SE Placement Specialist

32 Most Important SEO Tips

noreply@blogger.com (liza decausta) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 16:22:00 +0000

Following these simple tips will definitely boost your traffic and search engine rankings for free.

1. Make sure your site is not under construction or incomplete with little or no unique content.

2. When your site is ready, submit it to Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK.com. Consider also submittíng to other search engines but most of them are powered by these four leading search engines. Also submít your site to reputable high PR web directories, open directories, yellow pages and social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us, furl, etc.

3. Submit your sitemap to Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK.com (sitemap for search engines usually in XML format)

4. Offer a sitemap to your site visitors for easy page navigation. (sitemap for visitors in HTML format)

5. Create unique and rich content sites. Avoid duplicate content. Do not create multiple pages, sub-domains, domains, mirror sites or sites with different domain names but the same content.

6. Check your keywords and make sure they are relevant and actually are contained in your site. Avoid keyword stuffing.

7. Use text instead of images in your content, links and important subjects.

8. Make your TITLE and ALT tags descriptive, simple and keyword rich. Avoid irrelevant and repeated keywords.

9. Your Title tag should be 60-80 characters maximum length.

10. Your Meta tag description should be 160-180 characters, including spaces. (about 25-30 words)

11. The keywords Meta Tag must be 15-20 words maximum.

12. Optimize pages with Headings (H1, H2, H3..) containing your site's primary keywords.

13. Validate your CSS and HTML. Check for errors and broken links.

14. If your site contains dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), make sure you use SEO friendly URLs. Search engine spiders have difficulty indexing dynamic pages.

15. Maximum links per page must be fewer than 100. Avoid the risk of being flagged as a link farm by search engines.

16. Use Lynx as text browser to check your site.

17. Allow search bots (good ones) to crawl your sites without session IDs or arguments that track their path through the site. Using these techniques may result in incomplete indexing of your site.

18. Check your web server/host if it supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header. It tells search engines whether your content has changed since your site was last crawled. It will save you bandwidth, resources and avoid server overload.

19. Use a Robots.txt file to manage and control search engine spiders that index your site. You can allow and disallow spiders and choose directories you want to be crawled and indexed. With bad bots or spam bots you need to modify your HTACCESS file to properly and effectively manage bots or spiders. Visit http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/faq.html to learn more about the Robots.txt file.

20. Do not attempt to present different content to search engines than what you show to your site visitors.

21. Avoid dirty tricks and exploiting loop holes to improve search engine ranking.

22. Avoid links to bad neighborhoods such as web spammer, link farm, phishing, hacker, crack, gambling, pörn and scam sites. Linking to them will greatly affect your search engine rankings.

23. Do not attempt to join in link schemes, excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging and link exchange web rings.

24. Do not use unauthorized programs or online tools to submit your site, check page rankings or perform other automated queries. Avoid the risk of being flagged as a spammer.

25. Do not use hidden text and links. Show the search engines what you show to your vistors. It will greatly affect your site's reputation.

26. Do not attempt to create pages that contain phishing, scam, virus, trojan, backdoor, spyware, adware or other malicious programs.

27. Make your site useful and informative.

28. Improve your link building. Link to high PR websites. Quality of relevant links is far more important than quantity. Links will greatly improve your site's visibility, popularity and ranking. Search engines consider links as votes to your site.

29. Check your page link structure. Every page should be reachable by a single static text link.

30. Be extra careful in purchasing SEO services. Some use illegal and questionable methods to improve rankings.

31. Do not buy or sell links.

32. Do not create sites that contain purely affiliate links and no valuable content that is useful to users.

I hope these tips will add more popularity and visibility to your site. Enjoy!

Web Developer Resources Ultimate Collection

noreply@blogger.com (liza decausta) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:46:00 +0000

Firefox plugins

Royalty Free Images

Inspiration

CSS MESS

CSS

Traffic / SEO

Php

Flash

Flashmagazine.com

AJAX

Ajax magazine

Free Templates

Image Editing

Fonts

Online Tools

Java

Ruby

Javascript

Software

Asp.net

Hosting

Color tools

CMS

XHTML

Color schemes

Sql

45+ Web Operating Systems

noreply@blogger.com (liza decausta) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:30:00 +0000

Remotely Hosted WebOS

AstraNOS - Picture Windows 98. Then picture an OS X dock. Then picture a night sky. Then throw them all together. You now have a pretty good picture of AstraNOS.
BeDesk - Basic wrapper for other online tools.
cmyOS - Free hosted webtop powered by eyeOS.
Desktoptwo - Not only do you get 1GB of space, you get a fully-featured OpenOffice.org suite. No, not a basic online editor that has simple formatting options. The full OpenOffice.org 2.0 suite from Sun, converted into a Java applet.
DoxBoard - Slick WebOS with some basic features.
GCOE X - Nice WebOS with a powerful terminal and support for the iPhone.
eyeOS - Beautiful webtop powered by the eyeOS software.
Glide - Online operating system with support for BlackBerry, Palm, Windows Mobile, Symbian and iPhone users.
G.ho.st - With 3GB of space, FTP access, and Zoho Office support, what’s not to like?
goowy - Great webtop with your own email account (@goowy.com), IM, 1GB of space (via Box.net), and much more.
jooce - Slick invite-only online OS.
mybooo - Invite-only webtop with a ton of features.
myGoya - Nice WebOS with PIM features, a media player, and much more.
OOS - Basic online operating system that offers a personal webpage.
Parakey - Not much is known about Blake Ross’s newest invention, but we do know that Facebook liked it enough to purchase it for an undisclosed sum.
Psych Desktop - GPLed webtop with a powerful UNIX-like console.
Purefect Desktop - Web desktop with a powerful IDE.
SSOE - Flash-based webtop a lot of features.
StartForce - Powerful WebOS with tons of apps and features makes the descendant of Orca Desktop a hit.
Xindesk - File sync, a powerful API, and much more are included in this great WebOS.
Webdesk - This Indian webtop includes 1GB of space, POP3 client, PIM, and a nice modules API.
Webdows - We don’t know how long it will take Microsoft to sue these guys, but it’s a real enjoyment in the meantime. It has XP and Vista styles (including a few Vista effects), FTP, file sharing, IM, and much more.
Widgets Gadgets - AJAX desktop with tons of apps and a working API.
YouOS - File sharing, powerful shell, and 700+ applications are all available with this wildly popular operating system.
ZimDesk - Slick WebOS with tons of apps.

Self-Hosted WebOS

eyeOS - One of the most popular webtops on the planet, eyeOS boasts tons of apps, a booming community, and a lot more features.
Fenestela - There’s still quite a few bugs to be ironed out in this French WebOS, but you get a cool XP interface and basic PHP apps.
Psych Desktop - GPLed desktop with a powerful UNIX-like console.
Purefect Desktop - Web desktop with a powerful IDE.
Virtual-OS - Includes powerful API, web server sync, forum integration, and offline AJAX support.
ZKDesktop - Powerful open source Java-based WebOS.

Remote Desktops

DesktopOnDemand - A fully featured Linux-based desktop with Gnome, Gaim, AbiWord, Evolution, GIMP, WebDAV, VNC, web login, and much more.
Free Live OS Zoo - Java applet
Nivio - Subscription-based ($12.99/month) service that offers Windows XP, Adobe Reader, iTunes, Google Talk/aMSN/Windows Live Messenger, OpenOffice.org, Thunderbird, Nvu, and much more. All through a Java-based web interface.

Startpages

Favoor - Basic startpage with a nice folder option.
iGoogle (formerly Google IG) - Great startpage with the most amount of apps I’ve seen for a portal.
iStyled - Simple startpage with basic customization.
ItsAStart.com - Customizable page with basic features.
Live.com (formerly Start.com) - Basic news page backed by Microsoft.
My Yahoo! - Yahoo!’s entry into the startpage market isn’t bad: it offers news, Yahoo! Mail notification, podcasts, videos, and photo galleries to your startpage.
Netvibes - There’s a reason everyone uses Netvibes. It has tons of apps, tabs, skins, and a great interface.
Pageflakes - Popular, easy-to-use page with a simple interface.
Schmedley - Powerful startpage with tons of features.
Webwag - The main appeal here isn’t the widget on demand feature (a quick way to build a widget for the site of your choice), the toolbar, the apps, or the content directory. It’s the External widget feature, which allows you to convert and add Netvibes and iGoogle widgets to your Webwag page.
Widgetop - Nice looking AJAX start page.
yourminis - Great start page with tons of apps and a bunch of skins by the creator of goowy.

–

A - Z of Professional Blogging Tools

noreply@blogger.com (liza decausta) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:23:00 +0000

A

AdSense - contextual ad program by Google
Adbrite - sell text ads
Amazon Associates - popular affiliate program
aStore - add an Amazon Store to your Blog
AdGenta - text ads by Qumana (see ‘Q’)
AdRotator - WP ad rotating plugin
Akismet - Comment Spam Fighting Tool
Adhearus - pay per click advertising
AdWords - the advertisers side of AdSense - many bloggers use it to promote their blogs
AzoogleAds - advertising system
Audio Blogger - adds audio to your blog

B

Build A Niche Store- add an eBay store to your site
Bidvertiser - bid based advertising
Blog Ads - blog advertising network
Blog Jet - blog editing tool
Blog Desk - blog editing tool
Bloglines - Web based RSS feed reader
BlogPulse - blog search tool
BlogPolls - tool for putting polls on your blog
Blog Poll - another blog poll tool
Backpackit - useful organizational tool
Blogger.com - blog platform
Bloggers for Hire - bloggers looking for work and potential employers looking for bloggers
BlogSitter.net - service for find guest bloggers while you take a holiday
BlogBurst - syndicates bloggers content for mainstream medium
BlogFlux - blog services portal
BlogRolling - a blogroll management tool
Blogbeat - blog metrics tool
Blogger Jobs - a blog following the advertising of blog jobs

C

Chitika eMiniMalls - advertising program
CrispAds - blog advertising network
Creative Commons - copyright licenses
Copyscape - tool for checking for content theft/plagiarism
Clicksor - advertising program
Clickbank - library of many affiliate products
Commission Junction - collection of many affiliate programs
Casale Media - advertising solution

D

Del.icio.us - social bookmarking
Digg - social bookmarking
Drupal - blog platform
DomainsBot - a tool for finding domain names
Digital Point - useful forum for webmasters

E

Ecto - blog editing tool
Expression Engine - blog platform
Endo - News aggregator for Mac Users
Ether - lets readers book a consulting call with you from your sidebar

F

Feedburner - RSS feed management tool - also provides Feed Advertising
Feedster - RSS search Tool
FeedDemon - RSS reader from NewsGator
FeedBlitz - email blog and RSS subscription service
Flickr - photo sharing and hosting
Flock - a browser with in built blogging
Furl - social bookmarking
Free Blog Polls
FilmLoop - free photocasting network
Feedpass - RSS management - integrates with AdSense
Favicon Maker - make Favicons from photos

G

Google Analytics - Metrics Tool
Gabbly - add chat to your blog
Google Reader - RSS reader
Gnoos - Australian made blog search tool
Google News - tracking news - many use it as a source of content
Google Blog Search - Google’s…. blog search
Google Sitemaps - get indexed in Google

H

Haloscan - a free commenting system for blogs (a little dated but I was a tad desperate for a ‘H’

I

IntelliTXT - In text advertising
Ice Rocket - blog search engine

J

Jar (as in Tip Jar) - many bloggers ask their readers for donations/tips - but few make much from them

K

Kanoodle - Advertising program
Kontera - In text advertising
Keyword and Backlink Tracker - Search Engine ranking tool

L

LiveJournal - Blog Platform
Linkshare - Affiliate Program

M

Mars Edit - Blog Editing Tool
Memeorandum - Tracking and Aggregating news from blogs
MyBlogLog - Metrics Tool
Mint - Blog Metrics Tool
MovableType - Popular blog platform
MeCommerce - Sidebar shop - in beta
MSN Adcenter - Coming Soon - Contextual ads

N

NewsGator - RSS News Readers
Nichebot - keyword research tool
Nameboy - domain name generator
Nucleus CMS - open source blog platform
Netvibes - RSS News Aggregator
Netscape Beta - Social Bookmarking Tool

O

Only Wire - social bookmarking service
Overture Keyword Tool - keyword research tool

P

Performancing - great blog, firefox blog editor and metrics tools
Pheedo - RSS advertising
Post2Blog - Blog Editing tool - blog using Word, IE or Firefox
Pingoat - Pinging Tool
Pingomatic - Pinging Tool
pMachine - Blog Platform
Paypal - Payment tool - used by many affiliate programs and ad systems to pay publishers
PPCalc - Paypal Fee Calculator
PubSub - service that notifies you of new content
Photobucket - image and video hosting

Q

Qumana - Blog Editing Tool

R

Rojo - RSS feed reader
RocketPost - Blog posting tool
Right Media - advertising
Rmail - subscribe from any RSS feed to email

S

Sitemeter - a free website stats tool used by many bloggers
Six Figure Blogging - learn to make money blogging (one of my blogging resources)
Shoplinc - add a Chitika store to your blog
Scoopt Words - service to sell bloggers content to mainstream media editors
Sitening - Search Engine ranking tracker
Sparklines - sidebar widgets/graphs
Skype - VOIP tool for networking, podcast interviews etc
Spam Karma - WP comment spam tool
Sitepoint - Forums for webmasters
Slide - photo hosting, slideshows etc
SoloSub - RSS feed management tool
Squidoo - good alternative place to put content, make money and promote your blog
Snap - a preview tool to give your readers a preview of external links on your blog

T

Text Link Ads - text link advertising system
Technorati - Blog Search engine
Topix - News service - used by many bloggers to find stories
TagCloud - tool for making tag clouds
TinyURL - make long URLs tiny ones
TypePad - Hosted Blogging Platform
Tribal Fusion - Impression Based Ads
3bubbles - live chat on a blog

U

Unobtrusive Sidenotes - a way of putting sidenotes in your posts

V

ValueClick - Impression Based Ad Program (was FastClick)
Vizu - blog polls tool
Vox - a new blogging/social bookmarking platform from Six Apart (in beta)

W

WordPress - Blog Platform - very popular
w.bloggar - blog editing tool
Webpad - web based text editor
Weblogs.com - recently updated blogs - aggregator
WebmasterWorld - forums for webmasters

X

Xanga - Weblog Community

Y

YPN - Contextual Advertising Service
Yutter - RSS/Blog Subscription Service
YouTube - Video Hosting/Sharing
Yutter - RSS/Blog Subscription Service
Yahoo News - Tracking News from around the Web

Z

Zookoda - RSS to Email and Newsletter tool
Zoudry - blog editor

Google Hacking 102

noreply@blogger.com (liza decausta) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:21:00 +0000

I will show you some cool Google search tricks to get more out of Google, this time the tricks are for everyone, not just those who wish to cause some damage. Learn how to get the most out your Googling experience:

1. Find the Face Behind the Result – This is a neat trick you can use on a Google Image search to filter the search results so that they include only images of people. How is this useful? Well, it could come in handy if you are looking for images of the prominent people behind popular products, companies, or geographic locations. You can perform this search by appending the code &imgtype=face to the end of the URL address after you perform a standard Google Image search.

* Examples (notice the differences in each URL):
o Image Search for Google vs. Faces Behind Google Image Search
o Image Search for Digg vs. Faces Behind Digg Image Search
o Image Search for California vs. Faces Behind California Image Search
o More info.

2. Google + Social Media Sites = Quality Free Stuff – If you are on the hunt for free desktop wallpaper, stock images, WordPress templates or the like, using Google to search your favorite social media sites is your best bet. The word “free” in any standard search query immediately attracts spam. Why wade through potential spam in standard search results when numerous social media sites have an active community of users who have already ranked and reviewed the specific free items that interest you. All you have to do is direct Google to search through each of these individual social media sites, and bingo… you find quality content ranked by hundreds of other people.

* Examples:
o site:digg.com free “desktop wallpaper”
o site:reddit.com free “wordpress templates”
o site:del.icio.us free “stock images”
o site:netscape.com free “ringtones”
o site:stumbleupon.com free icons
o More info.

3. Find Free Anonymous Web Proxies – A free anonymous web proxy site allows any web browser to access other third-party websites by channeling the browser’s connection through the proxy. The web proxy basically acts as a middleman between your web browser and the third-party website you are visiting. Why would you want to do this? There are two common reasons:

* You’re connecting to a public network at a coffee shop or internet café and you want privacy while you browse the web. You don’t want the admin to know every site you visit.
* You want to bypass a web content filter or perhaps a server-side ban on your IP address. Content filtering is common practice on college campus networks. This trick will usually bypass those restrictions.

There are subscription services and applications available such as TOR and paid VPN servers that do the same thing. However, this trick is free and easy to access from anywhere via Google. All you have to do is look through the search results returned by the queries below, find a proxy that works, and enter in the URL of the site you want to browse anonymously.

* Examples:
o inurl:”nph-proxy.cgi” “start using cgiproxy”
o inurl:”nph-proxy.cgi” “Start browsing through this CGI-based proxy”
o More info.

4. Google for Music, Videos, and Ebooks - Google can be used to conduct a search for almost any file type, including Mp3s, PDFs, and videos. Open web directories are one of the easiest places to quickly find an endless quantity of freely downloadable files. This is an oldie, but it’s a goodie! Why thousands of webmasters incessantly fail to secure their web severs will continue to boggle our minds.

* Examples:
o Find Music: -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(wma|mp3) “Counting Crows”
o Find Videos: -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(mpg|wmv) “chapelle”
o Find Ebooks: -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(pdf|doc) “george orwell 1984″
o More info.

5. Browse Open Webcams Worldwide – Take a randomized streaming video tour of the world by searching Google for live open access video webcams. This may not be the most productive Google trick ever, but it sure is fun! (Note: you may be prompted to install an ActiveX control or the Java runtime environment which allows your browser to view certain video stream formats.)

* Examples:
o Axis Webcams: inurl:/view.shtml or inurl:view/index.shtml
o Cannon Webcams: sample/LvAppl/
o MOBOTIX Webcams: control/userimage.html
o FlexWatch Webcams: /app/idxas.html
o JVC Webcams: intitle: intitle:”V.Networks [Motion Picture(Java)]”
o More info. - More info.

6. Judge a Site by its Image – Find out what a site is all about by looking at a random selection of the images hosted on its web pages. Even if you are somewhat familiar with the target site’s content, this can be an entertaining little exercise. You will almost surely find something you didn’t expect to see. All you have to do is use Google’s site: operator to target a domain in an image search.

* Examples:
o Digg in Images
o Wired in Images
o Reddit in Images
o More info.

7. Results Based on Third-Party Opinion - Sometimes you can get a better idea of the content located within a website by reading how other websites refer to that site’s content. The allinanchor: Google search operator can save you large quantities of time when a normal textual based search query fails to fetch the information you desire. It conducts a search based on keywords used strictly in the anchor text, or linking text, of third party sites that link to the web pages returned by the search query. In other words, this operator filters your search results in a way such that Google ignores the title and content of the returned web pages, but instead bases the search relevance on the keywords that other sites use to reference the results. It can add a whole new dimension of variety to your search results.

* Examples (notice the added variety between search results):
* allinanchor:”google hacks” vs. basic search for Google hacks
* allinanchor:”wordpress exploits” vs. basic search for WordPress exploits
* More info.

Bonus Material:

Here is a list of my favorite Google advanced search operators, operator combinations, and related uses:

* link:URL = lists other pages that link to the URL.
* related:URL = lists other pages that are related to the URL.
* site:domain.com “search term = restricts search results to the given domain.
* allinurl:WORDS = shows only pages with all search terms in the url.
* inurl:WORD = like allinurl: but filters the URL based on the first term only.
* allintitle:WORD = shows only results with terms in title.
* intitle:WORD = similar to allintitle, but only for the next word.
* cache:URL = will show the Google cached version of the URL.
* info:URL = will show a page containing links to related searches, backlinks, and pages containing the url. This is the same as typing the url into the search box.
* filetype:SOMEFILETYPE = will restrict searches to that filetype
* -filetype:SOMEFILETYPE = will remove that file type from the search.
* site:www.somesite.net “+www.somesite.net” = shows you how many pages of your site are indexed by google
* allintext: = searches only within text of pages, but not in the links or page title
* allinlinks: = searches only within links, not text or title
* WordA OR WordB = search for either the word A or B
* “Word” OR “Phrase” = search exact word or phrase
* WordA -WordB = find word A but filter results that include word B
* WordA +WordB = results much contain both Word A and Word B
* ~WORD = looks up the word and its synonyms
* ~WORD -WORD = looks up only the synonyms to the word

Author of this article: http://box126.bluehost.com/highload.html

For a complete list of Google Search Commands click HERE.

40+ Ways To Access Your Computer Remotely

noreply@blogger.com (liza decausta) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 09:41:00 +0000

There are lots of reasons why you’d want to access your PC remotely, and luckily there are also plenty of ways to do so. Crossloop is one of the simplest (it’s also free), but for those willing to venture further, you’ve got lots of options.

Excuse us while we get technical for a second. This list is divided into four main sections: VNC (Virtual Network Computing), NX, remote desktop and cross-protocol. If those terms mean nothing to you, you might want to skip to the “other” section for the most straightforward applications. That said, let’s begin.

VNC

Ajax VNC - Clientless VNC solution in the web’s favorite programming language.
Apple Remote Desktop - Apple’s jumped on the remote desktop bandwagon with this great VNC server built right into OS X.
Chicken of the VNC - One of the most popular VNC clients for OS X under the GPL.
DirectVNC - UNIX client using the framebuffer device via DirectFB.
FVNC - Great VNC client written in Flash. That’s right, Flash.
MetaVNC - This unique client/server package merges the host and remote desktops together into one Windows or Linux desktop.
.NET VNC Viewer - C# viewer that works with Windows and Windows Mobile/CE devices.
PowerVNC - Java-based client with support for SSH and SFTP.
RealVNC - Server/client from the original VNC developers.
sVNC - The perfect tool for offering remote assistance to Mac users, since there’s barely any configuring required.
SymVNC - Symbian phone client for connecting to your PC.
TightVNC - Popular VNC server/client with nice Java applet.
TurboVNC - TightVNC spinoff with great support for 3D apps.
UltraVNC - Wildly popular client/server app with file transfer, video drivers, chat, and much more.
Vine Server - OS X server with clipboard sharing, port changing, and a universal binary.
VncViewer for 8086 - Got an old IBM running FreeDOS or DOS? Put it to work with this VNC client.
VNCViewer for PocketPC - Client for, you guessed it, PocketPC users.
x11vnc - Unlike most other VNC servers for UNIX and Linux, this server lets you share your current desktop session (instead of a separate session).

NX

FreeNX - Open source server using the libraries from NoMachine.
NoMachine NX Client - Free client to connect to NX machines.
NoMachine NX Free Edition - NX server for UNIX/Linux.
NoMachine NX Enterprise Desktop - Server that includes everything that the free edition has, but with unlimited users (unlike the free version’s two).
NoMachine NX Small Business Server - NX server targeting small businesses.
NoMachine NX Enterprise Server - NX Server with unlimited users and unlimited connections.
NoMachine NX Advanced Server Subscription - Everything that the Enterprise server has, plus multi-node capabilities.

Remote Desktop Protocol

CoRD - Remote desktop client for Mac OS X users.
grdestkop - Gnome wrapper for the rdesktop application.
krdesktop - rdesktop frontend written in KDE.
properJavaRDP - Cross-platform Java client based on rdesktop.
rdesktop - Extremely powerful command-line client for UNIX/Linux.
Remote Desktop - Microsoft’s official server, for XP Pro and Vista.
xrdp - Serves an X window session to incoming Windows clients.

Cross-Protocol

Connection Manager - VNC, RDP, and Telnet manager for UNIX/Linux distros.
KDE Desktop Sharing - The official KDE VNC server package.
KDE Remote Desktop Connection - The official KDE client for RDP and VNC.
Kurd - Great rdesktop/vncviewer frontend for KDE.
mRemote - Manage VNC and RDP connections on Windows with this handy app.
RDPMan - A little utility to manage RDP, VNC, and Telnet connections for Windows.

Other

CrossLoop - Easy-to-use remote access utility with file sharing and a multilingual interface.
GoToMyPC - Extremely popular remote access program for ~$25/month.
LogMeIn - Remote access app with a free and a pro ($12.95/month) version with file transfer, remote printing, and more.
Unyte - Nice remote desktop server with a Java applet viewer and IM integration.

Ping the hell out of Technorati’s reputation algo

noreply@blogger.com (liza decausta) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:54:00 +0000

Technorati calculates a blog’s authority/reputation based on its link popularity, counting blogroll links from the linking blogs main pages as well as links within the contents of their posts. Links older than six months after their very first discovery don’t count.

Unfortunately, Technorati is not always able to find all your inbound links, usually because clueless bloggers forget to ping them, hence your blog might be undervalued. You can change that.

Compile a list of blogs that link to you and are unknown at Technorati, then introduce them below to a cluster ping orgy. Technorati will increase your authority rating after indexing those blogs.

Ping your URL's here

How to Update Alexa Thumbnail Images

noreply@blogger.com (liza decausta) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:48:00 +0000

Some people like to check on Alexa looking for new websites, and it is important that your site is portrayed in an updated manner in Alexa. Especially since many websites now increase Alexa Ranking by promoting Alexa Toolbar to their readers. Many fellow bloggers asked me how I update my thumbnail in Alexa. So here it is.

The quick way in IE if you have the Alexa toolbar installed in your browser is to surf to your website. If you click on the “info” tab on the toolbar, a drop down menu reveals “More Site Info”. Click this.

You are displayed all the Alexa information about your website. If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you will see a link for “Correct errors and omissions in this listing”. Clicking on this link leads you to the Alexa Site Information Editor.

Website owners can use this form to add, change, or unlist the contact information displayed in Alexa, or to update the site name and description. Verified submissions will appear in the service in approximately one week.

Besides your website thumbnail image you will see a link to “Update Thumbnail Image of yourwebsite.com”. Just click on this and your Alexa Thumbnail Image will be updated within 48 hours.

Of course there is a quicker way, but the url may change over time.
Go to
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/contact_info?url=http://yoursite.com

Replace the yoursite.com with your websites name and copy paste into your browsers url bar and you should arrive at that screen automatically. Rest of the procedure is same. This quick link should also work for Firefox browser users too, since Alexa toolbar works on Internet Explorer only. Just incase you were wondering,

3 New Wordpress Security Tips by Matt Cutts

noreply@blogger.com (liza decausta) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:40:00 +0000

Posting an article about Whitehat SEO tips for bloggers, Matt Cutts released the PowerPoint deck (.ppt) that he presented after the Google’s PR team okayed the release. I learnt 3 new Wordpress security tips from his presentation.

1. Drop version string in header.php
The tag in your header.php that displays your current version of wordpress.
" />

Since everyone knows your wordpress version this way, your blog is prone to hackers if you have not upgraded to the new version.
Hide your wordpress version by deleting it or simply changing it to

2. Put a blank index.html in /plugins/ directory.
In a normal wordpress installation, anyone can access your Wordpress plugin folder to see which plugins you have installed. The path is
http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-content/plugins/

Try it for your blog and your entire directory structure is revealed. Just create a blank file in notepad and name it index.html and drop it in your plugins folder and the folder details will no longer be visible to the public and prevent hackers from cracking a plugin security hole.

3. Put .htaccess in /wp-admin/
He points to this article of Protecting the Wordpress wp-admin folder. This will limit access to this folder by IP address and attempts at accessing any file within this folder will be greeted with a Forbidden error message.

He warns that you need to place this file in the /wp-admin folder and not replace or delete the .htaccess file in the root folder of your blog. Though he says the security issue was fixed in recent wordpress version, this is a security idea which can help you further protect your wp-admin folder.

Tip: It is easy to block search engines from crawling your wp-admin folder by blocking access via robots.txt file. like Disallow: /wp-admin/

10 Most Common Time Wasting Habits of Bloggers

noreply@blogger.com (liza decausta) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:38:00 +0000

I find myself blogging lesser and wasting more time engaged in several time wasting habits that take away my blogging time. I analyzed my time spent and found some common time wasters for bloggers that needed blogging time management.

1. Unsubscribe feeds - This is my major time waster. Last time I checked, I was reading over 200 feeds and my Google Reader would always show 100+ items no matter how much I followed my powerful ways to use Google Reader. I started unsubscribing from feeds and have brought the number down to under 100 feeds. I removed feeds which overwhelmed my reader by the large number of daily posts and which shared common news. I shifted many feeds to live bookmarks and iGoogle. Now I find my feeds more manageable and get the right content to blog about.

2. Leave the Template Alone - Would a link color of #0033cc look better, or maybe #0066cc would seem more blended. Maybe the sidebar could be wider, or footer look better in gray. Making your blog look better and SEO is a never ending process, so I convinced myself to not waste blogging time daily. Instead I decided to set aside a particular time slot in the weekend.

3. Test Ads Longer - Constant tweaking ad unit size, colors and A/B testing can help you make more money by optimizing your ad placement. Falling CTR and EPC makes us change the ad formats pretty quickly. At least check the revenue generated by a particular placement for a week and then tweak over the weekend.

4. Beyond Statistics - How many people are on your site right now? Is it really necessary to check stats every minute and see which site referred the last visitor. Now I check the traffic stats only once a day. Not only does it help get a broad idea of your daily traffic, but see how your SEO is working.

5. Turn IM Offline - I do not need to constantly see my online friends. Get a dedicated blogging time period by avoiding distractions. Switch off all instant messengers and concentrate on your blogging. Stay visible online only when checking email to catch the offline messages. Stay connected only when needed.

6. Email twice a day - Do I really want to reply to that email as soon as it hits the inbox? I am not sitting on a customer support 4 hour reply deadline. I have decided to check my email twice a day, spend more time blogging. No procrastination, reply the email instantly and prevent pile up in the “to reply” folder.

7. Forget Akismet Spam Comments - Far too much time is wasted searching for rare ‘not-spam’ comments among thousands of daily spam comments effectively blocked by Akismet. If the comment is so important, the comment poster usually keeps track and contacts you, then you can go searching the queue.

8. Turn Off Adsense Notifier - this is a cool firefox plugin which sits in the Firefox status bar and refreshes the adsense stats every 15 minutes. While a good revenue start boosts your morale, a weak earning day slows you down. So I turn it off and now check revenue earned once a day only. It gives more peace to your mind and helps to concentrate on blogging. Turn off all other real time revenue reporting tools.

9. Reduce Keyword Alerts - It is very easy to set up alerts notifying you of breaking news and who is blogging about your keywords. But overtime as these alerts grow in number, a lot of time is wasted in checking all of them. Delete alerts which are no longer relevant to your blogging interest.

10. Stop Thinking. Start blogging - Bring your blogging ideas on paper or e-text. It is surprising how fast the great idea evaporates from your memory, and you spend precious time worried wondering what it was. Start collecting your thoughts and ideas on a notepad. Stop merely thinking and get the action done. Prepare draft posts and future posts to keep your blog running…

Are you stuck with these top time wasters for bloggers? What wastes your time and how do you get out of the blogging time wasting trap. Share it.

Alexa is 100% wrong and you can game it with as few as three machines

noreply@blogger.com (liza decausta) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:35:00 +0000

Alexa does not work at all and we should not even recognize it as valid anymore from what I've learned.

You can game Alexa with as few as three machines running the Alexa toolbar.

So, let's see how high we can get Calacanis.com over the next five days shall we?

Step One: Everyone install the Alexa Toolbar and load my blog 100 times over the next couple of days. Please put your name below if you are taking part in the experiment. We're gonna do this for like 10 days then stop.

Step Two: Get a webpage refresher for Internet Explorer and set it to reload the page every 10 minutes or something random.

http://www.download.com/Refresher/3000-2356_4-10497539.html?tag=lst-0-2
http://www.download.com/Auto-URL-Refresher/3000-2381_4-10399160.html?tag=lst-0-1

Step Three: Load the main page (www.calacanis.com) and the about page ( http://www.calacanis.com/about/ ) so we can track the % impact we have in the details over at Alexa.

Update: Some folks have said I'm trying to do this to get my rating up/page views up. Uhhh.... no. This is a test. I don't have any ads here and these page views mean nothing to me--they are not real! They represent nothing but a test. Plus we are going to stop this test in 10 days or so--let's say Dec. 3rd. So, this is just a temporary spike in pages that does NOTHING for me on any level. Zero! If someone wants to run the test on a brand new domain name we can do that too.

Put Google AJAX Search on Web Site

noreply@blogger.com (liza decausta) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:24:00 +0000

The Google AJAX Search API is “an experimental API that lets you integrate a dynamic Google search module into your web pages so your users can mash up Google Search results with other content on your site or add search results clippings to their own content.”

The AJAX Search API is currently in Version 0.1 and its an experiment designed to get developer feedback. Version 1.0 to be launched later will likely contain advertising. To use the API, You must sign up for a Google AJAX Search API key, which you’ll include in the URL with which you access the API. The AJAX Search API is available for all sites that are accessible to consumers without charge. The Google AJAX Search API is currently available on Firefox, Safari, and IE 6. Put Google AJAX Search on your Website.

Google Experimental Search for Power Googling

noreply@blogger.com (liza decausta) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:20:00 +0000

We all use Google Search everyday, but have you checked out Google Experimental search by Google Labs, which will provide you alternative ways to search and improve your online search experience.

Try Experimental Google Search to test new features to improve your search experience. Remember you can only try one experiment at one time. If the feedback is good, it might become a part of the regular Google search.

Alternate views for search results - See results on a timeline, map, or in context of other information types. Timeline and map views work best for searches related to people, companies, events and places. Info view shows all the data found for each result, to help you select the best choice. I am trying this one and the view options are really powerful.

Keyword suggestions - As you type your search, Google’s technology provides alternative suggestions to your queries in real time. Also available on Google Suggest. Try that.

Keyboard shortcuts - Navigate search results quickly and easily, minimizing use of your mouse using keyboard shortcuts. Shortcuts are the secret tools of power Googlers. Get more power with Google cheatsheets.

Left-hand search navigation - Search deeper in a particular type of content—patents, products or news. More related category suggestions.

Right-hand contextual search navigation - Similar to the left-hand search navigation, it lets you search deeper in a particular type of content or to search related terms from the right side of the page. See something other than ads.