Vitaly Webmaster, Author at Vital Webmaster - Utah Web Designer

Google Analytics Default Settings is Not Enough

This article answers the question: What info does Google Analytics tracking code collect and is it enough for my business decision makers?

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO Tips on How to Make Crawlers Index Your Site More Often

Fast indexing in search engines is an important task for any webmaster for better SEO ranking (positioning on top of search engines). The main thing that attracts search engine robots is a new content. If the site is updated frequently, such as news portals, the problems with indexation should not arise if you have the resources, new pages and all of these are literally in minutes fall in the index. But not every website needs constant updating. If it is, for example, the company’s website, it can be filled once, and then only sometimes add news. And how to get the search engines to see them quickly? Reindex or updated pages? Consider a few ways to get to the site search bots.

How do you make crawlers quickly index the new pages of the site?

Regularly updated blocks

Virtually any resource page can be placed in the form of updated blocks, for example, with news, commentary, offline messaging or social networking. Online stores can display on each page the list of recommended products that will change randomly. Search engines, in each case will see a “new” page and get used to that it is constantly updated, and those search engines will feel that they need to go there more often.

The downside of this method is considered to be that there is a small leak page that provides more weight for the same forum or news page.

Visitor retention

If you allow users to post comments on articles, add comments about the goods, own articles and other content, it will constantly update the website. It is clear that the activity of visitors should be encouraged and supported, as well as there is a need to monitor the quality of the same comments and feedback to the site does not become a spam site.

Cons of this method is possible to reduce the Relevance page keyword density. The keyword density is reduced even on a perfectly optimized pages as there is a new non-optimized text, which dilutes the main content.

New links

If there is a need to attract search engine spiders to a new updated page, then it is necessary to get new links to that page (there may be a link to a new page from your site, but it is better to get new links from external resources). According to the robot, it hits the page and reindexes it. It is ideal to get links from news sites.

For Google System, to expedite indexing there is a very well-proven service such as twitter – though at the corral in the index using twitter, so much depends on the account from which there is a link.

The only negative fact is that you have to spend money on buying links or run the link on twitter accounts.

Redirect

You can always just delete the old page and create a new one – with a new address and new content. In this case it is best to make a redirect from the old page to the new one not to lose all the weight and external links. It is clear that some parameters, such as age of the document will be updated as well.

The disadvantage of this method is that it is impractical, for example, if you want to reindex a large number of pages.

What methods are acceptable, available and most appropriate for the site – everyone decides for himself, because it all depends on the features and capabilities of the resource. But best of all, if the site is constantly updated with fresh content then the search engine spiders will continue indexing your pages as often as you update content.

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Promotion & Internet Marketing

Free Directory Submission: How to Submit a Website to Directories for Free?

There are many directories to which you can submit your website for free. Besides famous Yahoo and DMOZ directories, you can submit your website to other directories that could help you with your SEO ranking. There are a few tools you can use to automate your submission. Not all directories accept automated submissions. So, be careful on where you submit your website, to avoid any potential spamming b.y different useless websites.

Below is presented a small free directory submission list to which you can submit your website:

http://www.free-website-directory.com
http://www.freewebsubmission.com
http://www.friendly-directory.co.uk
http://www.funender.com/free_link_directory/
http://www.fxdir.com

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Web Design & Development

Domain Ownership Protection Questions Answered

One of the questions about the ownership of the domain that I have been asked was whom to register a domain name to?

The issue for the organization is not easy. During the registration of the domain for an organization is necessary to consider the legal questions – about the domain owner, the trademark to prevent potential conflicts.

Here is the information about the domain ownership that will help with the decision making when registering a new domain or reviewing the status of your current domain.

About domains and Trademark

In the case, if the domain is the same as the registered trade mark, when filling out the domain owner the right decision is to select the owner of the domain name is to select a person or entity that is the trademark owner. This step makes sense to do that. This will prevent possible disputes situations where there are different parties are involved are the owner of the domain, and the owner of the trademark.

Based on the current judicial practice, it is obvious that the owner of the trade mark is likely to win the ownership of the domain in court. Generally, for companies that plan to do registration of trade names, or so called trademarks, it is important to do registration (reservation) of the domains in all the right domain areas before submission of applications for registration of the trademark.

In the future, it will help to save lawyers expenses, as well as reserve a domain name that matches the name of the brand. It is important to emphasize that when writing the name of a trademark can be ambiguous, then it makes sense to reserve the domain, specifying the all possible or the most probable variant spellings of the domain.

About the Domain Owner

About the hired employee who is the domain name owner

Every day we have situations where the organization registered the domain for their employee, often by the system administrator or programmer. The domain name of the company, as a rule, is well-known and visited site. In that case, if the employee retires or encounters various disagreements with the owner then the conflict associated with the domain name is obvious. Moreover, in such a situations to win a negligent employee company domain will not only be extremely difficult, but also quite expensive. Cases such as this type of situation has arisen in connection with the dismissal of the head of it, was the owner of the domain name of the company. The conflict between the lay off salaried director and owner of the company is evident. The owners of the Company reasonably avoid such conflicts in advance, isolating salaried employees, including with leaders from the ownership of the domain of the company.

About the owner of the domain name company who is a shareholder of the company.

In this case, if the company has one owner, Problems often arise. In the event that the company has several owners, it could potentially have problems with domain in case of sale of shares by way of a shareholder, or in the event of a shareholder of the company. In this situation it is reasonable to immediately register the domain of the company, indicating the owner of the company itself or the step by step procedure to take steps to transfer ownership of the domain of the company – the company as a legal entity.

Companies disappear, domain names remain

Not all entities have the ability to survive in a rather difficult financial circumstances. You can close the company to reorganize, or declare the bankruptcy. But the domain of the company can continue to live a long time, in most cases, it is simply necessary.

Before you reorganize or close corporation transfer ownership of the domain owner of the company – a legal entity or a person. If you do not do that, when the company, who is the owner of the domain name, does not already exist, there are some serious problems with the procedure of transfer of the ownership rights of the domain name to another person.

In this brief article it is simply impossible to describe all the potential situations that are associated with ownership of the domain. I hope that the information you read will be useful, and will also help you avoid problems with domains ownership in the future.

Here is the brief summary of ownership of the domain name:

it is desirable to specify the owner of the trademark as the owner of the domain name that is associated with the brand;
register domains before you file the application for registration of the trademark;
before you close the company you should transfer the domain ownership to another person;
it is necessary to register a domain owner as the sole owner of the company, or the company itself.

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Web Design & Development

Best Practices of Well Designed Websites

The following steps tell you about best practices of a well designed websites. Those steps give you a detailed idea of a Professional Designed websites.

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Web Security & Optimization

Basics of DoS / DDoS attack Protection – How to Reduce the Risk

This article covers the basics of DoS / DDoS attack protection and how to reduce its risk.

DDoS-attack is short for Distributed Denial Of Service Attack. The main characteristic of this type of computer crime is that the criminals are not intended to enter into a protected computer system to steal or destroy data. The main purpose of this attack is to paralyze the attacked site. DDoS-attack is a derivative of DoS and differ only a large number of requests to the server with a different IP address. This is why criminals collect their chain Trojans infected computers and cause them to turn to the server, making it not withstand such loads. The first reports of DDoS-attacks were known in 1996.

In most cases, global attack leads to financial losses on the part of the attacked. For example, if a commercial site will drop for a few hours, then it would damage the business, and if for a week, then the owner of the resource may well go under.

Denial of service can be made in two ways: using software vulnerabilities of victims and by sending a large number of specifically composed of network packets (flood). The first method consists in that using the buffer overflow vulnerabilities, by sending the code to the server that performs DoS. Since the attack will be “inside”, then after a very short time the object will be “frozen” or is disconnected from the Internet. This method does not require large computational resources hitter, but this attack uses security vulnerabilities, which in itself complicates the task. The second method is by using of brute force, which practically does not require any special skills. The idea is to send as many as possible requests to the server (those requests also could be the huge number of normal packets, such as GET-requests for HTTP-server hosts.) The fact that the server receives a data packet that is processed by the server. If a packet arrives, but the server is busy receiving or processing of another package, then coming back a request is put in place, taking up part of the system’s resources. In carrying out DoS-attack server sends a large number of packets of a certain size. In this case, the server’s response is not expected. As a result, due to the fact that the server is overloaded with information, it is either disconnected from the Internet, or “frozen”. In any case, normal users some time can not use the services of the affected server.

ddos attack Schematically, DDoS-attack looks like this: on the selected server as a victim collapses a huge amount of false requests from multiple computers from different parts of the world. As a result, the server spends all its resources to service these requests and is virtually inaccessible to ordinary users. Cynicism of the situation lies in the fact that users of computers to which requests are sent are false, may not even be aware that their machine is being used by hackers. Programs installed by hackers on these computers are called “zombies” (examples of such programs could be Trojans). Perhaps this preparatory stage is the most time-consuming for an attacker.

Most often, attackers during the DDoS-attacks are using three-tier architecture, which is called “cluster DDoS”.This hierarchical structure includes:

management console (there may be several), ie it is the computer from which the attacker sends a signal the start of an attack;
mainframe computers. These are the machines that receive the signal of an attack with a control console and transmit it to the agents, “zombies.” One management console, depending on the size of the attack, can account for up to several hundred of hosts;
Agents are directly called “zombie” computers, their requests are attacking a target node.

DDoS software was originally produced in a DDoS “peaceful” purposes and used for experiments on the network bandwidth and their resistance to stresses. Over the years, this software is constantly being modified. For more detailed understanding of DoS-attacks, I will review five most popular types of DDoS-attacks:

UDP flood – sending to the address of the target multiple packets UDP (User Datagram Protocol). This method was used in earlier attacks and is now considered the least dangerous. Programs that use this type of attack are easily detected, as in the exchange of a master controller and agents are used unencrypted protocols TCP and UDP.
TCP flood – sending to the address of the target set for TCP-packets, which also leads to the “binding” of network resources.
TCP SYN flood – sending a large number of requests for initializing TCP-connections with the target node, which, as a result, have to spend all their resources to track these half-open connections.
Smurf-attack – ping requests ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) address directed broadcast packets using the query fake source address as a result turns out to be the target of attack.
ICMP flood – attack, similar to Smurf, but without the use of mailing lists.

The most dangerous are the programs that use multiple types of attacks described. They are called TFN and TFN2K and require a high level of training. One of the latest software for organizing DDoS-attacks is Stacheldracht (barbed wire), which allows you to organize a variety of types of attacks and avalanches broadcast ping requests with encrypted communications between controllers and agents.

Of course, in this review I’ve covered only the most well-known programs and methods of DDoS. In fact, a much wider range of programs and is constantly updated. For the same reason, it would be naive enough description of universal reliable methods of protection from DDoS-attacks. Generic methods do not exist, but the general guidelines to reduce the risk and minimize damage from attacks include such measures as the competent configuration features anti-spoofing and anti-DoS on routers and firewalls. These features limit the number of half-open channels, preventing overload the system.

Here are several ways you can protect yourself against DoS attacks

Filtering is method in which blocking outbound traffic from the attacking machines. This can be handled with the help of .htaccess file located in your root folder on the server. Or, it can be achieved by having the correct settings in the control panel (such as Cpanel). If you are unable to use them, you should consult your administrator. If you are the administrator of the site pay attention to the specialized software or option with the acquisition of more reliable servers that can tolerate minor or moderate attacks on the site without serious consequences.
Eliminating vulnerabilities is often the result of successful DDoS attacks. It may be the damage of your database such as MySQL, or even the loss of data on the server. However, remember to create copies of data for enhances security.
At the server level, it is desirable to have the output of the console server to another IP-address on the SSH-protocol for remote restart the server.
Another fairly effective method of combating DDoS-attacks is masking IP-address.
Creating a mirror site is a very common way to “stay afloat.” Make sure that the site is hosted on multiple servers, the second of which is an exact replica of the first, and is available with a domain as the mirror. A very good solution, but it requires quite deep knowledge of the administration of the site.
The response to DoS or DDoS attack. Cause and effect is clear.
The introduction of specialized equipment to repel DoS-attacks: DefensePro ® or Radware, Arbor Peakflow and others.
A very important part in this regard is prevention is the software that should be capable of “patching” against all kinds of “holes.”

As a webmaster, I perform analysis of the site for malware and viruses and implement reliable protection from them. This is part of the Website Maintenance Services that I offer for my clients. Please visit Website Analysis Audit services page for more details. Please call to schedule your free consultation or simply by submitting your inquiry online.

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Website Maintenance

Website Transfer to a New Server – Step-by-Step Guide

Often, when transferring your old website to a new hosting provider, many of us find it a highly complex process. When the website is finally moved to a new hosting provider, we find ourselves dealing with error issues due to improper configuration or file upload. So that the transfer process goes smoothly and without incidents, it is necessary to evaluate and discuss many options. With the supervision of the Tech Support of the old hosting server, the Website Admin is responsible for a successful website transfer.

Things to consider before the transfer:

You will not be able to carry out the website transfer plan without access to the admin panel, FTP, hosting panels, databases, and domain control panel. Of course, you can get all of these data (except for the domain control panel) with the only access-control panel as described in the “Access” section of this document.
Site information important point is the information about what kind of CMS is used on the old website. It is also essential to know the attendance, the trend of traffic growth, and the parameters of the current host (server).
Information on the causes of migration of the website you need to find out what exactly is a good reason for transfer to a new server, whether it is that you as a customer are not satisfied with the current hosting provider. Some of the good reasons could be: there were problems with the accessibility of the site, the site’s loading speed, and the current hosting provider is too expensive/cheap.
Information about the old/new hosting To select the hosting service, you will need at least to know what parameters are in a given host. Hosting types should be considered: Unix-hosting, windows-hosting, VDS / VPS, dedicated server, and the server’s settings. Technical data: how many domains and websites, disk space, and more. Follow instructions in the “Hosting” section of the document when selecting a hosting provider.
Mail client, It is necessary to ask what kind of e-mail boxes are used beforehand. During the move, you can accomplish migration in several ways:
- Do not use the mail domain, as some messages may be lost during the change of DNS (including MX records).
- Go to an alternate e-mail (private boxes).
- Move corporate e-mail to Yahoo or Google (and the box’s appearance will not change, change the settings). This is the most time-costly solution.
Agree with everyone on the transfer time to avoid unpleasant incidents and ambiguities during and after the transfer; please check with appropriate people within your organization and plan the date of the transfer.

The transfer procedure:

Merge files Site To merge files can take some time estimated in advance by going to the File Manager and looking at the usage space. Usually, it takes between half an hour to overnight. It is much better and time effective to move an archive, which can be generated using backup tools in the hosting panel.
Order Now while merging files, you can purchase hosting. It is assumed that we have chosen a hosting provider and discussed the adequacy of resources and package options with tech support hosting price for the selected rate we have agreed. Maybe you would prefer to use hosting for a particular test period to see its functionality and if it meets your needs. If this is the case, you may consider paying for hosting only for a few months. If you are definite about a hosting provider, hosting can be prepaid for a couple of years.
Move the site files to new hosting and create FTP access to your hosting. Using FTP client upload archived file (or files) to the hosting.
Connect hosting domain panel To change DNS records on the new hosting, DNS has to point to that hosting. To access the DNS manager, follow instructions in the “Access” section of this document.
Export / Import Database Usually, hosting providers provide a convenient interface to import / export / backup databases. If importing a database fails because of an unsupported format dump (typically it is .sql or .gzip or .zip file) on the new host, you can try backup your database on the old host in a supported format. But, if import/export cannot be performed via Control Panel, then PMA (PHPMyAdmin) tool can be used to perform this task.
Setting the config site after all the files have been downloaded, and the database has been imported successfully, you can make changes in the config site on a new server. It may require unique configuration options, such as specifying a custom host to connect to the database server or a custom pathway to store temp files and cache. This information can be found in the panel itself or sent a request directly to the Website Admin.
Checking the site’s operation before changing DNS records We have a chance to see how the site works on the new hosting without changing the DNS (and the A-record) domain. You can use the so-called test (service) link generated at the time of ordering hosting. If that is not the case, you can request technical support an IP address of the server that hosts the site and locally customizes it to display the transferred site on your computer. You will need to open the windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts file with the notepad, and we type in a string «ip_server_address newdomain.com,” eg, 195.12.54.10 www.vitalyonline.com. When entering www.vitalyonline.com in your browser, we will see the website stored under the new server’s IP, such as 195.12.54.10. It would be impossible to test all the site’s functionality correctly. Still, it would be possible to check the styles and how the website is rendered in the browser to ensure that everything is configured correctly.
Update the DNS records After the basic functionality of a new website on the new server has been verified, DNS A-records should be updated at this time. While DNS records are propagated, users could be notified that the website is down for maintenance. It takes up to 24 hours for DNS records to propagate through the Internet properly.
Setting and adjustment of the new hosting site At this point, we do finishing work on the website by inspecting its full functionality. Order form, send requests, work for admin panel, add images and new sections, and editing content should be tested. In general, we test everything to ensure that our transfer has been successful. It should be noted that at each step, one can inquire about some problems, which takes time (sometimes significantly a lot of time) to find solutions. Therefore, the whole process should be accompanied by communication with tech support and Website Admin.

Please call to schedule your free consultation on transfering your website or simply by submitting your inquiry online.

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Free SEO Tools

Here is the list of Free SEO Tools.

More suggestions will come.

FREE: Good Keywords – free downloadable software which can be used for preliminary keyword research. (http://www.goodkeywords.com)
FREE: Ontology tool – finds related keywords using the Google ~ search. (http://www.gorank.com/seotools/ontology/)
Various Prices (Can be FREE or Paid Membership): WordTracker – web based leased product which has many more features than the other tools. WordTracker traffic is generally more representative of actual traffic than Overture’s tool since many fewer automated bots scour its data collection network than Overture’s. (http://www.wordtracker.com). This tool can be used free for one day, but you will have to register. WordTracker will send you a temporal link, that you can use to log into your temporal account and research keywords for your website.
Various prices: Keyword Discovery ‐‐ deep database of keyword data. Contains historical data. Some of their partners made them sign a non disclosure agreement. The database may not be as clean as the WordTracker database, but it does contain more data. (http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/)
FREE: Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool – offers search frequency for the prior month throughout the Overture network. Please note that many bid checkers and other automated bots cause this number to skew high. (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/)
FREE: Google Keyword Sandbox – shows related search terms but not search quantity. (https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox)
FREE: Google Search Suggestion Tool – auto‐completes search queries to help you find more related search terms (http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en)

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Programming & Coding

How to Embed Flash Movie Video in Web Page?

For those who tried to find a solution for embedding any Flash (SWF) Movie or Video in your web page and have not found a good solution, the source presented below have always worked for me. I combined my research into one simple solution presented below. It works for me and I hope it will work for you.

All you need to do is insert this code anywhere within the <body>…</body> tags.

<div>
<h4>Content on this page requires a newer version of Adobe Flash Player.</h4>

<p><a href=“http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer”

rel=“nofollow”
target=“_blank”><img src=
“http://www.adobe.com/images/shared/download_buttons/get_flash_player.gif”
alt=“Get Adobe Flash player”
width=“112”
height=“33” /></a></p>
</div><!––[if !IE]>––>
</object> <!––<![endif]––>
</object>

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Simple Start‐up SEO Checklist to get to Top of Google for Free

If you don’t know where to start, here is a simple checklist the will get you started. More in detail is described in SEO Checklist and in Best Practices for Well Designed and Optimized Website sections.

This simple start‐up check list will definitely get you seen on Google and will help you to achieve top ranking on major Search Engines. After you went through the list and applied SEO tips to your website, continue monitoring and optimizing your website.

Determine the best keyword phrases for your site. Use WordTracker to help you come up with a list of 2 to 4‐word phrases. Target 100 keywords initially (For details on how to use WordTracker please read sub‐section “Choose Keywords”. For other tools available for Search Engine Optimization, please see “Free Search Engine Optimization Tools” section).
Create lots of pages. It’s better to have 20 short pages than 5 long pages on your site. Each page should be 200 words minimum and discuss one topic (one keyword phrase) only. (See examples of some web pages you may want to create for your own website in “Best Practices of a Well Designed and Optimized Website” section.)
Optimize each page for your keyword phrases (see “Positive Search Engine Optimization Factors Detailed Checklist” for more details):

Include keywords in the <TITLE> of each page. This is a MUST!
Replace “ands” with a “|” character
Include keywords in the <H1> and <H2> headings for each page. Use the styles sheet (CSS) to control the size of heading text to make it blend in better. Google considers <H2> tags more important than tags, since people were abusing tags
Include keywords in the first paragraph of each page (within first 20 words).
Use keywords in italic and/or bold tags in your main body. Example: <BODY><p>keyword</p>
Last paragraph of your page should also include keywords: <p>keyword</p></BODY>
Include keywords in the text of links. Never use “Click here”. Example: if my keyword is “x‐ray” use it in your URL <a href=”http://www.domain.com/x‐ray_products.html“></a>
Use keywords in your folders and file names. Example: http://www.domain.com/keyword/keyword‐products.html or in your image file keywords.jpg
Your images should include ALT tags with keywords in them. Example: <img src=”keword.jpg” ALT=”keyword”>

Link to each page from your sitemap page, and from each page back to your home page. Also cross‐link between pages that discuss the same topic.
Submit your site to the Open Directory Project (OPD: go to http://dmoz.org/add.html.). This is very important and should be done early as it takes time to get listed! (See “Submit Website to Open Directory” sub‐section for detailed overview of OPD)
Submit your site to Yahoo! If you can afford it, this is money well spent. Be sure and follow Yahoo’s submission guidelines precisely and to the letter.
Regularly monitor your progress and modify your efforts:

Monitor your site traffic often – it contains a wealth of information.
Check to see that all new pages are indexed in Google.
Check your site’s ranking on your chosen keywords once a month.
Regularly check your incoming links as part of your link campaign.

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Author: Vitaly Webmaster

Google Analytics Default Settings is Not Enough

SEO Tips on How to Make Crawlers Index Your Site More Often

How do you make crawlers quickly index the new pages of the site?

Regularly updated blocks

Visitor retention

New links

Redirect

Free Directory Submission: How to Submit a Website to Directories for Free?

Domain Ownership Protection Questions Answered

About domains and Trademark

About the Domain Owner

Companies disappear, domain names remain

Here is the brief summary of ownership of the domain name:

Best Practices of Well Designed Websites

Basics of DoS / DDoS attack Protection – How to Reduce the Risk

Website Transfer to a New Server – Step-by-Step Guide

Free SEO Tools

Here is the list of Free SEO Tools.

How to Embed Flash Movie Video in Web Page?

Simple Start‐up SEO Checklist to get to Top of Google for Free

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