It is the search engines that finally bring your website to the notice of the prospective customers. Hence it is better to know how these search engines actually work and how they present information to the customer initiating a search.
There are basically two types of search engines. The first is by robots called crawlers or spiders.
Search Engines use spiders to index websites. When you submit your website pages to a search engine by completing their required submission page, the search engine spider will index your entire site. A ‘spider’ is an automated program that is run by the search engine system. Spider visits a web site, read the content on the actual site, the site's Meta tags and also follow the links that the site connects. The spider then returns all that information back to a central depository, where the data is indexed. It will visit each link you have on your website and index those sites as well. Some spiders will only index a certain number of pages on your site, so don’t create a site with 500 pages!
The spider will periodically return to the sites to check for any information that has changed. The frequency with which this happens is determined by the moderators of the search engine.
A spider is almost like a book where it contains the table of contents, the actual content and the links and references for all the websites it finds during its search, and it may index up to a million pages a day.
Example: Excite, Lycos, AltaVista and Google.
When you ask a search engine to locate information, it is actually searching through the index which it has created and not actually searching the Web. Different search engines produce different rankings because not every search engine uses the same algorithm to search through the indices.
One of the things that a search engine algorithm scans for is the frequency and location of keywords on a web page, but it can also detect artificial keyword stuffing or spamdexing. Then the algorithms analyze the way that pages link to other pages in the Web. By checking how pages link to each other, an engine can both determine what a page is about, if the keywords of the linked pages are similar to the keywords on the original page.
Keyword density is an indicator of the number of times the selected keyword appears in the web page. But mind you, keywords shouldn’t be over used, but should be just sufficient enough to appear at important places.
If you repeat your keywords with every other word on every line, then your site will probably be rejected as an artificial site or spam site.
Keyword density is always expressed as a percentage of the total word content on a given web page.
Suppose you have 100 words on your webpage (not including HMTL code used for writing the web page), and you use a certain keyword for five times in the content. The keyword density on that page is got by simply dividing the total number of keywords, by the total number of words that appear on your web page. So here it is 5 divided by 100 = .05. Because keyword density is a percentage of the total word count on the page, multiply the above by 100, that is 0.05 x 100 = 5%
The accepted standard for a keyword density is between 3% and 5%, to get recognized by the search engines and you should never exceed it.
Remember, that this rule applies to every page on your site. It also applies to not just to one keyword but also a set of keywords that relates to a different product or service. The keyword density should always be between 3% and 5%.
Simple steps to check the density:
Copy and paste the content from an individual web page into a word-processing software program like Word or Word Perfect.
Go to the ‘Edit’ menu and click ‘Select All’. Now go to the ‘Tools’ menu and select ‘Word Count’. Write down the total number of words in the page.
Now select the ‘Find’ function on the ‘Edit’ menu. Go to the ‘Replace’ tab and type in the keyword you want to find. ‘Replace’ that word with the same word, so you don’t change the text.
When you complete the replace function, the system will provide a count of the words you replaced. That gives the number of times you have used the keyword in that page.
Using the total word count for the page and the total number of keywords you can now calculate the keyword density.
Today, more and more people are using their computers for everything from communication to online banking and investing to shopping. As we do these things on a more regular basis, we open ourselves up to potential hackers, attackers and crackers. While some may be looking to phish your personal information and identity for resale, others simply just want to use your computer as a platform from which to attack other unknowing targets. Below are a few easy, cost-effective steps you can take to make your computer more secure.
Always make backups of important information and store in a safe place separate from your computer.
Update and patch your operating system, web browser and software frequently.If you have a Windows operating system, start by going to www.windowsupdate.microsoft.com and running the update wizard.This program will help you find the latest patches for your Windows computer.Also go to www.officeupdate.microsoft.com to locate possible patches for your Office programs.
Install a firewall.Without a good firewall, viruses, worms, Trojans, malware and adware can all easily access your computer from the Internet.Consideration should be given to the benefits and differences between hardware and software based firewall programs.
Review your browser and email settings for optimum security.Why should you do this?Active-X and JavaScript are often used by hackers to plant malicious programs into your computers.While cookies are relatively harmless in terms of security concerns, they do still track your movements on the Internet to build a profile of you.At a minimum set your security setting for the “internet zone” to High, and your “trusted sites zone” to Medium Low.
Install antivirus software and set for automatic updates so that you receive the most current versions.
Do not open unknown email attachments.It is simply not enough that you may recognize the address from which it originates because many viruses can spread from a familiar address.
Do not run programs from unknown origins.Also, do not send these types of programs to friends and coworkers because they contain funny or amusing stories or jokes.They may contain a Trojans horse waiting to infect a computer.
Disable hidden filename extensions.By default, the Windows operating system is set to “hide file extensions for known file types”.Disable this option so that file extensions display in Windows.Some file extensions will, by default, continue to remain hidden, but you are more likely to see any unusual file extensions that do not belong.
Turn off your computer and disconnect from the network when not using the computer.A hacker can not attack your computer when you are disconnected from the network or the computer is off.
Consider making a boot disk on a floppy disk in case your computer is damaged or compromised by a malicious program.Obviously, you need to take this step before you experience a hostile breach of your system.
Protecting your computer from a virus is getting harder and harder each day.While it may border on the paranoid, it goes without saying that you can’t leave your guard down for one second.Even corporate giant Microsoft has found its own systems compromised on more than one occasion.
Remember the “good old days”, before the advent of the Internet and downloadable programs?Life was simple then in terms of computer viruses.With the primary way in which a virus could be transmitted being limited to floppy disks, the ability to catch and eradicate the virus was a lot easier.By today’s standards, it used to take quite a while before a virus was able to infect a computer and slow down the system.The antivirus software of that time was typically able to identify and eradicate viruses before they caused too much damage.Additionally, computer users were pretty savvy on how to protect themselves in terms of scanning all floppy disks before copying them to our desktop.
The Internet helped change all that.The Internet provided a conduit by which viruses could move from host to host with lightening speed.No longer could a computer user just worry about floppy disks as points of entry, but they now had to worry about email, email attachments, peer-to-peer file sharing, instant messaging, and software downloads.Today’s viruses can attack through multiple entry points, spread without human intervention, and take full advantage of vulnerabilities within a system or program.With technology advancing everyday, and the convergence of computers with other mobile devices, the potential of new types of threats also increase.
Protecting Your Computer
Luckily, the advancement of antivirus software has kept pace with current virus threats.Antivirus software is essential to a computer’s ability to fend off viruses and other malicious programs.These products are designed to protect against the ability of a virus to enter a computer through email, web browsers, file servers and desktops.Additionally, these programs offer a centralized control feature that handle deployment, configuration and updating.
A computer user should remain diligent and follow a few simple steps to protect against the threat of a virus:
1.Evaluate your current computer security system.
With the threat of a new generation of viruses able to attack in a multitude of ways, the approach of having just one antivirus software version has become outdated.You need to be confident that you have protected all aspects of your computer system from the desktop to the network, and from the gateway to the server.Consider a more comprehensive security system which includes several features including antivirus, firewall, content filtering, and intrusion detection.This type of system will make it more difficult for the virus to penetrate your system.
2.Only install antivirus software created by a well-known, reputable company. Because new viruses erupt daily, it is important that you regularly update your antivirus software.Become familiar with the software’s real-time scan feature and configure it to start automatically each time you boot your computer.This will protect your system by automatically checking your computer each time it is powered up.
3.Make it a habit to always scan all new programs or files no matter from where they originate.
4.Exercise caution when opening binary, Word, or Excel documents of unknown sources especially if they were received during an online chat or as an attachment to an email.
5.Perform regular backups in case your system is corrupted.It may be the only way to recover your data if infected.
Recommended Antivirus Software
There are numerous applications available to consumers.With a little research, you can pick the program that is right for you.Many programs provide a trial version which allows you to download the program and test its abilities.However, be aware that some anti-virus programs can be difficult to uninstall. As a precaution make sure to set up a System Restore point before installing.
Here are a few programs which typically receive high marks in terms of cost, effectiveness, ease of use, and customer service.
The Shield Pro 2005™ provides virus protection and hacker security through ongoing support and updates. When a virus breaks out, The Shield Pro 2005™ promises to provide a patch within 2-3 hours and a fix for the virus within 5 hours. You can set your computer to update viruses weekly and run a complete virus scan.
BitDefender 9 Standard provides antivirus protection, as well as Peer-2-Peer Applications protection, full email protection, and heuristics in a virtual environment.This provides a new security layer that keeps the operating system safe from unknown viruses by detecting malicious pieces of code for which signatures have not been released yet.
Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal 5.0program is simple to install and use. The user only needs to choose from three levels of protection.It allows updates as frequently as every hour while promising not to disrupt your computer.The program also offers a two-tier email protection feature and round-the-clock technical support.
PC-cillin Internet Securitycombines antivirus security and a personal firewall—for comprehensive protection against viruses, worms, Trojans, and hackers. It also detects and removes spyware and blocks spam. It even guards against identity theft by blocking phishing and pharming attacks.
AVG Anti-Virus Free Editionis a free downloadable antivirus program that has received high marks for its reliability.In the past, free downloadable antivirus programs have been viewed skeptically because of issues relating to its reliability.However, AVG from Grisoft, remains one of the best-known free anti-virus programs available.While AVG can not be installed on a server operating system and there is no technical support, it still makes a good choice for many home computer users.The best part is that since it is free, you can try it with no further obligation necessary.
