Previous ci-Insider News
January 2006
Computer Virus Protection
RSS Advantages
Screen Resolution
Web Traffic Analysis
Winter 2005
Sticky Sites
RSS
Website Traffic Analysis
Summer 2005
ICE your Mobile Phone
Adware - Spyware - Malware - Scumware (cont)
Increasing Website Traffic
Writing Articles
Spring 2005
Email Marketing - Helpful Tips
Adware - Spyware - Malware - Scumware
Search Engine Spam (Spamdexing) (cont)
Helpful Tools - Download Free - IE6 - Flash Player v7 - Acrobat Reader
Winter 2004
Resetting Your Monitor
Search Engine Spam (Spamdexing) (cont)
July 2004
Alexa and Google Toolbars
Search Engine Spam (Spamdexing) (cont)
April 2004
Search Engine Spam (Spamdexing)
January 2004
Looking back at 2003 - What did we learn?
November 2003
WayBackMachine - a look back at Naples and Marco Island area websites
October 2003
Changes Coming to Internet Explorer
August 2003
Scumware Revisited
A Tale of 2 Islands
Anti-Spam programs
May 2003
It's Your Web - Help Clean it Up!
March 2003
Increasing Website Traffic
January, 2003
Security Alert: Fake Email Greeting Cards
Yahoo and Google - New Search Results
SpamNet from www.cloudmark.com
October, 2002
Virus Hoaxes
Who are you doing business with? Check them out!
Google and cached copies
August, 2002
Using Email Signatures
FLASH sites - How to Avoid Search Engine Roadblocks
June, 2002
Calculating Customer Acquisition Cost
Don't Believe the Email FROM Line
Google's Page Rank Formula
April, 2002
SCUMWARE
HOAXBUSTERS
Latest Computer Virus Threats and Global Virus Tracking
How to Check Who is Linking to Your Website
February, 2002
Reliable Web Host - Discount Prices???
Link farm Scam
Search Engines and Paid Submissions
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Adware Suite Settlement
An Article March 16, 2006 in Online Media Daily indicates "ADWARE COMPANY DIRECT REVENUE HAS agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit stemming from allegations that it installed ad-serving software on consumers' computers without their consent.
The proposed settlement calls for Direct Revenue to refrain from distributing adware on sites targeting children under 18, and from using the word "free" in banner ads--such as for "free screensavers"--unless those ads also state that the product is supported by adware."
read the entire article
Quality Links - One Link is Better than Ten
Obtaining one link from a trusted source can be very difficult in the sense that they do not issue links to just about anyone. If you have a good website with relevant information, then you will get them. It is for this reason one link from a trusted source can better a multiple of links from other websites. As a trusted source website is "trusted" by search engines, it will also trust the websites it links to. If you have ten links from your best friends, it will help you in some sense, but no where near as much as the one link from a source like Dmoz, unless one of your friends has a very reputable website amongst the search engines.
Having too many irrelevant links could harm your website’s visibility in the search engines. What is meant by this is having links from websites that have no relation to yours. An example of this would be a site about cars linking to another site about medicine (unless the sites are reputable and have a good reason for the link i.e. there is a relationship made between cars and medicine). Search engines will pick up on this sort of link and will give it no weight in boosting your visibility. Obtain many of these irrelevant links, then it could be seen as spam (like a link farm tactic) and that will lower the popularity of your website within search engines. ...read the entire article
Creating Good Passwords
According to recent studies, up to 7 million people per year (yes, that is "million") are victims of identity theft in the United States alone. That is more than 19,000 per day and nearly 800 per hour. Wow! While some feel that these figures may be greatly inflated, they still are sobering. Regardless of the actual number per year, we still need to protect ourselves from this problem. Many, though not all, of the yearly victims become so because they are not as careful with their sensitive data as they should be. Carelessness is all a thief needs to make a victim....The chain of protection is only as strong as its weakest link. Many times, the weakest link is a poor password. One of our clients recently told me that at one time, every computer in their office had a password of "password". Obviously, that offered as much protection as a screen door on a submarine. A password is the first step to safeguarding yourself and protecting your sensitive data....read the entire article >>
What's A Log File?
Every time someone visits a page on your site, a record is made into the log file, which is saved on your server. You can find some interesting and useful information about the visitors in the log file.....read more
The Latest Email Scam Is Nothing New
The eBay scam is just the latest in a long line of sophisticated attempts to steal personal information through online means. Customers of PayPal, Amazon, Dell Computer, eTrade, Bank One, and many other online merchants have been the target of such scams....read more
Pay Per Click Vs Natural Listings
So which is the better option, pay per click listings or working towards strong natural listings? This answer depends on you and what you want to achieve in the long run. From my point of view, I would look at using both methods of optimisation with a technique that changes as time progresses. Let me explain…
For those who are not quiet sure what pay per click listings are, they are the listings that appear before all the natural search results for a particular search. To appear in those positions, a set amount must be paid for each time a user clicks on your link. For the website owners who have just built a new website or have a very low search engine visibility, ppc is a great option to get your website indexed and to start receiving quality traffic, provided you have the necessary funds to cater for all the clicks. Daily budgets can be set so you do not overspend on your ppc account....read more
Internet Advertising Terminology - Definitions
Ad
"For Web advertising, an ad is almost always a banner, a graphic image or set of animated images (in a file called an animated GIF) of a designated pixel size and byte size limit. An ad or set of ads for a campaign is often referred to as "the creative." Banners and other special advertising that include an interactive or visual element beyond the usual are known as rich media." (provided by http://whatis.techtarget.com)
AdWords
Google's CPC (Cost Per Click) based text advertising. AdWords takes clickthrough rate into consideration in addition to advertiser's bid to determine the ad's relative position within the paid search results, which is a notable difference from Overture's CPC model that is based purely on bid amount. Google applies such a weighting factor in order to feature those paid search results that more popular and thus presumably more relevant and useful.
Bidding
placing a bid price that you are willing to pay as an advertiser on a pay-per-click search engine. The highest bid for a given keyword achieves the top spot in the PPC search results. In Overture, the top three bids are "featured" on Overture's partners' sites, including AOL, Altavista, Infospace, and others.
CTR or Click Through Rate
"In banner advertising on a Web site, the clickthrough rate (CTR) is the percentage of times that viewers of a Web page click on a given banner ad, causing a request for the advertiser's Web site to be transmitted to the viewer. For example, if two out of every 100 visitors to a Web page clicked on a given ad, that ad would be said to have a 2% clickthrough rate. (In most cases, a 2% clickthrough rate would be considered very successful, by the way. In many campaigns, especially as ads become familiar to users, the clickthrough rate is well below 1%.)
Many advertisers rate the success of a given ad placement on clickthrough rate alone. Other advertisers also place a value on the visitor's viewing of the ad, which is believed to create a desired company or product brand impression over time.
" (provided by searchWebServices.com Definitions)
Click Fraud
"Click fraud (sometimes called pay-per-click fraud) is the practice of artificially inflating traffic statistics to defraud advertisers or Web sites that provide venues for advertisers. In the common pay-per-click advertising model, advertisers pay a fee for each click on their link. According to a CNET News article, the average fee is about 45 cents, while some industry segments have costs-per-click of several dollars. By using automated clicking programs (called hitbots) or employing low-cost workers to click the links, the perpetrators create the illusion that a large number of potential customers are clicking the advertiser's links, when in fact there is no likelihood that any of the clicks will lead to profit for the advertiser.
Click fraud scammers often take advantage of the affiliate programs offered by some Web sites, such as Google and Overture. The scammers sign up for the affiliate programs, agreeing to provide further exposure to the advertising in question and receiving a portion of the pay-per-click fees in return. The perpetrators place the ads on Web sites created solely for this purpose that, naturally, don't have any real traffic. Once the ads are in place, the hitbots or workers generate large volumes of fraudulent clicks, often in a very short time period, for which the scammer bills the owner of the affiliate program. Both Google and Overture have had to reimburse advertisers for pay-per-click fees that were discovered to have been the result of click fraud." (provided by http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/)
Hits
A download of a file from a web server. Hits do not correlate with web page visits. Every graphic on a web page counts as a hit. Thus, a single access of a web page with 20 unique graphics on it register as 21 hits - 20 for the graphics and 1 for the HTML page. For years there have been stories circulating the internet of unscrupulous web designers slicing graphics into dozens or even hundreds of tiny pieces telling the client this will help the site load faster - then after the site is launched, raving to the client about how many hits the website is getting. Again, a single graphic (for example a photo) on a webpage that is sliced into 50 pieces becomes 50 graphics and would then register as 51 hits when that page loads. 5 graphics on a page that are each sliced into 50 pieces would be 250 graphics thus making a page loading register as 251 HITS. Web metrics guru Jim Sterne says hits "stand for How Idiots Track Success." People who talk in terms of hits are usually either ignorant or are trying to give the appearance the website is doing better than it really is. A reputable statistics program such as WebTrends will provide information on your websites Unique Vistors which is the information you will need to evaluate how well your website is doing.
PPC or Pay-per-click
A pay-for-performance pricing model where advertising (such as banners or paid search engine listings) is priced based on number of clickthroughs rather than impressions or other criteria. Overture is an example of a search engine which charges advertisers on a pay-per-click basis.
PageRank
Google uses a weighted form of link popularity called PageRank™. Not all links are created equal. Google differentiates a link from an important site (such as CNN.com) as being better than a link from Jim-Bob's personal home page. The Google Toolbar (which is a free download from http://toolbar.google.com) has a PageRank meter built into it, to see which web pages are considered important by Google and which aren't. PageRank scoring ranges from 0 to 10, 10 being the best. PageRank scores get exponentially harder to achieve the closer to 10 they are. For example, increasing your own homepage's PageRank from a 2 to 3 is easy with not a lot of additional links, jumping from a 7 to an 8 is very difficult to achieve. The higher the PageRank of the page that's linking to you, the more your site's PageRank will benefit. The better your PageRank, the better you'll do in Google, all else being equal.
Unique visitors
A count of individual users who have accessed your web site.
SEO Basics
Take a look at the sites that currently rank high on the search engines for your keywords or indeed for any keywords and you will generally find that they have simple designs with graphics that use minimal bandwidth, and they are generally easy to navigate. Simple, clean designs are what both search engine crawlers and search engine users like, as it lets them get the content they want without a lot of peripheral “fluff”. This is what you should be aiming to achieve with your website.
Of course some websites will be ranked highly in search engines, even though their designs make them difficult to read and navigate. If the content of a site is relevant to what people are searching for then that’s all that matters to a search engine. However, it’s preferable to have a site that is user friendly and easy to navigate if you want to encourage return visitors....read more about Search Engine Optimization Basics
Google Blogs
Google's non-search services include Blogger, Google
Adsense,Adwords, Google Desktop, and more. If you
use one or more of these services, Google probably
publishes a helpful blog to go with it......
Google created "Sitemaps" for website owners to
supply information about their sites so that Google
can easily crawl through and index their pages. A
sitemap gives Google more complete information about
your website that they may miss when doing a regular
index visit.
This blog covers the "nitty gritty" of sitemaps,
how they work and things you'll need to pay attention
to when creating your files. If you want to fully
understand the program and how to
use it to your best advantage, stop on over....read more about Google Blogs
ci-Interactive accepts article submissions for publication on our travel and leisure portals - Authors and travel writers interested in submitting articles should email patti@cyberisle.com - Currently our portals include New England, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Islands (worldwide), Florida, California and New York - Florida Fishing, Florida Golf and Florida Outdoors, and Tropical Island Weddings or Unique Destination Weddings. Sites that will be launched in Spring 2006 are Washington D.C., Chicago, Tropical Island Spas, Georgia Golf, and Florida Artist's Gallery. Please check our submission guidelines - click here.
SEO Myths
Myth... PPC is more effective than natural SEO... In the short term...true. In the long term...false. Why, you ask? Organic SEO is preferred by traffic over 5 to 1 to PPC. People trust organic searches to return relevant results. People also know that the ads to the right of the page are sponsored ads. They have long ago figured out that anyone can bid on any term they want, as many often do, without even a hint of relevance. So, long term SEO structuring can indeed be more effective than PPC, especially when considering the preferences of search traffic. A top 5 ranking may take some time to get, but once you are there (and provided you can maintain it), you will get better results than from a PPC ad....read more
Clearing your Cache - What is cache? Plus, step by step instructions and screen shots for CLEARING your cache.
DMOZ
For those of you who are new to the term “Dmoz”, it is the Open Directory Project which is the largest and most comprehensive human edited directory of the web. For your website to be accepted into Dmoz, it has to be reviewed by a human editor. If accepted, then your site is seen as a trusted source by search engines, especially Google. Combined with some SEO work, it will give you that extra boost within the rankings, however the only problem is that the editors take a long time to review the websites.
If you take a look at how many volunteer editors they have (71,816 last time I checked), compared to the number of website submissions they receive (we’re talking hundreds and thousands of websites), then obviously it will take a long time for the editors to get around to yours. To add to that, theses editors work for free and each one is assigned to a certain category for reviewing websites. The worst case scenario, you have a new website that has just been submitted to a category with the least number of editors monitoring it, which explains the long waiting time (up to 2 years, if not longer).
When Dmoz first started (1998), it took no longer than 6 weeks to have you website listed into their directories. With demand now running high, the wait is a lot longer..read more
Analyze A Competitor's Website
study the top 5 or 10 competitors very closely. There is a lot that can be learnt by looking at competitors website and analysing them. These are the things that you should look for.
1. Make sure you check to see what products or services they offer, and note anything that’s different from your own offerings. Look for gaps that you could fill.
2. Think about the look, feel and functionality of their website.
3. See what advertising campaigns and offers they’re running.
4. Look at their strengths and weaknesses, from the customer’s point of view....read more about Analyzing Competitor Website
Top Sypware Threats and Rogue Anti Spyware Programs
identified by Webroot Spy SweeperTM
- 180 Search Assistant
- Apropos
- Virtumonde
- SpywareStrike
- EliteBar
- ISTbar
- CoolWebSearch (CWS)
- PSGuard
- SurfSideKick
- DirectRevenue-Abetterinternet
For more details visit the Webroot website.
Search Engines Get Smarter
Search engines take link relevancy into account when ranking webpages. As a search engine optimizer it's important for you to keep your "white hat" on. This means, for the uninitiated, that instead of spamdexing or deceiving the search engine through trickery, you employ ethical means to achieve ranking. Crime doesn't pay in the search world because deceptive sites get shown the door and no site can afford to pay that price.
Google recently caught BMW's websites gaming the system and the company's sites were essentially blacklisted from the results listings. Did BMW not have enough confidence in the quality of their cars and motorcycles or was their online optimizer getting too cute? No matter, it's BMW's problem; one nobody needs to have.
Your white hat optimization entails shoring up whatever online relationships you can with other sites for link exchange, promoting your site with new ones for more link exchange, and joining web directories. This is not an instantaneous process, like most SEO work, but it is indispensable for your long-term online planning....read more »
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Florida Outdoors - Camping, Boating, Fishing, Kayaking - from destinations to helpful articles, everything you need to plan an outdoor adventure!
All the information you need to plan a tropical island dream wedding! tropicalisilandweddings.com
fishing-florida.com From season and species charts to suggested charter guides - information for the fishing enthusiast!
Downtown Naples Florida - shopping, dining, photos, and maps for Fifth Avenue, 3rd Street South, Crayton Cove and Tin City!
Islands Info is a searchable directory of islands information - worldwide. General travel and tourist information - sections on hotels, attractions, dining and travel tips.
South Florida is an area of incredible natural beauty... from warm, salty, emerald green waters dotted with thousands of tiny islands in the Gulf of Mexico...to miles of white sand beaches with highrise condominiums, hotels and trendy clubs along the Atlantic Ocean...with a dash of The Everglades cypress swamps, wetland praries and pine forests home to a variety of wildlife...South Florida has something for everyone! Visit South Florida Online
Emergency Email and Wireless Network
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