Gawkwire: Web Hosting and Internet News Resource

GeoCities: Fall from Grace

2009-04-27T09:25:00-04:00

(WebHost Blog) In the past two and a half years however, GeoCities has definitely fallen making its closing innevitable. In 2006, GeoCities garnered 18.9 million unique visitors. In March of this year however, only 11.5 million unique visitors.

it is interesting to think that GeoCities was one of the founders to social networks. It offered a place of individuals to create personal pages, it had neighbordhoods (community sections), and like Myspace was a place for younger generations to hang out.

The irony of this situation is only underscored by the fact that GeoCities was inevitable destroyed by social network sites. Even though it was one of the founders of the movement, GeoCities failed to keep up with the times. It would have been quite easy for GeoCities to move towards blog hosting. But it was not meant to be and now GeoCities is no more.

About David Dunlap: Over the past ten years David has been a prolific author of hundreds of blogs, commentaries and reviews found here on WebHostBlog.com , as well as WebHostMagazine.com and other sites around the Internet. David manages the daily operations at both WebHostBlog and Web Host Magazine & Buyer's Guide, and as the head editor, David uses his unique analytical skills to ensure that both sites maintain their integrity and tough, but fair minded, reputations. Prior to his active career analyzing the Web Host industry, David specialized in networking and communications for the U.S. government. David's expertise in traditional marketing and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) has helped boost companies both inside and outside of the Web Host industry.

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/geocities_fall_from_grace.html

Cybergangs, Botnets, and Automation

2009-04-23T12:00:00-04:00

(WebHost Blog) Let’s distance ourselves from the fact that this is criminal activity and the operations are of illegal. 1.9 million computers being controlled by a small group of people. How can this happen? How does a group of people send out and process instructions to some 1.9 million computers? Well the answer to that is easy, automation.

The hackers built an interesting control panel that tells them how many bots they have, the IP addresses, etc. Which comes in handy when they desire to trade zombied computers with other criminal outfits. The hackers also have a command line instruction set where they can tell some or all computers in the net to download trojans and malware. These programs can be thought of upgrades in that they increase the amount of commands a hacker can do with a computer. For instance, the blog identifies two such scripts Seneka and Zch. These to two files can read email addresses, communicate to other computers, execute processes on the computer, inject code into the processes, visit websites, register background services, etc.

Essentially the hackers uploaded a whole new set of services and controls to the computers they hacked and using the above two scripts can make it easier to add more later. Based in the Ukraine, six people are able to control 1.9 million computers around the world. And they do it using automation.

If six hackers can control so many computers from a single server, what can you do for your customers with the help of automation?

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/1787.html

Hackers Grabbed More than 285M Records in 2008

2009-04-20T09:42:00-04:00

(WebHost Magazine) Hackers made off with at least 285 million electronic records in 2008, more than in the four previous years combined, according to a new study that shows identity thieves are getting better at exploiting careless mistakes that leave companies vulnerable to attack.

The number comes from a study of 90 data breaches investigated by Verizon Communications Inc., which is hired to do a post-mortem on most big computer intrusions. ... Go to source

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/hackers_grabbed_more_than_285m_records_in_2008.html

Off Topic: Sleep Mode, the Bane of My Existence

2009-04-17T10:02:00-04:00

(WebHost Blog) I have a highly specialized keyboard and mouse, ie a piece of crap that does everything I don’t want it to do. It’s wireless, and comes with a long list of features that I rarely use… volume controls, Skype buttons, zoom in/out (I REALLY hate those), pic button (what the heck is that for), LCD functions, and et cetera.

But none is more nefarious than the Sleep button. When my keyboard’s batteries run low I must flip the keyboard and add the fresh little bunny cylinders. Upon said flippage, the sleep button hit the desk and lo and behold it actually goes off, on low batteries.

So there I was, Windows moving into sleep mode on me. I hate sleep mode, why would I ever use it? Hibernate is just fine. So here I am keyboard low on batteries, computer in sleep mode, everything dies down. I click on sleep mode again throwing the system into a sleep loop. No way to get out of it, the computer locks up. I have no way of getting out of it.

PANIC STRICKEN I hit reset. Throwing my whole computer into havoc. Upon boot up my user profile has been deleted. Favorites, desktop shortcuts, outlook rules (some 100 rules), email accounts, etc. all lost.

Wonderful. Even with the reshuffling of registry keys I still have about a half day’s worth of work to rebuild everything.

Thanks to my number one pet peeve: Sleep Mode Keys and XP.

About David Dunlap:
Over the past ten years David has been a prolific author of hundreds of blogs, commentaries and reviews found here on WebHostBlog.com , as well as WebHostMagazine.com and other sites around the Internet. David manages the daily operations at both WebHostBlog and Web Host Magazine & Buyer's Guide, and as the head editor, David uses his unique analytical skills to ensure that both sites maintain their integrity and tough, but fair minded, reputations. Prior to his active career analyzing the Web Host industry, David specialized in networking and communications for the U.S. government. David's expertise in traditional marketing and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) has helped boost companies both inside and outside of the Web Host industry.

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/off_topic_sleep_mode_the_bane_of_my_existence.html

Security: The Insider Job

2009-04-15T09:40:00-04:00

(WebHost Blog) Even with the need for greater security many businesses (SMBs and enterprises) still have the same mentality. For the past oh I don’t know off hand, three, five years I suppose, there have been many studies, many reports and all talk about the threat of the inside problem.

The insider doesn’t have to be someone who is disgruntled and wishes to do the company harm. That what I would like to talk about specifically in fact. The Insider job in small business.

We hear a lot about the IT manager who changes passwords such as what happened in San Francisco. To the possible problems of workers getting laid off and in a moment of anger sending confidential email and possible “company secrets.” But again a lot of problems do not come from those who wish harm, but from carelessness. A three digit password instead of something more robust, leaving passwords out, borrowing a company laptop and leaving it somewhere, using unsecured flash drives, etc.

In small businesses especially, management may not want to have a security policy. When there are few employees implementing a security policy might seem like the company views employees with suspicion. And that fear of ruining the team dynamic with more rules and regulations.

But the fact of the matter is security policies protect the employees, management, and the customers. The show that due diligence has been maintained by the staff of a company if a security breach occurs and can lower the amount of money a company or employees gets fined in a court of law. It is free to make and only requires a little bit of time to maintain. A few areas that should be looked at are the disposal of old hard drives, the use of flash drives, phishing emails and how to handle them, tracking of portable devices on the network, password creation, password storage, and backup and recovery policies.

The other thing you need to do is have that policy maintained and used. Every employee should know what areas are relevant to them and if changes occur the policy should be updated to reflect those changes. A policy that is not maintained is just as bad as a policy know one uses, which is just as bad as not having one in the first place.

Whether the company is big or small, a security policy that is written, utilized, and maintained goes a long way to helping with internal threats, and can reduce headaches for everyone in the company.

About David Dunlap: Over the past ten years David has been a prolific author of hundreds of blogs, commentaries and reviews found here on WebHostBlog.com , as well as WebHostMagazine.com and other sites around the Internet. David manages the daily operations at both WebHostBlog and Web Host Magazine & Buyer's Guide, and as the head editor, David uses his unique analytical skills to ensure that both sites maintain their integrity and tough, but fair minded, reputations. Prior to his active career analyzing the Web Host industry, David specialized in networking and communications for the U.S. government. David's expertise in traditional marketing and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) has helped boost companies both inside and outside of the Web Host industry.re 19 comments Yahoo! Buzz

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/security_the_insider_job.html

Twitter wrestles with fourth worm attack

2009-04-14T09:30:00-04:00

(WebHost Magazine) "Late Sunday night and into the wee hours of Monday we fought off a fourth attack," said Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, in an update to a blog post he originally published Sunday. "Once again, we secured the compromised accounts and deleted any material that would further propagate the worm." ... Go to source http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/twitter_wrestles_with_fourth_worm_attack.html

10 Practices for Achieving SEO Success

2009-04-09T09:39:00-04:00

(WebHost Blog) Although there are a variety practices, far more than what I list here, these are the ten that have helped me and, though mileage may vary, I’m fairly confident they will help you.

1.Be Mentally Prepared
2.There are NO Magic Wands
3.Never Stop Searching for Keywords
4.Never Stop Searching for Negative Keywords
5.Never be Satisfied
6.Always Group Like Terms Together
7.Take the Time to Learn the Material
8.Search Your Log Files and Stat Data to Find Keywords
9.Learn the Keywords of your Competitors
10.Prioritize Key Terms by How Well They Help YOUR Site
Normally I explain each of these step by step but I think today I am just going to lump it all together.

SEO is not so difficult an activity that only a few people can manage. The concepts are fairly straight forward. However, you must be mentally prepared, just because they are not difficult does not mean it is not challenging. For instance we all know we need to find key terms that suit our sites, that concept is easy and fairly common sense. But how do you do that? I start with the focus of my site. I then take some time developing how I would want to get my site from a search engine. After that I go through my log files and see how others got to my site. Lastly, I go through my marketing information and look at my competitors and see what search terms they are doing well in. That is a start.

SEO tools are not magic wands. They are all there to pick up a basic function of SEO work and reduce the amount of time you spend on them. For instance, some tedious things are expanding your keywords. Some tools allow you to type in (or import) your keywords and then it will make suggestions. Some are pretty good, others are really horrid. It will take time to train the tools to your site such that they will constantly give you decent suggestions.

If you are running any sort of PPC campaign then you will need negative keywords, you will need to group like terms together, and you will need to learn which key terms work best for your site. Negative key terms allow you to remove those searches that are not relevant to your site and normally only come into play when doing PPC ad campaigns. Their use gives you highly targeted traffic and therefore spending time to come up with two thousand, five thousand, etc, is a good idea. By grouping like key terms together we can use similar PPC ads to target multiple areas.

Always remember that you can never be satisfied in this and your job is never done when it comes to SEO. You might be number one on various search terms today but other sites are also improving their own rankings. Therefore you must continue finding ways to optimize your site.

Lastly, to be a success at SEO you have to be mentally prepared. It takes a lot of time and effort and since you work is never done you will have to be willing to work at it over and over again. Even on those days where it makes you sick to your stomach you still need to plug away at it. Also if a term is doing poorly or you find you are spending a huge amount of time for very small gains, knowing when to quit is another part of mental preparedness.

Good luck in your own SEO endeavors.

http://www.gawkwire.com/seo_sem/10_practices_for_achieving_seo_success.html

Enterprises: Top 5 Reasons not to use Cloud Computing

2009-04-08T10:52:00-04:00

(WebHost Blog) It would seem to be the ultimate answer to solving the enterprise question of stability and reliability. After all in an enterprise environment, any small amount of downtime can cause very big problems.

And on this note I am going to say the top 5 reasons for enterprises to not use cloud computing:

1.No Basic Standard
2.Application Migration Hassle
3.Managing Cloud Application Hassle
4.High Risk
5.Re-Education of the IT Staff
Sadly, there is no base standard for cloud computing. Heck, it would be hard to find a standard definition of cloud computing. Even the Cloud Manifesto that has come out recently doesn’t define cloud computing, merely its function.

Without a base standard for cloud computing, if you moved all of your functions to a provider and then ended up outgrowing that provider, moving to a new cloud host would require your company to re-migrate the applications and essentially start from scratch.

An enterprise cannot directly migrate current applications to cloud applications. It requires customization and time spent on moving valuable data to more cloud friendly applications.

Managing current cloud applications is not difficult. But it does require a change in company protocols (you no longer manage hardware, instead you manage software) and the use of multiple management tools.

Cloud computing is hosted so it requires the use of a firm Service Level Agreement that can guarantee the always on view of cloud computing. However, you would be very hard pressed for anyone to ever consider guaranteeing always on. Another issue is the case for core competencies. Sure Amazon understands managing huge server farms, but are they focused on the success of those endeavors? If their cloud computing side doesn’t make a large profit will it continue to support the technology or focus its efforts back to their main business of being an Internet superstore. Are the cloud computing companies capable of long range sustainability? The list of risk factors goes on.

As stated before, the emphasis in cloud computing is not on hardware, but on software. The IT department has to make the transition from monitoring hardware, being able to shut down systems for security purposes, etc. to being able to monitor software use, working with another company (heaven forbid) when it comes to troubleshooting problems, etc.

Personally, I like cloud computing and I believe every one of the above challenges can be overcome. However, I think companies should take realistic looks at the system before thinking it is right for them. And this goes not only for the optimistic views of cloud computing, but the pessimistic views as well.

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/enterprises_top_5_reasons_not_to_use_cloud_computing.html

Web 2.0: Google's Ambition Beyond The Cloud

2009-04-06T09:47:00-04:00

(WebHost magazine) Google is already part way there, with Gears-enabled offline caching in Gmail, Docs, YouTube, Reader, Picasa, and Calendar. But as Gears and caching in HTML5 converge, Google users can expect a wider range of applications, on computers and mobile devices, that can function without constant Internet connectivity. ... Go to source http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/1689.html

The NoFollow Tag Conspiracy

2009-04-03T00:49:00-04:00

(WebHost Blog) Last year, SEOMoz surveyed SEO professionals and one of those questions mirrored the one above. And the findings were interesting.

50% of respondents stated that no-follow tags help a web site, 40% said no and 10% where undecided. Although this stat doesn’t seem too surprising, the no-follow tag has been one of the most questions SEO techniques.

What is the nofollow tag?

The html for a link is something like the following:

Web Host Magazine!

The nofollow tag looks like this:

Web Host Magazine!

The nofollow tag on the surface means that any search engine spiders who see this URL should not follow it to the page its on. However, this is not the case with most search engines.

                                        Google              Yahoo!             MSN

Follow Link?                       Yes and No        Yes                 Yes

Index the linked page?       No                    Yes                  No

Shows the link exists?         Yes and No        Yes                 Yes

Link adds to the page’s rank? No                 No                   No

The above graph shows the general rules for the nofollow tag. Google has stated that they do not follow the nofollow link but many SEOs have show that they do. Yahoo and MSN follow the links , show that the link exists and Yahoo! will even index pages that can only be found via a nofollow page. However, all three major search engines will not include the nofollow links in their page ranking algorithms. So it is generally agreed upon (at least amongst the top search engines) that nofollow links will not give points to pages.

Seems easy enough, why the debate?
It is more of a ideological debate for the most part. Sites have a form of currency and that currency is the direction of traffic and more importantly search engine ranking to other sites via links. Well if a site is not good enough to get that ranking from the link you are giving them why post the link at all? Some say the nofollow tags when used in linking sites is a dastardly horrible thing to do. Not just for the other sites, but for your readership as well. The use of nofollow shows a lack of trust between yourself and the other site and if you do not trust them why should your audience?

Those in favor of nofollows for external sites call this downright nonsensical. Maybe the site is good, but you would rather push ranking to others. Personally I am not going to argue either viewpoint. Either you think its fine or you don’t, that is up to you to decide. What I am more interested in is….

Are there any good uses for nofollow?
I’m glad you asked because there is one extremely good use for nofollow. Links within a site also pass ranking. This internal ranking moves from page to page and helps to tell Google which pages are important and which aren’t. Those that are important (via the link system) receive higher Page Rank then the lower to non-important ones. In order to maximize the Page Rank on your important pages you need to use the nofollow tag.

“Use nofollow tags to reinforce important pages on
your site to the search engines.”

Say you have a page than links to five other pages. One of those pages is important, one is not important but you want it indexed and the other three are completely unimportant. Add nofollow to the unimportant ones. Now you have ranking going to just two pages concentrating the the rank juice as it were. Since you still want the one page indexed then you would look at other pages that point to it. You see that it has one other link so you make the first link nofollow and leave the second link as it. The unimportant page only receives one link for scoring, but that link allows it to be indexed by all search engines.

Heck its possible to sculpt your site by having a site map with normal tags linked to all of your nonimportant, but want to be indexed pages. Have on normal link to that site map then set all other links tht nonimportant pages to nofollow.

So nofollow may or may not be bad for external links, but it is definitely good for internal ones.

About David Dunlap
Over the past ten years David has been a prolific author of hundreds of blogs, commentaries and reviews found here on WebHostBlog.com , as well as WebHostMagazine.com and other sites around the Internet. David manages the daily operations at both WebHostBlog and Web Host Magazine & Buyer's Guide, and as the head editor, David uses his unique analytical skills to ensure that both sites maintain their integrity and tough, but fair minded, reputations. Prior to his active career analyzing the Web Host industry, David specialized in networking and communications for the U.S. government. David's expertise in traditional marketing and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) has helped boost companies both inside and outside of the Web Host industry.

http://www.gawkwire.com/seo_sem/the_nofollow_tag_conspiracy.html

Web 2.0 Expo: Five Companies To Watch

2009-04-03T09:38:00-04:00

(WebHost Magazine) Web 2.0 Expo, which is co-produced by O'Reilly Media and TechWeb, is a perfect venue to expose really cool technologies and innovative applications of mashups and other Web 2.0-type stuff. Past presenters at Launch Pad included Zimbra, CleverSet, TripIt, ClickForensics, JobScore, Chirp Interactive, Triggit, Sharpcast, Omnidrive, and Flock.

This year's panel received more than eighty submissions to the Launch Pad competition. Not bad considering the current economic meltdown and increased pressures to do more with less. But, hey...that's what Web 2.0 is all about. ... Go to source

http://www.gawkwire.com/events_html/web_2_0_expo_five_companies_to_watch.html

Recommending a Web Host

2009-04-02T09:51:00-04:00

(WebHostBlog) Why is it so difficult? You would think heck this Web host is quite good for everyone else why are they not good for me? I have introduced many people to places like Superb Hosting, FutureQuest, WiredTree, Server Intellect and others and normally I am greeted with a big thank you in my email.

But, Web hosting is a service industry and not just a service industry, it is a service industry that is based on a TON of moving parts and caters to EVERYONE in the world.

This isn’t like finding a mechanic, its like find a mechanic who can only use certain parts and needs to fix every car ever made and not only that but must insure that car stays working every second of everyday cause heaven forbid the Ford Model A falls apart after driving for sixteen months straight!

Every component in Web Hosting was built to fail. Let’s face it hard drives, motherboards, servers, cooling systems, were built to not last so the companies who make them can keep selling them. Software was built to become obsolete and most software, when it is updated is not compatible with everything.

Power problems, natural disasters, sudden server death syndrome, you name it, not any of these will keep the Web site running on its appointed rounds. And then, we want the customer support to be happy, supportive, upbeat, even when we heap criticisms, yelling, and plenty of foul language there way.

And we want all of this for $4.95 a month

Now, don’t get me wrong, there is a certain standard Web Hosts should live up to, but Web Hosts are magicians, they can’t be everything to everyone and they certainly aren’t perfect.

So think about that and praise and chastise those who deserve it and perhaps give a break or two to those who have earned it.

Writer's Bio: Over the past ten years David has been a prolific author of hundreds of blogs, commentaries and reviews found here on WebHostBlog.com , as well as WebHostMagazine.com and other sites around the Internet. David manages the daily operations at both WebHostBlog and Web Host Magazine & Buyer's Guide, and as the head editor, David uses his unique analytical skills to ensure that both sites maintain their integrity and tough, but fair minded, reputations. Prior to his active career analyzing the Web Host industry, David specialized in networking and communications for the U.S. government. David's expertise in traditional marketing and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) has helped boost companies both inside and outside of the Web Host industry.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/1670.html