WEBMASTER CENTRAL

WEBMASTER CENTRAL on Twitter

2010-02-22T02:02:00.000-08:00

Twitter is a microblogging and social networking website. Tweets are limited to 140 characters and may include links to other sites. Twitter was originally developed by the podcasting company Odeo as a web-based SMS service for internal communications, first used in March 2006. It was launched as a public service in July 2006, and became its own company in April 2007. Rapid growth saw users post hundreds of thousands of tweets in 2007, hundreds of millions of tweets in 2008, and billions in 2009. This month, Twitter users are currently posting 50 million tweets per day...

About Twitter * Twitter Basics * Search Twitter * Twitter 101 for Businesses

Keep up-to-date with all the latest web design, search engine, social media and internet marketing news via WEBMASTER CENTRAL's profile page on Twitter. Follow @webmaster_uk for details of updates to our website, the latest software releases, search engine marketing developments, web technology news, and various internet marketing resources...

Web Hosting with Unlimited Traffic

2009-09-02T18:50:00.000-07:00

1&1 Web Hosting's Microsoft and Linux packages now include unlimited traffic to your website/s. From today, as part of 1&1 Web Hosting's Performance Boost, data transfer limits have been removed, allowing for unlimited webpage impressions, downloads and uploads on all shared hosting packages. 1&1 Web Hosting have also significantly increased webspace allowances for both new and existing web hosting customers – by up to 5 times the previous amount. And, this month, 1&1 Web Hosting have also reduced the prices of domains, web hosting packages, dedicated and virtual servers, e-mail solutions and eShops...

BBC Click previews Windows 7

2009-05-23T19:04:00.000-07:00

This week, the BBC News channel's technology programme, Click, features presenter Spencer Kelly trying out the pre-release "candidate" version of Microsoft's latest operating system: Windows 7. Spencer and Computeractive's Tom Royal look at the new operating system's interface, including the redesigned taskbar - now called the Superbar, new methods for controlling on-screen windows, and the multi-touch functions for touch-sensitive screens. The final retail version of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system is due for general worldwide release on the 22nd of October...

Video: BBC Click previews Microsoft Windows 7

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8

2009-03-19T00:36:00.000-07:00

Microsoft's web browser Windows Internet Explorer 8 is now out of BETA, with the finished version available to download today. Internet Explorer 8 will also be the default browser included with Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system, due to be released later this year. IE8 offers improved compatibility in the handling of HTML, CSS, RSS, Ajax, etc. New IE8 features include: a redesigned Favorites Bar with additional functions, InPrivate mode (a stealth mode that retains no data of your browsing), and tab isolation (if a tab crashes, the browser itself and other tabs remain stable). For developers, IE8 includes tools for HTML, CSS and JavaScript debugging...

Xara's New Web Designer Software

2009-03-04T19:04:00.000-08:00

Xara released a replacement for its WebStyle software today: the new Xara Web Designer. Designed to be easy-to-use for the novice website designer, it includes professionally designed site templates and web graphics: with headings, navigation buttons, logos, etc. that can be dragged and dropped anywhere on the page. Any aspect of the design can be customized. Users can re-arrange page elements, adding their own text, inserting graphics / photos, adding videos, etc. The interface is WYSIWYG: what you see in Xara Web Designer is exactly what you get on your web page, and no knowledge of web coding is required. Experienced web designers should be impressed with the new, unique automatic 'flow-around' text that will even follow the edges of irregular shapes. Including innovative web design tools to create your own graphics, edit photos and make Flash animations, Xara Web Designer is a comprehensive web design solution, and available to download now...

Also see: FREE Online Design Tool: XARA 3D HEADING MAKER at our main site

PC Pro Magazine: 3 issues for ONLY £1

2008-12-08T22:36:00.000-08:00

To introduce new readers to PC Pro Magazine, Dennis Publishing have launched a trial subscription offer of 3 issues for ONLY £1 with FREE delivery to your door. For 13+ years, PC Pro Magazine's team of expert journalists have delivered in-depth tutorials, product tests, exclusive previews, analysis, advice and reviews, keeping readers up-to-date with all the latest computer hardware and software news. Each issue of PC Pro Magazine includes a FREE DVD with software, applications, games and utilities...

FREE Google SEO Starter Guide

2008-11-12T22:12:00.000-08:00

Google today announced their own Search Engine Optimization Guide at the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog. Aimed at helping webmasters with their website's performance in Google, the Guide provides "a wealth of search engine optimization information" based on "best practices... that could improve... crawlability and indexing." The Guide covers many SEO topics, including: title and description META tags, URL structure, site navigation, content and image optimization, linking anchor text, robots.txt and much more, along with many links to other helpful resources and further information. Essential reading for anyone who designs websites or out-sources their SEO...

Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide .pdf

Dreamweaver: Web Design Software

2008-10-25T16:37:00.000-07:00

The first version of Dreamweaver was developed by Macromedia and available for Windows and Mac in 1998. Macromedia were acquired by Adobe Systems in 2005. Dreamweaver has since replaced Adobe GoLive as Adobe's main web site design application. Adobe Dreamweaver offers a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) design interface that requires no knowledge of coding to use, along with the ability to directly edit code: supporting HTML, XHTML, CSS, XML, JavaScript, Ajax, PHP, ASP, etc.

The latest version, Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 is released today for Windows and Mac, as a standalone product and also included with Adobe Creative Suite CS4

Google Chrome Web Browser

2008-09-02T23:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Google released details of its web browser project: Google Chrome. Rather than the usual press release, Google sent out a Comic Book by artist Scott McCloud, featuring Google staff explaining the features and development of the web browser. Google Chrome is an open source project: built using Apple's WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox rendering engines, and includes a brand new Javascript engine and Google Gears. Further details were published at the Official Google Blog, revealing the BETA version of the browser would be available today. First impressions: Google Chrome's default homepage neatly presents you with thumbnails of your most visited / bookmarked web pages, along with a list of your most recently closed pages. The interface is minimalistic and the handling of tabs for browsing multiple sites is very slick. It is fast, even when simultaneously loading multiple pages. We're surprised it does not display image ALT text. And, you should note that the browser collects usage data and sends it back to Google, but it is easy to turn this off: go to Options > Under The Bonnet and untick the box. It's going to be interesting to see how Chrome develops and how much of an impact Google's browser will have on the usage statistics of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc... (See FREE Google Software for more downloads)

Video: The story behind Google Chrome * Google Chrome announcement

Google Insights for Search

2008-08-05T00:12:00.000-07:00

Today, Google has launched a new search statistics service: providing "more flexibility and functionality for advertisers and marketers to understand search behavior". Similar to Google Trends, the new service: Google Insights for Search delivers data on search volume over a period of time, allows you to compare several search terms, and provides regional search statistics. Both services present search volume graphs, but Google Insights for Search also provides regional search volume data in a world "heat map", and gives information on the top related and rising searches for the search terms entered. Not sure why these new features were not just added to Google Trends, but both services offer a lot of valuable data useful for research, targeting and optimization. See Insights for Search Help for more information, videos and other resources...

D6: All Things Digital conference

2008-07-08T21:29:00.000-07:00

Highlights from this year's Wall Street Journal D6: All Things Digital conference are now online. Microsoft's founder and Chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer shared the stage for the opening session, discussing Bill relinquishing his daily role at the company (CES 2008 video: Bill Gates' Last Day at Microsoft), the recent failed acquisition bid for Yahoo!, competing with Google, negativity towards Windows Vista, and the next generation Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 (video: Windows 7 demo)... Bill Gates & Steve Ballmer D6 interview videos: Part One & Part Two

Other D6 highlights include: Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang gave further insight into Microsoft's takeover bid, Amazon Chairman and CEO Jeff Bezos talked about the launch of Kindle, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg covered the rapid growth of the social networking site, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick discussed recent developments in video gaming, and Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher also interviewed News Corporation's Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch...

AffiliateFuture: Cookie-less Tracking

2008-03-14T00:23:00.000-07:00

AffiliateFuture, one of the UK's top affiliate networks, has today launched VeraciTag: a patent-pending cookie-less tracking technology. With some web browsers and anti-spyware software now blocking cookies, this new technology provides a more secure, privacy-protecting alternative for tracking affiliate sales. VeraciTag works by storing anonymous information in the web browser and can not be blocked, as cookies can. For merchants, VeraciTag offers a more accurate and reliable method of tracking affiliate transactions, while affiliates benefit from an increased number of tracked sales and therefore higher earnings. VeraciTag is exclusive to AffiliateFuture...

Yahoo! Search Webmaster Resources

2008-01-23T20:14:00.000-08:00

In the past, we have covered the launch of Google's Webmaster Central and Microsoft Live Search's Webmaster Tools. Today, we explore Yahoo! Search's Resources for Webmasters...

Your site might already be in the Yahoo! Search index if it has been crawled by the Yahoo! Search spider following links to your web pages. If your site is not already indexed, you can Submit a Website / Feed to be included for free. To ensure your website gets listed in the index, read the Yahoo! Search Content Quality Guidelines. You can also Submit Your Mobile Phone Site and Submit Media RSS Content for free inclusion in Yahoo! Search. If you are having problems getting listed, you can use the Yahoo! Search URL Status Review Form to find out why or contact the Yahoo! Search Support Team (or you may want to consider paying for Guaranteed Inclusion)

Yahoo!'s free analytical tool for websites listed in the Search index is the Yahoo! Site Explorer: displaying details of your site's pages indexed, a cache of the last time it was crawled, and a list of incoming links from other web pages in the index. Log-in and authenticate your website for even more data and control over how your site is indexed. Learn more About Site Explorer. If you are proud of the number of backlinks to your site, you can display the current count with a Yahoo! Site Explorer Badge. Keep up-to-date with the latest developments at the Yahoo! Search Team's Blog. To get the best results for your site in Yahoo! Search, we also recommend researching Yahoo! Search Indexing, Search Ranking and Yahoo!'s Web Crawler

Microsoft Office 2008 for Apple Mac

2008-01-16T06:42:00.000-08:00

Microsoft's Office 2007 for Windows PCs was released almost a year ago... Today sees the launch of Office 2008 for Apple Macintosh computers. Developed by Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit, Office 2008 for Mac OS X is available in three editions. Office 2008 Home and Student Edition includes the core applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and the e-mail client and personal organizer Entourage. Office 2008 Standard Edition also has Microsoft Server Exchange support, and the Office 2008 Special Media Edition has Exchange support and the digital media manager Expression Media...

SpaceTime 3D Web Browser

2008-01-07T13:43:00.000-08:00

SpaceTime today announced the public release of its free 3D Web Browser at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The SpaceTime application allows users to search and browse the web, with 3D browser windows floating in an unlimited virtual space which you can navigate through (you really need to see it in action). With several bugs eliminated during BETA testing last year, the latest version of SpaceTime is an impressive web interface, though still noticeably slower than a standard "2D" browser due to all the extra graphics rendering required. SpaceTime may not be your first choice for everyday use, but it is a very innovative and slickly presented web browser, and also perfect for displaying web pages during a presentation...

Web Hosting Powered by "Green" Energy

2007-12-05T18:07:00.000-08:00

The world's largest Web Hosting company, 1&1, today announced it will supply all European data centres with electrical power from renewable resources like wind, water, or solar energy. Switching to "Green" energy will save 30,000 tons of CO2 emissions each year. Achim Weiss, CTO of 1&1: "In our European data centres, we currently run some 40,000 servers which consume between 50 and 60 GWh per year. Hence, by switching to environmentally friendly energy we can significantly contribute to environmental protection". Two large office buildings in Karlsruhe, Germany, with 1300 employees will also soon be supplied with renewable energy. Next year, 1&1 plans to switch its USA-based data centres to "Green" energy...

Microsoft Live Search Webmaster Tools

2007-11-15T09:12:00.000-08:00

Back in March, the "link:" operator function was removed from MSN Search, due to "mass automated usage for data mining". The MSN Search team then set about creating dedicated resources for webmasters (requiring users to sign-up & log-in), with the Private Beta of the MSN Search "Webmaster Portal" announced in August as "a single, friendly place to find all tools and information relating to Live Search SEO". Recently rebranded as the Live Search Webmaster Center, the webmaster / SEO tools are now open for a Public Beta from today...

Microsoft's Live Search Webmaster Center helps you make sure that their spider, the MSNBot, is effectively crawling your site: displaying when it was last crawled & how many pages are currently in the search engine's index. (If your site is blocked, you can identify & address the issue, then submit a re-inclusion request.) To ensure all your pages are being indexed, you can enter the location of your website's XML sitemap. Live Search Webmaster Center provides other statistics, including: Backlinks to your pages and the most popular Outbound Links from your site. And, you will also discover your site / pages Ranking, based on "the number and quality of websites that link to your pages, and the relevance of your website's content to keywords". You can follow the development of Live's webmaster tools at the new Webmaster Center Team's Blog, discuss the tools & inclusion in the search engine at the Webmaster Center forum, offer Feedback, and troubleshoot / learn more about how Live Search generates listings for your website with Site Owner Help

Facebook Pages for Business

2007-11-06T05:36:00.000-08:00

Facebook now has over 50 million members worldwide. Today sees the launch of Facebook Advertising and a new free social marketing service: Facebook Pages for Business, where you can create a public Profile (example: Webmaster Central) and share your business and product news with Facebook users. You can upload an unlimited number of photos and videos, display detailed information about your business, add links, create and syndicate content, and interact with users via the Wall, Discussion Board, etc. Fans of your Facebook Page will get updates of any new content you add via their News Feed, which can also be shared with all their Facebook friends...

Create a Facebook Business Page

Competing with Webmaster Central

2007-08-03T12:59:00.000-07:00

We never planned to compete with Google for the search term: Webmaster Central. For years, we could tell anyone: "Search for Webmaster Central on any major search engine... We're always the top ranking result!" Then, last August, Google launched their own "Webmaster Central", when they re-branded their tools and resources for webmasters. A year later, with all the online coverage of Google's Webmaster Central, you might expect that www.WebmasterCentral.co.uk may have fallen from the first page of results... At the moment, on Google, Ask, Lycos Search and Yahoo! Search we are currently ranked 3rd (under Google Webmaster Central and the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog). And, we are still the top ranking result on Microsoft's Live Search...

FeedBurner acquired by Google

2007-06-01T18:43:00.000-07:00

Launched in 2004, FeedBurner provides a range of feed management & marketing tools. (See Really Simple Syndication to learn more about content distribution via RSS feeds.) Enabling web publishers to customize & monetize their feeds, FeedBurner also offers detailed traffic statistics & extends the reach of feed content. Firstly, FeedBurner optimizes your feed by converting any feed format into a browser friendly HTML page that provides visitors with various options for subscribing (example: Webmaster Central). Smartfeed technology also provides multi-format feed delivery from the same URL, making your feed compatible with all known feed readers. The optional FeedFlare can add links in your feed or on your site allowing subscribers and visitors to share your content. Other promotional tools include: PingShot notifies aggregators, search engines & directories when you publish new content, BuzzBoost can display your customized feed content on any website, and the dynamic Headline Animator creates an automatically updated feed banner (see example below)

Having become the world's largest manager of syndicated feeds, it's no wonder major players on the web have been impressed by FeedBurner's constant growth & innovation. Google's successful bid to acquire FeedBurner (rumoured to have been around $100 million) was confirmed today

D5: All Things Digital conference

2007-05-30T04:50:00.000-07:00

Microsoft and Apple founders Bill Gates and Steve Jobs took centre stage at tonight's Wall Street Journal's D5: All Things Digital conference. Amongst much friendly banter, Gates & Jobs discussed the relationship between the two companies since the mid-80's. "We've kept our marriage a secret for over a decade now," Steve Jobs joked. "It's been fun to work together," Gates added. The conversation covered developments in computing, the Internet, mobile devices, etc. plus a few predictions for the future... Bill Gates & Steve Jobs videos at AllThingsD.com

Other D5 Highlights included: details of Microsoft's gesture & multi-touch interface: Surface with a demo of Surface by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs discussed the iPhone & other Apple products, George Lucas revealed Lucasfilm's latest advancements in computer animation, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen were interviewed about the success & future of YouTube, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman talked about the recent legal action against YouTube & investment in Virtual Worlds, and Charles Simonyi gave details of his journey to the International Space Station...

Google Labs Experimental Search

2007-05-16T22:51:00.000-07:00

Google Labs wants feedback from you... Google Experimental Search lets you try out some of the new Search features in development. Current Experiments include: searching results along a Timeline or filtered by Date, search with Maps, Keyboard Shortcuts for navigating results and search with Keyword Suggestions...

Zimbio Announces "Wikizines"

2007-04-19T20:28:00.000-07:00

Zimbio is an excellent way to get your blog content to a wider audience. The Zimbo Team have taken elements from social bookmarking & wikis, mixing them up to produce a feature-rich site that feels almost instantly familiar. For bloggers, Zimbio is extremely easy to use: you simply add your blog & create a profile (example profile: Webmaster Central). Your blog is then automatically broken down into individual posts ("articles") which can be republished on Zimbio (example article: Really Simple Syndication) & categorized with other articles on the same subject in "Wikizines". You can also create new articles directly at the site

1&1's New RSS & Blogging Tools

2007-04-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

1&1 Web Hosting have recently added even more new features to their Shared Hosting packages. The RSS Creator enables you to keep subscribers up-to-date on your own news, or merge third-party feeds, and also is perfect for Podcasting. The new 1&1 Blog tool provides another platform for communicating the latest information about your business to your website visitors. Accompanying these new services: webspace, monthly traffic and e-mail allowances have also been boosted across the entire Shared Hosting range...

Google AdSense & AdWords

2007-04-04T17:44:00.000-07:00

The appearance of thousands of websites will change slightly over the next few days, as the design of Google AdSense units is updated. Not only do the new units look smarter, they have also been optimized to "perform even better for publishers and advertisers"...

One of the most popular ways of monetizing a website, Google AdSense is an easy to set-up income-stream: automatically delivering text, image & video ads that are relevant to your webpage's theme, sharing revenue from each click-thro' to advertisers' sites with you. The "other end" of Google AdSense is AdWords, which enables highly-targeted advertising on the network of sites displaying AdSense & at Google itself. Google AdWords allows you to reach your target market by presenting your adverts next to search results relating to keywords you choose. You can even target Google AdWords so your adverts are only displayed to people living within a defined distance from your business' physical location. Check out our feature on Google Advertising to learn more