In 2007 StopBadWare, a joint effort by Google, Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet Security and Oxford University's Internet Institute, identified more than 90,000 websites that attempted to install malicious software on visitors computers via Internet browser security holes or programming tricks.

What was troubling is that the report showed that about 90 percent of the sites flagged as serving "badware" appeared to be otherwise legitimate sites that had been hijacked by criminals.

Essentially cyber criminals had hacked into poorly secured websites, infecting files that then began maliciously attacking site visitors and further propagating the computer virus.

The result...? Google immediately red-flagged each infected website with a big, bold warning page.

Obviously this is NOT the sort of first impression you want to present visitors to your website and could have easily been avoided had the web host taken good security measures.

When choosing a website you should ask yourself, does your web host have good security practices?

A good web hosting company will:

* Ensure the latest patches and upgrades are applied to their software
* NEVER run outdated web software
* Monitor for security loopholes on a regular cycle
* Run firewall software (a technology that blocks unauthorized incoming connections).

Unfortunately, the web hosting industry is in its infancy and is currently unregulated, meaning there is no guaranteed your web hosting company is performing the security practices it should be.

On the other hand ensuring a secure website is not just the web hosting company's responsibility. There are steps that you as the webmaster should do to ensure your website is safe and secure:

* Don't use weak passwords on any accounts on your hosting site
* Ensure that file privileges are set to the adequate level of security.
* If your website performs an e-commerce function, you should ensure you have a valid SSL certificate in place.
* Also, do not depend on your web hosting company to keep uninfected copies of your web pages, check your website regularly and keep an identical backup in place. This way, upon noticing something fishy you can replace your infected entire site simply and immediately.
* Finally, be careful that any script you upload to your site is not malicious and be wary of allowing inexperienced amateurs to design your website.

One final tip: If there is ANY news, or comment from other users that your web hosting service does not maintain a secure platform, then pack up shop and find another. In the long run, you'll be thankful you did.

To learn much more about the different types of Web Hosts, visit http://www.webhostinginformant.com/ where you'll learn the ins and outs of web hosting and design.

Article Source

Read more...

You've typed and clicked and dragged and dropped, and your website or blog is ready to go. Your visitors are happy, they click your links and go from page to page. You get great feedback, but the more you do, the more they want from you. How can you keep your visitors interested, and informed, so that they keep coming back?

Content! You need content! If you are descended from Charles Dickens, Emily Dickinson, and Albert Einstein, you can probably write it all yourself in your sleep. But if you are like the rest of us, you could use a little help.

That's where free articles can help. You can get free articles for your web pages, and use the content to add to your site in seconds. The only thing the author asks is that you include their 'about the author' information, that generally includes a link to their web site or web page.

What can you do with free articles?

1. Introduce new ideas to your visitors.

2. Show points of view you agree with, or disagree with, to stimulate discussion.

3. Elaborate on topics that are not the central focus of your site or blog.

4. Introduce your visitors to experts in the field.

5. Establish your own expertise through your selection of good article

6. Review the article and publis a link to the full article.

You can get free articles through an article syndicator, such as www.isnare.com They have tens of thousands of free articles on almost any topic you can think of. Some of them are very, very good. Some - not so much. But in a few minutes reading, chances are good you can find at least one article that will really interest you - and your website visitors. Or you may find dozens - or hundreds - of articles, that you can use for a long time to come.

Yes, it could be that other websites will be hosting the same article. But the web is a huge place, and your visitors are interested in the unique collection of information that you provide to them. The information is valuable not only for what it says, but also for where it is located and what else it is associated with.

If you are concerned about your visitors clicking on a link and leaving your website, consider having the author's link open in a new browser window. That way when they finish reading the article, they can close the window and they will still be on your site.

It is surprising how much free content is out there. When you start looking through article directories, you may find a lot of useful information to enhance your website, including ideas that you have never thought of. Read five articles at random, and see if you don't learn something useful. Now imagine your own web visitors having this same experience, only with articles you have hand-selected for their interest and usefulness.

At some point you might want to write your own free articles to bring new traffic to your website. But that topics is the subject for another article. Try some free content today. I think you will be pleased at the quality and usefulness of many of the free articles that are available to you today.

Article Source

Read more...

With all the talk and hype about Web 3.0, there are a lot of things that we need to understand about how this new technology will change search and communications across the Internet.

With the new launch, we will witness a greater depth and meaning that will not only give us logical answers to common questions we ask, but will provide all of us with much more accuracy and far less fragmentation of information when we do a Google, Yahoo or MSN search.
Think about that for a moment. If you were to go back in time and look at the first-generation search engines that came out with Web 1.0, a lot of the information returned on a search query was irrelevant.

As technology improved and the release of Web 2.0 came out, people tried to get more granular in terms of the information that they were searching for and retrieving. This also resulted in the explosion of social networking, and a lot of what really wanted is more direct communication and interaction with other people.

What's nice about Web 3.0 is that it will bring a much more refined and cleaner search algorithm to the masses. More artificial intelligent-centric-based learning will also come. There will also be a faster interpretation of information and the processing of it, and many smart applications will run on Web 3.0. that will interact much more easily on mobile devices, too.

One more thing: Web 3.0 will use artificial intelligence to identify and weed out certain robot-generated content to give the user a much better experience online.

Article Source

Read more...

There are millions of websites out there, but only a small percentage of them ever reach a higher ranking or even manage to pull in more than a couple visitors a day. The world wide web contains a plethora of information, but the fact is that most of the information available is unqualified. Because there is so much unqualified information on the internet, you have to really stand out if you want to make your website successful. Anyone can show up and start a website related to topics they barely know of. But only a handful of people actually understand their topic or scope and capitalize successfully. It is that handful of people which makes up more than 80% of the web's revenue.

So how exactly can you design a successful website? Here are some pointers to get you started:

1. Create unique content: Forget article spinners and replicators. They are now very easily spotted by search engine algorithms. Search engines love unique content, which means that the content you feature on your website should not be anywhere else on the web. This can only happen if you allow only qualified people to provide content, or write the content yourself.

2. Target a certain segment: Creating a multi-purpose website can be successful, but statistics have shown that niche websites are easier to generate revenue with. So stick with a single topic or scope. If you are starting a news website, try not to accept all kinds of news, but stick to news in a certain niche. Stick with a niche, formulate a plan and you are bound to succeed.

3. Encourage frequent visits: Use a mailing list to capture your subscribers and be in constant touch with them. Give them a reason to visit your website consistently and frequently. This will generate a critical mass of interest, boosting your search engine rankings as well as your traffic.

4. Do not over-advertise: Do not fill up your website with meaningless banners or sponsors in hopes for a quick buck. Websites which have used advertising only sparsely provide a more professional look. This builds trust faster and can improve your business in the long-run.

5. Base your website on an idea: I cannot state this enough. The money is not in the website itself. It is in the underlying idea. What is your idea? Do you wish to bring the guitar community together on a single platform? Is your website catered to bringing single moms to a central platform to solve their problems? Remember, the money is in the idea.

I hope this article was informative. Remember, anyone can design a website. Only a handful people are able to do it correctly and reap amazing benefits.

Article Source

Read more...

This article is intended as a guide for webmasters who want to display automatically updated content on their website in the form of RSS feeds. In this article I will cover the easiest method to implement using javascript for displaying RSS on websites to create additional dynamic content. This will allow you to display headlines from syndicated content around the web on your website.

RSS to Javascript.

By far the easiest method is to use client side javascript to parse and display the headlines on your site. To achieve this all you need to do is cut and paste some HTML or javascript code into the web page where you want the RSS feed headlines to display.

To achieve this there are several sites that offer a free service that will allow you to select a few options to choose your feed source and display formatting parameters. You will then be presented with some javascript code that you can cut and paste into your website.

Now before I give you the address of the sites that offer this service freely there are a few points I need to clarify with you. Although you will achieve your goal of displaying dynamic content on your site in a few short minutes there are some downsides to this method.

Javascript is not search engine friendly.

As you may or may not already know, javascript is not visible to search engine spiders. They will not see the RSS feed you have parsed into your site and so this will not benefit you if you are doing this to better your search engine rankings.

You are using a third party service.

The second potential downside is that although the javascript is on your site you are actually calling a script on another server. This could lead to a couple of potential problems. If the server is busy it will mean the news feed will take longer to display on your site. The other point is if the third party server fails or disappears altogether then your feed will not be displayed at all.

In summary there are a few downsides, but if you do not code and want some feeds on your site quickly then this is the way to go. Ok, so now you understand what is involved here are the links to the sites that provide the free RSS to javascript service. All you need to do is follow the on site instructions.


* Feed2JS

* RSS2HTML

* RSS-to-Javascript

* FeedSweep

* RSS Xpress Lite

Article Source

Read more...

Running arcade website nowadays is not so easy. There are literally thousands free online gaming portals, from the biggest ones (miniclip.com, freeonlinegames.com and many other arcades) to cheap small arcade sites, sold on eBay or webmaster forums. So, is it possible to start running a new successful arcade website? The answer is: yes, definitely, this is possible. I will show you 5 basic steps how to start running your own free online games portal:

1. Choose a good arcade script!

I just can´t stress enough this point. You are choosing the future of your online games site right since the beginning! There are multiple arcade scripts out there, but not all of them are worth even a try. Be aware: the script that you will use, have to offer enough functions, have to be safe and should be frequently updated.

2. Customize your site!

When visitor leaves your site, he should remember the place, which is leaving! Customization stands for everything - from good domain name (justfreeonlinegamesportal.com is not really catchy...) to good graphic layout of your site.

3. Find quality free games - content is king!

You can find game packs everywhere on the web. Some of them have 1 000 games, some of them 2 000, 3 000, or even 9 000 (I have seen such a pack being sold for $75 - what a waste of money!). Forgot them all! These game packs are usually bought by hundreds of webmasters and all of them have the same content, same descriptions and their sites have usually the same destiny - they will disappear shortly. You should look for the best games on the web and you should write your own descriptions for each of the game - this is a must if you want to receive traffic from search engines. Otherwise you´ll become penalised for duplicated content and no one will find you.

4. Learn from others!

This is also one of the most important points. Look around you, browse as many different arcade sites as you can, register on specialized forums for arcade webmasters (arcadestalk.com is must for every arcade owner!), read all topics, find what is actually working in online gaming industry and what is not. Arcade industry is slightly different from all other kinds of online businesses. Find those differences and learn from the mistakes of the others.

5. Link it!

It´s so easy to say and so hard to do. Quality Link building is very important for all type of sites - even for arcades. Without links visitors will not come to your site. And without visitors/players, your site is literally dead! So, dedicate enough time and effort to link your site to every place possible - social bookmarking, directory listing, traffic exchanges, forum signature, comments on the blogs, everything will work. People just have to find your site!

These are just basic steps for starting successful arcade website. Anyway, these steps are very important and you should not underestimate them. Rome was not built in a day and your online gaming portal will not be running in a few days. This is just a beginning.

Article Source

Read more...