Press Release Stop

Bad Links

Some links are bad… for example, if you are a car sales company and you’ve got dozens of completely irrelevant links to international hotel sites… yeah, YOU know the ones! in Prague, Munich, Shanghai etc! That’s a BAD neighbourhood over there! That IS going to put a world of hurt on you! And as for the Free-For-All link sites, web rings, and 3 way link schemes… that’s just suicide in cyberspace! Why? Coz its a blatant and completely indefensible attempt at cheating the system!

Reciprocal Links – Almost a Waste of Effort

Reciprocal links are still of some value, providing the link titles are explicit, and if the page they link to you from has a higher Page Rank than the page from which you link to them. The concept of a link to you being a vote for you, and being added to your site’s Total Vote Count has a flip side. A link from you to someone else essentially deducts one vote from your total vote count… meaning its value is minimal when compared to a 1-way incoming back-link!

1-Way Outward Links Are Toxic

Ok, lets assume you are a service provider, maybe a health clinic, and you deal with hospitals, other doctors, specialists, nurses, laboratories. So, as a benefit to your visitors, you place direct links to their web resources on your links page. Is that clever?

Most certainly it is NOT! Transfusion time, because you’ll be haemorrhaging Page Rank with nothing in return! Do it, but be smart about it, because there is NOTHING to be gained (by you) from linking to any site that does not link back. So make sure your links include the “nofollow” attribute that tells SE’s that the link is NOT a vote by your site for that site!

Link Content Is Mission Critical

This is mission critical because Google and others have decided that they can’t trust you to be honest about your site! Basically, it seems like there are two web tribes – those who know not so much about how things work, and those who know more than they should. There should also be a flourishing third tribe, who just build great sites with lots of terrific content that automatically ranks highly – but nobody’s seen nuthin’ from those guys for ages!

The tribe who know more than they should ruthlessly manipulate every available loophole to dominate search engine rankings, at the expense of those who have yet to read SEO For Dummies. Therefore, Google decided that its essential that there is some external correlation between what YOU say your site is about, and what OTHER people say your site is about… This is done by analysing the words in the Link Title on all links pointing to your site. Bottom line here is – if a keyword phrase does NOT appear on links to your site, you ain’t gonna rank for that phrase!
For many established sites, this is the main reason they might have experienced a noticeable decline in rankings in the last few months. Most older sites will have a majority of incoming links based on their business name, and NOT on their activities / products / services / location etc. To use the common “widgets” analogy – if you are selling “widgets” and all your incoming link Titles have only your business name e.g. Smiths Manufacturing Co Ltd, it’s now very difficult for you to rank for “widgets”!

Backlink analysis reveals this shortcoming rather quickly and, lucky for you, it is possible to remedy this by building 1-way incoming back-links using multiple Title / Description combinations that contain a good spread of relevant keywords. It does require some keyword research, and it is tedious – but if you don’t do it, you are certainly not going forwards! But your competitors might be…
About The Author
Ben Kemp is a free-lance search engine optimisation consultant and web designer. He offers free SEO articles & web design tips, see The SEO Guys Blog.

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 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 of 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.###.###.###
240.###.###.###
22.###.###.###

Class B
134.254.###.###
36.36.###.###
36.37.###.###

Class C
254.210.135.###
36.36.1.###
36.36.2.###

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 someone 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 sense 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 hostíng account for your domain name, your host will assign your domain name and 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 hostíng accounts, nameservers, etc. in later articles.

I’ll see you at the top!

About The Author
John Buchanan is a veteran search engine optimization specialist with over 9 years experience. For more information, visit his site at SESecrets.com or his newest site SEOVideoanalysis.com where he will provide you with a professional SEO Video Website Analysis of your site.

Reflecting Gartner’s very latest research findings, the analysts projected the 10 technologies likely to play a ‘strategic’ role in 2008. Gartner defines a strategic technology as one “with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years.” In addition Gartner also looks at “high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar ínvestment, or the risk of being late to adopt.”

“Companies should factor these technologies into their strategic planning process by asking key questíons and making deliberate decisions about them during the next two years,” said David Cearley, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “Sometimes the decision will be to do nothing with a particular technology. In other cases it will be to continue investing in the technology at the current rate. In still other cases, the decision may be to test/pilot or more aggressively adopt/deploy the technology. The important thing is to ask the question and proactively plan.”

Here’s a look at the top 10 tech trends, and what Gartner had to say about them:

Green IT: The focus of Green IT that came to the forefront in 2007 will íncrease in 2008. As the impact on power grids, carbon emissions from increased use and other environmental impacts are under investigation, companies should be mindful of potential regulations that could limit the building of data centers, and should be prepared with backup plans for handling growing data demands.

Unified Communications: At present only 20 percent of the installed base with PBX has migrated to IP telephony, with more doing some sort of tríal testing. Gartner says that over the next three years the majority of corporations will migrate to Internet Protocol telephony, resulting in a major change in voice communications.

Business Process Modeling: Top-level process services must be defined jointly by a set of roles (which include enterprise architects, senior developers, process architects and/or process analysts). A key to success will be an organization’s ability to bring these roles together, whether they be process or service designated. Gartner also expects business process management software suites to better complement SOA applications development.

Metadata Management: Over the next three years, companies working to integrate both customer data and product data will link these master data management efforts together in an overall enterprise information management (EIM) strategy. According to Gartner “This critical part of a company’s information infrastructure will enable optimization, abstraction, and semantic reconciliation of metadata to support reuse, consistency, integrity and shareability.” Metadata management, Gartner notes, also extends into SOA software development projects with service registries and application development repositories.

Virtualization 2.0: Virtualization technologies can improve IT resource utilization, but with the addition of automation technologies – with service-level, policy-based active management – even greater improvements are possible. “Resource efficiency can improve dramatically, flexibility can become automatic based on requirements, and services can be managed holistically, ensuring high levels of resiliency,” Gartner says.

Mashup and Composite Apps: Over the next 3 years, Web mashups will be the way companies create composite enterprise applications, Gartner predicts. Mashup technologies will evolve significantly over the next five years, and application leaders must take this evolution into account when evaluating the impact of mashups and in formulating an enterprise mashup strategy.

Web Platform and Web-Oriented Architecture: Software-as-a-Service, in which applications are available on-demand over the Web, is becoming a sensible option for many companies. Emerging Web platforms, Gartner says, will provide service-based access to information, applications, and business processes through Web-based “cloud computing” environments. Companies must also look beyond SaaS to examine how Web platforms will impact their business in 3-5 years.

Computing Fabric: According to Gartner researchers, “A computing fabric is the evolution of server design beyond the interim stage, blade servers, that exists today. The next step in this progression is the introduction of technology to allow several blades to be merged operationally over the fabric, operating as a larger single system image that is the sum of the components from those blades. The fabric-based server of the future will treat memory, processors, and I/O cards as components in a pool, combining and recombining them into particular arrangements to suit the owner’s needs.” The researcher added, “For example a large server can be created by combining 32 processors and a number of memory modules from the pool, operating together over the fabric to appear to an operating system as a single fixed server.”

Real World Web: The term “real world Web” is informal, referring to places where information from the Web is applied to the particular location, activity or context in the real world. Gartner states, “It is intended to augment the reality that a user faces, not to replace it as in virtual worlds. It is used in real-time based on the real world situation, not prepared in advance for consumption at specific times or researched after the events have occurred.” It gives the example of a navigation unit that adjusts the information it delivers as a car or boat moves around. Gartner sees real world Web application improving many business processes and creating new revenue streams.

Social Software: The Web 2.0 market will go through a lot of changes between now and 2010, Gartner says, and will experience considerable flux with continued product innovation and new entrants, resulting in considerable vendor consolidation. However, the research firm does see social networking being adopted by many enterprises to augment tradwebsional collaboration.

According to Gartner, “These 10 opportunities should be considered in conjunction with many proven, fully-matured technologies, as well as others that did not make this líst, but can provide value for many companies,” said Carl Claunch, vice president at Gartner. “For example, real-time enterprises providing advanced devices for a mobile workforce will consider next-generation smartphones to be a key technology, in addition to the value that this líst might offer.”
About The Author
Written by: Anne Sych, Marketing Manager for Novo Solutions, Inc. Novo Solutions, Inc. is an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) in Virginia Beach, Virginia specializing in Customer Support Software. Free tríal versions of the Novo Help Desk Software, Knowledge Base Software and suite of web-based Customer Support Solutions are available. Contact: sales@novosolutions.com for more information.

New System Cons
There are a few negative aspects that have been widely noted in many forums and by Yahoo advertisers. As with any new design and back end, it is expected that there will be some wrinkles. Most of the problems are relatively minor, and for advertisers on top of their campaigns, these should not present any major issues.

• One of the downsides most discussed is the transfer of account stats from the old system to the new. Once your account has been transferred, the new system will not log any of the old system historical data. While this information is still accessible by logging into the old interface (which is made read only), it would certainly make more sense if stats were available under the new account login.
• Another issue is campaign tracking. After the switch has been made, as long as you do not change any tracking settings everything should continue to work as normal; once you adjust the analytics or tracking options, you will need to replace your tracking code with a new piece of code provided by Yahoo. There have been reports where after the account is upgraded, the conversion stats no longer appear and the code needs to be immediately replaced. While not everyone seems to be having this problem, it is certainly a bug worth noting. If you have not yet upgraded, or upgraded but not checked your tracking codes, it would be best to tackle this issue right away to ensure everything will work correctly.
• There have been some reports that after the account transition some ad titles, descriptions, and even keywords, have been disrupted. Upon upgrading your account be sure to chëck all your ad copy and phrases to ensure that they are still correct or you could end up spending monëy on incorrect phrases, or damaged ad copy.

The system is certainly not without its flaws, but generally the interface is much cleaner and certainly more functional. While the ability to edit many more aspects of one’s account are now in place, it can be a little daunting to find the right place to make the change. Some items such as campaign and ad group settings are more difficult to find than they need to be, and require more steps than is really necessary. As an example, below I compare the steps required for the simple task of renaming a campaign for Yahoo versus Google:

New System Pros
The new system is certainly a great improvement over the old. While adjusting to a new interface and ranking algorithm may take a little time for advertisers, the end result will present more relevant ads to the searchers, which will ultimately mean a higher quality of visitor and should provide a better bang for one’s buck. 

• Previously you were stuck with only one live ad for any given phrase; now you can create multiple ads for a given ad group. With the ability to have multiple ads for each phrase opens the doors to easier testing of which ad copy is better suited for your ads and prospective clients.
• Ad approval is now ínstant for most ads and keywords. While there is still a “pending approval” process for some sets of phrases, in many cases your ad changes and keyword additions are now ínstant. No longer do advertisers have to wait a number of days for their ads to go live.
• With the old system, the level of geographic targeting was very limited. Under the new Yahoo Panama the options are much more sophisticated. For example, there is an option for blocking entire continents for your ad campaigns. Rather than selecting each continent/country you want to appear in, if you are only trying to avoid one specific region, you can easily block it from your campaign.
• The geo targeting options have also expanded to allow for more specific ad targeting. Advertisers now have the ability to target specific states and provinces – a feature previously unavailable. Canadian advertisers were forced to advertise to the US even though they wanted ads only to appear for the Canadian market. This update now provides the option to target Canada only – a big plus for any advertisers who are only able to sell in the Canadian marketplace.

Yahoo:
1. Log into your account. You will be presented with your account dashboard.
2. Clíck on the name of the campaign you wish to change
3. Clíck on “Edit Campaign” in the top right.
4. Clíck “Edit” at the top right of the “Campaign General Information” box.
5. Change the account name.
6. Clíck “Save Changes”.
7. Then clíck “Dashboard” to return to where you were.

Google AdWords:
1. Log into your account. You will be presented with the “All campaigns” view.
2. Clíck the checkbox beside the campaign you wish to rename and clíck “Edit Campaign”.
3. Enter a new campaign name.
4. Clíck “Save Changes” (also brings you back to where you were).

Why is it that Yahoo takes 7 steps to do something that Google can do in only 4? Not to mention multiple campaigns edits. If for some reason you wanted to rename all your Google campaigns at once, it would still take only 3 main steps plus 1 step for each campaign name changed. For Yahoo you would need to repeat all 7 steps for each campaign. These same basic steps are also required for other edits such as campaign budgets, start and end dates, and to turn a campaign on or off.

This example is not really a big deal in the large scheme of things, but is simply an indication that while Panama is a large improvement, there is still much room for refinement. As Yahoo moves forward into 2007 I am sure we will see more advancements and changes to the main navigation.

Clíck Through Rate Increased by New Ranking Algorithm
Along with an entirely new backend system loaded with new features, Yahoo has also adjusted the way in which they rank ads. The new ranking algorithm is very reminiscent of Google AdWords, and miles away from the old bid-for-position model previously used. Under the old algorithm an advertiser could dominate the top ranking simply by having deeper pockets. Now under the new Panama algorithm to guarantëe top spot for a competitive phrase, not only may you still need deep pockets, but you also need the right phrases, relevant ad text, and a quality website – giving an opportuníty for top rankings to those with smaller budgets.

According to comScore there has been a significant íncrease in the overall clíck through rate of Yahoo paid ads since the introduction of the new ranking algorithm. Compared to the week ending February 4, the last day of the old system, the week ending February 11 saw a 5% íncrease in clicks. By February 18th the total íncrease in clicks was reportedly at the 9% mark; a sign that the new system is of significant value to advertisers, and of course Yahoo. Now these figures may have been skewed slightly with both Valentines Day and Presidents Day falling into that range, however, “Bank of America analyst Brian Pitz said in a research note that he expects clíck through rates to grow about 15 percent to 25 percent starting in the second half of the year.”

What has been specifically responsibly for the íncrease in traffíc? While it may be too early to know for sure, the most likely reasoning is ad quality. Under the old ranking schematic it didn’t matter what your ad looked like or where you directed traffíc, if you had the dollars, you had the rank. Now that there are other factors at work, the most relevant, high quality ads, take the rank, and searchers are obviously noticing the increased relevance and clicking through.

Scott’s Personal Take on the New System
Generally I have to say I like the new system. It makes account management easier than using the archaic system we had all grown used to. The new system is much more streamlined and clean cut compared to the old. That said, when compared to Google AdWords, it still falls short. It’s a great first try, and within the next year or so I expect to see some more adjustments to make navigation and functionality improved. For a system with so much hype and such a long time coming, it seems less desirable than expected. Editing ad copy and URL’s is still much more cumbersome than its competitor Google, requiring more steps. The account transition could have been made smoother and items such as historic stats should have been made more easily accessible and transferred over to the new account.

Since its early days the Google AdWords system has evolved a great deal, and the same can be expected from Yahoo. Now that they have implemented a more scalable and comprehensive system, it will certainly improve as advertiser feedback is received. One irrelevant feature, if you can call it that, is that I am very grateful for the removal of the “security code” requirement when signing into the account. While I can appreciate the reasons for having it there in the first place, these security codes that were popping up everywhere really did drive me crazy, and it is nice to see this condition being removed. What does it mean to an advertisers account? Well, really nothing, but it does put a small smile on my face.

While it is not without its shortcomings, this new system is a large improvement and I for one welcome it with open arms.

About The Author
Scott Van Achte is the Senior SEO at StepForth Search Engine Placement. Several years ago after graduating from Camoson College with a Diploma in Computer Systems Technology, Scott joined the team at StepForth and began his SEO career. When he is not busy with work he can be found out at the golf course, fishing, or simply spending quality time with his wífe Lyndsay.