll cover some of the other basics such as web hosting accounts, nameservers, etc. in later articles.

I’ll see you at the top!



Bernice

Jonathan Aston asked:


Web Hosting and SEO - Search Engine Optimisation

We have seen many organisations completely ignore Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) when considering a hosting package, web hosting and seo should be a key consideration in the selection process. SEO is an important step in creating a website and should should be taken into serious consideration before you even begin to build your website, one of the considerations here is hosting.

Country Specific Domain Names

If the majority of all of your customer base is located for example in the UK, then you should get hosting in the UK.However if your server is located in the US for example you can still localise your domain (learn how to do) to improve rankings on Google UK search.

Staying on the example of serving a customer base largely or complete based in the UK using a TLD: http://.co.uk tells search engines that your are indeed based in the UK. Even having a http://.co.uk domain name and a server hosting your website in Germany or the US having that crucial http://.co.uk is a strong enough statement.

However don’t be tricked into typing ‘UK Web Hosting’ into Google and going with the first result as some UK Web Hosting companies actually have servers based overseas and with the combination of a .com domain name your chanced of appearing in the Google UK search from the web and pages from the up is limited.

In an ideal world in this scenario you should have reliable hosting in the UK and a http://.co.uk domain name, however there are ways around it if you do not.

If you are based in the UK and own a .com and not http://.co.uk, you could purchase http://.co.uk TLD and forward your .com to the http://.co.uk however there is risk in this if you site has build up a good reputation and has a strong back link campaign and high page rank. You can always try to localise your domain.

But in conclusion to rank in a regional specific area you either need hosting in your country or a local TLD e.g. http://.co.uk, you don’t necessarily need both. 

Avoid Cheap Web Hosting - consider web hosting and seo …

Simply knocking up a quick website, rushing the design, back end coding and on site search engine optimisation and finally wacking it onto the cheapest server you find is not going to deliver any success at all, if you are serious about creating a professional authoritative website then you really needs to invest wisely in web hosting. As mentioned above why attract unwanted visitors from unwanted locations.

Sometime cheap hosting companies will offer ridiculous amount of free space, however this can have an adverse effect on down time, and this means that your website may not always be available upon request. This not only has a knock on effect on SEO but also website usability as it may cause problems for website visitors to visit your website when they want to, what is worth adding here also is if search engine spiders cannot access your website and follow links throughout your site this will obviously have an effect on your SEO campaign.

Again some webhosts that offer cheap hosting use a method where your domain is redirect to the back of another Website. This can cause problems with the search engines reaching your website and website content.

I have also found that some cheap hosting providers host sites that have been banned from the search engines; this of course will have more than a negative effect on search engine rankings.

Avoid Hosting Multiple Domains on the Same Server

Yes it does seem very tempting to buy server space and hosting more than one domain. Let’s just say that search engines e.g. Google may frown upon this type of behavior. Search Engines may believe that the company hosting these multiple domains is attempting to artificially link together hence trying to manipulate search engine with the objective of increase rankings in the search engine results pages. However this can and often does results in a decrease in SERP rankings.

In conclusion consider web hosting and seo as working to compliment each other in your efforts to achieve effective search engine ranks, check out the resources below.



Kimberly

John B Lee asked:


With high availability rates and high local access speeds, the Singapore shared web hosting services are designed to solve difficulties generating revenue online on account of a poor web presence. The internet revolution has also exposed the online business enthusiasts to the need to address sufficient visibility and enhance profits via powerful, cost- effective ways of creating revenue via a domain that is key word rich and designed for your business.

Singapore shared web hosting plans help you address the leverage on the potential of search engines to attract the desired volume of web based traffic to your site. Thus, with a good online marketing campaign and using Singapore shared web hosting plans for greater reliability and speed, it exposes your business brand and touch points to potential business clientele. This in turn generates revenue.

Singapore shared web hosting works along the paradigms that are established, keeping in mind that search engines use prevalent information on the business to generate highly repetitive business in a convenient and time-saving manner. The shared web hosting enables you to have a high availability website on an affordable budget, so that your clients can find you on the search engines. Since web users at least scroll through the initial 2 or 3 pages of results before giving up, having a search engine optimized website, powered by Singapore shared web hosting, puts you among naturally associated companies and ensures a listing in top results, with top brands.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services help to channel potential customers and dedicated company-oriented services to your business website by optimizing contents. These services also take care of the website page structure and meta-tags. The services address a host of dedicated visibility factors to obtain top ranking. The endeavor targets more qualified visitors, more enquiries and requests. Before you perform SEO on your website though, you should establish your business online with a major hosting player geared with un-metered data transfer and unlimited domains so that you can maximize your benefits!

The Singapore shared web hosting swings into action the moment you order a plan. For SEO, simply submit the company website URL to a SEO company. Typically, they will start by listing down some keywords that you strongly identify with and know that your existent and potential future customers do too. This exercise enables the clientele to search and reach your business site within a click. The search engine optimization professionals also analyze and suggest keywords that they deem fit for your business.

Singapore shared web hosting providers should have the services of an excellent in-house support team, made up of people with industry proven expertise and experience and the exclusive use of organic and natural search optimization techniques. Search engine optimization services should guarantee top search engine placements for your business website and guarantee the maintenance of position at no extra cost. The competence of a search engine optimization firm is seen in the effectiveness of the applications in absolutely any industry or niche business and their focus on search engines.

Some of the typical SEO services guaranteed include:

? Top company web site position free of cost

? High ranking of keywords

? Focus on dominant search engines

The shared services are dedicated to expose clientele to the business-enhancing features of the World Wide Web in the form of securing top search engine results for your website.



Audrey

Martin Malden asked:


our own blog..? Why would anyone want to do that when there are plenty of well established blogging platforms that will let you set one up and operate it for free?

A: Better SEO, total control, more traffic and more sales - although those reasons won’t apply if you’re not blogging for business!

When I started out blogging I opened a blogger.com account. That worked fine for me at the time because I was new to blogging. I was such a newbie that I didn’t even realise it was possible to host my own blog.

Even if I had realised that, it’s not something I would have given a moment’s thought to. I was too new to working online. I was (still am) totally non-techie and it would have been too daunting a task.

So I happily blogged away on my blogger account until I logged on one day to find that Google had translated all the admin pages into Chinese. I live in Hong Kong so Google, thinking they were being smart, used my IP address as the basis on which to make the decision to translate it.

Not being able to find the help link (because I can’t read Chinese) I logged into my Google account (Adwords, Gmail, etc,) to raise a request for them to translate my blog back to English.

After a week nothing had happened. I hadn’t received a reply, I still couldn’t read my admin screens, and I was seriously frustrated that Google should unilaterally decide to translate my blog, so I kissed the big G goodbye and shifted my blog over to Wordpress.com.

By this time I had learned enough about blogging to have heard that Wordpress was the place to be. So with some anticipation of great things to come, I imported all my blogger posts and set about learning the new admin screens.

One thing I noticed immediately was that my posts were suddenly figuring much more quickly in the natural search results, so it looked as though at least some of what I’d heard was correct.

And I happily blogged away until…

…one day I tried to log on to be met with a notice telling me my blog had been suspended for infringing Wordpress’ terms and conditions.

DAMN..!! Twice inside a month I’d been blind-sided by my blogging platform and the second occasion was even more damaging than the first. (It doesn’t look too professional when your visitors are told that your blog’s been suspended for infringing terms and conditions).

So, finally, I was pushed into the realisation that I had no option but to set up my own blog and host it myself.

So off I clicked to Wordpress.org to see what I could find out. And I was pleasantly surprised.

Firstly - they’ve made the process as easy as possible by setting out extremely clear, easy-to-follow instructions.

There are a few minimum requirements set out, which pretty much every hosting provider meets. You can always check with your provider if you’re not sure. Mine does, so I printed off the instructions and got going.

First step is to set up the database. Easy to do - the instructions are very clear, include screen shots for every step of the way and are written in simple, non-techie language.

I then downloaded and unzipped the blog files, entered my newly created database details into the config file, (just followed the instructions), uploaded the files and accessed the installation screen via my browser (the URL is provided in the instructions). That kicked off the installation script and I was all done.

It was, literally, a 5-minute exercise.

However, the majority of hosting providers now give you an even easier method than that:

One click installation.

I’ve never done a 1-click installation so I can’t confirm whether it really is one click or whether a few more are involved - but it’s definitely very easy and it doesn’t involve any downloading, unzipping and uploading of files.

So what are some of the benefits of hosting your own blog?

You have total control. You can write what you like, you can drive traffic to affiliate programs, no one is going to translate it into Chinese, and no one is going to lose your database.

You can customise it as much as you like. Customisation is done through plug-ins, and there are plug-ins for just about anything you can think of. You decide what you want to do with your blog, then you can either go to the Wordpress plug-in directory or do a Google search for a plug-in for the function you want.

Download the plug-in, unzip it, upload it and activate it through the blog admin screens. It’s that simple. Really.

But of all the sexy things you can do with your self-hosted blog, probably the biggest benefit of all comes from the SEO elements.

This really turns your blog into an incredibly effective way of figuring strongly in the natural search results.

Optimising your blog for the search engines is simply a question of installing and activating the appropriate SEO related plug-ins. And you can find probably the best list of these in Jack Humphrey’s Authority Blackbook.

If you’ve gone to the trouble of setting up your own, self-hosted blog then you should absolutely download this book and follow the guidelines in there for optimising it properly for the search engines.

Firstly, it’s free and secondly, if you don’t set up your blog properly you’re wasting an enormous portion of its SEO potential.

It would be like buying a Ferrari but never taking it out of the city centre.

I’m now using my blog as my primary means of drawing in traffic. I haven’t spend a dime on promoting it - and I don’t have any intention of doing so going forwards.

And yet my blog is now attracting a little over 50% of the total traffic I’m getting on a weekly basis - that’s traffic to my blog plus traffic to all my other sites - and that’s almost totally due to the SEO effectiveness of my plugin-rich, self-hosted blog.

Within the next year I’m aiming for that to be well over 80%.



Nellie