I received quite a few messages after my last post about black hat SEO examples with many requesting information about techniques that are sure to result in a Website being blacklisted (or deemed as full of malware). There are many black hat SEO techniques but here are three that used to work however are sure to result in sanction by the Search Engines:

Size of text

A black hat SEO trick that worked a long time ago was to place keywords, additional text or text links on the page in a tiny font size. Per the idea behind hiding text links by colour (as described above), the tiny font was readable by the search bots however was usually unnoticed by humans. Search Engine algorithms and the capabilities of the Search bots are far more advanced than they were and using text size to mislead search bots will work against you.

Colour of links

Google has a patent that signifies that the text colour of links is measured in their algorithms. It is expected that the colour of text links will differ from surrounding text (and possibly other colours such as background colours). A favourite back hat SEO technique of old was to either hide links in text by making the links the same colour of surrounding text or to create text links in the same colour as the background colour. The idea was that the links were then machine readable (i.e. by the search bots) and would therefore pass ‘link-love’ to the linked page without the linking page looking like it was spamdexing.

Cloaking

Cloaking is most commonly used to display different content to machines as opposed to humans. The most public of these cases was BMW that in 2006 was found by Google to be cloaking their Website so that the search engines were indexing different content to that as seen when humans went to the same URL. Until a few years ago, the search bots couldn’t read content such as Flash so, in trying to let the search engines know what the page content was about, the search bots were shown a text based Webpage whilst humans were shown, for example, a Flash page. Nowadays the search bots can read most content and good white hat SEO dictates that the various available tags should be filled with descriptive and relevant content where appropriate such as with images.

These days cloaking is usually used for unethical and often illegal purposes and there is no reason that a genuine well-intentioned Website should be using cloaking.

Black hat SEO is used with the intention to deceive search bots or visitors. Black hat SEO will eventually result in the Website being penalised by the Search Engines.

There are hundreds of Internet Search Engines. The most popular Search Engines command the vast majority of Searches. In the U.S., Google, Bing/Yahoo and Ask enjoy over 98% of Search volume whereas the next 66 most significant Search Engines shared 1.94% of the Search volume (data from Hitwise, July 2010).

Some notable and many pretty ordinary Search Engines have come and gone with only the minority remaining. To gain a foothold in the Search market is very difficult especially when Google and some other Search engines are so good at doing what they are meant to do. To successfully enter and remain in the Search market, some better way to search needs to be offered to customers (internet surfers) and customers must be enticed to keep coming back to use the Search Engine repeatedly.

DuckDuckGo ROCKS!

Duck Duck Go is a relatively new Search Engine that, I believe, has the potential to do extremely well. It delivers SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) extremely quickly and has a very clean and easy to read GUI. Google also delivers results fast and has a ‘clean’ interface but Duck Duck Go offers many additional and very cool features;

Duck Undercover

Unlike all major Search Engines, ‘by default, DuckDuckGo does not collect or share personal information’ and this Search Engine, Like Google, offers encrypted Search (although like all https, the connection is marginally slower). Search and social media privacy is a heated topic so DuckDuckGo, being privacy aware, is sure to appeals to many who are concerned about Online privacy. DuckDuckGo prides itself on its short and to the point privacy policy and it’s interesting to note that Google has recently trimmed its policy.

Zero-click and Official Site

Enter a Search and, besides the extremely fast emergence of the results, one immediately notices a bordered box with a snippet of relevant information near the top of the SERPs. DuckDuckGo calls this ‘Zero-click info’ and it is an incredibly useful feature. As the name implies, without having to click, information about the Search is provided. This is a huge time saver as the most relevant information is attained from Wikipedia, Merriam-Webster, Crunchbase, SourceForge etc. and displayed neatly at the top of the Search results.

Another challenge with most Search Engine results is attempting to identify the most official of the results returned. Just below the ‘Zero-click’ info the first result is the ‘Official site’ (that is identified as such) and is the most likely, well, official site for that Search term.

Search Shortcuts

There are many clever shortcuts and tools built into DuckDuckGo. Many of these are ‘twitter-esque’ in that they are crude, quirky, effective and great fun to use (e.g. the # (hashtag) or @ symbols in Twitter). For example, are you wagering a bet as to what sex a friend’s baby is? Just enter ‘Male or Female’ into the DuckDuckGo search box. Want a random password to be generated for you? Just enter ‘pw’ into DuckDuckGo search. A subset of all these clever little ‘goodies’ are available at DuckDuckGo.

Better Quality Results

The Data used for the Search results are attained via multiple sources; Wikipedia, Yahoo! Search BOSS, their own Web crawler called DuckDuckBot as well as numerous other sources. Quality is greatly enhanced by certain Websites/Domains being filtered-out of the Search results due to their mass low-quality content (such as eHow). The Search results are by far the best that I have seen from any Search Engine.

This Duck Flies …

DuckDuckGo deserves to do well! It is fast, accurate and awesome to use. Give it a try below …

Most popular incoming search terms for this page:

• duckduckgo
• duckduckgo search engine
• duckduckgo site:au
• Search Engines duckduckgo

Black hat Search Engine Optimization (SEO) may be defined as deliberate deception in order to manipulate Website visitors and/or Search Engines. Black hat SEO is unethical and, although it does occasionally yield desired results, will eventually result in the Website being penalised by Search Engines.

Is URL/link masking Black Hat SEO

URL masking is simply making a URL or link appear that it is something that it isn’t. Almost all masking was once considered ‘black hat’ however with the surge in popularity of URL shorteners the line between white hat SEO and black hat SEO has become somewhat blurred. There are very valid reasons to mask using a shortener (such as for placing a URL in twitter) but masking is still often used as a deceptive technique.

How to Mask a URL for Deceptive Purposes

To illustrate just how simple it is to make a URL in a link appear like something it isn’t then take a look at the masking tutorial below.

For this example we are going to create a link on a Webpage that seems as if it is going to go to a certain URL at the same domain as the link however you, the visitor, will be directed to another domain (this is often used to mask affiliate links). This creates a deceptive hyperlink.

1. Create a Webpage (or Blog post or any other HTML file).

2. Place a link with any anchor text and enter the the ‘fake’ page as the destination URL. Your HTML will look something like (assuming that this URL is http://www.example.com/):

<a title=”Click to get a free 3D HDTV” href=http://www.example.com/guaranteed-free-tv>first 100 clicks get a free 3D HDTV</a>

3. In .htaccess place the following:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
Redirect 301 /guaranteed-free-tv http://www.deceptivelink-dont-click.com
</IfModule>

What happens with steps 2 and three above is that when the visitor clicks on the link (that appears genuine), the browser references .htaccess and notices that it says that the page named http://www.example.com/guaranteed-free-tv is permanently redirected to http://www.deceptivelink-dont-click.com.

Does Link Masking Work?

Answering if masking works is all dependant on the objective (why the masking is done in the first place). If masking is used for deceptive and unethical purposes it may well get your site blacklisted by the Search Engines. I don’t advise using URL masking as a black hat SEO activity.

Most popular incoming search terms for this page:

• url masking

WordPress originated as Blogging software. Since those early days, WordPress has developed into the leading Content Management System (CMS) used by large to small organizations as well as individuals. The key strengths of WordPress is its ease of use and robustness that makes it simple enough for occasional bloggers as well as powerful enough for large corporations such as the New York Times, Yahoo and Ford. One of the primary reasons for the success of WordPress is its underlying high-level architecture which is describes as three parts below.

First however, let’s eliminate the confusion between the two ‘versions’ of WordPress …

The Difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com

WordPress.org is the organization that develops and distributes the WordPress software. If you want to run WordPress on your own Web Host then this is where to get the software. WordPress.org also has a wealth of WordPress information and hosts most of the free Plugins (over 11,000) and Themes (over 1,200) available for download and implementation.

WordPress.com is a ‘freemium’ service that offers hosted WordPress software for free. There are various upgrades that, should they be required, cost a once-off or annual fee (an example of a paid upgrade is using your domain name on your WordPress.com site). WordPress.com hosts 11.5 million Blogs and these Blogs get over 2.5 billion Pages views per month

WordPress Architecture

Here are the three core architecture elements of WordPress i.e. how it ‘fits together’.

Application and Database

It has already been noted that WordPress is software (i.e. an application). It is developed using HTML, PHP and JavaScript which are the most common scripts (sometimes called ‘languages’) used on the Web.

WordPress connects to a Database that stores the data such as Page content and various settings. The use of the database makes WordPress a Content Management System (CMS). WordPress connects by default to the Open Source MySQL Database Management System (DBMS). MySQL is used by many of the leading companies and Websites (e.g. Linkedin, Youtube, Wikipedia and Walmart).

Plugins

WordPress is capable of very many functions and is hugely extendible. WordPress software however ‘ships’ with the core most frequently used functionality. People are encouraged to make available extensions and these are called Plugins. Plugins are very simple to install into core WordPress and there are all sorts of capabilities available via the thousands of free Plugins e.g. ecommerce functionality, advanced SEO capabilities and form builders.

Themes

The ‘look and feel’ of WordPress is managed via Themes. A Theme defines the colours, fonts, layout and many other aesthetics. There are many free as well as paid-for and custom themes available and changing the Theme in WordPress is very simple. By separating the ‘look and feel’ of WordPress from the content and functionality, it becomes very easy to create using an entirely fresh looking Site without having to touch the content.

So above is the core architecture that makes WordPress the most popular used CMS. WordPress is suitable for all size organizations, free to extend, simple to use and very effective as a CMS!

Most popular incoming search terms for this page:

• wordpress architecture php

From an SEO perspective Article Directories need to be carefully considered; In one of my Article Directory related Posts I mentioned how some republishers use article rewriting software to make the content of an article appear original. Last year I published an article on ezinearticles titled WordPress Plugins and Themes Can Work Against SEO. Here is a real example of how republishing software changes the text:

The Original WordPress SEO Article:

This is the body of the original document at ezinearticles.com:

In SEO, less is often more. There are certain Search Engine Optimization (SEO) WordPress options, Themes and Plugins which significantly enhance SEO. These same factors may also work against visits from Search Engines.

SEO is so much more than purely links to your site and content. SEO is qualitative more than quantitative; the quality is much more important than the amount of optimization performed. It is also about making it easy for the Search Engines to understand your content.

Help, SERP Descriptions are Wrong!

I was recently asked to assist a new client as they had employed an SEO consultant who had performed a mass of SEO tasks however visits from Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask were falling fast. The SEO basics were certainly in place; inlinks, meta elements (description, title and keywords in the HTML head section of the page / document), fresh content etc. But something was wrong! I then looked at the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) on the main engines and noticed that the description of the pages and posts were not what it should have been. The major Search Engines do occasionally use text from the page itself as well as from DMOZ and the like for the SERP descriptions however it is most common that the description meta element text will be used if available on the page or post.

Why are the Page and Post Descriptions Incorrect?

So why was the wrong description text in the SERPs? For this we need to understand the architecture of the Website itself; the Website is running WordPress with a popular Theme framework. There are also numerous active Plugins (most are very widely used Plugins). Looking at the WordPress options and general setup all appeared fine. Investigating the variables on the numerous Plugins and the Theme also proved that the options were acceptable (and enhanced toward optimal SEO). Taking a more thorough look at the HTML of the pages and posts revealed why the SERP descriptions were incorrect; there were at least two description meta elements on every page and post.

Multiple Description Meta in WordPress

Google and some other Search Engines take notice only of the first description meta element so if the text in that element is incorrect then the description in the SERP will likely be incorrect. What was happening on this particular Site was that the head section of the HTML page / document was attaining multiple description text from the numerous SEO WordPress options, Theme and Plugins. Some of these are better than others at auto-creating description meta element text so whichever was the first description text in the HTML head section became what the appeared in the SERPS (for example, the ‘related posts’ text was often being populated as the description meta text).

WordPress, Themes and Plugins Creating Bad SEO

It was obvious that the Website had been over optimized and the SEO consultant didn’t fully understand how the technology / architecture fits together; WordPress, the Theme and the Plugins need to be considered as a comprehensive whole rather than individually. Individually, the SEO aspects of the Website were optimized however once each of the ‘bits’ (e.g. the WordPress Options, plugins etc.) were working together they actually caused more SEO harm than good. If the SEO consultant had disabled all SEO options he or she didn’t specifically need instead of enabling every SEO option available then the destructive SERP problem wouldn’t have occurred.

Problem Resolved – SEO Paying Dividends

The end result is that the damage has been reversed. Through focusing on SEO objectives and SEO quality, the number of visits directed from the Search Engines is improving. The damage however was totally avoidable.

As a note, I intentionally haven’t named the theme nor plugins being used as the SEO deficiencies were caused through inadequate Site setup and testing and not through WordPress or the theme or Plugins.

Gary Eckstein is an IT Efficiency Consultant specialising in adding value to small and medium size businesses. Gary also manages various client websites such as Xbox Game Sites.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gary_Eckstein

The Article Copy

Here is how the article as above was rewritten by software (from ‘The Nerd Blogger’):

Iח SEO, less іѕ οftеח more. Tһеrе аrе сеrtаіח Quest Engine Optimization (SEO) WordPress options, Themes аחԁ Plugins wһісһ significantly enhance SEO. Tһеѕе same factors mау аƖѕο work against visits frοm Quest Engines.

SEO іѕ ѕο much more tһаח purely links tο уουr site аחԁ content. SEO іѕ qualitative more tһаח quantitative; tһе quality іѕ much more vital tһаח tһе quantity οf optimization performed. It іѕ аƖѕο аbουt mаkіחɡ іt simple fοr tһе Quest Engines tο bе wіtһ уου уουr content.

HеƖр, SERP Descriptions аrе Incorrect!

I wаѕ recently qυеѕtіοחеԁ tο һеƖр a חеw client аѕ tһеу һаԁ employed аח SEO consultant wһο һаԁ performed a mass οf SEO tasks bυt visits frοm Google, Bing, Yahoo аחԁ Qυеѕtіοח wеrе falling qυісk. Tһе SEO basics wеrе сеrtаіחƖу іח рƖасе inlinks, meta elements (description, title аחԁ keywords іח tһе HTML head section οf tһе page / document), fresh content etc. Bυt something wаѕ incorrect! I tһеח looked аt tһе Quest Engine Results Pages (SERPs) οח tһе main engines аחԁ noticed tһаt tһе description οf tһе pages аחԁ posts wеrе חοt wһаt іt ѕһουƖԁ һаνе bееח. Tһе major Quest Engines ԁο occasionally υѕе text frοm
tһе page itself аѕ well аѕ frοm DMOZ аחԁ tһе Ɩіkе fοr tһе SERP descriptions bυt іt іѕ mοѕt common tһаt tһе description meta constituent text wіƖƖ bе used іf available οח tһе page οr post.

Wһу аrе tһе Page аחԁ Post Descriptions Incorrect?

Sο wһу wаѕ tһе incorrect description text іח tһе SERPs? Fοr tһіѕ wе need tο bе wіtһ уου tһе architecture οf tһе Website itself; tһе Website іѕ running WordPress wіtһ a well Ɩονеԁ Theme framework. Tһеrе аrе аƖѕο numerous active Plugins (mοѕt аrе very widely used Plugins). Looking аt tһе WordPress options аחԁ general complex аƖƖ appeared fine. Investigating tһе variables οח tһе numerous Plugins аחԁ tһе Theme аƖѕο proved tһаt tһе options wеrе acceptable (аחԁ enhanced toward optimal SEO). Taking a more thorough look аt tһе HTML οf tһе pages аחԁ posts revealed wһу tһе SERP descriptions wеrе incorrect; tһеrе
wеrе аt Ɩеаѕt two description meta elements οח еνеrу page аחԁ post.

Multiple Description Meta іח WordPress

Google аחԁ ѕοmе οtһеr Quest Engines take notice οחƖу οf tһе first description meta constituent ѕο іf tһе text іח tһаt constituent іѕ incorrect tһеח tһе description іח tһе SERP wіƖƖ ƖіkеƖу bе incorrect. Wһаt wаѕ happening οח tһіѕ particular Site wаѕ tһаt tһе head section οf tһе HTML page / document wаѕ attaining multiple description text frοm tһе numerous SEO WordPress options, Theme аחԁ Plugins. Sοmе οf tһеѕе аrе better tһаח others аt auto-mаkіחɡ description meta constituent text ѕο whichever wаѕ tһе first description text іח tһе HTML head section became wһаt tһе appeared іח tһе SERPS (fοr example, tһе
‘related posts’ text wаѕ οftеח being populated аѕ tһе description meta text).

WordPress, Themes аחԁ Plugins Mаkіחɡ TеrrіbƖе SEO

It wаѕ evident tһаt tһе Website һаԁ bееח over optimized аחԁ tһе SEO consultant didn’t fully bе wіtһ уου һοw tһе equipment / architecture fits together; WordPress, tһе Theme аחԁ tһе Plugins need tο bе considered аѕ a comprehensive total rаtһеr tһаח individually. Individually, tһе SEO aspects οf tһе Website wеrе optimized bυt once each οf tһе ‘bits’ (e.g. tһе WordPress Options, plugins etc.) wеrе working together tһеу really caused more SEO harm tһаח ехсеƖƖеחt. If tһе SEO consultant һаԁ disabled аƖƖ SEO options һе οr ѕһе didn’t specifically need instead οf enabling еνеrу SEO option available
tһеח tһе destructive SERP problem wouldn’t һаνе occurred.

Problem Resolved – SEO Paying Dividends

Tһе еחԁ result іѕ tһаt tһе destruction һаѕ bееח reversed. Through focusing οח SEO objectives аחԁ SEO quality, tһе number οf visits directed frοm tһе Quest Engines іѕ improving. Tһе destruction bυt wаѕ really חοt inevitable.

Aѕ a note, I intentionally рƖасе οf protection’t named tһе theme חοr plugins being used аѕ tһе SEO deficiencies wеrе caused through imperfect Site complex аחԁ testing аחԁ חοt through WordPress οr tһе theme οr Plugins.

Gary Eckstein іѕ аח IT Efficiency Consultant specialising іח adding value tο small аחԁ medium size businesses. Gary аƖѕο manages various client websites such аѕ Xbox Game Sites.

Article Directory: EzineArticles

Tοο much Quest Engine Optimization саח rυіח visits frοm
Quest Engines. Read аbουt һοw WordPress аחԁ various
combinations οf Plugins аחԁ Themes саח result іח tеrrіbƖе SEO. Bе
careful tο dodge tһе errors mаԁе іח tһе Website SEO example
given.

Image by GDS Digital via Flickr

Ericsson has announced that there are 5 billion mobile/cell phone subscriptions worldwide. Certainly a huge number however there was another bit of interesting information provided by Ericsson that illustrates how we are still in the infancy of mobile communications:

I was interested to see the following statement from Ericsson: ‘December of last year [2009], another milestone was reached when the amount of data traffic carried over mobile networks exceeded the amount of traffic generated from voice calls’. In the same media release it is estimated that there will be 50 billion connected mobile devices by 2020. This is not at all surprising when considering technologies such as WiMAX (4G) lend themselves very well to data transfer for information such as that needed to effectively manage smart infrastructure. With the rollout of smart grids and other smart city initiatives (e.g. smart water and smart transport), the need for communications from multiple devices in a home, for example, is increasing rapidly (and, unless we want physical wires absolutely everywhere, mobile communications is the answer).

Last year ‘data traffic carried over mobile networks exceeded the amount of traffic generated from voice calls’. Mobile data traffic is rising at 280% per year and this is set to increase further as new technologies and products are introduced. Governments are investing significantly in smart technology and infrastructure and the backbone of much of the communication needed on smart infrastructure is mobile/wireless communications.

Yes, mobile communication set to grow at a huge rate!

Google has named Webpage load speed as a ranking factor. This means that when Google calculates in which position to display results in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), faster loading Webpages may be positioned more prominently. There are several hundred factors that Google uses when considering where to place a Webpage in the SERPs so load speed will only have a small bearing. More ‘noise’ however is coming from Google about Webpage and Website load speeds including an interesting article where data regarding the average load speed and related factors for several billion pages were analysed. Google also made headlines recently with the announcement about its own public DNS to assist with speeding up the resolution of names to IP addresses.

Google is not alone in their quest for speed; the fantastic speed measurement and recommendation tool Yslow for Firebug by Yahoo is used by many to optimize page load speed. Yahoo has introduced other speed enhancement Tools including the very newly released boomerang which is some JavaScript that runs on each page and measures various performance matrices. Yahoo also provides other awesome performance enhancing free tools such as smush.it.

There are also other free tools (both Online and software applications) that assist with speed measurement against various performance matrices. One of the little known but very useful tools is WebPagetest which should be given a try.

Website performance is becoming increasingly important as a Search Engine Optimization task. Although Page load speeds only have a small bearing on the SERPs at present, all indicators are that Website performance will become ever more important as an SEO activity.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is often considered one of those secret things that are done way out of the view of the public eye. Although those successful at SEO often do have a great amount of knowledge and experience (that only comes with time), most SEO activities are logical and can be performed by anyone with basic Website design knowledge. Below are three basic but absolutely fundamental SEO related activities/concepts that every Website designer or owner must consider.

When less is more with SEO

You need to define what your Website or blog is about and keep the focus tight. What is meant by this is it is far better to focus on one (or a few) topics rather than 20 topics per Site. For example, suppose I have a Website called ‘The Gary Site’ and on this Site I only have content about famous people with the name Gary then it is simple for people and Search Engines to understand what the Site is about. If however, on ‘The Gary Site’ I include a windsurfing journal, WordPress articles, some architecture photos, a section with famous people called Gary etc. it is very non-specific and people (and Search Engines) will be ‘confused’ as to what the Site is about. Think about restaurants for example; those with a specific focus such as Thai food alone usually do far better than those who serve some Italian food, some Thai food, some French food, the occasional burger etc.

Content is king

With content, generally ‘more is more’ however the content MUST be original and compelling (it must be interesting to people engaging with the content). There of course are all types of content such as text, video and voice (e.g. mp3/podcasts) but always ensure that text descriptions are given for non-text content; non-text content either isn’t indexed at all by the Search Engines or the information isn’t processed in it’s entirety by the Search ‘bots. Original content of course may be created by  visitors themselves such as with Wikis and Forums (think of YouTube and Wikipedia where almost all content is visitor generated).

SEO is logical

SEO is no mystery. It is common sense and hard work. Forget about trying to fool the Search Engines to get people to your Site. Think about what you like about your favourite Websites and what they are doing well. Make life easy for your visitors, have compelling content and let people know when you have original and valuable information on your Site. Answer questions such as; what will make visitors return to my Site? Will visitors find my Site useful? Do I have content that can’t be found elsewhere?

With SEO, the most important aspect of all is getting the basics right. Concentrate on a great experience for your visitors and the rest will fall into place!

USB is used by all sorts of devices to transfer data. Devices include; digital cameras, smartphones, laptops, iPad, GPS units, Apple Mac, PCs and many more. Millions of devices use the current USB 2.0 format however the recently launched SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) is set to replace USB 2.0 in the next few years. The first devices to incorporate SuperSpeed USB were launched in January 2010.

What are the USB 3.0 Advantages?

From a consumer perspective the biggest SuperSpeed USB advantages are:

• Maximum transfer rate 10 times faster than USB 2.0 (5 Gbps vs. 480 Mbps); just think how fast photos will be transferred from your digital camera to your computer!
• Lower power consumption; SuperSpeed uses 1/3 the power of USB 2.0 (especially good for battery powered devices such as laptops)
• Existing USB 2.0 devices are fully compatible with SuperSpeed USB (although the speed will be limited to USB 2.0 maximums)

Note: it has also been demonstrated that CPU usage is lower with USB 3.0.

What Devices use USB 3.0?

SuperSpeed USB is unlikely to become widespread until Intel adopts the specification which will be in 2011. The USB Implementers Forum, the non-profit founded by the group of companies that developed the Universal Serial Bus specification, currently lists 78 products as being USB3 compliant. This is a very low number of devices but the proliferation of compliant devices will advance rapidly.

Some of the devices which are currently SuperSpeed USB compliant include; Samsung Story Station 3.0 and the Buffalo USB 3.0 PCI Express Interface Card. A full list of USB 3.0 compliant components may be found at the USB Implementers Forum.

Should I get USB 3.0?

So, should you still buy USB 2.0 devices? USB 2.0 is still excellent and these devices are far more widespread and less costly than SuperSpeed USB products. As noted before, USB 3.0 is backward compatible with USB 2.0 so there is no reason to abandon USB 2.0 until SuperSpeed USB is far more widespread.

Most popular incoming search terms for this page:

• express card usb 3
• how to get usb 3
• samsung story station 3 0

Even the most brilliant and useful products don’t always succeed (XBZ8Y7BC5NVK). Google Wave shows how being a truly great software product isn’t good enough; luck is certainly an element of product success as is marketing (look at how successful Apple marketing is) and other factors.

Google has announced that Wave won’t continue to be developed as a single product although its functionality and features may be used in other software. They have said that user adoption hasn’t been as good as expected. Unfortunately Google Wave needed a critical mass of user adoption to succeed. The initial rollout of Wave was limited to invited people only and this, although often a successful marketing initiative, would have added to the poor adoption of Wave. Google Wave relied on people interacting in groups and, unlike Facebook, there was limited new utility for early adopters if their peers weren’t also using Google Wave. In Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace and other interactive Websites there is not the same one-on-one or one-to-many interaction necessary with Wave.

It is unfortunate that Wave is to be discontinued as, if it had been widely used, it would have been an amazing product. The ability to share information in groups so easily and effectively will surely spur similar technologies in the near future.

Most popular incoming search terms for this page:

• google wave

The popularity of Facebook is remarkable! Many people don’t ‘get’ Facebook however even the most passionate of sceptics cannot be amazed by how widely, and often, Facebook is used. Here are some of the amazing Facebook stats:

Facebook has hundreds of millions of signed-up users. Of that, 500 million are active (sign-in at least once per month) with 250 million logging on every day. Users have, on average, 130 ‘friends’ and people spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook. Over 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each month.

70% of users are from outside of the U.S.A. and communicate in over 70 languages. 150 million users access Facebook through mobile devices (e.g. iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android etc.) and these mobile users are twice as active on Facebook as non-mobile users. There are currently more than 550,000 active applications and over a million Websites integrate with Facebook.

Facebook is powered by PHP and MySQL and is the largest user of memcache (other major social media Sites using the PHP, MYSQL and memcache are Flickr, Wikipedia and WordPress).

Most popular incoming search terms for this page:

• facebook site:eckstein id au

The use of Web fonts (Web typography) is increasing massively due to improving support by Internet Browsers, widening ease of use within Websites and increased standardisation such as the Web Open Font Format (WOFF) and the introduction of HTML5 and CSS3. The use of Web fonts extends the number of fonts that may be used on websites as well as the ease with which additional fonts may be included. In most Websites a standard set of fonts are used as all major brands of computers and Browser support this core (but small) set of font families such as Arial and Times New Roman. With Web fonts (using the @font-face CSS rule) the font to be used is referenced and, if it isn’t already in the installed set on the visitor’s computer/Browser, the font is downloaded from the reference (link).

Is using Web Fonts Slow?

It seems logical that if a font needs to be downloaded before it is used, then that will slow Page load speeds. Unfortunately this is a downside of using Web fonts! Not only will extra data (i.e. the font) need to be downloaded by the browser, but there will also be additional http requests which may negatively impact Page load speeds. As the use of Web fonts increases so will the chance that the Web font used on a Page has been downloaded in the past by the Browser and so needn’t be downloaded again.

There are also steps being taken by both Web font distributors and Browser developers to improve the visitor experience when downloading Web fonts is necessary. For example most of the Web font distributors are compressing the fonts for faster download and Mozilla Firefox uses ‘Flash of unstyled text’ where the text is displayed in a default font until the Web font has been downloaded at which time the font changes to the Web font (Google Chrome and Apple Safari display a blank space until the font has been downloaded whereas with Internet Explorer the action taken depends on where the stylesheet <link> tag is placed in the head section).

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FeedReader, in my opinion, is the best RSS reader available (and it’s free). I have used it for many years without any problems at all … until recently; I encrypted my hard-drives and everything worked as expected except FeedReader. I was getting an error like ‘internal gds software consistency check (can`t continue after bugcheck)’.

I uninstalled and then reinstalled FeedReader however I still received the error messages/popups.

Why the GDS FeedReader Error Occurs

FeedReader uses the Firebird database to house the various settings and information.  The most likely cause of the ‘GDS’ error is that the database is corrupt. The solution to the FeedReader error is to repair or replace the SQL database (i.e. the Firebird database).

How to repair FeedReader after the GDS Error

The two options for resolving the FeedReader error are to repair the database or to completely uninstall FeedReader and then reinstall:

Fix the FeedReader Database

FeedReader includes a Backup Utility which, besides backing up and restoring the database, assists with database repair and optimization. The database holds such information as which articles in feeds have been read as well as other settings (it’s therefore preferable to repair the database rather than reinstall the application).

To run the FeedReader Backup Utility:

1. Close FeedReader (you may need to go to Task Manager to do this).
2. Click the Start button on your taskbar.
3. Select All Programs.
4. Click the FeedReader folder and select ‘FeedReader Backup Utility’.
5. At the least ensure that ‘Fix possible database errors’ is checked however it is thoroughly recommended to ensure that ‘Tidy up database’ and ‘Make backup’ are also selected.
6. Click the Details tab and make a note of the ‘Backup file location’.
7. Click Start.

If a database repair doesn’t work then it will be necessary to completely uninstall and then reinstall FeedReader.

How to (completely) uninstall and reinstall FeedReader

Unfortunately, the database and/or reference information isn’t removed when FeedReader is uninstalled using the application uninstaller. If wanting to completely uninstall or reinstall FeedReader then all referenced to the database and the database itself need to be deleted.

Follow these steps to have a ‘clean’ install of FeedReader:

1. From the Windows control panel, uninstall FeedReader via ‘Program and Features’ or however else you usually uninstall software.
2. In Windows Explorer go ‘c:\users\YourLoginName\roaming’ (this location may be different depending on your Windows setup) and delete the FeedReader folder.
3. In Windows Explorer go ‘c:\Program Files’ (this location may be different depending on your Windows setup) and delete the FeedReader30 folder.
4. Install the latest version of FeedReader.

I certainly hope that this article on how to deal with the Feedreader gds error has helped!

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WordPress.com is hugely popular as a Blog host. Simply put, WordPress.com gives free hosting for Blogs using the latest release of the massively popular WordPress GPL software. For those wanting a Blog with a limited set of options then WordPress.com is an excellent choice. People or organizations requiring their own domain name, integration with other software and a huge amount of configuration and extensibility options then a self-hosted solution using software free to download, install and use from WordPress.org is the answer (WordPress.com does provide some upgrade options for various fees).

To most people and organizations, the software or solution used doesn’t matter much as most are concerned with total cost of ownership, reliability (and quality) and meeting requirements. This is precisely the reason that WordPress has done so well; it is simple to use, is equally reliable and feature packed for individuals’ right to the largest organizations and is very cost effective. To illustrate just how popular WordPress is, some statistics are provided below for WordPress.com (WordPress.org stats are not included in the information below):

WordPress.com Popularity

New WordPress.com Posts per day: 350,000

Total number of WordPress.com Posts: 200,000,000

New Blog comments per day (excluding Spam comments): 400,000

Blogs on WordPress.com: +- 11,500,000 (there are +- 13,800,000 active installations of the WordPress.org software with over 100,000,000 Plugin downloads)

Number of people who visit at least one WordPress.com hosted Blog per month: 260,000,000

Number of WordPress.com hosted Pages viewed per month: 2,000,000,000

Most popular WordPress.com Blog languages: 66% are in English, 8.7% in Spanish, 6.5% in Portuguese and 3.5% in Indonesian.

WordPress.com changes to themes per day: 35,000

Number of Flickr images embedded into a WordPress.com Blog per day: 40,000.

Number of YouTube images embedded into a WordPress.com Blog per day: 50,000.

Number of Photobucket images embedded into a WordPress.com Blog per day: 30,000.

I have installed WordPress hundreds of times. Besides the very occasional minor non-WordPress issue, the installs have always worked fine. Until yesterday …

New WordPress but CSS gone CRAZY

I had a domain name that forwarded to another but I decided I wanted to create a WordPress powered Site for the domain. I cancelled the forward on Godaddy Domain manager and set the DNS nameservers as the Godaddy recommended servers. I then installed WordPress at the required Godaddy shared hosting folder (this method has always worked fine in the past).

I noticed that when viewing the homepage or the dashboard of the new WordPress install (i.e. http://www.example.com and http://www.example.com/wp-admin) the styling was as if no CSS was evident (the layout, fonts, colours etc. didn’t look ‘right’). I changed the theme but that didn’t help, I reinstalled WordPress and that didn’t help, I changed the DNS nameservers and I spent hours on the Web trying to find a solution. Also the CSS/display problem wasn’t unique to a computer or Browser; the same problem was there with Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome and on multiple computers.

A Solution to a WordPress Problem

This is not the first time that this error has been experienced when installing WordPress and it is, as mentioned, not specific to specific computers or Internet Browsers (or Webhost i.e. not just Godaddy shared hosting). During my Web search for a solution I arrived at many forums where this problem is discussed with various potential solutions however none resolved the issue for me. I eventually discovered a solution after noticing a few forum responses recommending certain .htaccess hacks which may work. Although none of the solutions provided in the forums worked for my WordPress problem, I managed to find a solution through trying a few .htaccess hacks which, in desperation, I hoped may work.

WordPress .htaccess Problem Resolution

The solution for this WordPress display problem is as follows in the two steps below:

1. With a text editor create a file named .htaccess in the root of your WordPress install (if an .htaccess file already exists then ignore this step and continue with step 2).

2. Save the following in the .htaccess file:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>

RewriteEngine On

RewriteBase /

RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

</IfModule>

These .htaccess lines above basically send browsers and searchbots to index.php of your WordPress install. AskApache has a good explanation for those interested in further .htaccess information.

Good luck and please let me know if this resolves your WordPress CSS problem.

I have tried Telstra and Optus 3G USB sticks and have had problems with both. I therefore recently purchased a Vodafone Mobile Broadband USB Stick (model K3765 and made by Huawei). I followed the instructions about installing the software however I kept getting an error when inserting the 3G modem:

Mobile connection not possible.

-Set your current mobile device as the default device in the ‘Manage Devices’ view

-Ensure that no other programs are using your mobile device and try again in a short while

-Delete the device in the ‘Manage Devices@ view, add it back again, and then try connecting.

If this error persists, please contact Support at your mobile network operator.

Support information RAS error code 680

Here is how I managed to (finally) get the USB stick to work (instructions for Windows Vista):

1. Go to ‘Control Panel’
2. Double-click ‘Device Manager’
3. Expand ‘Network adapters’
4. Alternate-click ‘Vodafone Mobile Broadband Network Adapter (Huawei)’.
5. Click ‘Uninstall’ then ‘Ok’.
6. Remove the USB 3G stick and reinsert.

There are apparently multiple things that may cause these USB sticks not to work but the procedure as above got mine working.

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Rich Snippets (the term Google uses for Microformats, RDFa and Microdata) is used by many larger organizations. Rich Snippets is essentially data that conforms to a specific standard so that machines may understand the data. For example, say that I want to write a review, then I may use the hreview Microformat standard to review a product or service. Search Engines are then able to understand that it is a review, what rating I give to the product or service and even the exact product or service I am reviewing. The Search Engine will then be able to amalgamate the various ratings from all over the Web for that specific product or service.

Online reviews are becoming a major reason for a person buying (or not buying) a product or service as people come to trust individual reviews and ratings more than adverts. It makes sense then for Website owners to embrace common standards such as Rich Snippets and for the Search Engines to use this data in the SERPs.

Until recently however, there was no standard for describing reviews in a machine readable way. Resnick, Zeckenhauser, Fiedman and Kuwabara described in their paper ‘Reputation Systems: Facilitating Trust in Internet Transactions’ that an obstacle to distributed feedback systems is the lack of portability between systems of reviews. The hreview Microformat addresses this shortfall by providing portability of reviews.

With Google announcing that it has started to index and display Microformats, RDFa and Microdata in SERPs it makes sense, from an SEO perspective, to format reviews and contact information according to Microformats, RDFa or Microdata standards. Many larger organizations are already displaying relevant data formatted per the necessary standards such as Amazon.com reviews being in the hreview format. There are also companies providing hreview format services for organizations such as LouderVoice.

A cool free Tool that Google provides assists with visualising how Microformats, RDFa or Microdata rich Webpages may look in the Google SERPs.

A review of the Google Rich Snippets Testing Tool is provided below in Microformats hreview format (click for how the Rich Snippets Testing Tools views the review below):

Nice ‘simple’ example of how Google Search comes up with your Search results (in the Search Engine Results Pages):

Infographic by PPC Blog

Brand loyalty means that customers trust the brand which filters to the products produced by the brand or distributed under the brand name. Brand loyalty is derived from customer satisfaction and brand consistency which results in the all-important trust. Loyalty results in repeat purchases however a customer repeat purchasing does not necessarily mean that that customer is loyal. High switching-costs are often associated with loyalty however if customers don’t have a choice then this also does not necessarily mean that they are loyal to a brand.

Let’s compare two technology companies to decide whether their customers are loyal; Microsoft has market dominance as they have raised the switching costs for customers; customers repeat purchase from Microsoft because it is often too difficult to switch. Microsoft customers are therefore not generally loyal. Apple however have a very loyal customer base; their customers are willing to spend more on Apple products even when products may be more expensive or offer limited functionality.

Brand Consistency

Consistency of brand positioning is very important in building brand loyalty; Band & Olufsen (B&O), for example have a loyal customer base and all their products are consistent in their target market and aesthetics; their hi-fis, televisions and other products are all simple in design, high quality and easy to use.

Brands and Pricing

Low price does not result in loyalty and, in fact, brand loyalty enables companies to attain a higher price for their products than competitors. Michael Porter, the Harvard professor, highlighted the dangers of competing on price in his book Competitive Strategy. Are people loyal to Target, Kmart or other low cost retailers i.e. if they charged more than their competitors would people still shop there? Most likely not.

Here in Australia for example the Mitsubishi Outlander is also sold with minor amendments as the Peugeot 4007. The Peugeot sells at a premium price to the Mitsubishi because consumers generally perceive the Peugeot brand as superior and Peugeot have a loyal customer base. Another two car brands with very loyal customer bases are BMW and Honda.

Loyalty is often Misunderstood

Coca Cola introduced New Coke in the 1980’s and faced a customer backlash (even although extensive taste-tests showed an overwhelming preference for the taste of new Coke). Coca Cola stood for consistency and by changing the taste alienated a bond of trust between customers and the brand. Only then did the Coca Cola Company realise that loyalty was stronger than just product features.

Coca Cola is not the first company to misunderstand why customers are loyal to their brand.

Trust and Loyalty

Trust is significantly important in building loyalty; for example many hospitals provide free essentials to new parents. The companies that provide the free nappies/diapers etc. for distribution are creating an association for the new parents between health and their brand (this is generally a positive association). The new parents often become loyal to the brands of the ‘freebies’ as the belief is ‘if the experts use this brand then it must be good’ (for free nappies go to Drynites, Babylove and Huggies or for U.K. residents).

Protecting a Brand Image

Disney has great brand value built upon the perception of ‘wholesomeness’ and being ‘child friendly’. People pay more for Disney products as they trust that Disney has the interests of kids in mind. If Disney were to start an adult entertainment division this would reposition the brand in the mind of the consumer and Disney would suffer significant loss of brand loyalty. Protecting the image of the brand is essential to the value of brands as Burberry experienced a few years back when their clothing became the ‘uniform’ of football hooligans in England.

A brand image is often destroyed through brand dilution. For example, in the 1980’s Pierre Cardin licensed the use of the name to over 800 products (even toilet seat covers). The value of the Pierre Cardin brand was diluted as a result of this shift from exclusive clothing to all sorts of associated products (even in the 1970s the Cardin brand was lent to all sorts of products such as the MC Javelin AMX Pierre Cardin Edition interior).

Conclusion

Brand loyalty is of extreme value to organizations and leads to increased demand and higher profits. Brand loyalty needs to be protected however as brand dilution and loss of consumer trust may quickly eliminate loyalty.

Google has announced that it has acquired Metaweb (and Freebase). Metaweb TopicBlocks is a WordPress Plugin which has been available for a number of months that helps to included data from Metaweb into Blog posts.

The Plugin may be Setup to either automatically include Metaweb data when certain words or terms are included in a post or Metaweb data may be manually included in the post. Unfortunately the data included by the Metaweb TopicBlocks Plugin doesn’t display very well in posts.

Below is an example of the data that is included when a Metaweb TopicBlock with the term Freebase is included:

Freebase

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