What's that? You never go past page 3...

Fear not. No one gets past page 3. This doesn't mean your lazy and cant be bothered to look any further, this is just typical online behaviour.People don't want to search too much, they are too busy plus why the hell should they? People want their results and they want it now, most importantly they KNOW Google will give it to them.

To be the number one spot on Google is to essentially win at life. It stands for that illusive integrity in a fast paced world of instant gratification. Online users know that the reults Google presents are THE most relevant to their search and that's why they go to it.

But how do you get to be there?

You may have just started to get involved with online media or maybe you already have a website or a blog and want to be able to be found more for your content. You may just want to show off to the world or you have realised the importance of the power of online marketing. Well you're in good hands as we at Green i Design know how to be found.

Unfortuneately it's no simple task and getting good rankings in the Google Search Engine can be a full time job, no, there is no easy route and you have to be prepared for the long hall. Any sneaky short cuts, Google's search bots will find them and you will be punished...

Like Wikipedia, Google is built on trust and of course, some rather complicated techo jargon. From the huge airhangers that house the Big G's hubs, processing over 100 search factors and the relevance of over 8 billion web pages in a matter of seconds, for your convenience. To the secret Google algorithm that works out exactly what you are looking for, with over 90% of search results online found by Google, there really is no substitute.

So to be found on Google?

HOW TO BE FOUND ON GOOGLE: TIP no. 1

Well as we have mentioned there are loads of factors (over 100) Google consider when making a search, some we* know, some only Google know, but the first and most important factor to get found on Google is to write good content. Matt Cutts (aka the public face / 'man who is super smug becuase he actually does know everything about') of Google.com, says good content is his first and primary factor when decifering the relevance of a web page - will it tell the reader what they wanted to know? Have you written about your topic well? with passion and commitment? Do you appeal to your customers?

More often than not, the key to a successful business is their customer satisfaction success rate - and of course Google is on it with that!

Write what you want and write with enthusiasm, write for your audience and not for the search engines and you WILL get found.

....................

If your still finding this a little complicated and you'd rather someone do the work for you, contact us at Green i Design - We can help you get your web page found.

*We = Search Engine Optimisers

Search Engine Optimisers is the posho way of saying 'the people who specialise in getting your stuff found online.'

Keep posted for more SEO information and how tos from Green i Design.

These predators are intent on stealing your money and personal information, installing damaging programs on your computer, or misleading you with an online scam.

Cyber-crooks are relentless in their pursuit of your money and "It's all about the money," according to Graham Cluley, senior technical consultant at Internet security firm Sophos. In the worst case scenario, your identity and your financial security can be severely compromised.

Looking at estimates provided by a number of Internet security companies, the consensus seems to be that there are over 11,000,000 malware programs currently in the ether. Various Internet security companies report having to deal with as many as 20,000 new versions of malware daily. Here’s the math; one new malware program every four seconds!

Since additional sophisticated threats are being developed, or are currently being deployed, some observers are of the opinion that the Internet is essentially broken. If you think this is an exaggeration, check this out and then you decide.

Tainted search engine results: Internet security gurus have known for some time that we can not rely on Internet search engine output to be untainted and free of potential harmful exposure to malware.

Cyber-crooks continue to be unrelenting in their chase to infect web search results, seeding malicious websites among the top results returned by these engines. When a potential victim visits one of these sites, the chances of downloading malicious code onto the computer by exploiting existing vulnerabilities, is extremely high.

Infected legitimate websites: According to an Internet security industry leader Sophos, over 90 percent of dangerous websites, that is - websites that are distributing Trojan horses and spyware - are legitimate sites that have been hacked through SQL injection.

It was reported recently that over sixteen thousand web pages were infected daily between January and June of this year; three times the rate of infection noted in the previous year. Work out the math, and you’ll find that’s one new infected legitimate website every five seconds!

More disturbing, seventy nine percent of compromised web pages tracked this year were on legitimate web sites; including web sites owned by Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and ironically, security vendors.

Drive-by downloads: Drive-by downloads are not new; they’ve been lurking around for years it seems, but they’ve become much more common and craftier recently.

If you’re unfamiliar with the term, drive-by download, they are essentially programs that automatically download and install on your computer without your knowledge.

This action can occur while visiting an infected web site, opening an infected HTML email, or by clicking on a deceptive popup window. Often, more than one program is downloaded; for example, file sharing with tracking spyware is very common. It’s important to remember that this can take place without warning, or your approval.

Rogue software: Unless you have had the bad experience of installing this type of malicious software, you may not be aware that such a class of software even exists. But it does; and regrettably, it is becoming more widespread. Most rogue software uses social engineering to convince users’ to download this type of malicious software.

A rogue security application is an application, usually found on free download and adult websites, or it can be installed from rogue security software websites, using Trojans or manipulating Internet browser security holes.

After the installation of rogue security software the program launches fake or false malware detection warnings. Rogue security applications, and there seems to be an epidemic of them on the Internet currently, are developed to mislead uninformed computer users’ into downloading and paying for the “full” version of this bogus software, based on the false malware positives generated by the application.

Even if the full program fee is paid, rogue software continues to run as a background process incessantly reporting those fake or false malware detection warnings. Over time, this type of software will essentially destroy the victim’s computer operating system, making the machine unusable.

Some types of rogue security software have the potential to collect private and personal information from an infected machine which could include passwords, credit card details, and other sensitive information.

Email scams: Email scams work because the Cyber-crooks responsible use social engineering as the hook; in other words they exploit our curiosity. The fact is, we are all pretty curious creatures and let’s face it, who doesn’t like surprise emails? I think it’s safe to say, we all love to receive good news emails.

It seems that more and more these days, I get phishing emails in my inboxes all designed to trick me into revealing financial information that can be used to steal my money.

If you’re unfamiliar with phishing, it is defined as the act of tricking unsuspecting Internet users into revealing sensitive or private information. In a phishing attack, the attacker creates a set of circumstances where the potential victims are convinced that they are dealing with an authorized party. It relies for its success on the principle that asking a large number of people for this information, will always deceive at least some of those people.

A personal example of how this works is as follows. According to a recent email (similar in form and content to 20+ I receive each month), my online banking privileges with Bank of America had been blocked due to security concerns. This looked like an official email and the enclosed link made it simple to get this problem solved with just a mouse click. What could be easier than that?

Clicking on the link would have redirected me to a spoof page, comparable to the original site, and I would then have begun the process whereby the scammers would have stripped me of all the confidential information I was willing to provide.

My financial and personal details, had I entered them, would then have been harvested by the cyber-crooks behind this fraudulent scheme who would then have used this information to commit identity and financial theft.

These types of attacks against financial institutions, and consumers, are occurring with such frequency that the IC³ (Internet Crime Complaint Center), has called the situation “alarming”, so you need to be extremely vigilant.

Being involved in computer security, I am amazed and frankly frustrated, at the lack of knowledge exhibited by most typical computer users, and most importantly, the lack of knowledge concerning the need to secure their machines against the ever increasing risks on the Internet.

We now live in the age of the “Interconnectedness of All Things” in which we are beginning to see the development and availability of large numbers of Internet connected devices. There is no doubt that this will lend new strength to computer-aided crime and in this new political environment we now live in, perhaps even terrorists.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the dangers we are exposed to on the Internet. There are many more technical reasons why the Internet is becoming progressively more dangerous which are outside the scope of this article, but one worth mentioning is the recent discovery that the very backbone of the Internet DNS can be compromised.

The Domain Name System serves as the "phone book" for the Internet by translating human-readable computer hostnames, e.g. www.example.com, into IP addresses, e.g. 208.77.188.166, which networking equipment needs to deliver information.

So what do you think? Is the Internet broken and if so, how can it be saved?

Be kind to your friends, relatives, and associates and let them know that all of the above dangers are now epidemic on the Internet. In that way, it raises the level of protection for all of us.

Be aware of the following security risks on the Internet:

Trojan horse programs

Back door and remote administration programs

Denial of service

Being an intermediary for another attack

Unprotected Window shares

Mobile code (Java, JavaScript, and ActiveX)

Cross-site scripting

Email spoofing

Email-borne viruses

Hidden file extensions

Chat clients

Packet sniffing

Review the following actions you can take to protect your Internet connected computer system:

Install an Internet Browser add-on such as WOT (my personal favorite), which provides detailed test results on a site’s safety; protecting you from security threats including spyware, adware, spam, viruses, browser exploits, and online scams.

Don’t open unknown email attachments

Don’t run programs of unknown origin

Disable hidden filename extensions

Keep all applications (including your operating system) patched

Turn off your computer or disconnect from the network when not in use

Disable Java, JavaScript, and ActiveX if possible

Disable scripting features in email programs

Make regular backups of critical data

Make a boot disk in case your computer is damaged or compromised

Turn off file and printer sharing on the computer.

Install a personal firewall on the computer.

Install anti-virus and anti-spyware software and ensure it is configured to automatically update when you are connected to the Internet.

Ensure the anti-virus software scans all e-mail attachments.

And I am not necessarily talking about creating a viral video. Success can be had by reaching 1,000 targeted customers, as opposed to 1,000,000 random web surfers.

Here are a few examples of how reaching a targeted audience has evolved:

OLD IDEA: Buy a magazine ad.
NEW IDEA: Write your own magazine that your existing and potential customers will find interesting.

OLD IDEA: Take out a series of radio ads.
NEW IDEA: Start a podcast on subjects related to your business and make it interesting enough that people will find value in paying attention.

OLD IDEA: Take out a series of television ads.
NEW IDEA: Start your own television channel on YouTube and connect with other users who will help you promote your channel.

OLD IDEA: Purchase banner ads online.
NEW IDEA: Create a Facebook application that brings value to your potential customer base.

Later, I’ll discuss the factors that I believe determine whether an online media campaign will be successful or not.

We use frames within our top100k..com to allow our PHP pages to load quicker. The problem with PHP is that each page has to be parsed on the web server. By using PHP pages within frames causes only part of the page to be reloaded and the processing during web page traversing for the user is sped up. In this case the top frame is a great place to house a navigational tool that refreshes the bottom part of the page.

The rumor on the Internet is that frames block the indexing agents looking over the web to populate the search engine servers. Most of these user agents are smart enough to recognize a frames page and automatically look at the page within the frames. The trick for dumber agents is to use a noframes tag with a link to a version of the site which supports no frames or to use meta tags within the frames page to supply your site's description to these agents. The one legacy framed site that we use that ranks high on the search engines list is webovations.com and it uses the noframes tag to send agents to other pages.

A lot of web publisher don't use frames because they are tricky. They have to be sure to specify the targets for the links in the site to ensure that they work properly. But the benefits out way the disadvantages of using frames and frames pages do not block agents from indexing a web site properly, if you know the tricks.

Erik Holm

webovations.com
webmathproject.org
pugetsoundlife.net
top100k.com

I always read Charlie Brooker's column on the Guardian site for a bit of light relief. When I feel like the whole world has gone mad and I'm the only one who notices it along comes Mr Brooker ranting away and pointing out the stupidity around us. Mr Brooker was recently given an image after a MRI scan which he kept because:

it makes perfect desktop wallpaper. Now, every time I minimise a window, I catch sight of my innards and contemplate death. This keeps me vibrant and alive and characteristically cheerful.

When I saw the title of Charlie's latest article I suspected that the Guardian site had been hacked. The title was "Online POKER marketing could spell the NAKED end of VIAGRA journalism as we LOHAN know it." Turns out that journalists and respectable newspapers (and not so respectable ones) are encouraged to included terms which are likely be routinely searched for.

The most popular search terms which bring browsers to this very blog are "new starbucks logo", "giles coren" and "ashley dupre". Some people enter some pretty horrifying terms such as "what to talk to people about", can you imagine the level of desperation necessary to use this site as conversation fodder? Is there any hope for the person who asked google "should expresso taste bad?" (the answer is yes but espresso should taste great). In fact a lot of people want to know how coffee should taste.

Perhaps I need to crowbar in some search bait around here? I can safely say that I have never seen Natalie Portman naked, I do not know where to get free ipod wallpapers or free mp3 downloads, shame. I suspect that a few people on my blogroll may have written posts designed to appear for some risqué terms: Kylie's pants anyone? Or Megan Fox in a Star Wars t-shirt? (one for the geeks). Personally I would not stoop to such levels.

Google is in the headlines right now. Earlier today I trackbacked TechCrunch's article about the rumour of Google acquiring Digg. Later on I found Google Operating System's contrasting article on the same subject.

Another thing I found out about today is Google's new article repository, Knol. A bit Wikipedia-like endeavour for creating articles but with the exception that the writers of articles are clearly shown on each article or haven been given the credit for written articles. Read more about and test Knol here.

Anyway, back to the questions. First, should I post today? Or how often should I post? I don’t know the answer to that, yet what I do know is every time I post I get a Google alert within a few hours. That means that Google is out there poking around the web picking up fresh content. This is a good thing. It raises your ranking in the search engines. I started out posting twice/week, then abandoned it altogether. Then started back daily, now it’s every other day. If I get a lot of visits, I’m encouraged to post more often; if I get fewer visits, I cut back. This is not a definitive answer by any means. You’ll have to feel it out and see what works best for you.

Next, what should I write about? Well, your area of expertise and your niche market primarily. I ghostwrite information products so I write mostly about that. However, Internet marketing is a broad topic area, so I have written about creating and marketing e-books, books, and other info-products, and peripherally about marketing through blogs, articles, and social networking. Lots to write about, and all of it is in my area of expertise. And some days, like today, I’m writing about what’s on my mind. Or I might write about something in the news that is connected to my topic.

Will anyone read my blog? At first I got little traffic, then it started to build, and one day I had peak traffic. I followed the comments and the links and found that Google blogs was responsible for a lot of that traffic and the subject and keywords were what drew the audience. I continue to investigate how people find blogs and what I can do to attract more traffic. It’s an ongoing learning process.

And lastly, will visitors buy my services and products? At this point, I don’t know the answer. I think if you get repeat visits you start to build a fan base. As people follow your blog, they get to know and respect you and if they have a need they may take the plunge and buy something from you. Because we can all get so much FREE information on the web, you have to make a good case for someone to take out their credit card and pay for information. This, too, is something I continue to investigate in the hopes of uncovering the mystery of selling online. It might help to have an email capture on your blog, and you will need HTML to do that.

If you have any answers to some of these questions, please leave your comments. I truly believe regular blogging should be part of any Internet marketing plan. Mix it up with your articles, press releases, advertising, and social networking and you have a recipe for success.

Happy Info-Products.

Andrea

Andrea Susan Glass, www.WritersWay.com

Dear Reader,

TechCrunch has released news about Google looking to buy Digg for $200 million. There had been rumours on this already in March this year. Interestingly Google has been experimenting with Digg-like features in their search lately.

Google Imagizer - Search for images through google, but instead of small thumbnails, it displays the full image.

Media Mingle - Another Image searching Website, but it brings up the thumbnails in a side panel, and you clikc the thumbnail you want and it brings the large image up in the main panel.

Clusty - Just a simple Clustering Search Engine

Samfind - What's cool about Samfind, is that you can set categories, and within those categories choose which website you would like to search through.

buttonall - This website calls itself  " The internet's universal remote" and it's not lying, it has 20 different search engines/websites you can choose to search from.

So there you have it, just a few search engines you might find useful if Google is not cutting it.

Google’s on and off negotiations with Digg have been back on in a big way for the last six weeks, we’ve heard from multiple sources inside and outside of Google. The two companies have reportedly signed a letter of intent and are close to a deal that will bring Digg under the Google News property. The acquisition price is in the $200 million range, says one source. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/22/google-in-final-negotiations-to-acquire-digg-for-around-200-million 7/22)

Google's Wikipedia competitor, Knol, is opening to the public, at knol.google.com. So-called knols are articles about specific topics written by experts on that subject. Google is partnering with The New Yorker to allow any author to add a cartoon from the magazine to their knol. (Iwantmedia 7/23, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9997426-93.html 7/23)

News Corp.'s MySpace Internet social network will join the OpenID alliance to begin letting its users take their online identity to other sites and social networks without having to register again. Users will be able to log onto other sites by using their MySpace accounts. (Iwantmedia 7/23, http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN2226219920080722 7/22)

Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman says that the Internet and mobile media are expanding his company's reach worldwide. Also: Google didn't do anything to stop piracy on YouTube because it helped build a massive audience, Dauman claims. Google must learn the value of "making friends." (Iwantmedia 7/23, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9996614-93.html 7/22)

Google's YouTube is said to be shedding its reputation as a clearinghouse for pirated content and could soon be home to legally obtained clips from movies and television shows. Google is adopting "a more accommodating approach" to its video-sharing site. (Iwantmedia 7/23, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9996905-93.html 7/23)

Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp, preparing to spin off four of its operating units, says it plans to take about $170 million in charges because the housing crisis has diminished the value of its mortgage and real estate businesses, which include LendingTree.com. (Iwantmedia 7/23, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080723/ap_on_hi_te/iac_spinoffs_charges 7/23)

A business partner and I have launched a new website called www.UDANGUS.com

Take part in our youtube contest. If you win we will part your site on Udangus.

With your help UDANGUS may become one of the world's fastest growing internet directories. Created to be set as your browser's homepage, UDANGUS gives your hand a break from typing those same URL's over and over again. Your browser's favorites or bookmarks are similar but they are easily forgotten. UDANGUS portals are in categories displaying easy to recognize logos giving you the opportunity to explore new and familiar sites. We are always adding to the lists and will be developing a Personalized UDANGUS.com in the near future!

Any comments or advice is welcome...

Enjoy UDANGUS & Surf Faster!

-Jason Kotch
www.UDANGUS.com

SEO - Search Engine Optimization, which is the art of getting pages to rank well in Google and other search engines.

Link Building - The process of creating links that point to a website in order to get that website to move up in search engine rankings.

Onsite SEO - The art of changing the link structure, content, and HTML of a site to make it move up in the search rankings.

Offsite SEO - Changing online networks to provide benefit to your site, through the process of link building.

Initially, it seems that there would be none. This change would be isolated to the URL of the site and to incoming links to other sites. While URL word tokens are an important component of a page's rank for a query, URLs already allow just about any text you wish. However, the TLD is mostly used as a filter, and doesn't lend much to the rank of a page other than for navigational queries.

So, even if the webmaster of http://kidney.monkey.com were allowed to register a domain of http://monkey.kidney, the effect is going to be about the same. In the latter case, 'kidney' is identified as the TLD. If this is really treated as a TLD then this website is considered to be in the 'kidney' domain. Useful if kidney-related content begins to proliferate on the Web, but otherwise...

Let's consider a more concrete example. Yahoo registers http://answers.yahoo. What benefit does it receive from being in the 'yahoo' TLD other than being able to filter out results not in the yahoo TLD. This is achievable without using yahoo as the TLD, via http://www.yahoo.com. The definition of top-level domain clearly indicates that DNS protocols are based on a hierarchical arrangement of domain names where the last .* characters are the top-level, before that text is the primary domain (e.g. example.com), and before that, the sub-domains. What sense is there in having the TLDs effectively equivalent to the primary domains?

However, if Yahoo were to register http://yahoo.answers, then we'd have something interesting; especially if there is a http://google.answers, a http://genieknows.answers, a http://wikipedia.answers. Then search engines can improve relevance in search results when people are looking for answers but only producing results from pages in this domain. The degree of optimization is still limited to the portion of the URL before the .answers. Incoming links to these pages may be cross-domain (e.g. from a .org site), cross-topic, or from the same domain -- a .answers domain. Sure, these three types will be treated differently, but these differences already exist in topical link-based ranking and contextual ranking. So again, it looks like there are no benefits or avenues for SEO here.

On a slight tangent... I don't believe that the TLDs will expand in the way many people think they will (or predicted it would). There has been a lot of suggestions of a .sucks TLD, of Microsoft registering a .microsoft domain and of other companies following suit. This seems irrational and impractical. It is more likely that the new TLDs will be determined by an IETF, W3C, FCC, or ICANN (although less likely than the previous ones). More likely is the introduction of .xxx, .name, .shop, .mobile, .blog, .health, etc.

Thus begins the domain-level support for vertical (or "focused") search. With the already growing trend in vertical search, and the continued growth in the number of webpages, this would be a great filtering system and tremendous progress in DNS management. Furthermore, with very nearly 65% of all domains having a .com extension, introducing more TLDs would deepen the DNS tree a little making address resolution more efficient.

So what does this do for SEO? Probably nothing; good or bad.

"is it illegal to send cigarettes abroad as a gift?"

I think each country has their own regulations on this, if I'm not mistaken (correct me if I'm wrong). But Indonesia allows up to 20 packs of cigarettes to be sent and received from abroad.

If I send you cigarettes (from Indonesia), and you happen to be in a country where cigarettes are as illegal as LSD, then you might never received my gift. It's banned.

Now you know that I can receive 20 packs of cigarettes from you, don't you want to send me some of your country's best and help me killing me?

"german names for your penis"

Jay Susz! Why do you want to name your penis in German names, anyway?! Okay, I got some ideas:
* Herr Wolfgang, the Gangbanger.
* Bald Ald
* Christofer, Mother Fucker
Now fatz offensif!

"I've smoked and I want to sing"

You smoke and you want to sing? You better add some aerobic activity to prevent you from being a short-breathed singer. Here's an example, from a singer's daily time-table:

05.30 -- Wake up from a 5 hour sleep, smoke 2 patches of cigarettes
06.00 -- Go jogging
06.30 -- Finished jogging, smoke a patch.
06.40 -- Have a big glass of iced tea, another cigarettes, strum the guitar, and sing some easy song like of Garbage, Hole, and Sarah McLachlan.
09.40 -- Hang out and smoke the rest of the cigarettes that's left.
11.00 -- Walk to the furthest grocery store in the neighborhood, and buy another pack of cigarettes.
11.20 -- Chat with people online
11.30 -- Listen to songs and sing to it all.
13.30 -- Sip husband's coffee and smoke again.
13.45 -- Take a nap
15.30 -- Get up, smoke, get a guitar, and sing neck-stretching neighbors-tormenting songs like some of Sarah Brightman, Sheryl Crow, Bjork, or Dream Theater.
18.30 -- Smoke the rest of your cigarettes while you post something to your WordPress.com blog till you (unintentionally) fall asleep again ...forgot to log out again.

That should make you, at least, a pretty good singer in 3 months, an entertaining singer in a year, and an extraordinary singer in 3 years if you're still alive at all...

"yella ojrak"

What can I do to help you, Sir?

Hey Friends, A very strong rumor going around to-day in the Industry was about Google - Digg deal. As we know, Digg is very popular among all the SEO for bookmarking & easy way to instantly getting noticed in Search Engines like Google. Now, It seems that, Google is more interesting in buying the Digg for availing the existing popularity of this Social Bookmarking site. I think it is natural that, Google is working on the hits business & being a social media site Digg is very good at it. Below is the rumor going on in various sites including Search Engine Land. I think it would be interesting for my blog readers.

Google To Buy Digg for $200 Million

There are ways in which Digg is like YouTube: it's the "brand" in a competitive "social news" segment. Similarly YouTube was the "brand" in a crowded video segment when Google acquired the company.

Digg has more or less been for sale for months and rumors have been circulating that either Google or Microsoft would buy the company.

Now TechCrunch is reporting that Digg is close to selling for $200 million to Google. That compares with the originally rumored $300 million price target.

More interesting to consider is how and where Google might use Digg or its underlying algorithms. For example, Google has been testing an experimental interface that allows for individual and community voting on the relevance of search results. It this may be that a Digg acquisition would hold broader, general search implications for Google.

Digg itself started life as a "news" site but is angling to become a much broader "recommendations engine" across a range of categories. One might see that integrated into Maps/Local and other areas on Google. Indeed, the company always seems to have several motives and use cases for its acquisitions.

But again the question arises is that, why doesn't Google build its own version of Digg? It certainly could. And while Digg is a popular site, it's hardly the mainstream breakaway success that YouTube had become when Google acquired the latter in October, 2006.

For more discussion on this topic refer to Techmeme.

If a visitor clicks through to a typical doorway page from a search engine results page, in most cases they will be redirected with a fast Meta refresh command to another page. Other forms of redirection include use of Javascript and server side redirection, either through the .htaccess file or from the server configuration file. Some doorway pages may be dynamic pages generated by scripting languages such as Perl and PHP.

Doorway pages are often easy to identify in that they have been designed primarily for search engines, not for human beings. Sometimes a doorway page is copied from another high ranking page, but this is likely to cause the search engine to detect the page as a duplicate and exclude it from the search engine listings.

Because many search engines give a penalty for using the META refresh command, some doorway pages just trick the visitor into clicking on a link to get them to the desired destination page, or they use Javascript for redirection.

More sophisticated doorway pages, called Content Rich Doorways, are designed to gain high placement in search results without using redirection. They incorporate at least a minimum amount of design and navigation similar to the rest of the site to provide a more human-friendly and natural appearance. Visitors are offered standard links as calls to action.

Landing pages are regularly misconstrued to equate to Doorway pages within the literature and should be avoided. The former are content rich pages to which traffic is directed to within the context of pay-per-click campaigns and to maximize SEO campaigns.

Another form of doorway pages are using a method called Cloaking. They show a version of that page to the visitor, but different from the one provided to crawlers, using server side scripts. They know whether it's a bot or a visitor based on their IP address and/or user-agent.

Having a break from the "big" picture questions, I have been searching on the web for various pieces of information and I stumbled across this site. There are so many reference sites, do we need any more? Probably not but I discovered this fascinating site. I found myself scrolling through 100 Unbelievably Useful Reference Sites You’ve Never Heard Of from Teaching tips.com.

This site offers us an eclectic collection of dictionaries, professional teaching and library resources, fun sites, databases, sites about health, "homework help", search engines, consumer research, etc. So when you are "investigating" some of these sites, and some of those I looked at were quite absorbing, remember you are doing research, not "just playing" or, heaven forbid, having fun!

To quote the authors, "we’ve compiled just 100 of our favorites, for teachers, students, hypochondriacs, procrastinators, bookworms, sports nuts and more."

In fact, I wrote about Google's new Search Interface that it's been playing with in a post titled Future of Search Engine Optimization - Google’s New Search Interface recently and wasn't as enthusiastic with the "Digg like" features as i was with the "Friendfeed" aspect of it.

According to Michael Arrington at TechCrunch >>>>

Google’s on and off negotiations with Digg have been back on in a big way for the last six weeks, we’ve heard from multiple sources inside of Google, and the two companies are close to a deal that will bring Digg under the Google News property. The acquisition price is in the $200 million range, says one source.

We first wrote about the Google-Digg negotiations in March. Despite a vigorous denial by Digg CEO Jay Adelson the negotiations continued, although Google’s Marissa Mayer reportedly cooled on the company for a period of time.

The companies are now in final negotiations according to our sources, although it could be a couple of weeks before it closes. And while the major deal points have been agreed on, the acquisition could still fall apart. Microsoft, which was previously interested in the company, may be willing to step back in at a much lower price.

To better explain what this is, let's first talk about SEO, which is an acronym for search engine optimization. SEO is the art of getting web pages to rank well in Google (and other search engines) for terms related to their content.

There are all kinds of tricks that can be used to get a web page to rank well in Google. Overall, getting ranked for competitive terms requires creating a solid site that provides excellent information about the keyword you're trying to get it to rank for. This creates a network of links from other sites and creating links is the cornerstone of SEO.

SEO consulting is the process of teaching people how to achieve search engine rankings. A good SEO consultant will walk people through the basics of proper site structure, keyword targeting, and link building.