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Web Development

The latest Spam Attack on your Blog.

June 17th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in Communication, News, Spam

Spam attack on your blog?

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It was only last week that we saw one of the largest spam attacks ever to be launched from a single IP address.  If you have recieved an email from Katty Blackyard resolving at a very interesting email client: katty@ds4ns1ns2.cn be aware, because you have jsut been spammed. Our advice is do not open it and just delete it. The IP address that this user is using is: 89.28.14.35 and it comes from Moldova, part of former Russian empire (long time ago!). The message appears in various forms, only last week it came to our email boxes as:

Hi, very nice post. I have been wonder’n bout
this issue,so thanks for posting

This week, it might have been:

Hi, interest post. I’ll write you later about
few questions!

Along with this name there are few more associated with this IP address, some of them being  JaneRadriges, KoLoBoToNoK, BritneyLohhans, AndrewBoldman, Kelly Brown, FinalosFalosus, HrymonHyrnos, SaaiskeftRet, PiaasikHuisaka, JanHusyanB, HertyPolske, NilsVartkols, UngartBaslow, HenryFertront, ChuchBerwons, KrisBelews, HilsonBendt, CreditCardsOffers, PivoLiub and (latest one) Dmitri Gromov. Let me know if you find any more and I will post them here on this blog for you.

The domain that is listed in the email as “ds4ns1ns2.cn” does not actually belong to the IP address listed, it has been faked. Nearly all spam resolve from addresses that are either made up completely or else stolen from strangers. You can read about this here on the SpamCop Wiki.

Unfortunately, this is spamming current blogs all over the world. If you recieve a comment from any of the above named or even something that looks strange then DO NOT approve it just spam the thing and delete it from your system otherwise you might leave yourself open to more spamming attacks on your blog.

What to do about it: There are however some basic principles you can follow to reduce the amount of spam you recieve on the internet and also help cut down the amount of spam being transmitted via the internet. When you recieve a message for a petition with ‘millions/thousands’ that have signed it, or please help us to ‘free somebody/find somebody etc’, in 99.9% of cases it is a spam email message. A message written by somebody is maybe being paid to increase the amount of traffic to a certain website or simply to increase the amount of traffic on the internet. A message that ‘you need to forward to 10 of your friends or else…’ I mean come on, do you really think that a computer will send you a misfortune? All those are spam messages that are malicious and threaten the internet transmission rates. A simple step that anybody can do is not to respond to those kind of messages and not to forward emails to hundreds of their friends.

What if the email is genuine, you ask? If you think that it is genuine, you can always check. Go to Google, Yahoo, AOL, whatever you use to surf the net and search for the description outlined in your email. Or a message that you “need to forward” to hundreds of your friends. If it is a spam, the search engine will find a blog that will define it as a spam and then you can deal with it appropriately.

If you do have any issues, contact your websmater, ISP provider or perform a search on the various forums.

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My rating: 5.0 stars
*****

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Charities in Manchester

June 15th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in Charities, News

Increased needs of Charities in Manchester.

SpikeyByte has currently seen an unbelievable rise in the requests from Charities in Manchester in need of a FREE Web Development / Design. We work very closely with our local Charities including ones in Manchester. The only thing we found that non-profit organisations shared in common was the issue of finding much needed funding and Manchester is not great for Charities finding funding.

Solely surviving off donations and continious applications for funding can be hard for charities to invest in a Professional Web Development Design. Here at SpikeyByte we want to help charities such as ones in Manchester. We offer all non-profit organisations and charities the opportunity for a FREE Professional Web Development Design with your Professional Hosting needs fully provided for. Your charity web development will be full of features which will provide more exposure to your non-profit organisation sector or choice of location such as Manchester.

If you are a Charity in need of Web Development asistance then please register and we will gladly get back to you.

Click for a large List of Manchester Charities

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Facebook Username has come!

June 10th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in News, Online Marketing

Facebook Username

Facebook is finally coming in line with such online services as Utterli, Twitter and Identi.ca because Facebook anounced yesterday that will be launching a new service for users of Facebook.

Commonly, every user has had to register their own name to use facebook so people can find them. You end up with a URL looking something like this:

www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=112233445

Now because of this new fantastic service that is going to be offered you can now have a URL looking like this:

www.facebook.com/shaun.ellerton

This is great news as now you will be able to tell your friends how to find your easily. This allows you to market this on search engines like Google. Something like this will show:

Shaun.Ellerton | Facebook

Shaun Ellerton is on Facebook. Facebook gives people the power to share
and make the world more open and connected. Millions of people use
Facebook…
www.facebook.com/people/shaun.ellerton/123456789 – 4 hours ago -
Similar pages

Take a look at the Facebook Blog and see the full article posted by Blaise Dipersia and embrace the great news. So if you visit www.facebook.com/username/ and log in this will give you a timer as to when this will be going live. This username platform will going live on Saturday 13th June 2009 at 05:01 am GMT.

You must however think very carefully about the username you select because as far as I aware you will not be able to change it or transfer it.

If you have any further questions then please visit the FAQ pages at Facebook to read more.

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My rating: 5.0 stars
*****

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Need more ‘ Intelligent Online Marketing ‘ solutions?

June 9th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in News, Online Marketing, Web Development

….

Intelligent Online Marketing Solutions are key in this ever changing, rapidly declining economy we see ourselves within. We hear many seo companies speaking out loud about how our current economic decline is effecting our communities and businesses alike, yet we do not consider other option that is; finding a solution that can help organisations increase their current awareness. Consider using an SEO Company.

The business world is rapidly evolving as more businesses challenge the market. Competition is tougher and business owners have to be more pro-active to keep ahead of their competitors. In today’s fast paced environment, every serious business demands a web presence. Not only will your business project a professional image, you will expand your business reach far beyond expectations and increase your sales as a result.

With our current economic climate with organisations closing down at the turn of every corner, companies need to be pro-active and concentrate on marketing their products or services more. This is a great way to defeat this crisis on our hands. Whether this be online or offline or both, their is a constant need for Intelligent Online Marketing solutions for every organisation, business or company.
One of the best ways to move your business forward and increase your revenue is by developing your online presence through an SEO Company. Whether it be a customised and functional Web Development, Professional Hosting package or Search Engine Optimization ( SEO ). This does not have to be as expensive as you think. The World Wide Web ( www ) is there to assist in providing you with more return on your investment than almost any other form of advertising and promotion.
SpikeyByte offers you access to academic experts specialising in the development, management and delivery of unique online solutions. SpikeyByte is not just about knowing how to use software packages but about being an artist and providing our customers with consistency, progression and sustainability across their markets.

We pride ourselves on our commitment to achieve very high standards within the industry. Creating partnerships within industries helps us achieve the best results for your business / company. As your company / business grows and progresses your web presence will grow with you.

Consider intelligent online marketing solutions if you have not done so already and get in touch with an SEO Company like SpikeyByte :: The Key Ingredient to your online solutions and marketing. We provide Web Development, Professional Hosting, Search Engine Optimization, LoGo Design, Presentation Design and Relational Database Development. We have the skills to make a positive impact across many departments within your organisation / company. Providing you with a Web Development Company in Burnley that makes a difference.

Contact us for friendly advice.

Shaun Ellerton

Director of Business Development.

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Regular and Seasonal Promotions

June 5th, 2009 | 1 Comment | Posted in Online Marketing

To create interest in your site and brand or build personal relationships, regular promotions can really help. People like getting a break, or even better, free stuff.

Depending upon what you’re promoting and to whom, the type of promotions you want to run will vary.

Here are some examples:

DJ Web Site

CD giveaways, trivia contests with prizes, show ticket giveaways, yearly concert promotion event.

Heart Disease Information Web site

Health-related book giveaways, monthly promotions for “heart health”, healthy cooking recipe contests, exercise equiptment promotions, discount vouchers for healthy heart testing.

Dating Web site

Romantic getaway contests, seasonal promotions for Valentine’s day, grand prizes for successful matches who meet and marry.

Weather Web site

Weather trivia polls, seasonal promotions, such as “Sensational Spring” or “Sizzling Summer” promotions with contests and prizes such as weather trivia and vacation getaways.

The key is to match your promotions to your audience and product or service. This is one part of promotions we really happen to like, because it can be great fun and extremely creative to sit down with friends or team members and come up with great ideas. Even if you’re limited in budget, there’s usually some way to provide innovative, interactive contests and promotions that engage your clients.

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Opt-In Email Newsletters to Drive Traffic

June 4th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in Communication, Online Marketing

Despite the scourge of spam and viruses that have hit email users in the past years, email still remains the killer application. Email newletters are undeniably powerful tools to build audience and encourage real relationships between you and your site visitors and customers.

The key to avoiding spam tactics in email advertising is to make all email newsletters optional. You will have people opt in mostly via your Web site, which means they have to get to your Web site in the first place. Once visitors do opt in, you can begin building a personal mailing list, which in turn encourages return visits to your site.

Some of the important factors to consider when initiating opt-in email newsletters are as follows:

  • What are the specific results you want from the email? (Sales? More eyes on your site?)
  • Do you want to offer HTML email? Many email experts say that HTML email is the only way to go, but HTML email may be problematic or undesirable for certain audiences
  • What kind of content are you going to offer (such articles, reviews of products, tips and tricks, interviews, and polls)?
  • How long will your newsletter be? Most email experts say that keeping content short and to the point wins the day
  • How often will you send the newsletter out to subcribers?

Experts do suggest that you spend time creating a plan to start email newsletters, and also build in a way to assess how effective your plan is working. This way, you can adjust to the needs of your audience as time goes on.

SpikeyByte will soon be having an opt-in newletter on our site, and we are aiming at several thousand people on that list. One of the things we would like to do regular is to focus special promotions and giveaways to those readers as a means of rewarding their ongoing loyalty and interest in our work.

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Keywords in your Content

June 3rd, 2009 | 1 Comment | Posted in Online Marketing

After looking at the headings, many search engines will begin grabbing your text for desciptions. For sites that are not built structurally and use tables for content, your really playing Russian Roulette trying to assume which content the engine will grab.

However, if you are following well-structured markup practices, the first place most engines will look after headings is text formatted as being a paragraph. So, when you are preparing your content for the Web, be sure that there are plenty of Keywords worked into your content, again following a balanced approach where you are enhancing the keyword count but not diminishing the contents importance.

Naturally, all the keywords used within your content should be included in your keyword meta element too.

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Google and the Semantic Web

June 3rd, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in News, Online Marketing

Google with Microformats and RDFa

The Semantic Web has been around for years and Google has seemed to not accept semantic data from the web. But this is all changing and is currently effecting rankings and ratings. On May 12th, 2009 Google announced an important move within its search engine technology algorithms.

Google will now be accepting Rich Snippets and these are a great way to markup Microformats and RDFa within a Web Design page. Rich Snippets can be used for a number of things like marking up People, Businesses, Organisations, Reviews and even Products. Google will then use this information within its results pages to clearly give the visitor more data about what current pages contain.

There are many people who are involved within the research, development and further progressive acceptance of Microformats and RDFa. The Semantic Web is not a new language, but a way of complimenting and enriching what we already have in place, such as XHTML, XML and HTML.

Michael Hausenblas who is a key developer of RDFa said “Lets call it Semantic SEO“, and I could not agree with him more. SEO is evolving into a more complex, intelligent, human first technology. It’s not all about machines and being able to get the machines to read the info. Its about knowing how people search, what these people need and want to see within those pages. I feel by Google accepting this Snippet data this will change the face of search engines to come.

The main reason people use search engines is to drive more visitors to their Web site. Snippet data placed within the results pages of Google will allow the visitor to see a little content and a rating system before they click the link. By adding these Microformats and RDFa elements to your pages you not only provide structured data to be included within the search engines such as Google, but also provide the data for other products and services that support this data format. Refer to my What is SEO++ article for some links to search engines currently indexing this data format.

This will surely decrease your bounce rate as visitors can potentially see what your page is about before they click the resulting link. This therefore increases potential valid customers and increases your potential of sales and profit margins for your Online Marketing Campaigns.

Usually, by concentrating on regular back-linking, and meta tags you provided search engines with means of understanding your data on your pages. I feel now, this will only become less relevant as time goes on. Search Engines will be gaining more understanding from these Rich Snippets so in time meta data could eventually fade out altogether making way for the Semantic SEO .

It does not matter whether we call it SEO, SEO++, Semantic SEO, SEO 3.0 or even Web 3.0 Technology. It is all based around Search Engine Optimization and it all means the same things. By using this it adds meaning and understanding that makes your results more effective to your required search query within the search engines.

I say this is a great move and I welcome it with open arms.

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Target Words in Headers

June 3rd, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in Online Marketing

Not too long ago, many major search engines began looking at content either right away, or after grabbing a meta description (should one exist). H1 level headers get alot of attention from many engines, because from a structural standpoint they are meant to describe the most important topic on the page.

Once again, in the frenzy to increase ranking, suddenly pages were appearing with multiple H1 headers packed with keywords. This practise is not only considered bad form and just plain rude, but it doesn’t sit too well with those search engines using it as a legitimate means of addressing descriptions.
But the correct use of H1 elements can still help. That means one H1 element per page, tops. Add your keywords in an appropriate and clear manner, and you’re helping everyone, not just the sites potential rank.

Bad example:
<h1>Welcome!</h1>

Good example:
<h1>Welcome to SpikeyByte :: The Key Ingredient, for all your professional online services</h1>

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Restrict your Frames in Web Development

June 2nd, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in Web Development

FramesJust as with tables, restricting use of frames makes for a more manageable, accessible, and usable Web Development.

Frames can serve a few important purposes. They are excellent if you’re creating some kind of web-based application where static content is desirable. IFrames are popular for managing advertising, and frames can be written to be completely valid. But they are known to have all kinds of problems associated with them, such as the following:

  • The focus of frames is layout, which goes against HTML as a structual language
  • Because of their presentational nature, frames are limited to Web browsers and are not supported at this time by those user agents on mobile devices, limiting your site’s portability and interoperability.
  • Frames require multiple documents to create a single visual output. This means more documents to manage and store
  • Frames are difficult or downright impossble to manage by screen readers and other assistive devices used by those with physical impairments
  • If a user agent doesn’t support frames, there is no way to degrade the documents; the agent simply can’t display the results unless you provide script-based workarounds, meaning extra work for you and all kinds of support problems for your users.

Deciding to use frames for any reason should be a dicision that comes about after researching other alternatives for achieving the same goals.

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