Sid - Blogging for Newbie Webmasters’

It has been nicely explained in the following articles:

#1

#2

And in many other places. Worth reading and implementing the same.

Quick ToDO list:

Step:1

Open file, named as ‘hosts’ (found under c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\ folder in WiinXP)

Add the line mentioned below at the end of that file.

127.0.0.1 client-website-name.local

Save & close that file.

Step: 2

Open httpd.conf (Either search for it, or click White WAMP icon at system tray -> Config File -> httpd.conf)

Search for the string: DocumentRoot

DocumentRoot “C:/wamp/www”

Add FOLLOWING LINES BELOW DocumentRoot “C:/wamp/www”.
NameVirtualHost 127.0.0.1

<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1>

ServerName localhost

DocumentRoot “C:/wamp/www”

</VirtualHost>
AND below that, add these lines:

<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1>

ServerName myclient.local

DocumentRoot “C:/wamp/www/folder-name”

</VirtualHost>

Now Save & Close httpd.conf

Step: 3

Restart WAMP

Open your web browser and type: http://myclient.local

It will display local copy of your client’s website.

Hi! I find this nice topic and take the opportunity to share it with you all. It relates to a prolonged debate on Sub-domain vs. Sub-directory and how GoogleBot sees them. Just a nutshell of the long post:

GoogleBot prefers subdirectories,  i.e., www.domain-name.com/dir more than sub-domain www.sub-domain-name.domain-name.com, as it the bot was designed to crawl sub-directories. However, the biggest advantage of having a sub-domain was that the Bot would treat each sub-domain as independent website. Therefore, possibility was there to see more than one search result for a specific query from the same website containing a number of sub-domain. SEOs used to take advantage of this by going on increasing number of sub-domains.
Recent changes in algorithm seems to have fixed that. I’m not going to tell anything more but to suggest you to follow this link.

Hi! Back to my blog after a long days of interval. I did really miss you all a lot, but I was absolutely occupied with my new project! I’ll tell a lot about that later on but for the time being let me tell you some fabulous new feature of Google Toolbar! It appears that this is going to be the saviour for all of us - the webmasters! when your site returns “404  - Not Found” errors.

You must appreciate it is difficult to get traffic among the forest of websites, so you need to dig hard to get some real visitors. Now if  your visitors see “404 - MESSAGE BOARD” not only that is a frustrating experience for them, it must be a great disappointment for you as well.

As said in their Offical blog: “The latest release of Google Toolbar, however, helps users by detecting site issues and providing alternatives”. Interested? - Read full details here!

Also I’ll let you know about my latest project shortly. I would like to hear your feedback thereon.

Relax! Bye!

Hi! The search engine giant seems to be facing difficulties in keeping up to its promise - sites supported with paid links are still finding decent position in search results. I read about this news, sorry, can’t share the links - but it was in the comments section, where some traces of concrete evidence.

Fact is that it may be hard for the bot to detect paid links - irrespective of how much clever can it be. Or, the bot will penalize sites telling - ‘Your link here for $1′! It may be for advertisement purpose as well, and a claim like that does not guarantee that the owner has managed to earn a single paid link for that site. Getting paid link is not that easy!

So, it will be more like feedback or man-monitored algorithm? I need some serious in sight into this issue.

On the other hand partnership deeds are just going great for Google - with its new tie-up with Swiss Sunrise , the second largest telecommunications company in Switzerland is offering its customers a new e-mail service based on Google Mail.

It looks like Google is also being used as a password cracker read this story.

So the internet is full of Google activity!  More  Google stuff will follow. Stay tuned.

In my constant effort to keep yourself updated with popular keyword search, I would again like to mention below a link to this years top searches for Toys and video!

HitSearchLimited!

It must not be new to you that both toys and videos sell like hot cake, and most of the buyers prefer to follow Google search to rich the best website. The list will help you to get an insight into the top selling toys world as well as top selling videos.

Mike Grehan, of The ClickZ Network has made a thought provoking entry in his post http://www.clickz.com/3627629. We get unsolicited Emails but not all of them are rubbish. You find some occassional one that is interesting as well. Do you agree? And about the guidelines framed by SEs and his opinion - “one man’s spam can often be another’s cutting-edge SEO (define) tactic.”

That is how the world of SEO goes. Black hat strategies are invented and used too often to give a site booster! Who cares? Even when the SEs pick up the trick, the owner has already digested the traffic juice!

Tough luck for rather ethical guys, though they will be rewarded in the loooooooong run! Lol!

Hi! This is a fantastic winter Sunday and I’m about to attend a party! So I’m in a real hurry, and about to leave my working table. Anyway, I will give you a great input that will help you to think over the rest of the day with follow up - ‘Do it now’ doctrine! How can you neglect this asset list of keywords - top fifty for UK searches in the month of November?

Oh! Just getting trapped in word puzzle, so here is the link the lists them all.

And one word of caution for those who prefer Google more to get hits to your website.

PayPerPost is most likely to be in the Google ban list, so it is undoubtedly a black hat SEO. For those bloggers who were earning some decent living with PPP, now is the time to decide, whether to sacrifice Google juice, or to think of another avenues of online earning! Confusing and sad -as being a blogger I know better than nobody else how much difficult it is to earn some money from blogging!

Search engines are the best source of traffic in the internet industry and more importantly it is free. Thus it is always better to consider getting some traffic from search engines. If you are over convinced by reading eBooks, or some other guidelines that it may take up to six months to a year to get your site indexed in search engine, you are sitting in the wrong world.

Modern search engines are very fast. You can’t believe they can even pick up your brand new websites within few days, to at most a fortnight - if they find your link in some other websites already listed in their index. That is why it is so important to submit your links to different relevant websites, or some good high PR directories, after you are satisfied with content and design of your website.

Internet is a strange world, and search engines are still a mystery! But nobody can deny equipped with high power computer hardware available now, they are more smart and active now than even before. Once they get a link to your website, that is yet to be crawled, they do not do much delay in making the first call. And that is why it is so very important to avoid promoting your sites which are still under-construction. Search engines do not like any under construction site, and you must get penalty for doing so.
Strange thing I have observed with my sites, when they are in their brand new stage, is that Google seems to push up brand new sites little bit higher in search position than they deserve, an initial boost you can say. I say it because it is not that easy to promote your websites within that much narrow span. However, to get sustained ranking for highly competitive keywords, there is no other alternative but to get editorially awarded links. And to do that you need to ensure highest quality, both in terms of contents, navigation, and overall design.

All visitors no customers! If this were the situation with your affiliate site, you need to consider revising your business model. What is a business model?

This is the basic guideline which will set the contents of your website, navigation structure and requirement of updates along with every other technical details - like keywords etc. These are the pages, which you need to go through regularly in order to avoid an potential damage to the goodwill of your website by including contents, either irrelevant or annoying for your visitors.

Ideally for affiliate websites, business model may be of four types:

1. Content based site.

These are the websites containing contents on a specific subject. It is always advisable to focus on a single subject as it is extremely difficult to learn, understand and write about a wide varieties of subjects each day. A blog focussed on a definite niche can do this as well. The simplicity of this model is that you need not have much room for commitment for your visitors. Add, update or modify pages as and when required, or based on available time. If you can write interesting content regularly on a specific product, or product lines - you are definitely going to get return visitors, who would then consider making a purchase from your website.

2. Deals, Coupons and discounts

This is the website/blog that should be focussed on deals, discounts, or coupon codes. Then again there is no need to enlist all the deals of the world to get a sell. Rather, it is always best to set focal points at some specific products, and update deals and coupons related to that. Also users often try to find coupon codes from different web stores. So Coupon codes by stores listing will definitely add value to your website.

But it calls for a regular maintenance of your website or blog. You need to update deals, as well as remove expired deals from time to time to give a fresh look to your website daily. Depending upon the product line you have chosen, if you can manage to spend few hours daily - this must be the best business model for you.

3. Comparison Shop:

Websites listing various vendors for the same item, like nextag, is a good example comparison shops. As it is virtually impossible for a single individual to maintain such a site, update each listing wherever there is a change in price, so it is not advisable to take up such a site unless you are a coding expert, or has wide experience, and you will be able to spend fair amount of time each day to update and maintain your website.

Once again, this model is only for expert users.

4. Hybrid model

This is just a combination of one or more of the above model. While visiting Camera reviews, I have seen lots of websites lists vendors with price details requesting their visitors to consider buying from such stores to help the project keeping alive.

This is also rather difficult but it has the flexibility in the way that you have the option open to write few lines to convince your prospective buyers, and then direct them to the advertisers’ websites.

Thus, I must say that if you can adhere to a strict discipline in terms of your business model which is to be extremely focussed - there is no reason for you to see visitors going away without making purchase from your website.

Google - Mighty search engine giant is always in look up to provide new service. Starting with providing relevant information for the surfers, it has always been able to get hold of control key in terms on Internet industry. Besides, being able to keep upgrading and updating search results algorithm very efficiently, Google has done great work in extending its service sector. You can blog, manage webmails, photos, browse internet using a great toolbar, even host websites (100MB google space!) for free.

With goDaddy!

When it comes to Google, their no-compromise attitude has always been set at focal point of any development work. I got to learn recent tie-up of Google with goDaddy. Now it is possible to access Googles’ Webmaster tools, presumably with some restrictions - for goDadday users. The perfect tie-up say I must, as I am a big fond of both Google, and GoDaddy, for providing cheapest domain names and hosting services over the years supported with great care for their customers!

Android SDK!

Anyway, now Google has decided to serve more people by entering into Mobile industry armed with their open source software projects - Android! for mobile. Much needed SDK for it has already been released, and interestingly well ahead of release of the phone itself. This will provide developers to get accustomed with the new framework.

Fragmentation issue!

There is an alarm bell already ringing in the market of mobile industry, the new framework will fragment the market further for compatibility issues. The market is already multi-parted, making it hard for developers to write codes compatible with all sorts of handsets, in direct contradiction to Java tagline - “write once, run anywhere”!

Finally!

After all it is Google! After all we’ll get to see that never-compromise-with-quality promise, and after all lots of brain twisting challenges for developers! So let us welcome it.

Search engine optimization, abbreviated commonly as SEO is all about winning the battle in highly competitive search engine war! Since the advent of Internet websites setting focal point on specific popular key phrases are coming up each day. It plunges you in the world of highest level of competition, and to win in this battle is a must for getting traffic to your website in case you do not want to pay for advertisement charges. It needs skill (basic SEO Skills), it needs devotion (like your Sunday prayer) and it needs commitment (for your visitors).

If you at all interested in getting search engine traffic, the real juice of Internet, you need to analyze on the basis of competitive landscape. You need to be well aware of your competitors, what their strength are – why the bots have trusted some other websites more than yours? Why the bots consider their sites useful and yours useless?

Search engines run automated scripts based on algorithm to rank web pages for specific key phrases. When you search Google for a specific search term, you can get an overview of number of sites providing information on that subject. This is a crude estimate of competition you have to face when you want to get higher ranks in search engine result pages (SERP). You can yourself do well to keep track of your competition in a spreadsheet, focusing on search volumes, and number of sites found against each search term, you want to compete in. It must be great to find a key phrase with minimum competition, but considering sky-high growth in Internet, it is rather difficult to locate one easily. You need to do the research work, and it takes time. But it is the best practice to compete for rather less competitive key phrases.

Now once you have located your key phrase, the real battle starts. The biggest clue to be a winner in this battle is to be well aware of your strength and weakness. As you do not really have much scope to see who is sitting behind the screen to pump up the ranks of your competitors’ websites, so battle must be more difficult. You do not have much idea of their strength or weakness.

However, you can still get an overview of the pages indexed in Google (site: top-level-domain-name), or Yahoo (site explorer) from your competitors’ websites. This will help you to appraise number of pages you should consider for your website. Creating duplicate pages, copy-paste pages, or pages containing nearly same or useless content – will not do any good. This will simply mark your dream website as ‘Spam’, and all you can expect by following up such desperate attempt is to see your website getting dropped from Google/Yahoo index.

You need to create unique, quality content providing information that is valuable for your visitors. You can write your own content, or spend some money to higher the service of freelance writers! Your content pages must be different setting focal point on specific key phrase. This will help you in ranking higher in search engines, also your website will be highly objective targeting a niche audience – a win-win situation.

Besides you own pages, you need to earn recommendations from similar other websites. A site focusing on ‘Decorative Plate for Christmas’ should earn recommendations from sites offering ‘Christmas’ gifts! This is just an example, but you can easily estimate how much difficult it is! Do you think your competitors will recommend you? But they do so, or rather compelled to do so, if you have unique relevant information that is hard for them to provide for their visitors, but very much important for their visitors as well. Under such situation, they will be rather compelled to place a live link to your website from relevant section of their sites. This type of link is called editorially given link, the one that editors of websites pick up and mention in their content. Search engines know the importance of that link, and will definitely pump up your ranking top in the order, and you can have the final laughter!

A win for you at last!