Wired Gorilla » Web Resources

FTP Tutorial : Overview

wiredgorilla — Tue, 14 Dec 2004 11:22:37 +0000

FTP is a commonly known and used acronym for the words ‘File Transfer Protocol’. FTP has become an imperative part of the World Wide Web (for both surfers downloading files and webmasters building websites) due to the reality of it being the fastest way to send and receive files from one computer to another over the internet. If you plan on building and maintaining a website of your own, it is important that you have the necessary skills and information to perform basic commands through an FTP client software

What Software Is Required?
There exist hundreds of various FTP clients on the internet (both free and paid versions), and depending on what you require of your FTP client it is important you download the correct one for your needs. Amoung the most popular, easy and versatile FTP clients are WS FTP and Cute FTP, however each of these pieces of software have their own advantages and disadvantages.

WS FTP is one of the most popular FTP clients available, and as such it comes highly recommended from numerous sources. Despite this popularity though, WS FTP is not an entirely free piece of software. Instead of this, WS FTP comes in two formats LE (free version) and Pro (paid). Despite the price difference however, there is not a great deal of difference between the free and paid versions of WS FTP, and if all you require is a simple program to upload and download files than this might be the ideal solution for you.

Cute FTP on the other hand used to be one of the greatest shareware FTP clients on the market, but as with all internet successes it seems they eventually sold out too. Current free versions (no, I am not talking about versions you find on P2P networks) of Cute FTP, although being highly powerful and easy to use, have huge limitations and restrictions placed upon them (i.e. you are only allowed to transfer one file at a time) unless you register at their site.

Read the whole FTP TUTORIAL here

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PHP/MySQL Tutorial

wiredgorilla — Mon, 06 Dec 2004 11:44:58 +0000

By Graeme Merral : Open source has brought a lot more than Linux to the computing world. It has also given us PHP and MySQL. According to Graeme, PHP and MySQL are the world’s best combination for creating data-driven sites. In the first installment of this three-lesson tutorial, our Kiwi guide covers everything you need to know to begin developing database hubs. He gives instructions for installation on both Unix and Windows, and then goes on to show some simple scripts that will insert information into a database and display that data on a Web page.

Lesson 2 covers more PHP/MySQL goodies than you could probably imagine. Graeme starts by showing while loops, then talks about the ever-useful if-else statement. But this information alone means little if you don’t continue and see how PHP can be used with HTML forms. By the time you’ve polished off this lesson, you’ll be able to add, edit, and remove information from your database.

In Lesson 3, Graeme shows some of the secrets that will turn your simple data-driven site into a useful application. As he covers validation, he’ll show how to prevent users from leaving key form fields blank and how to make sure numeric files don’t contain letters. He’ll also teach you how PHP handles includes and functions. Plus you’ll see how these two features, when deployed together, can make the coder’s life much easier. Graeme winds it all up with some tearful parting words and a bit of advice for the aspiring PHP/MySQL coder.

Lesson 1

Installation, basic scripts

Lesson 2

PHP and HTML forms

Lesson 3

Advanced tips

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What is Link Popularity?

wiredgorilla — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 13:08:34 +0000

The theory goes something like this: The search engine Powers That Be have decided that if other sites are linking to your site, it must be a winner; therefore, it deserves a boost in rankings (when all else is equal). If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. People link to good sites, not bad ones.

PageRank Does Not Equal Link Popularity

It’s important to note that Google PageRank is not the same thing as link popularity. PR is actually a subset of link popularity. Whereas PR focuses strictly on the quantity and popularity of links, link popularity adds a “quality factor” into the equation. Unfortunately, many people mistakenly use the terms “link popularity” and “PageRank ” interchangeably, which has served to confuse the issue further.

All major search engines place some emphasis on link popularity in their ranking algorithms. There appear to be 2 main types of links that work best to increase your link popularity: links from other sites that focus on the same keyword phrases your site focuses on, and links from relevant categories in major directories and industry-specific portals. “Free-for-all” (FFA) sites do not constitute quality links, so don’t waste your $24.95 submitting your site to 500 of them. Links from sites that focus on topics that have nothing to do with your site probably won’t help you w?n any link popularity contests, either (although they may temporarily boost your PR).

How Does Link Popularity Work?

Here’s an example of how I believe link popularity works:

Let’s say that Bob’s Pizza Palace Website has a link to Joe’s Men’s Clothing store site. If the link uses the keywords “men’s clothing store” in the anchor text (the clickable part), it may help Joe’s link popularity a little bit for those keywords. However, Joe would benefit a lot more if the same link came from a site that was more related to Joe’s site than a pizza palace. For instance, a more related link might be from a woman’s clothing store, a men’s shoe store or any other type of store that relates to clothing in some way

An even higher-quality link for Joe might be from “Sam’s Clothing Store Directory,” which lists a whole bunch of clothing stores that can be found on the Internet. That is exactly the kind of link that the search engines would want to cred?t toward link popularity. Again, the key is in having that common thread between the sites.

Where Do Reciprocal Links Come In?

The other popular misconception floating around is in regards to reciprocal linking. Since so many people think that exchanging links with sites is the easiest way to get them (it may or may not be), new people learning about link popularity are under the mistaken belief that they *must* have links that are reciprocated on their site (e.g., “you-link-to-me-and-I’ll-link-to-you”-type links). Still others are saying that reciprocal links are dead and you won’t gain *any* benefit from them.

Both camps are wrong. You certainly don’t *need* to get reciprocal links, but you can if you want to. Remember, it’s links pointing To your site that are the helpful ones. Links pointing From your site to other sites are wonderful to have because they help your visitors find related stuff, but if your site doesn’t lend itself to linking to other sites, then by all means, don’t do it. You need to do what’s right for your company and your site visitors, first and foremost.

Should I Care About Link Popularity?

In general, there’s no need for the average site to obsess over link popularity. Yes, you’ll want to keep it in mind, and yes you should make sure that your site is what I like to call “link-worthy.” However, from my experience (and contrary to popular belief), link popularity constitutes only a portion of most search engines’ ranking algorithms. Arguably, Google places more emphasis than most other engines on incoming links at this point in time. How much these actually boost a site’s ranking is debatable and truly depends on the site. It also depends on the words that are placed in the anchor text. I have found that just a few highly relevant links with strong anchor text can go a long way towards link popularity for many sites.

For sites that want to take it to the next level and are trying to rank highly with extremely competitive keywords, it may be necessary to actively seek out links from other relevant Websites. This doesn’t mean you should go out and create a whole bunch of domains yourself and link them all together because it sounds easier than getting others to link to you. (Yes, that trick has been tried before!) It simply means you should look for sites that are related to your site in some way, and see if they might be interested in promoting your site to their users.

Whatever you do, do not send automatically generated link requests to any site. Most Webmasters consider them a nuisance at best and sp@m at worst. Certainly, a personal email may be welcome, and it also doesn’t hurt to pick up the phon? and begin a dialogue with a potential link partner. Remember, very often these links from relevant sites will bring more traff?c to your site than a high search engine ranking will bring.

How To Get Linked Without Even Trying

My favorite way to get links (but the most time-consuming) is to simply have the best site on the Internet in your specific niche. Interestingly enough, if your site is well written, provides tons of useful information and is constantly updated, you often won’t have to seek out links at all. Other sites will link to yours of their own volition.

Without actively requesting any links (other than a few major directories), hundreds of highly relevant sites have added HighRankings.com to their list of recommended sites related to SEO. Some people link to my home page, others to the main newsletter page, and still others to my forum. Some will link directly to an article or newsletter they’ve enjoyed, and some will ask if they can republish some on their site, while also including a link.

This is the ideal, and not every site is going to have the time or inclination to get to this stage. However, I firmly believe that any kind of site in any type of business can use this method if they are willing to work at it. I know of no other method that can even bring links from direct competitors! Personally, I’d rather spend my time creating a link-worthy site than sending out repetitive reciprocal link exchange requests…but maybe that’s just me!

Your homework for this week is to think about how you can make your site so good that others will be only too willing to link to it — without your even having to ask for it. If you can figure it out and actually spend the time implementing the strategy, eventually you won’t have to worry about link popularity, reciprocal links or PageRank ever again!

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Keyword Density: How Much Is Too Much

wiredgorilla — Tue, 24 Aug 2004 15:10:06 +0000

Copywriting for search engines is one of the more important aspects of the SEO industry. Ensuring your content is relevant and keyword rich is an effective method to “impress” the search engines. By impress, I mean that the majority of search engines value optimized content with keyword-laden text. However, if you have too much keyword density, Google and others can consider this spam, and may penalize your site.

With this in mind, a the question was asked about how much of a keyword density percentage is too much? Taking a quick glance around at the various SEO experts, there is no exact answer. However, by using the advice and knowledge of these industry gurus, I will attempt to clarify the issue a little.

According to an article written by Karon Thackston that appeared on HighRankings.com called The Magical Keyword Density Formula, keyword density is only part of the total SEO package. Karon says, “Copywriting, in my opinion and the opinions of respected search engine optimizers, is 1/3 of the puzzle; but there are other pieces to the puzzle, too.” Because of this, Karon states that there is no magical keyword density formula to determine how much is too much and how much isn’t.

Which brings us back to the WebProWorld discussion. Jade456 posed this request: “I’d like to get some opinions on the best keyword density percentage. I’ve heard some people say to keep it under 10% and other say the higher the better. I’m thinking that it should stay under 10, for fear of being dropped for spamming. Anyone have any thoughts?”

Jade’s request was almost immediately answered by cbp, who said, “I have some pages that (accidentally) have keyword density’s of >50% and still manage to rank high – I have seen all the different advice all over the place. My approach is to make sure that the keyword(s) I am targeting have the highest density on the page, but kept as low as possible (yes 10% preferably) – but most importantly the use of language should be natural. Google is getting smarter.”

cbp’s point illustrates what Karon was trying to say. There is no set standard with which to adhere to when it comes to creating search engine-friendly text. However, Webnauts, offers some information that serves as a caution:

“I learned that the average keywords density should be between 3 – 7 to every 100 words.” The reason Webnauts doesn’t go past this mark is because he knows of other sites that have been banned because they were considered spammers. This indicates that while there is no standard, there is definitely a point where the search engines will consider too many keywords as a spam technique. However, determining what constitutes as spam is where the trick lies.

Spam can occur when your density exceeds what is the necessary amount to gain a respectable ranking. WPW moderator bhartzer explains this thought a little further, “Every keyword phrase is different. One might do well with a 3.2 percent keyword density and another whereas the average density for another keyword phrase is close to about 6 percent. And if you were to use the 6 percent keyword density on your page to try to rank for the 3.2, then you’d be way too high, on the border of spamming.”

With keyword density, there doesn’t appear to be any rules that are set in stone. Most advice surrounding the topic centers on keeping your web text as natural as possible by not stuffing keywords into the text. Karon finishes this thought by saying:

“I focus on natural language. If the copy sounds forced after including keyphrases, I scrap it and start over. Read your copy out loud. If it sounds stupid or redundant to you, it will sound stupid and redundant to your site visitor. Don’t compromise the flow of natural language for the sake of search engines.”

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What is the difference between shared & dedicated hosting?

wiredgorilla — Fri, 23 Jul 2004 05:54:35 +0000

Dedicated web hosting is different from shared web hosting in that your website is the only one on the server, and thus no resources are “shared”.

Dedicated web hosting normally cost a lot more money because instead of putting 50 web sites on one server there will only be your single account.

Dedicated hosting is great for large sites that use a lot of resources or for sites which need full control over every aspect of web hosting.

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