What's going on...

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:48:00 +0000

Keyword Density.......

When optimising your web site you need to make sure you put most concentration on your important keywords.

This means that you need to have a high concentration of these main keywords in the content of your web site. However, you can’t just throw them in as many times as you feel necessary; the content to keyword ratio has to balance out.

If you use too many keywords in your content or use them unsuitably it becomes difficult to understand to regular readers. Google and other search engines can pick up on this and this will damage your search engine positions.

So the balance must be just right to gain the best possible results on the search engines.

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:22:00 +0000

The top ways to increase the amount of ‘good’ traffic coming to your web site.

Why did you create your website? Probably to make some money – but without visitors this isn’t going to happen. But high traffic isn’t the key to making money from a website it’s all about driving the right visitors to the right parts. If all the people that visit your site aren’t finding what they are looking for then your site has failed … and that’s not good.
So you want to increase traffic to your site and sales? The most important point is quality of your visitors vs. quantity; from there you can plan your next step.

In order to reach your goals and make your site work, you need to achieve three things:
• A low bounce rate
• Get RELATIVE traffic to your site
• Convert this traffic into sales

So how can I increase ‘good’ traffic and convert it? …… I’m glad you asked

1. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Take out an search engine optimisation SEO campaign to increase your site’s positions in the organic search results of search engines. To find out your website’s current positions in the major search engines it might be useful to have a search engine audit done on it to see what areas can be improved and to plan your strategy.

On of the main factors that affects search engine positions is the overall structure of the website – it needs to be easy to navigate and easy for the search engines to spider through and locate all the content. If it takes a million years for Google’s spider to analyse your website then it’s going to be penalised in the search results - So re-design your site to make it search engine friendly.

What are your keywords? That’s the next stage. What do you want your website to be found for – this is the tricky bit because what you think your target audience are searching for may be completely different to what they are keying into the engines. So you’ll need to take out a keyword analysis and do a load of research before applying anything to your site.

Then you can start the linking process. Search engines work on links – links act as a sort of referral, if you can get a link from a site with a high page rank, such as the BBC then Google, Yahoo! and the rest will look at that link when spidering through, and as long as it comes from relevant material will probably move you up in the results.

But remember, if you decide to do this yourself, search engines don’t like to be tricked, and there are a lot of companies out there that will promise you top positions overnight if you hand over your house, car and the entirety of your bank account. But if they use black hat techniques (which they probably will) this won’t last and your site will most probably be removed from search engines completely, and then you’re back at square 1.

So take your time when choosing a search engine optimisation company.

2. Articles and e-mail marketing

Write about your site and brag about it – search engines love Blogs. So create a blog (or get a development company to do it for you) and communicate with other bloggers in your field to write about your site and promote it.

You can also submit your news in forums and inform the members about products or services that might find interesting

E-mail marketing can bring to your site traffic with minimal cost. There are e-mail newsletter tools that you can buy and customise to fit your company’s profile and use to send newsletters to your clients informing them about new services, products or special offers. Why not add a signup form to your site in order to collect e-mail addresses from the people that want to get your news?

3. Social Media

There are a wide variety of different social networks that you can utilise to improve the online visibility of your business. The world and their mums are on Facebook – so why not open an account or a fan page … or both!!! Then advertise your company with it, post company pictures, news updates, create an application, sync your blog with it – and many more things, all this can be done to create a following and increase traffic coming to your site. Other things you can do include tweeting on Twitter (which is rapidly gaining members), and joining social book marking sites such as Stumble upon and Reddit.

4. PPC

Take out a Pay per Click (PPC) campaign on the important keywords of your site. You can use Google Adwords or Microsoft’s Adcenter to have adverts placed on search results for your most pertinent keywords relatively quickly. These ads can also be placed on a variety of related websites to help increase traffic. But be careful when managing the campaign in order to save money wherever possible because with Adwords it can get very expensive VERY quickly. It might be worthwhile to ask advice from a marketing company to avoid making any wrong moves.

If you have no idea how to do any of the above don't dispair, as Thomas Cole Internet Solutions offer all the services discussed .... just give us a call on 01254 832 815 or get in touch via the contact form

Post By Ash

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:43:00 +0000

Should I Spam Keywords?

Now everybody knows how much I hate Captain Spam, and I hate him in all of his many forms. Be it the terrible spammy link at the bottom of a dead forum thread, or the hideously overstuffed keyword tag.

One of my most hated forms Captain Spam takes is in the form of horrendous and hideous page footer keyword spam.

This makes your web site look ridiculous and will probably just end up getting your site penalised by The Google. The Google will then drop you like a bad idea. Your positions will die before you have a chance to delete your footer.

So Captain Spam, it might have seemed like a good idea at 2 o’ clock in the morning, after a few too many cans of special brew, to fill your footer with repeated spammy ramblings but you will regret it in time! You will regret everything you’ve done Captain Spam!

Post by Ed - Captain Spam - Daykin

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:36:00 +0000

Tech Rant ...

"Microsoft is about to give millions of Windows users the option of changing to another web browser, away from their own Internet Explorer."

"The change follows an agreement made with European competition authorities, who ruled that bundling IE with Windows abused Microsoft's dominant position."

My thoughts on the matter:

Not this again. is it really so bad for Microsoft to include their own browser in their own operating system? Where will this go next?

Will Apple / iPhone users be asked if they want to switch from Safari?
Will Ubuntu users be asked if they want to switch from Firefox?
Will Orange start sending me details of Vodafones talk plans?
Will Vauxhall salesmen be retrained so they can tell you all about the Mondeos features?
Will Samsung have to stop supplying remote controls with their TVs just because other remotes are available?

I don't think so....

I paid a lot of money for my copies of Windows, they belong to me, and I object to them being used to advertise to me.

There is already a wide choice of browsers out there, if you want to use Firefox then use it, if for some strange reason you want to use Safari, Opera, or Chrome, then use it! Don't beat Microsoft up for helping the average user get online, if IE was not included in Windows what would most people do?

If Microsoft are guilty of abusing their market position by including IE in Windows, then surely Google are guilty of the same crime by not offering search results or sponsored links from Bing, Yahoo, or Hotbot, and by forcing their toolbar into the installers of other programs, AND by including their ads in Youtube videos!

Once again Microsoft are being punished by providing value for money, it takes the 'matt-le-tiss'.

Posted By Greg

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:58:00 +0000

Captcha Codes ...

Let’s talk about captcha codes, verification codes or whatever you want to call them…

Sure, stop the spammers! This is a great way to do it! It even stops some non-spammers from submitting comments, forms or anything to your web site because it’s unreadable or doesn’t load!

The worst of the worst codes I’ve seen half disappear off the bottom of the image, with the remaining characters impossible to decipher whether it’s a R, A or something else!

Another contender for worst of the worst displays 6 characters for the code which are easily readable, then only lets you type 5 in the box. What’s the point in that?

There are much easier ways to stop spammers… Or at least sort your validation/ verification/ captcha/ recaptcha/ anti-spam code out…

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:42:00 +0000

Really......

I’ve just seen an advert for a product offering to “Get first page rankings on Google overnight.”

Hold on a minute… Overnight? Somehow I seriously doubt that. Unless you’re offering Pay Per Click management I don’t think you’d be able to get my web site to the first page of Google for “Any keyword in any niche.”

I’m considering signing up for their overnight page one service for the keyword “Google”, just to demand my money back when they can’t carry out what they promise.

But I’ll probably just leave them to it…

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 09:05:00 +0000

Overstuffed Meta Tags!

One thing that really annoys me when I’m looking at a web site’s Meta tags is horrendously overstuffed keyword tags!

There’s no need to have every possible variation of your keywords, along with misspellings of your keywords and misspellings of your variations. Then after you’ve filled about 20 lines of code with your keywords, misspellings variations etc, you really don’t need to have the same for your company name, along with misspellings and variations and misspellings of your variations!

The very worst I’ve seen contains all of the above plus a few random keywords that appear to have been added only because they get a high number of searches! If you’re selling a selection of antiques on your web site there’s no need to put keywords such as “Youtube” and “Facebook” in some vain attempt to gain attention.

There is absolutely no way in hell that your web site is going to be found for these terms just because they are in the keyword tag! Most search engines have pretty much made this tag obsolete anyway so it’s just a pointless waste of time and resources.

As a final note, please don’t throw your competitors name into the keyword tag. You aren’t using sly and crafty tactics to steal their business; you’re just being exceptionally dense.

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:16:00 +0000

SEO Tip of the week ...

Search Engine Optimisation is a thing that takes some time, if done ethically and to keep good positions. At the least a good white hat SEO campaign will take around 6 to 9 months to have any major impact on the search engines.

You can’t expect page 1 results in a matter of days, unless you use highly unethical black hat SEO techniques which technically can get you listed quickly but these positions are unlikely to last.

One reason SEO doesn’t happen overnight is that Google likes old domain names. The older a domain name is the more Google will like it, under most circumstances.

Google seems to love age, because it also likes old back links. The longer a link lasts for the more Google likes it!

Google likes maturity

Posted By Ed

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:17:00 +0000

Google's social network accused of breaking privacy laws ...

Google's new social networking service offered through their e-mail client Gmail, has been accused of breaking privacy laws, leading the internet giant to revise its Google Buzz once again.

These allegations come from the Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC), who have launched a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

EPIC state that Buzz, which is integrated into Google’s Gmail service, is “Deceptive” and breaks the consumer protection law.

Despite Google trying to improve and implement changes to their Buzz service EPIC say that Google still hasn't gone far enough."

“Twitter is a social networking site and people know what they are signing up for. With Gmail, users signed up for an e-mail service not a social networking service."

"Despite all the changes, they still do not give users a meaningful way to opt into it."

The lack of a user opt-in feature has been the main controversy surrounding Google Buzz since it was rolled out to Gmail users last week. With many users criticising the ready-made circle of friends automatically created by the service, which is based on contacts emailed most regularly.

Although the service was tested before it was rolled out to Gmail users, Google admitted that testing done on it may have been inadequate, stating: "We've been testing Buzz internally at Google for a while. Of course, getting feedback from 20,000 Googlers isn't quite the same as letting Gmail users play with Buzz in the wild."

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:31:00 +0000

Microsoft leaks information on Windows 8 ...

Window’s 7 has only just been released and Microsoft is already in the process of creating their next operating system - the company briefly published a blog on msdn.com, and then took it down almost immediately.

A cached version of a Microsoft blog post titled 'What's in store for the next Windows?‘ offered a taste of what might be involved in the successor to Windows 7, which is being referred to as Windows.next.

In the blog post, the anonymous author promised "The minimum that folks can take for granted is that the next version will be something completely different from what folks usually expect of Windows - I am simply impressed with the process that Steven (Sinofsky) has set up to listen to our customers needs and wants and get a team together than can make it happen.”

"To actually bring together dozens and dozens of teams across Microsoft to come up with a vision for Windows.next is a process that is surreal! The themes that have been floated truly reflect what people have been looking for years and it will change the way people think about PCs and the way they use them. It is the future of PCs..."

Rumors and speculation started last month, stating that Windows 8/Windows.next would launch in July next year.

The anonymous blogger also revealed that the company had succeeded in restoring its reputation with Windows 7, following mixed response to its predecessor Windows Vista.

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:05:00 +0000

Another way to utilise Facebook....

Facebook has many a way to increase the amount of traffic coming to your business’ web site. Be it by way of links, pictures, paid advertising etc. But these can take time and if you’re like me, it takes ages to update all the different social networks with all the company news and information.

Another useful way to increase the amount of updates on your profile or fan page with minimal effort is to utilise the Facebook ‘notes’ application.

If your business has a Facebook fan page or profile ( if not why not?!?! ) and a blog you can link the two via an RSS or ATOM feed to post all of your updates on you’re wall.

Right, here comes the maths….

If you have 30 fans on your company’s fan page, who in turn each have 100 friends, your blog posts can be seen by as many as 3000 people! And, with the new Facebook architecture these blog posts can appear both on profile walls and on the news feed.

This works because people that view your notes and add them to their note feed, have essentially endorsed you to all their friends. This sort of endorsement is a big part of what influences consumer buying decisions.

Written By Ash

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:31:00 +0000

Are you in love with your web site?

It's that time of year again! "Love is in the air!" and all that. But let me ask you something... Do you love your web site, the same way fish love water? Or do you hate it, the same way ice hates heat?

I know the Thomas Cole Blogmaster would wine and dine this blog if it was possible! There'd be no taking this thing to Burger King for him! Only the fanciest, swankiest restaurant is fit for this site.

So do you want to wine and dine your blog? Or is the spark just not there anymore?

I have a few hints if you need to light the fire again.
1. Buy your web site a new dress and shoes to make it feel sexy. (Or redesign it and spruce it up to look better.)
2. Take it out to dinner at the fanciest place in town to make it feel respected. (Or market the web site to increase visibility.)
3. Take it home and spend some quality time just talking with it about it's problems to make it feel loved. (Develop the web site to iron out any problems.)

There you go, you have a web site that loves you and you love it back!

Written By Ed

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:34:00 +0000

To Link, Or Not To Link…

As we all know, there are a few types of link building. Some of them are worthwhile while other are not.

If you manage to get strong links that are going to last, Google will love you! If you manage to get links from shoddy directories that barely have any structure and always ask for a reciprocal then your web site will suffer.

You can spend ten minutes filling out a form to submit your link to www.523hjg.org.com.au but eventually (probably very soon) this web site will either collapse or change to something completely different. That’s ten minutes you’ve just wasted on a possible (but probably never made live) link that will last no time whatsoever.

So the moral of the story is: Think before you link!

Written By Ed The Techie

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:39:00 +0000

Another thing about contact forms…

One of the services offered by Thomas Cole is Search Engine Optimisation. This means that we do not need you to get us any “GUARANTEED 1ST PAGE GOOGLE RANKING!” And when you say something like “We would like to get your website on first page of Google”, you really mean you just want to take our money and disappear.

If you were a real SEO company that were actually any good at what you claim to be able to do then you wouldn’t have the e-mail address: peterd623@gmail.com. Real SEO companies have their own e-mail addresses.

If your SEO methods are really white hat, then why write ""white hat"". Is there any need at all for the double inverted commas? Does this mean that it’s “white (wink wink) hat”?

There’s just something I don’t trust about your e-mails. It might be the horrifically spammy way you write them, or the way you sign off with “See you at the top!” Or it could just be the fact you feel the need to shout at me in what appears to be some kind of an attempt at a sales e-mail.

Book your ideas up.

Written By Ed The Techie

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:18:00 +0000

Social Media Usernames ...

Social media sites for the most part offer all of their users a profile name and profile page. Take Twitter for example, on Twitter our profile name is ThomasColeLtd.

Brand names and company names are extremely important in controlling and since most of the social media sites nowadays rank pretty well in Google, it makes perfect sense to be proactive and secure your brand name now. Because if you don’t either an affiliate marketer, a competing company, or some random idiot will go out and register your brand name across all the social media platforms they can and rank for your company in search engines.

With this, they can use the profile, in your companies brand name, to build relationships with your customers, and increase traffic going to your competitors web sites or even destroy your reputation.
Just imagine how damaging a Twitter account for the BBC could be, especially if it had thousands of followers and then tweeted something misleading about the company's operations.

The first step to combating this is going out and securing your company name on all the relevant social media. For this there is an excellent tool available called CheckUserNames.com. CheckUserNames.com searches across a vast number of social media sites to check if your desired username is available. If it's available then register it now before someone else does.

If your username is already taken, don't fret most social media companies such as Twitter can be quite cooperative in taking care of this for you, because they do not want brands being misrepresented inside their network.

Once you have obtained these accounts setup your profile page to increase links going to your site and to get your posts indexed into Google's results for increased internet visibility.

Written By Ash

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:45:00 +0000

China Denies Attacking Google Search.

A spokesperson from the Chinese government has recently spoken out to deny any involvement in the recent cyber attacks that targeted several companies including search giant Google, saying the claims made by them were “groundless”.

The spokesperson, from China’s ministry of industry and information technology said: “The accusation that the Chinese government participated in [any] cyber attack, either in an explicit or inexplicit way, is groundless. We [are] firmly opposed to that”.

They then continued to add “China’s policy on internet safety is transparent and consistent.
On an official post on the Google blog, a spokesperson revealed that the Google Mail (Gmail) accounts of Chinese human rights supporters had been unlawfully accessed in a strategic and targeted cyber-attack, which was believed to have originated in China.

Although Google did not accuse the Chinese government of being involved in the attacks, Google recently had threatened to withdraw from China unless the state agreed to stop restricting free access to information through its search engine.

The state-run newspaper China Daily said that America's internet strategy is going "to exploit its advantages in internet funds, technology and marketing and export its politics, commerce and culture to other nations for political, commercial and cultural interests of the world's only superpower."

While the situation is still far from resolved, China stated last week that Google and other international companies had to obey their laws and traditions if they wished to continue to operate in China.

This led to Google postponing the launch of their two mobile phones there, and is considering a full withdrawal from the country's internet market if the Chinese government doesn’t stop censoring search results on the company's Chinese search engine - a scenario that is looking increasingly unlikely.

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:27:00 +0000

Keeping Your URL

When optimising a web site you will often create links pointing to your URL. These will help with your search engine positions. If, however, you decide to change your domain name then all of these links will be void.

Also, all of your rankings will soon disappear. You’ll virtually go back to square one, unless you point your old domain at your new domain, although this will have menial value compared with just keeping your domain name in the first place!

So the moral of the story is: stick to one domain name!

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:52:00 +0000

Facebook Group vs. Facebook Fan Page

Right, at Thomas Cole we are forever being asked questions about social marketing and one question that keeps cropping up is “which is better, a Facebook fan page or a Facebook group?” so today I’ve decided to highlight the key advantages of each.

Ok, first of all there are two main differences between groups and fan pages and they define what types of marketing they can be used for. The major difference is that unlike groups, fan pages are visible to unregistered people and therefore can be indexed by search engines making them better for SEO.

The other difference is that Facebook groups allow users to send out “bulk invites” whereas fan pages must have invites sent out manually. Therefore groups are more often used for viral marketing, meaning any group member can send bulk invites to all his/her friends… and they can do the same and so on. Groups generally increase in size faster than fan pages due to this feature.

Right, so that’s the main differences. Some of smaller differences between the two include:

Facebook fan pages can have custom URLs whereas groups have disgusting and lengthy ones that make little sense to anyone.
Facebook fan pages can have applications added to them to increase the visitor's interaction with the page.
Fan pages come with visitor statistics, showing the number of visitors, increase in members etc. Whereas groups don’t.
Fan pages can create and invite people to events that the administrator is hosting
Fan pages can be promoted via the Facebook advertising system.

There are also a series of similarities between the two, such as they can both hold a discussion between their members, host a forum and a wide variety of different multimedia can also be posted on the pages walls etc.

At the moment this seems to be a totally one sided argument in favour of the fan page but that is not the case. Yes the fan page has more features, but that’s not the point, the point is that they both have their uses in marketing, and when used correctly they can increase the overall visibility of your business dramatically. Or if used badly they can do nothing for your business at all.

So to conclude, fan pages are better for long term interaction with your target audience and increasing internet visibility (i.e. SEO) whereas groups are better for a quick discussion on a topic and attracting attention quickly (i.e. viral marketing).

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:57:00 +0000

Getting On Top.... Of The Search Engines

PageRank (PR) is not the most important aspect when it comes to search engine rankings. You can search for your main key word and be annoyed at the web sites that come higher than yours, and then be even more annoyed when they have a lower PR than you! Oh no, shock horror!

This is because it’s not just PR that affects positions! There are many other things that affect positions such as inbound links, relevant content and regularly updated content.

When Google re-indexes on a large scale a lot of peoples PR will flicker up and down. It’s ok to celebrate when your web site hits PR5 but this still doesn’t mean that you’re a guaranteed number 1!

However, the same thing applies to inbound links. Well done, you have built up 12,000 links pointing to your web site. Don’t be too distressed when you find the web site that is thrashing your position only has 200 links. “200?! But my web site has 12,000 links and PR4!” There is a lot more that affects your position.

So, stop worrying as much about PR, don't worry about getting thousands upon thousands of links, and concentrate on getting on top!

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:40:00 +0000

Google launches ‘Near Me Now’

Yet again Google pick’s up the pace in the world of search by launching yet another product to make searching the internet simpler. Users of smart phones such as the newly released Nexus One and Apple’s iPhone will find a new option on their search screens as Google rolls out geo-positioning into mobile searches.

A ‘Near Me Now’ option has appeared on Google’s home page allowing people searching to locate local bars, restaurants, cafes etc based on their current location.

A post on Google’s mobile blog stated "We wanted to make it fast and easy to find out more about a place in your immediate vicinity, whether you're standing right in front of a business or if it's just a short walk away.”

“Google wanted to make searching for popular categories of nearby places really simple”

“Imagine that you emerge from the subway station and you want to grab a coffee, but you don't see a coffee shop around you. You can simply search for all nearby coffee shops by using 'Near Me Now.’”

In order for users to fully utilise this new feature, smart phone users will need to allow Google to identify their location via GPS. How popular this will make the application with those with Google-related privacy concerns is questionable.

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:01:00 +0000

Thomas Cole Encounters Captain Spam

Most messages that come through contact forms asking for link exchanges appear to come from spammers with e-mail addresses like “dave12723@googlemail.com”. Obviously, spammers want to use you and your web site to their own advantage.

Even when a seemingly legitimate link exchange request came through from a decent e-mail address offering what sounded like quite a good deal; one link from our web site pointing to his, and one link from his web site pointing to ours. Really though, he was no better than the average Captain Spamtastic, he was trying to bleed us for every bit of worth our link could get him.

The deal he really wanted to make was a link from a spammy directory page pointing to us in exchange for a direct link to his web site that offered the same services as our directly from the first header on our home page. When I told him he must be joking he tried to persuade me that the link would benefit me more than him. How exactly? By driving our users directly to his site? That doesn’t sound like much of a fair deal to me. He told me, “I am trying to do you a favour!” By stealing our customers?

When I continuously told him I wasn’t interested in his pointless link exchange he continued to ask for more and more. He wanted multiple links from all over the web site, he never bothered to raise his stakes though, and I don’t think it’s vital to have links from his spam directory.

Whilst link exchanges can be good under certain circumstances, this wasn’t one of these times. I suppose at least he wasn’t offering cheap meds.

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 12:17:00 +0000

Natures Aid

Thomas Cole Internet Solutions are pleased to announce the launch of the new Natures Aid web site.

The specification given to Thomas Cole was to produce a fresh web site that was good looking, dynamic and that improved on the current, but out of date branding and styling. The web site should display all of the health supplements and products that Natures Aid had to offer and make use new technologies to allow the user to find their nearest Natures Aid stockist.

The web site incorporates Google maps and coupled with an in-depth content management system allows the web site administrators to add new suppliers and stockists as the company continues to grow.

Visit the Natures Aid Web Site

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:46:00 +0000

Twitter ends 2009 in profit

Leading financial news magazine Business Week has recently reported that the micro blogging site Twitter has had a profitable year after the company signed two separate deals with search giants Google and Bing. These deals allow Twitter posts (tweets) to be indexed and searched through on their respective search engines.

The deals with Microsoft and Google reportedly generated $25 million for the social media site. Despite all parties remaining quiet about the figures needed to secure the deal, Business Week revealed that Twitter generated $10 million from its deal with Microsoft to allow them to index the tweets in their Bing search engine, and a staggering $15 million from Google for the inclusion of the tweets into the real-time search results.

Twitter, which is based in San Francisco, allows its members to post 140 characters long SMS like messages on their profiles and enjoys over 55 million visits every month.

Recently, the company has been developing plans to start increasing revenue from the immense popularity of the micro blogging site by rolling out premium plans for businesses, allowing them to use Twitter’s platform to market and promote their products on the social networking website.

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:42:00 +0000

Black Hat SEO Targets Google Doodle

The use of popular internet trends and searches for the distribution of malicious software (malware) – many experts in the matter say that this method of delivery is more or less the standard for most types of phishing software and malware. The latest method of distribution from criminal gangs was hiding links to rogue antivirus sites behind the Google Doodle.

On Tuesday, Google visitors were greeted with a very questionable search results page when they clicked on the Doodle artwork paying tribute to the Esperanto creator L.L. Zamenhof which was displayed on the Google homepage.

The flag was displayed, like many date-appropriate modifications, on Google's front page, in the same way as pictures of Santa Claus at Christmas. Clicking on the "Doodle," performs a Google search for the relevant terms.

However, the cyber criminals had struck first in this case. Many of the top search results from clicking on the Doodle contained malware, pushed to the top of the rankings by black hat SEO techniques. Visitors unfortunate enough to click through to one of the sites were affected by scareware & rogue anti-virus scams.

A Google spokesman said that this type of problem affects other search engines as well. Google is aware of Tuesday's Doodle problem and has "already removed many of these sites from our index. To do this, we have manual and automated processes in place to enforce our policies."

He continued, "We're always exploring new ways to identify and eliminate malicious sites from our index."

Scareware combined with black-hat search engine optimisation has drastically increased in popularity among cyber criminals in 2009.

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Cole Internet Solutions) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:12:00 +0000

Google launches URL-shortening service

Earlier today search engine giant Google has launched its own URL-shortening service to compete with the likes of Bit.ly & TinyURL.com

The Google URL Shortener can be reached at the custom URL goo.gl. Although the service is currently limited to Google Toolbar and Feedburner users not yet available for broader consumer use the web service could be expanded in the Future.

"With character limits in tweets, status updates and other modes of short-form publishing, a shorter URL leaves more room to say what's on your mind - and that's why people use them," a Google spokesman wrote on the Google blog.

"Currently, Google URL Shortener is only available from the Google Toolbar and Feedburner. If the service proves useful, we may eventually make it available for a wider audience in the future," he continued.

At the moment, the two most popular URL-shortening services available on the web are TinyURL.com and Bit.ly, although security experts have warned that they can be exploited by cyber criminals.

Spam e-mails containing shortened links have been used in the past to direct internet users to illicit web sites that may have been obvious traps if the real URL had been used.

A Spokeswoman from the New York Times commented on the new Google web service and called it "a direct attack on Bit.ly".

However, shortly after Google's announcement on their blog, Bit.ly revealed that it would begin creating custom URLs for a number of major clients, web sites and publishers, including The New York Times (at nyti.ms), The Wall Street Journal and even Microsoft's search engine Bing.