There are two distinct ways by which you can employ Search Engine Optimization method to boost up the rankings of your website or affiliate site. The experts loosely call the terms White Hat and Black Hat SEO simply to distinguished between accepted and approved SEO best practices, and those that are implemented to achieve results but are not exactly honest methods.
There are big-named companies who tried to black hat their way into the top of Search Engine rankings, but they have been caught and reprimanded accordingly. Imagine having your sites suspended from Search Engine listings for quite a few days, the damage caused to their company’s corporate image, not to mention website revenue, was more than enough to make them sit up and take notice.
Black hat SEO methods involve the use devious techniques such as using hidden text that either by using background-colored text, text inside an invisible div, or text which is placed strategically off the screen. Another black hat method which has alerted search engines is bringing people to a different page rather than the one they requested – this scheme or SEO ranking ploy has become known as cloaking.
But perhaps the most rampant black hat method used by less than honest SEO people, is spamdexing.. Spamdexing could involve any one of a number of methods that can include excessively repeating unrelated or meaningless phrases for the sole purpose of manipulating the relevancy or prominence of keywords indexed by the search engines.
Some people try to convince their clients that spamdexing is a normal part and accepted practice in search engine optimization, but this is not quite true. Most search engines nowadays do check for incidences of spamdexing, and will not think twice about removing the pages of possible violators from the search engine indexes. Moreover, employees of top search engines such as Google and Yahoo have the authority to immediately block the results-listing even of entire websites which are suspected to be employing spamdexing techniques.
White hat SEO, on the other hand, tend to make use of time-tested methods which may be slow to produce ranking results in the beginning, but do yield long-lasting and much sought-after results in the end. Unlike black hat methods, white hat techniques can make you rest easy – you can sleep soundly at night without fear that your site will be blocked or suspended because of unacceptable practices.
White hat SEO techniques are adjusted to conform to the search engines' guidelines, they are straight forward and up front with their tactics. What do we mean by this? As you may already know, search engines employ different and varying algorithms to determine the relevancy ranking of websites.
Some effective white hat methods are using appropriate keyword descriptions for the title and Meta tags, as well as relevant linking within and outside the website pages. Another important method for search engine optimization is to use alt text tags in all of the images.
Simply put, white hat SEO techniques do not end with merely following guidelines to ensure top search engine rankings, but also but is more about ensuring that the web site content is accessible and friendly for users, not just for search engines,
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
CSS and its Limitations
If you are using “unadulterated” CSS, you will notice the following disadvantages:
Inconsistency of browser support
Differences in browsers such as lack of browser support or browser bugs result can cause differences in certain CSS features. For instance, older versions of Microsoft IE implements a lot of CSS 2.0 features in an incompatible way. It misinterprets a number of chief properties like width or height. A lot of other CSS “hacks” should be applied to attain steady layouts with the commonly and more popularly used browsers.
Failure to ascend of selectors
There is actually no way of selecting an ancestor or parent of CSS that can suit certain criteria. Some more sophisticated selector scheme would allow more advanced stylesheets. But primarily, CSS Working Group selectors are rejected due to browser performance and other incremental issues.
Single block declaration can’t openly inherit from another
Styles are usually inherited by the browser from the containment hierarchy DOM factors, more specifically on the rule selectors. Only specific users of the blocks can refer to it by adding class names to those attributed to a DOM element.
Limitations on Vertical Controls
Compared to horizontal features, vertical placements are more difficult to control. They are more convoluted and could be impossible. Easier tasks like getting footer placed not higher than a viewport bottom may require complicated style rules, they may be simple however, and they are unsupported widely.
Lack of expressions
CSS also has no capacity to specify values property like simple expressions. This could be useful in different cases – calculating column sizes depending on the constraints of the sum of all the columns.
It has no orthogonality
Various properties usually end up responsible for the same job. Some properties are also not defined in a bendable way to avoid creation of new property. This is actually due to CSS specification and internal table features that don’t have margins.
Collapse of Margins
This is may be well documented and functional, however, it could also be complicated and are usually unexpected by creators, and there is really no safe way to avoid it.
Limited containment of Floats
For float containment, CSS really don’t have openly offered property to force it. Several properties has this function as side-effects, however, there is actually none that are completely suitable in all circumstances. Floats usually differ according to browser sizes and resolutions, while positions can’t.
Lack of multiple background capacity per element
More advanced graphical designs usually needs several background images per element, and CSS can only support one. So creators sometime opt between redundant document element wrappers or just drop visual effects.
Limited Element Shape Controls
The only available shape of CSS is rectangular. Creators may require non-semantic mark ups for rounded corners and other shapes.
Lack of Variables
The lack of variables in CSS makes it necessary to change everything when one plans to modify a fundamental constant like color schemes or different heights or width. Major disadvantage of this is the need of CSS caching, except that it can be quite useful in several situations.
Limited Column assertion
Although it is doable with current CSS, multiple columned layouts can be quite complex to apply. This is usually done with floating elements that are often depicted differently with different browsers, computer screen and set screen ratios with standard monitors.
Inconsistency of browser support
Differences in browsers such as lack of browser support or browser bugs result can cause differences in certain CSS features. For instance, older versions of Microsoft IE implements a lot of CSS 2.0 features in an incompatible way. It misinterprets a number of chief properties like width or height. A lot of other CSS “hacks” should be applied to attain steady layouts with the commonly and more popularly used browsers.
Failure to ascend of selectors
There is actually no way of selecting an ancestor or parent of CSS that can suit certain criteria. Some more sophisticated selector scheme would allow more advanced stylesheets. But primarily, CSS Working Group selectors are rejected due to browser performance and other incremental issues.
Single block declaration can’t openly inherit from another
Styles are usually inherited by the browser from the containment hierarchy DOM factors, more specifically on the rule selectors. Only specific users of the blocks can refer to it by adding class names to those attributed to a DOM element.
Limitations on Vertical Controls
Compared to horizontal features, vertical placements are more difficult to control. They are more convoluted and could be impossible. Easier tasks like getting footer placed not higher than a viewport bottom may require complicated style rules, they may be simple however, and they are unsupported widely.
Lack of expressions
CSS also has no capacity to specify values property like simple expressions. This could be useful in different cases – calculating column sizes depending on the constraints of the sum of all the columns.
It has no orthogonality
Various properties usually end up responsible for the same job. Some properties are also not defined in a bendable way to avoid creation of new property. This is actually due to CSS specification and internal table features that don’t have margins.
Collapse of Margins
This is may be well documented and functional, however, it could also be complicated and are usually unexpected by creators, and there is really no safe way to avoid it.
Limited containment of Floats
For float containment, CSS really don’t have openly offered property to force it. Several properties has this function as side-effects, however, there is actually none that are completely suitable in all circumstances. Floats usually differ according to browser sizes and resolutions, while positions can’t.
Lack of multiple background capacity per element
More advanced graphical designs usually needs several background images per element, and CSS can only support one. So creators sometime opt between redundant document element wrappers or just drop visual effects.
Limited Element Shape Controls
The only available shape of CSS is rectangular. Creators may require non-semantic mark ups for rounded corners and other shapes.
Lack of Variables
The lack of variables in CSS makes it necessary to change everything when one plans to modify a fundamental constant like color schemes or different heights or width. Major disadvantage of this is the need of CSS caching, except that it can be quite useful in several situations.
Limited Column assertion
Although it is doable with current CSS, multiple columned layouts can be quite complex to apply. This is usually done with floating elements that are often depicted differently with different browsers, computer screen and set screen ratios with standard monitors.
The Benefits of User Centered Designs: Why You Stand to Gain From Them
There are websites and there are more websites… but why do people prefer one over the other given their same product or service content? You guessed right, it’s the design!
In webpage design, the term user-centered design (UCD) is honored both as a philosophy and as a process. The importance of UCD in websites, cannot be underscored as it is vital to the way the entire site communicates its message to the user or guest. In this short article, we’ll try to discuss a few methods to achieve effective UCD as well as the benefits they bring to your site.
Here are six simple but effective ways to make web design more user friendly:
1. Make Use of Navigation Aids
When a user or guest navigates your site, he or she does so in two levels; within your web site and in between the web site itself. So how can you help make the experience easier for them? Simple, do you best so that they don't get lost. Set up navigation menus or site maps within the web site and make it easy for the users to go back to the home page or any of the other main pages. Relevant links should also be found in specific places on the web pages.
2. Strike a Balance Between Simplicity and Consistency
For optimum functionality and readability, make sure that your web pages and entire web site for that matter, make use of a consistent pattern. Utilize of modular units which more or less have similar layout grids, graphic themes, editorial conventions. It would also be wise and ideal to keep web pages short and use simple yet visually-appealing fonts, styles and colors.
3. Avoid Dead Links at all Costs!
Another important UCD principle to take note of is eradicating dead links in your site. It is the job of the web designer and also the website administrator to ensure that all links to, from, and within the site are working well.
4. Give Users Direct Access to Your Site’s Information
The next UCD principle is making sure that your guests find the information they are looking for within tour site using the fewest number of clicks possible.
Providing direct access would mean creating a highly efficient content hierarchy to help users get to the desired page as quickly as possible. According to research, website users prefer menus that give them only 5 to 7 links to navigate from.
5. Provide Visual Confirmation
Whether it maybe through links, titles or headings or even the ever-popular breadcrumb trail, website designers should be able to visually tell where they are within the web site. Sort of like the "You Are Here" sign we see in malls or shopping centers, UCD aims to provide users a visual frame to identify their location.
6. Take Connection Speed Into Consideration
Let's face it, not everyone has warp speed internet connection. As web designers, we should always take this into consideration. As we all know, website guests and users get turned off by having to wait ages for a page with very heavy graphics or animation to load.
Keep it light and non-techie friendly, after all the website was designed with their best interests at heart.
In webpage design, the term user-centered design (UCD) is honored both as a philosophy and as a process. The importance of UCD in websites, cannot be underscored as it is vital to the way the entire site communicates its message to the user or guest. In this short article, we’ll try to discuss a few methods to achieve effective UCD as well as the benefits they bring to your site.
Here are six simple but effective ways to make web design more user friendly:
1. Make Use of Navigation Aids
When a user or guest navigates your site, he or she does so in two levels; within your web site and in between the web site itself. So how can you help make the experience easier for them? Simple, do you best so that they don't get lost. Set up navigation menus or site maps within the web site and make it easy for the users to go back to the home page or any of the other main pages. Relevant links should also be found in specific places on the web pages.
2. Strike a Balance Between Simplicity and Consistency
For optimum functionality and readability, make sure that your web pages and entire web site for that matter, make use of a consistent pattern. Utilize of modular units which more or less have similar layout grids, graphic themes, editorial conventions. It would also be wise and ideal to keep web pages short and use simple yet visually-appealing fonts, styles and colors.
3. Avoid Dead Links at all Costs!
Another important UCD principle to take note of is eradicating dead links in your site. It is the job of the web designer and also the website administrator to ensure that all links to, from, and within the site are working well.
4. Give Users Direct Access to Your Site’s Information
The next UCD principle is making sure that your guests find the information they are looking for within tour site using the fewest number of clicks possible.
Providing direct access would mean creating a highly efficient content hierarchy to help users get to the desired page as quickly as possible. According to research, website users prefer menus that give them only 5 to 7 links to navigate from.
5. Provide Visual Confirmation
Whether it maybe through links, titles or headings or even the ever-popular breadcrumb trail, website designers should be able to visually tell where they are within the web site. Sort of like the "You Are Here" sign we see in malls or shopping centers, UCD aims to provide users a visual frame to identify their location.
6. Take Connection Speed Into Consideration
Let's face it, not everyone has warp speed internet connection. As web designers, we should always take this into consideration. As we all know, website guests and users get turned off by having to wait ages for a page with very heavy graphics or animation to load.
Keep it light and non-techie friendly, after all the website was designed with their best interests at heart.
Significant SEO Mistakes Often Committed
Stuffing of keywords - refers to the calculated position of keywords in a certain page to increase the keyword count, variation and density. This gives that benefit that makes a page seem relevant for a web crawler, making it more possible to be found. Previous indexing program versions just count the number of times the keyword appeared and that is also used to determine the level of relevance. Modern search engines now have the ability to evaluate a certain page with keyword stuffing and check whether its frequency is consistent with other sites created for the same purpose.
Invisible and Hidden dissimilar texts - this can be done by making some keywords or phrases the same as background color and through the use of tiny font size. But some hidden texts are not always considered as spamdexing for it is sometime utilized to increase accessibility.
Meta tag stuffing - refers to repetitive keywords in the Meta tag and the use of meta keywords which is not related to the content of the site.
Doorway pages or Gateways - is the creation of low quality pages containing little content but with stuffed similar keywords or phrases are called gateways or doorway pages. These are made to place highly on search results but really can’t give users any information.
Scraper sites - also refers to sites created using many programs made to rub off search engine results and create substance for a site. The site’s content may be unique but they are just a mixture of contents from other sources that are taken without permission. These sites usually have a lot of advertising or redirects to some other sites, sometimes it also outrank the original site.
Link farming- refers to the creation of closely-knit community of pages linking to each other. This is also wryly termed as mutual admiration societies.
Invisible Link - involves placing links in uncommon places so visitors will not notice them just to increase popularity.
The Sybil attack - is the forming of several identities to be used for malicious intent. Spammers could create sites linked to one another like spam blogs or fake blogs. The name actually came from a patient with multiple personality disorder.
Spam blogs – are fake blogs especially made for spamming.
Hijacking of Pages - one can achieve this by making a copy of a famous website, it can show similar content to a web crawler but will redirect users to unrelated sites.
Expired domains purchase – link spammers would monitor soon to expire pages, buy them when they expire and link these to their pages.
Cookie stuffing – this is done through placement of an associate tracking cookie on a visiting user’s computer without their knowing. This will then produce revenue for the person who’s stuffing cookies. It also has the potential to overwrite affiliate cookies and steal legitimacy over earned commission.
These are techniques that entail alteration of the certain search engine’s logical view over page contents.
Invisible and Hidden dissimilar texts - this can be done by making some keywords or phrases the same as background color and through the use of tiny font size. But some hidden texts are not always considered as spamdexing for it is sometime utilized to increase accessibility.
Meta tag stuffing - refers to repetitive keywords in the Meta tag and the use of meta keywords which is not related to the content of the site.
Doorway pages or Gateways - is the creation of low quality pages containing little content but with stuffed similar keywords or phrases are called gateways or doorway pages. These are made to place highly on search results but really can’t give users any information.
Scraper sites - also refers to sites created using many programs made to rub off search engine results and create substance for a site. The site’s content may be unique but they are just a mixture of contents from other sources that are taken without permission. These sites usually have a lot of advertising or redirects to some other sites, sometimes it also outrank the original site.
Link farming- refers to the creation of closely-knit community of pages linking to each other. This is also wryly termed as mutual admiration societies.
Invisible Link - involves placing links in uncommon places so visitors will not notice them just to increase popularity.
The Sybil attack - is the forming of several identities to be used for malicious intent. Spammers could create sites linked to one another like spam blogs or fake blogs. The name actually came from a patient with multiple personality disorder.
Spam blogs – are fake blogs especially made for spamming.
Hijacking of Pages - one can achieve this by making a copy of a famous website, it can show similar content to a web crawler but will redirect users to unrelated sites.
Expired domains purchase – link spammers would monitor soon to expire pages, buy them when they expire and link these to their pages.
Cookie stuffing – this is done through placement of an associate tracking cookie on a visiting user’s computer without their knowing. This will then produce revenue for the person who’s stuffing cookies. It also has the potential to overwrite affiliate cookies and steal legitimacy over earned commission.
These are techniques that entail alteration of the certain search engine’s logical view over page contents.
Search Engine Optimization: an Introduction
SEO or search engine optimization is actually the method of organizing and editing of the webpage content or across a certain website to enhance its probable relevance to certain keywords on certain search engines and significantly assuring that external links of the site which are correctly titled and are in abundance. This aims to achieve a better organic search lists to increase the volume of traffic targeted from the search engines.
Search engine optimization could be considered as one of the key web marketing activity. One can target a variety of searches, even image searches, industry-specific vertical search and even local searches.
SEO deem it necessary how search engines operates and what people usually search for. Website optimization generally involves content editing and coding of the HTML to increase its bearing certain keywords and to get rid of barriers on the indexing actions of the search engine. There are times that the structure of the site – relationships between its content – must be changed too. And due to this and based from the client’s viewpoint, search engine optimization or SEO is always better when a website is being made than just trying to applying it retroactively.
Another set of techniques is known as the black hat SEO or what is called the Spamdexing. This uses methods like farm linking, and stuffing of keywords that could degrade the relevance of search results along with the search engine user-experience. Search engines usually look for sites that utilize this kind of techniques so that they can get rid of the indices.
Search optimized websites are also referred to as Search engine friendly sites.
Major search engine like Google and Yahoo uses crawlers in finding pages to come up with algorithmic search results. Pages linked from other engines are actually indexed pages that need not to be submitted because that is automatically found. Other search engines such as Yahoo work on a paid submission assistance that will ensure crawling for either a per click search set. These programs typically assure the inclusion in the database; however, it does not guarantee specific positioning in the search result. The paid inclusion program of Yahoo has gained a lot of criticisms from competitors and advertisers. Yahoo Directory and Open Directory are two major directories requiring manual submission and personal editing and review. Google on the other side, has Google Webmaster Tools, with this an XML Sitemap feed could be created and then submitted for free to guarantee that all pages are found, more importantly those pares that are not usually discovered through automatically following links.
Search engine crawlers could look into a number of varying factors when “crawling” a specific site. Search engines is really unable index every page. Page distance from the root directory of the specific site could also be considered as a factor as to whether or not pages get to be crawled.
Search engine optimization could be considered as one of the key web marketing activity. One can target a variety of searches, even image searches, industry-specific vertical search and even local searches.
SEO deem it necessary how search engines operates and what people usually search for. Website optimization generally involves content editing and coding of the HTML to increase its bearing certain keywords and to get rid of barriers on the indexing actions of the search engine. There are times that the structure of the site – relationships between its content – must be changed too. And due to this and based from the client’s viewpoint, search engine optimization or SEO is always better when a website is being made than just trying to applying it retroactively.
Another set of techniques is known as the black hat SEO or what is called the Spamdexing. This uses methods like farm linking, and stuffing of keywords that could degrade the relevance of search results along with the search engine user-experience. Search engines usually look for sites that utilize this kind of techniques so that they can get rid of the indices.
Search optimized websites are also referred to as Search engine friendly sites.
Major search engine like Google and Yahoo uses crawlers in finding pages to come up with algorithmic search results. Pages linked from other engines are actually indexed pages that need not to be submitted because that is automatically found. Other search engines such as Yahoo work on a paid submission assistance that will ensure crawling for either a per click search set. These programs typically assure the inclusion in the database; however, it does not guarantee specific positioning in the search result. The paid inclusion program of Yahoo has gained a lot of criticisms from competitors and advertisers. Yahoo Directory and Open Directory are two major directories requiring manual submission and personal editing and review. Google on the other side, has Google Webmaster Tools, with this an XML Sitemap feed could be created and then submitted for free to guarantee that all pages are found, more importantly those pares that are not usually discovered through automatically following links.
Search engine crawlers could look into a number of varying factors when “crawling” a specific site. Search engines is really unable index every page. Page distance from the root directory of the specific site could also be considered as a factor as to whether or not pages get to be crawled.
Understanding User Interface Design and its Uses
What are user interface designs or engineering is the designs of technical devices such as computers, mobile devices and websites focusing on user interaction and experience.
Conventional graphic designs usually try to make applications physically striking, but user interface goals are to make it more simple and efficient for user interaction – this is also termed user-centered design. And while good graphic or industrial designs are usually bold and noticeable, a good user interface design on the other hand is made to facilitate concluding of the present task. One can utilize graphic designs for application of themes and styles to the interface without bargaining its functionality. Design process of these interface should be balanced, it must have its visual features that match the mental model of processes along with the usability from the technical engineering outlook. This is in order for the system to be created with usable and easy to adapt to user needs.
Though there are many phases and processes with user interface design, there is some that the more required features depending on the type of project.
Gathering functional requirements – the list of functionality needed for the system should be assembled to accomplish project goals and users’ potential needs.
User analysis – this involves potential user analysis through discussion with people working with users or simply with potential users. Some questions that should be included here are:
What the user requires from the system?
How does this system fit with the users’ daily activities or workflow?
How savvy the user is technically and what same systems the user already uses?
What kind of interface styles the user likes?
Architecture information – this is the development of the flow process and information systems.
Prototyping – this refers to the improvement of wireframes, which could be in the kind of paper prototype or just simple interactive screens. These could be stripped of everything that look and feel elements and most substance so that it concentrates on the interface.
Usability Checking - prototypes can actually be tested on a user. Sometimes a technique called the talk aloud protocol wherein users could be asked to voice out their thoughts during the experience can be used.
Graphic interface designs – are the definite appearance and feel of the concluding graphical user interface or the GUI. This may be supported by the results developed on the usability testing if this is erratic. This could also be based on communication goals and styles appealing to the users. In less common cases, these graphics could drive prototyping depending on the magnitude of visual forms against function. If it requires several different skins, there could actually be many interface designs for a single control panel, functional element or what is called a widget. This period is usually a cooperative effort of the graphic designer and a user interface designers, and it could also be handled by one who is an expert with the two disciplines.
A good interface designs needs a good consideration of what the users need.
Conventional graphic designs usually try to make applications physically striking, but user interface goals are to make it more simple and efficient for user interaction – this is also termed user-centered design. And while good graphic or industrial designs are usually bold and noticeable, a good user interface design on the other hand is made to facilitate concluding of the present task. One can utilize graphic designs for application of themes and styles to the interface without bargaining its functionality. Design process of these interface should be balanced, it must have its visual features that match the mental model of processes along with the usability from the technical engineering outlook. This is in order for the system to be created with usable and easy to adapt to user needs.
Though there are many phases and processes with user interface design, there is some that the more required features depending on the type of project.
Gathering functional requirements – the list of functionality needed for the system should be assembled to accomplish project goals and users’ potential needs.
User analysis – this involves potential user analysis through discussion with people working with users or simply with potential users. Some questions that should be included here are:
What the user requires from the system?
How does this system fit with the users’ daily activities or workflow?
How savvy the user is technically and what same systems the user already uses?
What kind of interface styles the user likes?
Architecture information – this is the development of the flow process and information systems.
Prototyping – this refers to the improvement of wireframes, which could be in the kind of paper prototype or just simple interactive screens. These could be stripped of everything that look and feel elements and most substance so that it concentrates on the interface.
Usability Checking - prototypes can actually be tested on a user. Sometimes a technique called the talk aloud protocol wherein users could be asked to voice out their thoughts during the experience can be used.
Graphic interface designs – are the definite appearance and feel of the concluding graphical user interface or the GUI. This may be supported by the results developed on the usability testing if this is erratic. This could also be based on communication goals and styles appealing to the users. In less common cases, these graphics could drive prototyping depending on the magnitude of visual forms against function. If it requires several different skins, there could actually be many interface designs for a single control panel, functional element or what is called a widget. This period is usually a cooperative effort of the graphic designer and a user interface designers, and it could also be handled by one who is an expert with the two disciplines.
A good interface designs needs a good consideration of what the users need.
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