Posts Tagged ‘software’

Build Web Page Setup

A Practical Guide to Decrease Web Page Load Time

Why is it important for your pages to load fast you might ask.  The answer is easy; if your pages load slowly you will loose sales.  From a consumer perspective you have a fraction of a second to show activity.  Your page doesn’t have to load completely but they certainly need to see some activity right away.  Consumers are impatient and have been trained by the major sites that pages start displaying immediately.  If you don’t have fast loading pages, most consumers will go to the next site.  It’s not just consumers that value speed, major search engines have stated that it is important for pages to load fast if you want them indexed.  The faster page loads, the more pages you will get indexed.  Some search engines have come out and stated that they will even downgrade your paid search marketing if your pages load slowly.  What can you do to increase page load speed?  Below are the techniques I used to successfully decrease the time it takes to load web pages.

 
Web Server Optimization

SQL Server Optimization
The first thing to check is your disk using PerfMon (Windows Performance Monitor).  Use this to determine if your physical disk is keeping up.  Using PerfMon, select the PhysicalDisk object, Avg. Disk Queue Length counter, then the instance for the drive your SQL database is installed on.  This indicator count will vary based on if the drive you are monitoring is part of an array but it’s best to keep the average below 1 if possible.  See Microsoft’s documentation on this for more information especially when calculating for drive arrays.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/146005

Next you want to check SQL memory usage.  By right clicking the server in Enterprise Manager and selecting properties you can view the Memory tab.  Use this tab to give as much memory as you can afford to SQL.  The more memory you give the SQL the more data it can cache, thus returning results faster.  Does your server have more than 2GB memory?  If so use this guide to configure your server to see all that available memory http://support.microsoft.com/kb/283037 then this guide http://support.microsoft.com/kb/274750 to configure SQL to see more available memory.  To make sure SQL is using available memory don’t use task manager as it may report incorrectly.  Instead use PerfMon Process Object, Working Set Counter, sqlservr Instance.  Give your server time to build up its cache after restarting before checking this counter.

You want to make sure your CPU can keep up.  Caution this counter can be misleading.  Although you may be recording sustained high CPU utilization this may not mean you need a faster CPU, the lack of adequate disk speed and memory may be artificially increasing CPU utilization.  If CPU utilization is averaging over 80% for an extended period of time and you have already ruled out memory and disk as an issue you may need to upgrade your CPU(s).  Use PerfMon to track CPU utilization using the Processor Object, % Processor Time Counter, and applicable instance if you have more than one CPU.  If your server has more than one CPU and you can afford to let SQL use more than one, right click on the server in Enterprise Manager, select Properties, and then the Processor tab.  This will allow you to select multiple or all CPUs for SQL utilization.

Bandwidth is a little more obvious but still needs to be mentioned.  If you have sustained high bandwidth utilization this will become a bottleneck causing slowdowns.  Bandwidth utilization can be a bit harder to check.  If you are using a hosting company they should be able to tell you (typically with some type of real time monitor that you can log into) what you are averaging with bandwidth as well as spikes in bandwidth.  You will want to make sure you have plenty of available bandwidth from your hosting company especially during the busy part of your day.  If your hosting company cannot provide these reports you can utilize a hardware or software sniffer to determine bandwidth usage.  The key is to make sure your connection can handle much more than you typically use.  If you are averaging 80% utilization you should consider upgrading your connection.

Now that you have checked the major hardware bottlenecks put your DBA hat on and make sure your indexes are up to date.  If you’re not an experienced DBA that knows the best way to manage your indexes, use SQL Profiler (Tools, SQL Profiler from Enterprise Manager).  Create a new trace and select the SQLProfilerTuning template.  Make sure the time you record is long enough to collect data on regular activity.  Additionally if you can generate additional traffic (especially traffic that causes slowdowns) you will want to do as much of this as possible while collecting data.  Once you have finished collecting data, click Tools, Index Tuning Wizard.  Use the profile you just created and make sure to select the database in question.  When finished running apply any changes suggested.  You may need to run this multiple times until there are not recommended changes.  Additionally as you make changes to your database such as adding new fields you will want to run this entire process again to find and apply new recommendations.  I like to run this process on the regular basis just make sure everything is running smooth.  As a side note, make sure every table in your database has a primary key. 

Once you have optimized your indexes run SQL Profiler again to check what kind of activity you are having on your SQL server. Do you have long running queries that could be changed to run more efficiently?  Do you have queries that are being run over and over that you could cache inside your website application?  As you make upgrades and additions to your web pages you many times will add extra queries to your database.  Go through your pages and find out if you can combine queries to return information with one query instead of two.  If you have to make multiple queries, try to make one connection to the database, and then use that same connection for all the queries.  This way you are not making repetitive connections to the database one after the other.  Making a database connection can be time consuming and resource intensive.

The way you partition your database across drives on your SQL server can help if you are suffering from high disk utilization.  The following configuration has worked well for me note that each partition is on a separate physical drive:
C: Operating System and SQL executables
D: Database File – RAID 5
E: SQL Log Files
F: Temp Database
G: Backups

Using RAID 5 on the D drive allows very fast reads because multiple drives can respond to the request.  Additionally requests do not have to wait for writes to the Log Files or Temp database.  Because the D drive is for read data, SQL can more effectively use memory to cache frequent requests.  There are a lot of write requests to the SQL log files and temp database so giving them they’re own separate drive reduces contention.  It goes without saying that using drives with higher RPM, more throughput, and a larger cache will assist your SQL server to run faster.

Web Server Optimization
Since almost every page the typical Internet retailer website has will make some type of database connection, your bottleneck will probably be retrieving data from SQL.  If this is the case you probably won’t need to do much optimization for your web server.  Generally speaking you will want to make sure the server has plenty of CPU, memory, and disk resources available to your web server.    Increasing memory to allow more web page caching (see caching section of this article) is one area you can really boost page load time.  Additionally if you find your disk having problems keeping up try some of the following:
1 Add memory and increase caching
2 If you have logging enabled, move the log file locations to another drive.
3 Make sure your web pages are being loaded from a RAID 5 partition.

Database Backups
I won’t go into all the specifics of database backups as that requires an article of its own.  From a question of performance you will want to schedule your backup to run when you have the most available resources.  If you are backing up to another server, consider backing up to a local drive first, and then backing up across the LAN.  This can help complete the backup faster because it’s done locally, then when transferring the backup to another server you won’t need to be concerned with how long it takes to transfer to another server.  Another option is to setup a separate server that you mirror data to, then you can simply backup the mirrored server instead of the primary.  This mirrored server can also be utilized as a fail over server in the case the primary server fails.

Load Balancing/Multiple Servers
If you are still having problems after you have optimized your web server, database server, web pages, and server hardware you can consider adding servers and load balancing these servers.  Since every situation is different it’s impossible to list every possible configuration.  Below are some examples but it’s important for you to do in depth research to determine  exactly what resources are lacking and what is utilizing those resources so you can make the best decisions on what type of servers to put up and how to load balance.

If you currently run a single server, determine what resources are lacking, probably disk or memory, maybe CPU and what is using these resources.  Typically when moving from a single server to multiple servers you will put in a new server and only put your database on that new server.

Next I’ll show you a configuration with three servers that has worked out exceedingly well for me:
Each server has SQL and IIS installed.  We have one master server and two slave servers.  The master server has our entire database on it, the websites can write orders to this database and our staff can process orders using this database and we keep vendor inventory records up to date on this server.  The master server is the only server that gets backed up.  The two slave servers are setup so that only the parts of the websites and database that are needed for the public to use our websites are replicated.  Therefore any change that is made to the master server is replicated to the slave servers within 15 min. of the change.  Because the public websites write back to the master server the slave servers can run in a “read only” mode which allows them to process an enormous number of requests very fast.  Because our master server only receives writes from the public websites when orders are being taken, it only has to handle a small amount of our public traffic.  As our traffic grows we simply add more read only servers.  In our case we have enough websites that we simply split them up between servers.  If however you have a single website, you can still load balance using a DNS round robin or in more extreme situations an appliance like F5 Big IP http://www.f5.com/products/big-ip/ which can perform smart load balancing based on current server load.

Another popular method is to setup multiple SQL servers (assuming this is the main bottleneck) with separate data.  For instance if you keep your images in SQL, you may want to move them to they’re own server then make a connection to one server for some of your data and to the other server for retrieving images.

Web Page Design

Java Script and CSS Files
Putting Java Script and CSS in files instead of inline allows your browser to cache them instead of reading them each time.  Since your browser has to download each file separately, do your best to keep all your Java Script in a single file and do the same with CSS

Image Optimization
Optimizing images is very important in page load time.  Convert your images to PNG.  Don’t use HTML to resize your images, resize and optimize them prior to uploading.  Try to keep your larger images to a file size under 30K if possible.  There are some advanced optimizations that can be done with inline images, sprites, and image maps but I am not experienced with them for the most part and in many instances management of this can be a nightmare.  Additionally there may be browser support issues. 

Caching
Caching is one way to drastically reduce page load time, especially for popular pages.  Even if your page is dynamic, you may be able to cache it for 4 hours or at least 15 min. 

You can enable browser caching by using the HTML Expires heading for any pages that can cache.  This type of caching tells the visitors browser that if it returns to this exact page it’s doesn’t need to go back to the web server and retrieve the page again.  This will help when people are browsing your site and come back to the same page multiple times.  If the page is more static, like an article page for instance, you may be able to set it to cache for 30 days.  This will allow the same person to go to that page different days without having to hit your server.  The downfall of this caching is that it only helps if people visit your page more than once within the caching time.

Another type of caching is server side page caching.  This allows you to cache a page on the server instead of the browser, therefore when defining the caching time, anyone that requests the page inside of the cache time will receive the cached page.  Server side caching will allow your web server to cache the page in memory (given there are enough memory resources available) which means it does not have to go to the disk to retrieve the page or query the database.  Let’s say for example the front page of your website has a tree view menu that makes multiple database queries to build the page.  If this page is requested many times an hour it will generate a lot of resource strain on your servers.  If you set this page to cache for 15 min. you now only create that resource strain once every 15 min. allowing your server to respond better to other requests and your page will display much faster.  Of all the things you can do to make your site faster, this may have the biggest impact. 

Similar to server side page caching is partial page caching.  This is a little more complicated but allows you to cache parts of your page.  Let’s use the example above again but this time the criteria mandates that we can’t cache everything in the page.  In this case we may want to just cache the menu as the menu is relatively static and is a large resource drain on the servers and slows down page delivery.

Separate Domains
Some browsers will open multiple connections to download files simultaneously but will have a limit to how many per domain it will concurrently download.  To get around this you could move files like Images, CSS, and Java Script to separate domains thus allowing the browser to download more files simultaneously.

Progressive Rendering
Progressive rendering is when you visit a page and you start seeing parts of the page display right away instead of displaying the entire page at once.  This process gives the user feedback right away and they know more is coming.  If your page takes a second or so before it renders to the browser, the user may thing there is a problem and instead of waiting will move to a different page.  Progressive rendering can also give the illusion that the page is loading faster even though it takes the same amount of time to completely render the entire page.  To progressive render your page you may need to tell your back end programming language to pass parts of your page as they render.  Additionally with components like an ASP.NET Gridview you cannot progressively render that component, instead it will render than entire object all at once.  From an HTML perspective you will want to make sure style sheets are loaded in the page head and Java Script is loaded at the end of the page.  Not doing this can prevent your entire page from progressively rendering.

Large Classes
One of the benefits ASP.NET is using extremely rich classes like the grid view.  You could dedicate a complete book (and I’m sure someone has) to explore the features and inner workings of the grid view.  It’s extremely flexible and easy to use.  With a couple simple queries you can define a simple editable grid view.  One cost of using the grid view is that because of all that’s built in it carries a heavy payload.  Many times this is not an issue but you will notice a speed increase for simple display grid views if you generate the HTML and render it in a table or some other rudimentary display manner.

Compression
Remove excessive white space in your rendered code will reduce the size of the data being transferred, thus speeding up the page load time.  Additionally configurations can be made to most web servers to support GZIP (a GNU Compression Utility) http://www.gzip.org/ this can easily cut the size of what you are transferring in half or more.  This involves extra CPU cycles on the server to compress and on the browser to decompress but unless your server is running sustained high CPU utilization you shouldn’t see much of a CPU hit or slowdown because of this.  On a side note, utilizing this compression could cut the bandwidth portion of your hosting bill in half or at least free up extra bandwidth.

Website Errors
Errors will slow everything down, not to mention annoying your customers.  Every time your back end code or web server has to engage error processing it takes extra resources away from your server.  Capture coding errors using error control is the first step.  As a common practice I have all errors emailed to me so I am forced to see them and mentally acknowledge them.  This also helps me judge the frequency of the errors.  Because I am always seeing them it’s usually on the top of my list to get them fixed.  Over time coding in fixes for all the possible errors will prevent error control from having to engage as often thus increasing overall performance.  The other errors you will want to keep track of are the web server errors such as 404 (Page Not Found).  You can track the occurrence of these errors in your server web logs.  If for instance, there is an old link to a page that no longer exists, instead of letting the web server generate a 404 error, place a file (same name and location of the missing one) with a friendly “does not exist” message or a script to redirect to another page on your website.

There are certainly many additional things you can do that don’t fit the scope of this article.  This is meant as a practical guide for the small to mid size Internet retailer.  I hope you have found this informative and at lease consider each one of these techniques before exploring more in-depth or expensive solutions. Here is a free Web Page Load Time Tracker that you can use to monitor the speed at which your pages load over time. This resource is unique in that it uses an actual web browser to render the page including downloading and displaying CSS, Images, and JavaScript.  Set this up now on all your different pages so you have data to chart against when you make changes to your site.

 

About the Author

Edgar E. Kneel is the lead programmer and systems architect for a popular Internet retailer.

Setup / Map Dvd Mobile Xt & Nroute North America $139.94 Setup / Map Dvd Mobile Xt & Nroute North America GARMIN SETUP / MAP DVD MOBILE XT & NROUTE NORTH AMERICA

Great Nutshell Productions Setup Electric Guitar DVD $19.95 The Unauthorized Guide to Setup Your Electric Guitar DVD from Great Nutshell Productions equips you to identify and correct most issues of string buzz, action, and intonation affecting your electric guitar.This instructional DVD is packed with tons of foundational information. The first half covers the what and why. What is a truss rod and why is it important? What are your choices in guitar strings and why they are different? What is intonation and why it will never be perfect? The Unauthorized Guide to Setup Your Electric Guitar answers these questions and more.The second part of this informative DVD takes you step-by-step through a basic setup of your electric guitar. From adjustment to the final intonation, this Great Nutshell Productions DVD shows you that most any electric guitar plays even better when it's setup just for you, by you.Your setup is the key to achieving better and faster chops, more sustain, fuller tone, greater comfort, and greater personal satisfaction with your guitar.You can have your guitar tech perform your setups for you, but in reality one setup does not fit all. This is because of differences in guitar playing style, string choices, string gauges, along with personal preferences and more. Learning how to perform a basic setup on your electric guitar pays you back many times over. Even if you continue to use your guitar tech, understanding these principles helps you to better communicate your needs and desires. That is exactly what The Unauthorized Guide to Setup Your Electric Guitar DVD does for you.

Build Web Page Downloads

Create My Own Web Page — How To Carry Out Research And Save Money

Good research is the key to saving money online and finding the products and services that meet your requirements. If your goal is to make money using your computer then good research could save you a lot of time and money.

To create my own web page I had to source a domain name, hosting and an html editor.

I have found that it is easier to have greater success at a task or goal if I have spent some time carrying out research.  It was no different when I wanted to create my own web page.

• Firstly: By this stage you should have an idea of what your website will be about. This is called your niche or topic. Search the internet for other related websites that are in your niche. Have a good look through what is already out there.

Is there an opportunity being missed that you can see?  How have others laid out their website’s, what colors and styles have they used?

• Secondly: If you are looking for programs to use e.g. an html editor to build you web page, then investigate in detail all the available options.

You can search online as always but don’t forget Internet or computer magazines and books. These may have reviews or trial downloads available.

Use the free trials and read the reviews. This way we can ensure that the products we choose to use are what we are comfortable using and easily allow us to carry out the tasks we purchased them for.

• Thirdly: Make sure you record all you research. Some times I like to make notes on paper. The best way is probably to create a desktop folder and keep notes and ideas written in there. Bookmark websites with good information or a great looking page layout. You could even make a screen shot of the web pages you like using the print screen button on your keyboard.

When I create my own web page I have at times emailed some of the other sites in my niche to see if they designed their own web page. I ask them what program have they used to develop their site? It doesn’t hurt to ask questions you will be surprised by how many people are willing to share advice.

About the Author

If you want to make money using your computer you may want to download any free offerings others in your niche are giving away. This way you can get an idea of the quality of what is being produced. You can then research further by analyzing what you have been sent.

Learn the A-Z of how to start online, please visit my website http://www.createanincomeonline.com and download my free e-book.

Make money using your computer

Good luck!

By IAN BASS

Super Build Primer 302 Ga Converter For Super Build 304 $125.94 Super Build Primer 302 Ga Converter For Super Build 304 Alexseal Yacht Coatings Super Build Primer 302 – GA CONVERTER FOR SUPER BUILD 304

Therm O Web Memory Tape Runner XL tape runner $4.71 This extra-long tape runner goes anywhere on the page. With a patented pivoting head, the Memory Tape Runner XL allows you to apply precise curves and lines evenly. The tape is clear, acid-free, and photo safe. It also bonds instantly. It’s great for attaching photos, die-cuts, ribbon… practically anything The tape measures 5/16 in. x 50 ft.

Super Build Primer 302 Ga Wht Super Build 302 Primer 1:3 $115.94 Super Build Primer 302 Ga Wht Super Build 302 Primer 1:3 Alexseal Yacht Coatings Super Build Primer 302 – GA WHT SUPER BUILD 302 PRIMER 1:3

Build Web Page Offline

How to Build Your Own Site?

Do you want to build your own site? To set up a website, there are three steps you will need to take:

Get Your Domain Name:

A domain name is a name you want to call your website. For example, “yahoo.com”, “youtube.com” and “wikipedia.org” are all domain names. To obtain a domain name, you have to pay an annual fee to a registrar for the right to use that name. Take into consideration that you cannot buy a domain for life. You get it for a period of one to ten years. If you fail to renew the domain name at the end of its term, the registration of the domain will be revoked and the domain name may be acquired by another party.  

Choose a Web Host and Sign Up For an Account:

A web hosting service provides you with online space. This enables you to get your web pages online at your registered domain name.  

Design Your Web Pages and Get Them Online:

There are three ways to create and get your website online:

A-  Some web hosts offer Easy-To-Use Site Builder that helps you build your web pages without difficulty, even if you are not skilled in using any website creating software. Their web builder is a WYSIWYG program (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get). This means that the finished page will display exactly the way it was designed.

B- You can create the pages offline with your favorite program (DreamWeaver, FrontPage, etc), and then upload them to your web host. This is another easy way to get your website online.

C- Frontpage Extensions allow you to publish your site directly from the FrontPage application. This means that you will not have to upload files through FTP, or another method. Microsoft FrontPage is a popular WYSIWYG HTML editor and web site administration tool from Microsoft.  

*****************************

Where Can You Get Started?

If you want to start your website we recommend purchasing your domain and hosting service from the same company. This way it is possible to get your domain for free. Some web hosts offer this gift today. These companies offer affordable services that fulfill all your requirements to set up a website (Domain Name, Hosting Service and Site Builder).  

Don’t trust dishonest claims like “Best web hosting only $1″ or “Get the cheapest web hosting without sacrificing quality and features!”. Take into consideration that some hosting companies are cheating and lying to their customers. It is very important that your service be uptime (functioning and available for use). It means you can access your account whenever you want to update your web pages, and users can enter your website whenever they refer to your site address. If your hosting service is not uptime it can be catastrophic!  

Threehosts.com a reliable website to help beginners make the best choice. Their experts have been evaluating web hosting providers for years, and now they provide you with the most reliable results. They present the information in an easy to understand format that helps the consumer make the best choice within just a few minutes.  

About the Author

Super Build Primer 302 Ga Converter For Super Build 304 $125.94 Super Build Primer 302 Ga Converter For Super Build 304 Alexseal Yacht Coatings Super Build Primer 302 – GA CONVERTER FOR SUPER BUILD 304

Therm O Web Memory Tape Runner XL tape runner $4.71 This extra-long tape runner goes anywhere on the page. With a patented pivoting head, the Memory Tape Runner XL allows you to apply precise curves and lines evenly. The tape is clear, acid-free, and photo safe. It also bonds instantly. It’s great for attaching photos, die-cuts, ribbon… practically anything The tape measures 5/16 in. x 50 ft.

Super Build Primer 302 Ga Wht Super Build 302 Primer 1:3 $115.94 Super Build Primer 302 Ga Wht Super Build 302 Primer 1:3 Alexseal Yacht Coatings Super Build Primer 302 – GA WHT SUPER BUILD 302 PRIMER 1:3

Build Web Page Osx

Autism

My son was diagnosed with Autism at the age of 2 years and 3 months.  A month later he was on intensive one-on-one home-based therapy.  By five, he was in a regular mainstream school, totally indistinguishable from his peers.

I soon found there was very little software available to teach children with Autism.   This document outlines the information on Autism I have acquired over the years and the computer software I used to aid my son’s recovery.

It is important to understand that without any Autism therapy or intervention, a child with Autism or PDD will absorb far less information and knowledge from the environment than a typical child.  A typical child will start to talk at 1.5 to 2 years with almost no help from his parents or siblings. He will then acquire around 6 new words a day and will have a vocabulary of an amazing 10,000 words before the age of seven. A child with Autism may become verbal much later and have poor language and social skills if he is not given speech and behavior therapy.  At least initially, a child with Autism must be given a strong knowledge base i.e. he must be taught speech, language and age-appropriate behavior.

To print this document on Autism, click above on “File”, then “Print” and then “OK”. Bookmark and visit this site again for more tips. I usually add more material on Autism software and other resources every week or two.

Starting work with your child

If you even suspect your child has Autism or ASD, you must begin work with him immediately. Do not waste vital time waiting for a formal Autism diagnosis. I met one mother who waited six months for a formal Autism diagnosis before beginning any treatment.  Imagine how much she could have taught her child in that time. You will find out for yourself that most doctors know very little about Autism and will simply recommend speech therapy, special education or an early intervention center. The worst thing some doctors will do to a parent is to take away hope. You will acquire more information on Autism from other parents of children with Autism than you would from any general practitioner. As you work with your child and see the results, you will soon find other parents of newly-diagnosed children with Autism coming to you for advice.  Start working with your child now, even if it means just trying to communicate with him through play.  This time will never ever be wasted.  Even if tests show that your child does not have an Autistic disorder, you’ve lost nothing. Trying to teach a child with Autism at the table could be difficult at first, as the child may resist learning and lots of positive reinforcement and encouragement is vital. There are many structured teaching methods for children with Autism such as ABA, TEACCH, PECS and Greenspan to name a few.  Many parents adopt their own, often very successful strategies for teaching their children at home.

Denial
Many parents will simply not believe their child has an Autistic disorder and will not even seek a diagnosis. Too often, they ignore the clear signs of Autism in their child and somehow hope he will improve on his own.  They often wait until it is too late to start work with their child.  Some of the excuses I’ve heard are: “He looks fine – it’s just the terrible twos”, “My son started talking at five”, “Einstein had Autism and he started talking at nine”, “He’ll just grow out of it” (and the list goes on…).

Autism diagnosis
 
Although an early Autism or ASD diagnosis for this potentially devastating disorder is critical, children with Autism rarely receive a diagnosis before the age of 3 or 4 years. There are no outward physical differences between Autistic kids and typical children – in fact most children with Autism are very good-looking.  The only differences are behavioral.  Autistic kids will exhibit at least some of the following:
Poor speech and language skills
Inappropriate play eg. child may continuously spin the wheels of a toy car rather than push it
May line up toys or other objects
Trouble interacting with others
Poor eye contact
Walking on toes
Hand flapping
Tendency to have narrowly focused and odd interests
Not asking for things in the same way as other children
Failure to show objects to others
Failure to orient to one’s name being called
Failure to engage in reciprocal play where there is a back-and-forth between two people
Failure to copy others’ motor movements
May not use pointing to direct another person’s attention
May resist social touch such as hugging

Autism spectrum
A child with Autism can be anywhere in the broad Autism ‘spectrum’.  At the upper end, the child could appear almost normal and have few autistic traits. He may perhaps be the quiet child in the classroom with few or no friends and a couple of quirky habits. He may not even be diagnosed having Autism until much later in life.  At the lower end of the Autism spectrum, the child would be termed low-functioning, have poor speech and language and would require much more intensive Autism therapy. No matter where a child is in the Autism spectrum, he can and must be helped.

PDD NOS and Autism
Pervasive Developmental Disorder or PDD is actually a bit of a misnomer.  Many doctors who would not like to commit to giving a diagnosis of Autism will tell the parents that their child has PDD or PDD NOS when in fact the child is in the Autism or ASD spectrum.

Types of Autism
Some children are born with Autism while others develop the condition usually in their second year.  The latter is known as late-onset Autism.  The child starts life normally and gradually develops the symptoms of Autism, losing speech and gradually showing more and more of the symptoms if Autism.  If diagnosed and treated early with one-on-one therapy, Autistic children will show remarkable improvement, often to the point of being termed “recovered”.  This is where the child with Autism is indistinguishable from his peers.

Asperger’s disorder and Autism
Asperger’s disorder, also called Asperger’s syndrome is a type of pervasive developmental disorder (PDD or PDD NOS) as defined by the American Psychiatric Association. Asperger’s disorder is similar to high-functioning Autism in how it affects a child’s mannerisms and socialization traits. A distinction between Asperger’s syndrome and Autism is that young children with Asperger’s often have normal language development, although the rhythm, pitch, and emphasis are irregular. Unlike Autism, Asperger’s disorder does not delay other aspects of development; a child usually has age-appropriate self-reliance and an interest in the world around him or her. However, like Autism, children with Asperger’s syndrome have abnormal social interactions, facial expressions, and gestures. Asperger’s disorder affects males 9 times more than females. Its cause is unknown. More research is needed to confirm whether Asperger’s disorder is a condition that is genetically related to Autism.

Autism Therapy and Speech therapy
A common mistake is to assume that speech therapy is the solution to Autism. Speech therapy certainly has it’s place in prompting and refining a child’s speech and vocalization but it takes many hours a week of intensive one-on-one work to teach the child with Autism compliance, new concepts, language and age-appropriate behavior.  A child with Autism will probably see a speech therapist for 1 or 2 hours a week.  It takes a lot more work to get a child with Autism ready for school and to ensure he succeeds at school once he gets there.  Once your child is in school, it would be wise to continue the speech therapy sessions.  Some schools have a speech therapist that works with the children at the school itself.  More on Autism and schools later.

Language is the key
      
The frustration of a child with Autism was once described as that of being in a maze where the walls are made of glass, trying to communicate with someone on the outside and only being able to bang on the walls. There is no doubt that much frustration and temper tantrums can be reduced and even avoided when communication and language is encouraged and developed. A typical child works out very early that it is in his own interest to acquire language whilst a child with Autism may not. He needs to be taught that language will get him results. On this point, if your child asks for something, give it to him immediately or at least respond to his request immediately. Ignoring him will certainly not encourage his speech.

When do I start to treat a child with Autism?
         
If a child has Autism, the clock has already started to tick even before any formal diagnosis. The most gains will be made when the child is in his very early years. Although children as young as 18 months are on Autism therapy, most are diagnosed after 2 years of age and start treatment even later. Whatever you do, don’t leave it until it’s too late.  Quite simply, the sooner you start teaching a child with Autism the better.

Autism treatment
    
Of all the therapies around for Autism, ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) has attracted the most attention. The system pioneered by Dr. Ivar  Lovaas at UCLA in the sixties is a teaching program that works on systematically removing the “traits” of Autism until the child does not satisfy the criteria for the condition. The system is very intensive but proven to be extremely successful in almost all cases of Autism. The Applied Behavior Analysis teaching system basically breaks down any task into subtasks and places a very high emphasis on rewarding the child for working well. There is no physical punishment at all in the system. Autism therapy starts off in a very rigid structured form but gradually takes the shape of a typical school environment. Those who know little or nothing about ABA may say it is too rigid and turns the child into a ‘robot’ by rote learning. This would appear so at the start but as the child learns to learn, he progresses to a point where he can join his typical peers in their learning style. Most parents who persevere with the program for two to three years can successfully mainstream their children. The results speak for themselves. The child usually begins school, attending regular classes with an aide. The aide is gradually ‘faded’ and the child blends in with the class. More on aides and fading later.  An excellent piece of software is the “Discrete Trial Trainer” that uses the Applied Behavior Analysis principles to rapidly boost a child’s language. We have this product in our range of software.

How many hours?
  
A question often asked is how many hours of behavioral therapy does a child with Autism need?  There are many cases where a child with Autism needs up to 40 hours a week but of course, it depends on the level of severity of the child. A program usually starts with around 15 to 20 hours a week and can work towards 30 or more hours a week. Once a child with Autism is in school, the hours of work at home will fall back.  Quality is of course, more important than quantity and energetic, dedicated therapists are vital to your child’s progress.

Working with your child
I would strongly suggest the parents begin working with the child at least initially rather than leaving him to a therapist. Your child will trust you and understand you are trying to help him. You need to have boundless energy, be animated and genuinely love teaching your child. This is not easy and experts estimate you could do this for no more than 10 to 12 hours a week. If both parents take turns, the task is, of course a lot easier. Later, you could introduce a therapist or two to help out as you will not be able to maintain a high level of energy for too long.  An advantage of doing the initial work yourself is that you will then know a good therapist when you see one and be able to weed out those that are of little value to your child.

Choosing a therapist
Choosing a good therapist for a child with Autism is not easy if you haven’t worked with a child yourself. Many experienced parents will actually be able to train their new therapists. Therapists can be anyone with enough energy, enthusiasm, patience and genuine love for children. Those below the age of 18 are often too young and immature (some will actually be frightened!). Mothers with children often don’t have the time and energy and often don’t like to be told how to deal with children as they feel they are the experts. One applicant told me how she regularly smacked her own children when they misbehaved. There is no room for such people in your home. A good tip is to make a short list of the ones you feel may be suitable and tell them there will be a training period of a couple of weeks during which there will be no payment. Many of them will drop out as working with a child with Autism is very demanding and not suited to everyone.
          

Special Schools
Whilst there are many excellent special education schools around, sadly, many are under-funded, understaffed and ill-equipped to teach children with Autism. There is usually not enough one-on-one support for the child and worst of all, the child can pick up inappropriate behaviors from the other Autistic children.  I find all this heart-breaking as there is so much a child with Autism can learn in the critical early years.

Mainstream Schools
    
Your goal should be to get your child into a mainstream school. Three years of intensive one-on-one work at home will go a long, long way towards successfully mainstreaming a child. Once a child with Autism is successfully mainstreamed you have won half the battle.  I say this because it would be wise to continue working with him at home as well.  You may need to educate the principal and staff on Autism and a good idea is for you or your therapist or consultant (if you have one) to do a short presentation.  I would strongly advise liaising with your child’s teachers to address any difficulties at school. You could use this feedback to work with him at home thus preventing him from falling behind. Obtaining in advance his school books and material they are going to cover at school is a good idea as you could work with these at home, reading them to him at night etc. so it is not all new to him at school. It is advisable to keep his home therapists as his school aides as they will know him a lot better than any school-provided aide. You need to discuss this with the school principal before he enters school. Once he enters school, you may need to begin with short hours eg. 2-3 hours a day and gradually build up to a full day.

Uneven skills
A child with Autism often has uneven skills eg. he may have very strong areas such as memorizing pictures or words and reading at an early age and weak areas such as making social contact with his peers. You need to firstly identify the strong areas. It goes without saying that you should use these strengths to the fullest advantage. For example if the child has strong reading skills, explore this to the maximum. Many of children with Autism have very strong visual skills. Use pictures to stimulate and refine their language.  If your child learns to read or write before he gets to school, it will be one less thing to worry about and he will have more time to learn other skills that he is lacking.

“My child can’t talk at all!  Where do I start?”
A frantic mother of a child with Autism once phoned me with this question.  Teaching speech to a child with Autism is done on a step-by-step basis. A child cannot run before he can walk. Before attempting actual speech, you can first teach a child to match identical pictures, then non-identical pictures i.e. matching a red car with a different-colored one. The next step is receptive language where the child is asked for the picture of eg. a cat, horse, house etc. (see next section). If your child can achieve receptive language or has already reached this stage, this is promising as he can at least understand what you are saying and this will ultimately lead to him expressing himself verbally. Do not be complacent though, as his vocabulary may be limited. You must do what you can to make sure his vocabulary is expanded as widely as possible.

Receptive language
This is where the child understands what other people are saying. It is a major step in the progress of a child with Autism. It is however not enough for the child to understand just a handful of words such as food, milk, bike etc.  A typical child of seven can understand and use at least 10,000 words.  A child with Autism needs to have his receptive language boosted as early and as quickly as possible.

Receptive language software         
The Discrete Trial Trainer is a software package that allows you to use your computer to teach your child any number of labels and sounds. What happens is the screen displays from 2 to 5 images and the child is asked over the speakers eg. “Touch Eating”. If the child correctly clicks on the correct image using the mouse or touch-screen, he is rewarded with a little animation. When one label is mastered, the program moves on to the next label, occasionally bringing in mastered labels to see if the child has remembered them. This CD has been extremely successful.  You can set the level of difficulty and you get a visual report of his progress. With this package you can use it to teach categories as letters, words, shapes, numbers, colors, objects, body parts, actions/verbs. 

Teaching with pictures
“A picture is worth a thousand words” and using pictures is an excellent way to teach speech, language and communication. Children with Autism are highly visual and can be taught almost anything using images. Temple Grandin, the famous autistic author of many books on Autism once said that she thinks in pictures. You need thousands of good photographic pictures to help with ‘generalization’ i.e. if a child with Autism has just one picture of a white dog and is taught this is a dog, he may not easily recognize a German Shepherd or a Rottweiler as a dog when he sees it. Using new and varied material also keeps a child from getting bored and frustrated.  Minimize the number of stick images or drawings used.  Actual color photographic material is best as the images are more life-like and much easier for the child to relate to. You can never have too many pictures in your collection. Get them from anywhere you can – magazines, old books, the web, printed catalogs, even junk mail!

Printing from a CD-ROM
The falling prices of computers and color printers has created a trend away from buying expensive printed flashcards towards software such as our TeachingPix2 CD-ROM that contains many thousands of color photographic teaching images that can be printed from a home PC to a color printer at a tiny fraction of the cost. You can pay up to a dollar for each printed flashcard, whilst printing from our CD-ROM works out to around 1 cent per picture. Another advantage of using a CD-ROM with a huge range of pictures is that you can select and print what you need at any time. You do not need to print all the pictures right away. The images on the TeachingPix2 can have their labels switched on or off. You can print the images in sizes varying from 1 per page (biggest) to 8 per page (smallest). This CD-ROM with over 10,000 printable teaching images is our most popular product and is widely used to teach children around the world.  The images can be used in any teaching system such as ABA and PECS including working with Matching, Receptive language and Expressive language.

         

Printers
Modern color printers are not only a lot cheaper than they were just a few years ago, they can also print photographic-quality prints onto ordinary (photocopy) paper and don’t require special expensive paper. If you are printing thousands of pictures to use as flashcards, you may not want to print them on special paper. You need to be able to print photo-quality pictures to regular photocopy paper.  If you already have a printer that needs special paper and you want to print thousands of pictures, it could be worth looking at getting a new printer. The new inkjet printers produce high quality text and images in black and white or color. Many of today’s inkjet or bubblejet printers can print photographic images and laser-like text that come close enough to the quality of more expensive laser printers. I personally use a Canon inkjet although there are many other good-quality, yet low-priced models around.

Printing in draft mode
Try printing in draft mode. If the quality is almost as good as in best mode, it may be worth your while printing in this mode as the prints will not only be faster but also cheaper as they will consume less ink.

Laminating your pictures
     
Laminating your pictures will give them a much longer life.  If you are going to laminate a lot of pictures, a good idea is to firstly buy a good laminator. If you are going to insert more than one picture per laminating pouch, insert your trimmed pictures into the laminating pouch with a space between each picture for trimming around later. After running the pouch through the laminator, cut between the cards. Don’t forget to round off the sharp corners that could easily injure someone.  The laminating pouches we recommend are 120 microns or (sturdier) 150 microns in thickness.  A good idea is to insert 4 trimmed pictures per letter-sized (or A4) laminating pouch.  Pouches can be bought in packs of a hundred.

Using your own pictures
      
It is always an excellent idea to include your own pictures taken of the child’s environment, family members, familiar locations, occasions, school, classroom, school friends etc. to teach you child.  Using a conventional camera (with film) is OK but taking many hundreds of pictures is not only expensive but you cannot easily resize the pictures, add labels to the pictures or include them easily into other electronic documents you may wish to create.  The advent of the digital camera allows you to take an unlimited number of pictures that you can download onto your computer.  Once the pictures are downloaded, the camera is reset and you can take the next batch.  A great feature of the TeachingPix2 CD-ROM is that you can also view, resize and print your own digital camera images to use as flashcards.

Organizing your cards
    
It is important to organize your cards or you will waste vital time looking for them when you need them.  My suggestion for the size of flashcards to be used for teaching purposes is to keep a standard of 4 per letter-sized (or A4) page – much bigger and you’ll find it hard to file away the pictures.  A good idea is to get a set of (preferably long) card cabinets to file the cards in their different categories eg. animals, actions, food, vehicles, plants etc.  The cabinets we recommend are around  16in (42cm) long and can each hold at least 200 laminated flashcards.  Take a laminated picture card with you for size when looking for cabinets.  A good place to find cabinets is a used office furniture and equipment store.  I use one cabinet drawer per category.  You can cut cards with name tabs so they stand out above the cards to subdivide the categories eg. for animals – cat, dog, chicken etc.

Rotating your material
Once a noun, verb or concept has been mastered by your child, you must rotate your material i.e. don’t use the same picture over and over again as this can be very frustrating for a child with Autism (another good reason to keep a big collection of images).  A good idea to ensure your images are rotated is to “select from front and return to back” i.e. if you have 8 pictures of a cat, then choose the one from the front of the set and when you’re done with it, return it to the back of the set.  This way your pictures will be used evenly.

Using sound
Many children with Autism have difficulties processing sound or distinguishing noise from normal conversation.  Hence, they often appear deaf although they have normal hearing.  Typical children are able to “filter” out background noise from useful auditory information.  Children with Autism very often attempt to block out this bombardment of sound and retreat into their own world.  In many cases they will hold their ears.  In some cases, they will rock to and fro in an attempt to block out the sensory overload.  It is important to teach these children to identify sounds.  This goes a long way in being able to sort out noise from useful auditory information such as a teacher’s instructions, a parent’s voice, traffic, a barking dog etc.  Some sounds you can teach your child to identify are:
Airplane, Ambulance, Baby crying, Bagpipes, Bath tap, Bee, Bell, Bicycle bell, Blowing nose, Brushing teeth, Cannonfire, Cat, Chick, Chicken, Children playing, Chopping, Church bell, Clapping, Clock ticking, Coughing, Cow, Cricket, Crow, Crying baby, Crying child, Cymbals, Dentist drill, Dog, Dolphin, Puppy, Drill, Drum, Duck, Rubber Ducky, Biting apple, Elephant trumpet, Fan, Fire, Fire alarm, Fire truck, Fireworks, Flushing toilet, Flute, Food blender, Frog, Goat, Goose, Gunshots, Guitar, Hair dryer, Hammering nail, Harp,  Helicopter, Horse neighing, Horse galloping, Jet, Keyboard of PC, Kissing, Kitten, Knocking on door, Laughing, Lightning, Lion, Monkey, Motorcycle, Mouse, Mowing lawn,  Ocean, Opening coke bottle, Owl, Parrot, Peacock, Piano, Pig, Pinball machine, Police car, Pouring, Power drill, Railway crossing, Rooster crowing, Sawing wood, Scissors, Seagull, Sea lion, Sheep, Shower, Sneezing, Snooker table, Stirring tea in cup, Tambourine, Tap dancing, Running, Tearing paper, Telephone, Tractor, Train, Truck, Trumpet, Turkey, Vacuum cleaner, Yawning   One way is to use a cassette player and flashcards to get the child to identify and/or match the sound to the pictures.  A much easier option is the “SpeakingPix” software.

The “SpeakingPix” CD-ROM (screen-shot pictured above) comes with over 2,200 images each with a voice that plays when you click on it.  You can record over each voice or sound as often as you wish.  Included are all of the 150 sounds listed above each with an image under the category “Sounds” that you can teach your child to identify.  This product is a valuable speech therapy tool.  You can easily include your own images and voices or sounds and play back the sounds by clicking on the pictures.  You can print what you see on the screen as flashcards.  It’s a fun way to learn and identify sounds and voices. 

Sensory issues
Autism is a sensory condition affecting one or more of the child’s senses:
Touch: A child with Autism could be very sensitive to touch and may resist close contact, hugging etc. even from even his parents.
Sound: Certain sounds could be unbearable to an autistic child.  He may even hold his ears when hearing some voices or sounds. Some children with extreme sound sensitivity will respond better if the teacher talks to them in a low whisper.
Taste: Certain food textures could be unpalatable to a child with Autism.  Some children will only eat a select few foods.
Sight: One autistic adult stated that he could not stand to look at the color yellow.
Smell: Some children may show a strong preference for certain, often unusual odors.
You should bear this in mind when setting up your child’s learning environment and be prepared to make any adjustments.

Learning environment
A child with Autism should begin work in a quiet environment without any distractions.  However, the real world is not so sterile.  A classroom of kids can be very noisy.  You should thus slowly introduce “noise” into your child’s teaching environment.  One way is to start with the doors and windows closed and over a period of time, gradually open the doors and windows.  You could also introduce very soft music, turning the sound up very gradually over the weeks.  If you find your child cannot concentrate, reduce the noise levels and start again gradually.

Working at the table
Working and concentrating at the table for a child with Autism will not be easy especially at the start.  Keep the sessions very short to begin with.  It is always tempting to keep going when the child is doing well.  But this will backfire if you keep the child working at a drill for too long.  You will know this when the child does not want to begin the next drill as he will show a lot of protest behavior.  Always move up gradually.  Never reward a child who is working well with more work.  If you feel he has done particularly well at a drill, let him go for a short break to do whatever he wants.  He will soon make the connection between good work and rewards.  There may be times when you let him go for a break just for coming to the table with no protest at all.

Finishing on a positive note
When you begin a set of drills with your child, you must always finish on a positive note.  If you end a drill when the child has a tantrum, this will simply tell him he can end his work with a tantrum.   A tantrum could mean that the drill is too long, too difficult or even frustratingly easy or boring.  There may be times when the child will simply not finish a drill.  If this happens, get him to do something a lot easier to finish off eg. “Clap your hands” (he claps) “OK, good boy, off you go”.  This principle applies to all aspects of the child’s daily routine and activities.  For example, if he tantrums to brush his teeth and you allow him to leave the bathroom whilst he is yelling, he soon learns that the best way to get out of brushing his teeth is to throw a tantrum.  The only way is to ignore the tantrum (can be very difficult) and continue with the task at hand or at least until the tantrum has subsided.  Letting him go then, will teach him he gets rewarded for good behavior or finishing the task.

Getting organized
You must set aside a room to do your work and store your equipment such as toys, books, pictures, cards, videos etc.  You will soon build up a huge volume of  items that must be available when you need them.  A good shelving system to hold your books, videotapes and lots of good-sized stackable drawers for your cards, pictures and toys is a good idea.  If you child has outgrown his toys, put them away in the garage.  Some toys that have lost their reinforcing value could be brought back at a later stage.  For a child with Autism, appropriate play with toys is always a plus.  Don’t hold back on getting him new toys.  Joining a toy library is a good idea to save money.  Another idea is networking with other parents and exchanging toys with them.

Sight-reading
Reading is of course a vital skill without which a child cannot get very far in school or society.  A common mistake is to teach reading using just words without pictures or any other media.  The child could  learn to sight-read by memorizing the sequence of letters but may not understand much of what he is reading.  A much better approach is to begin by using pictures with the text underneath.  The child will then associate the words with the pictures.  Do not teach your child to read words he would not know the meaning of.  The TeachingPix2 CD-ROM mentioned above is a ready source of images that can be printed with or without the labels to teach sight-reading.

Phonics
Most educators do not use the child’s visual strengths to complement this method of reading.  Using images makes the task a lot more interesting and of course, relevant.   Once again, do not teach your child to read words he would not know the meaning of.  You must document what your child can read.  Once you are confident he knows the meaning of a word, annotate this word as “mastered”.   

Reading Software
   
We market a CD-ROM called CompuThera that offers a seven-step gradual discrete approach for teaching reading. It has been designed for children having trouble learning by observation alone. It is aimed at visual learners and children whom traditional classic educational methods cannot motivate. Children with Autism fit this category; that is why CompuThera will benefit them most.
Targeting both receptive and expressive cognitive skills, the CompuThera treatment plan builds on mastered items to progress through the program using simple drills, eventually leading to reading simple sentences.
The ability to read often triggers in autistic children the conceptual leap leading in breakthrough in communication.  The CD-ROM comes with full instructions and a “Seven-step to reading for Visual learners and children with Autism ” Therapists Manual.

Use the TV as a teaching tool
My son learned his alphabet from Sesame Street.  He loves watching movies.  I use this to an advantage by allowing him to watch DVDs with the subtitles turned on.  Without a doubt, this has contributed to his reading skills.   Spelling
When testing your child’s spelling, don’t simply say eg. “Spell cat”.  Try and get him to work out the word you want by saying eg. “What animal goes miaow and drinks milk”.  When he says “Cat”, you say “Great, spell cat”.  This will help him build the connections in the mind that all developing children need.  Be imaginative and use different clues each time.

Knowing when to move on
Once your child has mastered an exercise (be it understanding of a word, concept, spelling, reading or whatever) you must move on or he will get bored and frustrated and this could manifest itself in bad behavior.  A good rule of thumb is if the child gets the exercise correct 8 times out of 10, consider it mastered.  Move on to the next piece of material but do the mastered exercise twice a week for two weeks, then once a week for a month, then once a fortnight for two months and then once a month for four months.  The exercise is then truly mastered.  Of course you could be running several different programs on any given day.   Working with your child will teach you to challenge your child but not to the point where the demands are too high.  A good consultant to monitor your teaching schedule is well worth considering.  

What does a consultant do?
At the start, a consultant will establish a baseline i.e. establish where the child is at developmentally and accordingly draw up a teaching program to be followed on a daily basis.  Ideally you should see your consultant once a week.  On a weekly basis, a good consultant will work intensively with your child for around two hours while you watch very carefully – you will need to do the same work over the following week.  After working with the child, the consultant will speak to the parents and decide on the work to be done in the following week.  With our son, we kept a live spreadsheet document of the work we did over the week.  When the consultant came in, she could look at the printout and see at a glance how he fared over the week.  At the end of the meeting, she would amend the sheet to include any new programs.  A consultant will let you know what programs to begin, continue with and drop.

Recording method
With several different drills in your child’s schedule, you must have some sort of recording system. Keeping a record of a child’s drills and progress is very important.  If this is not done, you run the risk of not remembering what the child has learned.  You will frustrate the child by using materials repetitively and worst of all you could drop material from a drill before it has been mastered.  A simple but very effective way is to record the child’s progress on a spreadsheet such as Excel.  Keeping a track of pictures, words etc. that are Mastered, Current and Next, gives you an easy way of rotating your material so the child doesn’t get bored with mastered items, keeps him focused on current material and allows you time to work on obtaining new items and ideas that can be added to the list.  The entire schedule can be held on a single file with each program on a different worksheet within the file.

Most frequently used words
           

The complete Webster’s dictionary has over 460,000 words.  However, around 75% of all words used in schoolbooks, library books, newspapers, and magazines are in the Dolch Basic Sight Vocabulary of just 220 words!  These words are: a, about, after, again, all, always, am, an, and, any, are, around, as, ask, at, ate, away, be, because, been, before, best, better, big, black, blue, both, bring, brown, but, buy, by, call, came, can, carry, clean, cold, come, could, cut, did, do, does, done, down, draw, drink, eat, eight, every, fall, far, fast, find, first, five, fly, for, found, four, from, full, funny, gave, get, give, go, goes, going, good, got, green, grow, had, has, have, he, help, her, here, him, his, hold, hot, how, hurt, I, if, in, into, is, it, its, jump, just, keep, kind, know, laugh, let, light, like, little, live, long, look, made, make, many, may, me, much, must, my, myself, never, new, no, not, now, of, off, old, on, once, one, only, open, or, our, out, over, own, pick, play, please, pretty, pull, put, ran, read, red, ride, right, round, run, said, saw, say, see, seven, shall, she, show, sing, sit, six, sleep, small, so, some, soon, start, stop, take, tell, ten, thank, that, the, their, them, then, there, these, they, think, this, those, three, to, today, together, too, try, two, under, up, upon, us, use, very, walk, want, warm, was, wash, we, well, went, were, what, when, where, which, white, who, why, will, wish, with, work, would, write, yellow, yes, you, your.
Keep these words handy and teach them to your child as soon as possible.  Have pictures put up on your wall or notice board with the labels below them.  When your child starts reading, this list should be kept handy.  Some concepts such as “think” and “wish” will come after simpler items such as “jump” and “drink” but hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day!  An excellent source of words is from the Ladybird book series called “Key Words Reading Scheme” which is a set of little children’s storybooks organized very cleverly to include the 1,200 most-used words in the English language.  These well-illustrated books gradually build the child’s language. 

Hitting a brick wall
   
Some educators will tell you that you will ultimately hit a brick wall i.e. you won’t be able to go past a certain point when teaching an autistic child.  Do not believe this.  We were told our child would not be able to read beyond the standard 200 words.  By 6 years he could read and understand over 1,000 words and spell over 400 with his vocabulary increasing with each day.  When you come to a brick wall, don’t break you head against it.  Find a way around it!  Also, don’t believe everything the doctors tell you.  You will find out for yourself what strengths and weaknesses your child has as you work with him.

Using the computer as a teaching tool
           
Children with Autism are usually very strong visual learners and can benefit enormously from a home computer.   However, there is a lot of over-priced and over-rated software out there with very little reinforcement and limited educational value.   The best software allows you to edit information and enter new teaching material and reinforcement.   Reinforcement is vital (and severely lacking in most learning software packages) to hold the child’s interest and involvement.  The software must also be easy to use – easy enough for a parent to operate and edit and of course if the child is to run the software, it should be easy for him to do so.  Our son has almost 150 CD-ROMs in his software collection.  I am always on the lookout for new software to interest him.

Dietary Intervention

At least 50% of children with Autism respond to dietary intervention.  The main culprits are casein (found in dairy products) and gluten (found in wheat, barley, rye and oats).  Many research scientists indicate that incompletely digested gluten and/or casein enters the bloodstream and plays havoc with the child’s system, affecting brain function and learning processes.  Many parents observe that casein and gluten foods make their children vague, sluggish and spacey.  Others say these foods trigger episodes of extreme aggression or self-harm.

Vitamin E
Recent studies are showing that Vitamin E reduces oxidative stress and may be able to protect against chemical damage that may cause Autism.  Excellent natural sources of vitamin E are raw sunflower seeds, almonds, olives, papaya, turnips and spinach.

Drugs

There is as yet no drug that cures the core symptoms of Autism but some can ease the behavioral problems.  Antidepressants such as Prozac may reduce repetitive behaviors.  Stimulants such as Ritalin may lessen hyperactivity.  Anti-psychotic drugs can decrease aggression and hyperactivity.  Beware of side-effects though.  Recent studies have shown kids on Ritalin could suffer side-effects from hair loss to heart attacks.   Risperdal is used to treat irritability associated with autistic disorder, including temper tantrums, deliberate self-injury and aggression in children and adolescents, ages 5 to 16. The approval is the first for the use of a drug to treat behaviors associated with Autism in children. Risperdal, first approved by the FDA in 1993, has been used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in adults.  The anti-psychotic drug is not a cure for Autism, nor does it treat the condition itself, but it may provide relief for some children.

No substitute
Regardless of whether you use diet intervention, enzymes, drugs or other medication, none of these is a substitute for early teaching intervention i.e. you must keep teaching your child, using this window of opportunity to his best advantage.  No other intervention alone has yet proven as successful.

Physical Exercise

All children benefit from physical exercise.  Children with Autism have shown remarkable improvement with vigorous exercise especially with concentration and alertness.  Daily Life Therapy developed by the late Dr. Kiyo Kitahara of Tokyo, Japan puts a strong emphasis on systematic education through group dynamics, the intermingling of academics and technology, art, music and vigorous physical education.  The Boston Higashi School applies the Daily Life Therapy.  It is now famous in the US for its high success rate in helping children with Autism.  It is true that a healthy mind will exist in a healthy body.   You will have to improvise when teaching your child to play and exercise.  As an example, if you feel your child is not ready for badminton, try getting him to play hitting a balloon instead of a shuttlecock.  This is an excellent exercise to help with a child’s coordination and can be a precursor to badminton or tennis.

Auditory information
It was once believed that children with Autism could not receive and/or process auditory information.  This was because many of the children appeared deaf.  It was proven only relatively recently that the reverse is actually the case.  Typical children can filter out background noise and selectively listen to speech and relevant sound.  Children with Autism cannot easily filter out background noise.  Hence someone talking to them may as well be the sound of a car driving past.  Understandably, the huge amount of auditory stimulus can easily overload a child with Autism.  In some cases, the child with attempt to block out the stimulus by holding his ears or by rocking to and fro.  The best way to calm down a child with Autism is to lower the noise and other stimulus levels right down.  Bright flashing colors could also be distressing to him.  As mentioned before, Autism is a sensory malfunction and all five senses could cause problems in a child with the condition.

Sleep

Getting enough sleep is very important to a child with Autism as the stimulus load on him through the day will be much greater than on a typical child.

Stims
Stimulatory behavior or ‘stims’ are when the child will do something repetitively such as flapping his hands or running to and fro.  A stim is usually a coping mechanism for the child when he is under stress or when he needs to unwind eg. when he comes home from school.  A little stimming should be tolerated by the parents. Getting him interested in something else is the ideal way of avoiding this behavior.

Echolalia
This is when the child will repeat (often repetitively) what he hears without necessarily understanding what he is saying.  Although this is not the best behavior, the child can at least vocalize words and can be taught speech and language.  You could use this to the fullest advantage by getting your child to express a variety of words that will come into use in his following years.  Better still, show him a picture of what you are saying before saying it.

Verbal stim
The child may babble repetitively about a number of things such as his favourite TV show or movie.  Many experts will say to stop all babbling in your child.  I would not agree entirely with this for the simple reason that even typical children babble as a precursor to speech usually at around 1.5 years of age.  Children with Autism will begin speech later and will start at that stage by babbling.  All you need to do is establish with him when this is OK (eg. when he is at home) and when it is not i.e. in public.
He needs to be taught awareness of others’ reactions to his verbal stim. You need to work on him doing this quietly or nonverbally.  You can actually expand on what he is stimming about through conversation, drawing and role-playing in an attempt to convert this stim into a learning process.

Adrenalin rush

All children need a break from work.  Consider this excerpt from the Woman’s Weekly:  “Short, intense bursts of excitement can actually make you more resilient and able to cope better with prolonged stress and tension. Have a day off work and organize to spend it doing something you’ve always wanted to do – but make it a challenge that makes you just a little bit nervous, something that expands your boundaries!  Book a flight in a hot-air balloon, go on a roller-coaster ride or a parachute jump, or plan a day at the races with friends. Learn how to rally-drive, or go on an ocean trip where you can see whales and dolphins.  Taking time out to do something new, exciting and a little bit scary can set off the biological fight-or-flight response, flooding the body with stress hormones. But once the ride or jump is over, the hormonal changes are rapidly reversed and anxiety is replaced by elation. Research from the University of Nebraska confirms this idea, showing that the ‘rush’ you get from intermittent physiological arousal resulting in a short-term stress response can be as effective in beating stress as repeated exercise.”   The same would apply for all children, so let them have their adrenalin rush and avoid prolonged work at home or at school.

Take a break

Like all of us, your child will need a complete break from work every few months.  Some parents have even reported a sudden surge in speech when they have taken their child out of town or away on holiday.  When you resume work with him, you may need to start slowly and build on that over a week or two.

Toilet training
     
I often get mothers calling up and asking about toilet training. Toilet training in typical children starts at around 2 to 3 years.  When you feel you child is ready, you need to remove his nappy and allow him to feel the discomfort of the mess in his pants for a while before changing him.  You need to start with training him to pass urine.  To start serious training, you need to set aside a weekend.  You need a buzzer or beeping timer, a portable toilet that he can easily sit on and lots of reinforcers eg. bits of sweets, chocolate or some other rewards.  Do this exercise in the living room or area that he plays in.  Give him lots of fluids to drink – juice, water, lemonade etc.  Set the timer to go off every 15 minutes and each time it goes off, sit him on the toilet for around a minute.  Do not pressure him to do anything.  If he passes even a little urine, reward him immediately so he associates the reward with doing the job.  Allow him access to the portable toilet until he is ready to use the regular toilet.

Encourage independence
        
A child with Autism must be encouraged to do things for himself.  A system called reverse chaining can be useful here whereby a task can be broken up into steps.  A simple example is pulling up his pants.  Start by pulling up his pants up for him until they’re almost on  and get him to do the rest.   Do this for a number of days until gets the hang of it.  Then try to get him to start between the knees and hips.  Before you know it, he will do it from the ankles up.  Although this is time-consuming and many parents would simply dress the child themselves, the extra effort involved in reverse chaining will encourage the child to be independent and have more self-esteem.  When his language improves, get him to order something he wants at a place such as McDonalds whilst you watch from a distance.  Choose a quiet time initially when he doesn’t have to queue up as this itself is a feat on it’s own.  Another vital area where a child with Autism must be taught early is safety in his environment.

Safety awareness and Autism
            
Safety should be encouraged from a very early age.  Crossing the road is difficult for any young child and you would need to hold the child’s hand whenever near traffic.  However, instilling the basic concept of traffic awareness can begin very early.  What I did with my own son was to hold his hand and ask him to tell me when it was safe to cross, asking simply “Is it safe?”  I got the idea when I saw him eager to cross the road to his favourite video library.  He soon worked out he had to look both ways for traffic before answering “yes” or “no”.  Within a week, he understood the concept completely.  Teaching generalization is often a problem for children with Autism. To teach a child with Autism to generalize the principle of not running across the street, it must be taught in many different locations. If he is taught in only one location, the child will think that the rule only applies to one specific place.
Never miss an opportunity to teach your child. One parent reported that she had huge success with her child when he was outside playing on the trampoline or swing.  She would get him to recite nursery rhymes and songs here with considerably more success than when they were indoors at the table.
Studies have shown that swings are the number one cause of injuries to children in the playground.  Very young children with Autism are especially in danger as they will be more unaware of the danger.  After a couple of close calls, I got the idea of hanging a boxing bag in one of the doorways of our home.  The children were allowed to hit, punch and push the bag that was hung a few inches from the ground.  In no time at all, they became aware that they had to stay out of the way of a heavy swinging mass.

Getting your child to interact with the computer
             
A home computer is a valuable teaching tool for your child.  Most children with Autism are naturally attracted to the sights and sounds of a computer.  Children as young as 12 months and even younger are able to sit on their parents’ laps and interact with a home computer.  Very few children under the age of three will be able to operate a mouse.  DON’T waste valuable time waiting for this to happen.  A child will be able to use a touch-screen long before he can use a mouse.  Touch-screens allow a child to navigate around a program by touching the screen directly instead of co-relating the movements of the hand to the mouse cursor (a difficult feat for some adults!).

Touch-screens

There are two types of touch-screens:
a) where the monitor’s screen is touch-sensitive (expensive) and
b) the add-on touch-screen, pictured below, which you can place over your existing monitor (cheaper alternative).  The add-on will come with some software and an adapter to connect to your mouse input.  Get the one that allows the use of your mouse as well so your child can use the mouse when he is ready.  Leave the mouse at the side of the keyboard.  Your child will eventually start using the mouse and you can then discard the touch-screen add-on. 

Other children
A child with Autism must be encouraged to play and associate with typical children of his age or even slightly older.  Given the choice, encourage him to interact with more vocal, animated children rather than shy, quiet kids so his speech will be stimulated.  Children often respond better to feedback from their peers than from their parents or therapists.  Watch them play together.  Those that involve him in play will be of most benefit to him.  Play dates with other children is an excellent idea.  Children with Autism often don’t like going to unfamiliar places and seeing unfamiliar faces.  Brothers and sisters are always a huge advantage.  Imitation and turn-taking are the cornerstones of communication.  From an early age, you must expose them to as many different environments and people as you possibly can.

Talk to your child

If you remember just one thing from this document, please remember this – The best and simplest advice for anyone who has a child with Autism is to keep talking to your child, telling him what you’re doing, what is happening and what is going to happen.  Children with Autism like routine and you can use this to the best advantage.  Use terms simple enough so the child understands and of course speak at a speed the child can absorb.  Avoid long strings of verbal instructions. People with Autism have problems with remembering the sequence. If the child can read, write the instructions down on a piece of paper.  An agenda or chart of daily events and events within the day preferably in the form of images that can be put up on a notice board is an excellent idea.  If the child can read, a written list can often help.  If he can’t read yet, you must use images.

What not to teach your child
A typical child could easily pick up two or even more languages before the age of six.  However, I would never suggest you try teaching a child with Autism more than one language.   Also, although other subjects such as maths, science etc. are important, keep a strong focus on your child’s speech and language.  There’s not much use forcing the issue with other subjects if your child’s language skills can’t keep up.
The second thing is religious studies.  Concepts such as God, Hell, Devil, Heaven and the like can be very confusing and even scary concepts to a child with Autism.  I personally would leave this to a much later stage in the child’s development.  There are many more things you could be teaching your child in the mean time.

Singing
Encourage your child to join the school choir or take up singing lessons.  Kids with Autism often speak in monotone.  Singing will help develop the range in your child’s voice.

Maths

Setting up maths situations to real life is far more stimulating than just written sums on paper so be imaginative and use real objects, money, prices at the supermarket etc.

Always insist on a response
Once your child starts to respond to you in any way, be it verbal, with a picture, symbol or other, you must always, always, always insist on a response to anything you ask him.  It is a lot easier to do the opposite but if you do so, he will soon learn he is able to get away with no response and his communication will suffer.

Stress management
At some stage you may need to do some stress management work with your child.  These exercises need to be done when the child is calm, working towards using these techniques when he is stressed.

Building Social Skills
A child with Autism needs to be taught how to behave appropriately in public and to build social skills.  We market these software titles which teach good behavior in different settings:

My Community CD  teaches children and young people appropriate social behaviors, interactions, expectations and safety precautions with various peers and adults within their community. This CD incorporates video of real people interacting in different community settings such as a restaurant, doctor’s office, friend’s house, grocery store, and neighborhood and allows the user to predict what should be appropriately said or done next. This multi-level program targets individuals with a cognitive age of 5-15 years. This program is both Macintosh (OSX and above) and IBM PC compatible.
 
School Rules Volume 1 teaches acceptable behaviors during structured activities related to the classroom, group work, and physical education along with unstructured times of hallway interaction and lockers. This volume also targets the sensitive issues of PE locker room and personal hygiene. Target Cognitive Ages 8-18.

School Rules Volume 2  teaches social interpretation skills during unstructured times where social rules are most challenging. This CD uses scenarios such as getting lunch, waiting in line, eating, talking to friends, or “just hanging out” to demonstrate social awareness. In addition, this volume also addresses time management, organizational skills and the use of schedules at school. Target Cognitive Ages 8-18. These programs are both Macintosh (OSX and above) and IBM PC compatible.

Preschool Playtime Volume 1  & 2  teach the young child basic peer interactions and play skills such as taking turns, sharing, requesting, cooperating and shifting activities through real-life social situations like a day at the park, in preschool or going to a play date. 

This program includes 5 complexity levels and numerous videos to target a broad range of abilities. All levels include a fun and motivating social game of Duck, Duck Goose, Ring Around the Rosie, and Hide and Seek which is incorporated as the user plays the computer program. This program targets individuals with a cognitive age of 3-7 years and includes an easy-to-use lesson plan to customize the video sequences shown for each student.

Listen to your child
Once your child becomes verbal you must document what he knows and understands.  Listen to your child and document any new words you think he knows or should know.  I started with just a handful of words on an Excel spreadsheet.  Keeping this document for my child was extremely valuable as I made sure he knew and understood the words.  The list grew to over a thousand words in less than 12 months.  I also introduced new frequently-used words into the list and used pictures to ensure he knew what they meant.  By not keeping a live document, you risk your child loosing words and ultimately having a very limited vocabulary.

Watch your child

If you are one of those fortunate parents who has a ‘scribbler’ for a child, i.e. a child that loves to scribble text and images, then a) make sure he has lots of blank paper and writing materials at hand. b) Look at what he is scribbling.  Chances are any text he scribbles is text he has seen before and possibly understands.  You must check these words are in his word bank.  If they are not, enter them in.  It is of course important to watch how you child interacts with others and how they interact with him.  If there is very little interaction, it may be time to find new friends for him.  Friends that make the effort to involve him in play are worth their weight in gold.  I sometimes indulged in a little bribery with my son’s friends eg. play this game and we’ll go to McDonald’s later.  It’s true your child needs reinforcement but his friends may need a litt

About the Author

Vince DSouza

Super Build Primer 302 Ga Converter For Super Build 304 $125.94 Super Build Primer 302 Ga Converter For Super Build 304 Alexseal Yacht Coatings Super Build Primer 302 – GA CONVERTER FOR SUPER BUILD 304

Therm O Web Memory Tape Runner XL tape runner $4.71 This extra-long tape runner goes anywhere on the page. With a patented pivoting head, the Memory Tape Runner XL allows you to apply precise curves and lines evenly. The tape is clear, acid-free, and photo safe. It also bonds instantly. It’s great for attaching photos, die-cuts, ribbon… practically anything The tape measures 5/16 in. x 50 ft.

Super Build Primer 302 Ga Wht Super Build 302 Primer 1:3 $115.94 Super Build Primer 302 Ga Wht Super Build 302 Primer 1:3 Alexseal Yacht Coatings Super Build Primer 302 – GA WHT SUPER BUILD 302 PRIMER 1:3

Build Web Page Erwin

What to Avoid on Your Site

It is quite easy to build a web site. It is even easier to really annoy your web site visitors.

Build A Winner

Anyone can build a web site. Building a good web site is another story. Web designers can easily avoid some of the most common mistakes by watching out for the following pitfalls:

1. Pop-Ups – Pop-ups can really annoy a visitor as these advertisements that open automatically in a new window can be quite distracting. The visitor might be interested in looking at the content of your site but a pop-up can force the visitor to focus on other things. A better way to annoy visitors is by having pop-ups that spawn more pop-ups when the visitor tries to close the first one.

2. Never Ending Web Pages – Another way to annoy your web site visitors is by putting mass amounts of information on one long continuous page. The visitor will keep scrolling endlessly down the web page only to get lost in web site content unrelated to what he or she was looking for in the first place. Long pages are one of the easiest ways to make a web page look hokey. It is much better to keep web site pages short and sweet so that it is easy for the visitor to get right to the information that is being looked for.

3. Excessive use of Graphics – Some web developers think that by using flashy graphics they can attract visitors to their site. Instead, the visitors are likely to get irritated. Too many graphics will make your web site download very slowly. Due to slow download speeds people might leave your web site before even knowing what your site has to offer. In this fast moving world, nobody has spare time to sit and wait until your web site pages load. This is particularly true for the 42 percent of people still on dial-up.

4. Under Construction Pages – Another way to irritate your web site visitors is by diverting them to a page which reads “under construction”. Most people try to find content oriented web sites and if they come across your web page that reads “under construction,” the visitor is likely to be annoyed, having spent time getting there with no positive result.

5. Plug-Ins – Some web sites use plug-ins that visitors have to install before they can view the web site. This is one of the easiest way to really annoy your web site visitors. Some people feel that if they like a particular program then others should like it as well. A web developer might like a good-looking icon program which needs to be installed before his or her web site can be viewed. If the program is obscure and not used by most people, this will only be a source of discontent when things do not work properly on the site. Don’t make people download software to see your site. Never ever make them take extra steps to do something.

6. Lack of Content – Most people like content oriented web sites that give information on specific topics. Even search engines love content-based web sites and will rank content heavy sites higher in search results. Usually people visit a web site to see what benefit the site can offer them. Lack of proper content results in annoyed visitors leaving the web site.

7. Music – A few years back music was quite common on the web and many web sites had music that automatically played. Gradually people have realized that music creates a lot of distraction and is a nuisance to a lot of people. If you really want music then a choice should be given to the visitor to switch it on or off. Remember, may people surf the web with music playing already or while sitting in their office. When a web site automatically plays music, it will aggravate them to no end.

8. Inconsistent Page Design – Some sites are designed in such a way that after moving from one page to another the visitor feels as if he or she has come to a totally different web site. There should be some uniformity in page design or else visitors will feel lost and disoriented.

By paying close attention to factors that can annoy web site visitors, web site owners and designers can keep their visitors happy. Following, or rather not following, these eight web site annoyances, webmasters can make the most of each web visitor.

About the Author

Want to find out about goldfish ailments and goldfish facts? Get tips from the Types Of Goldfish website.

Super Build Primer 302 Ga Converter For Super Build 304 $125.94 Super Build Primer 302 Ga Converter For Super Build 304 Alexseal Yacht Coatings Super Build Primer 302 – GA CONVERTER FOR SUPER BUILD 304

Therm O Web Memory Tape Runner XL tape runner $4.71 This extra-long tape runner goes anywhere on the page. With a patented pivoting head, the Memory Tape Runner XL allows you to apply precise curves and lines evenly. The tape is clear, acid-free, and photo safe. It also bonds instantly. It’s great for attaching photos, die-cuts, ribbon… practically anything The tape measures 5/16 in. x 50 ft.

Super Build Primer 302 Ga Wht Super Build 302 Primer 1:3 $115.94 Super Build Primer 302 Ga Wht Super Build 302 Primer 1:3 Alexseal Yacht Coatings Super Build Primer 302 – GA WHT SUPER BUILD 302 PRIMER 1:3

Build Web Page Microsoft

Critical Analysis Of Web Crawlers’ Algorithms

 

Critical Analysis of Web Crawlers’ Algorithms

 Minou Parhizkar 0527553

Abstract- A web crawler is a program or automated script which browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. The objective of the paper is to make a make a critical analysis of the algorithms used by Web Crawlers. It intends to review and evaluate the different and various approaches to the methods used by the different web search engines to catalog the information.

 

 

Index Terms-

Web Crawler, Search Engines, WWW, SEO

 

•I.     INTRODUCTION

 

The software that searches for information and returns sites which provide that information is referred to as a search engine or web crawler. Everyone uses web crawlers-indirectly, at least! Every time you search the Internet using a service such as Alta Vista, Excite, or Lycos, you’re making use of an index that’s based on the output of a web crawler. Web crawlers-also known as spiders, robots, or wanderers-are software programs that automatically traverse the Web. Search engines use crawlers to find what’s on the Web; then they construct an index of the pages that were found.

 

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.

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: Google spider

 

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. Most of the top-ranked search engines are crawler based search engines while some may be based on human compiled directories. The people behind the search engines want the same thing every webmaster wants – traffic to their site. Since their content is mainly links to other sites, the thing for them to do is to make their search engine bring up the most relevant sites to the search query, and to display the best of these results first. In order to accomplish this, they use a complex set of rules called algorithms. When a search query is submitted at a search engine, sites are determined to be relevant or not relevant to the search query according to these algorithms, and then ranked in the order it calculates from these algorithms to be the best matches first.

Search engines keep their algorithms secret and change them often in order to prevent webmasters from manipulating their databases and dominating search results. They also want to provide new sites at the top of the search results on a regular basis rather than always having the same old sites show up month after month. An important difference to realize is that search engines and directories are not the same. Search engines use a spider to “crawl” the web and the web sites they find, as well as submitted sites. As they crawl the web, they gather the information that is used by their algorithms in order to rank your site.

This paper aims at critically analyzing various search engineers, how they work and comparing their algorithms.

•II.     Working of web crawlers – a detailed look up

Let us now look at a more detailed explanation on how Search Engines work. Crawler based search engines are primarily composed of three parts.

A search engine robot’s action is called spidering, as it resembles the multiple legged spiders. The spider’s job is to go to a web page, read the contents, connect to any other pages on that web site through links, and bring back the information. From one page it will travel to several pages and this proliferation follows several parallel and nested paths simultaneously. Spiders frequent the site at some interval, may be a month to a few months, and re-index the pages. This way any changes that may have occurred in your pages could also be reflected in the index. The spiders automatically visit your web pages and create their listings. An important aspect is to study what factors promote “deep crawl” – the depth to which the spider will go into your website from the page it first visited. Listing ‘submitting or registering’ with a search engine is a step that could accelerate and increase the chances of that engine “spidering” your pages.

The spider’s movement across web pages stores those pages in its memory, but the key action is in indexing. The index is a huge database containing all the information brought back by the spider. The index is constantly being updated as the spider collects more information. The entire page is not indexed and the searching and page-ranking algorithm is applied only to the index that has been created. Most search engines claim that they index the full visible body text of a page. In a subsequent section, we explain the key considerations to ensure that indexing of your web pages improves relevance during search. The combined understanding of the indexing and the page-ranking process will lead to developing the right strategies. The Meta tags ‘Description’ and ‘Keywords’ have a vital role as they are indexed in a specific way. Some of the top search engines do not index the keywords that they consider spam. They will also not index certain ‘stop words’ (commonly used words such as ‘a’ or ‘the’ or ‘of’” so as to save space or speed up the process. Images are obviously not indexed, but image descriptions or Alt text or “text within comments” is included in the index by some search engines.

The search engine software or program is the final part. When a person requests a search on a keyword or phrase, the search engine software searches the index for relevant information. The software then provides a report back to the searcher with the most relevant web pages listed first. The algorithm-based processes used to determine ranking of results are discussed in greater detail later.

These directories compile listings of websites into specific industry and subject categories and they usually carry a short description about the website. Inclusion in directories is a human task and requires submission to the directory producers. Visitors and researchers over the net quite often use these directories to locate relevant sites and information sources. Thus directories assist in structured search. Another important reason is that crawler engines quite often find websites to crawl through their listing and links in directories. Yahoo and The Open Directory are amongst the largest and most well known directories. LookSmart is a directory that provides results to partner sites such as MSN Search, Excite and others. Lycos is an example of a site that pioneered the search engine but shifted to the Directory model depending on AlltheWeb.com for its listings.

Hybrid Search Engines are both crawler based as well as human powered. In plain words, these search engines have two sets of listings based on both the mechanisms mentioned above. The best example of hybrid search engines is Yahoo, which has got a human powered directory as well as a Search toolbar administered by Google. Although, such engines provide both listings they are generally dominated by one of the two mechanisms. Yahoo is known more for its directory rather than crawler based search engine.

Search engines rank web pages according to the software’s understanding of the web page’s relevancy to the term being searched. To determine relevancy, each search engine follows its own group of rules. The most important rules are.

- The location of keywords on your web page; and – How often those keywords appear on the page ‘the frequency’

For example, if the keyword appears in the title of the page, then it would be considered to be far more relevant than the keyword appearing in the text at the bottom of the page. Search engines consider keywords to be more relevant if they appear sooner on the page (like in the headline) rather than later. The idea is that you’ll be putting the most important words – the ones that really have the relevant information – on the page first.

Search engines also consider the frequency with which keywords appear. The frequency is usually determined by how often the keywords are used out of all the words on a page. If the keyword is used 4 times out of 100 words, the frequency would be 4%. Of course, you can now develop the perfect relevant page with one keyword at 100% frequency – just put a single word on the page and make it the title of the page as well. Unfortunately, the search engines don’t make things that simple.

While all search engines do follow the same basic rules of relevancy, location and frequency, each search engine has its own special way of determining rankings. To make things more interesting, the search engines change the rules from time to time so that the rankings change even if the web pages have remained the same. One method of determining relevancy used by some search engines ‘like HotBot and Infoseek’, but not others ‘like Lycos’, is the Meta tags. Meta tags are hidden HTML codes that provide the search engine spiders with potentially important information like the page description and the page keywords.

Meta tags are often labeled as the secret to getting high rankings, but Meta tags alone will not get you a top 10 ranking. On the other hand, they certainly don’t hurt. Detailed information on meta-tags and other ways of improving search engine ranking is given later in this chapter.

In the early days of the web, webmasters would repeat a keyword hundreds of times in the Meta tags and then add it hundreds of times to the text on the web page by making it the same color as the background. However, now, major search engines have algorithms that may exclude a page from ranking if it has resorted to “keyword spamming”; in fact some search engines will downgrade ranking in such cases and penalize the page.

Link analysis and ‘clickthrough’ measurement are certain other factors that are “off the page” and yet crucial in the ranking mechanism adopted by some leading search engines. This is quickly emerging as the most important determinant of ranking, but before we study this, we must first look at the most popular search engines and then look at the various steps you can take to improve your success at each of the stages – spidering, indexing and ranking.

For March 2003, according to a study by Jupiter Media Metrix, there were an estimated 114 million Internet users online in the US at work or at home, 80 percent of whom are estimated to have made some type of search request during the month.

•III.     a summarised comparison OF SEARCH engines

Yahoo!

• been in the search game for many years.
• is better than MSN but nowhere near as good as Google at determining if a link is a natural citation or not.
• has a ton of internal content and a paid inclusion program. both of which give them incentive to bias search results toward commercial results
• things like cheesy off topic reciprocal links still work great in Yahoo!

MSN Search

• new to the search game
• is bad at determining if a link is natural or artificial in nature
• due to sucking at link analysis they place too much weight on the page content
• their poor relevancy algorithms cause a heavy bias toward commercial results
• likes bursty recent links
• new sites that are generally un-trusted in other systems can rank quickly in MSN Search
• things like cheesy off topic reciprocal links still work great in MSN Search

Google

• has been in the search game a long time, and saw the web graph when it is much cleaner than the current web graph
• is much better than the other engines at determining if a link is a true editorial citation or an artificial link
• looks for natural link growth over time
• heavily biases search results toward informational resources
• trusts old sites way too much
• a page on a site or sub-domain of a site with significant age or link related trust can rank much better than it should, even with no external citations
• they have aggressive duplicate content filters that filter out many pages with similar content
• if a page is obviously focused on a term they may filter the document out for that term. on page variation and link anchor text variation are important. a page with a single reference or a few references of a modifier will frequently outrank pages that are heavily focused on a search phrase containing that modifier
• crawl depth determined not only by link quantity, but also link quality. Excessive low quality links may make your site less likely to be crawled deep or even included in the index.
• things like cheesy off topic reciprocal links are generally ineffective in Google when you consider the associated opportunity cost

Ask

• looks at topical communities
• due to their heavy emphasis on topical communities they are slow to rank sites until they are heavily cited from within their topical community
• due to their limited market share they probably are not worth paying much attention to unless you are in a vertical where they have a strong brand that drives significant search traffic

•IV.     Detailed Analysis of Search Engines

Now that we have understood the working and basics of web crawlers and reviewed a summarized comparison of a few major search engines out in the market, now we are in a position to have a detailed analysis and comparison between these and get into nitty gritty technical details. The sections below will deal with each of these engines one by one with a detailed analysis.

•V.     Yahoo!

 

Yahoo! was founded in 1994 by David Filo and Jerry Yang as a directory of websites. For many years they outsourced their search service to other providers, but by the end of 2002 they realized the importance and value of search and started aggressively acquiring search companies.

Overture purchased AllTheWeb and AltaVista. Yahoo! purchased Inktomi (in December 2002) and then consumed Overture (in July of 2003), and combined the technologies from the various search companies they bought to make a new search engine.

•a)                   On Page Content

Yahoo! offers a paid inclusion program, so when Yahoo! Search users click on high ranked paid inclusion results in the organic search results Yahoo! profits. In part to make it easy for paid inclusion participants to rank, I believe Yahoo! places greater weight on on-the-page content than a search engine like Google does.

Being the #1 content destination site on the web, Yahoo! has a boatload of their own content which they frequently reference in the search results. Since they have so much of their own content and make money from some commercial organic search results it might make sense for them to bias their search results a bit toward commercial websites.

Using descriptive page titles and page content goes a long way in Yahoo!

In my opinion their results seem to be biased more toward commerce than informational sites, when compared with Google.

•b)                   Crawling

Yahoo! is pretty good at crawling sites deeply so long as they have sufficient link popularity to get all their pages indexed. One note of caution is that Yahoo! may not want to deeply index sites with many variables in the URL string, especially since

• Yahoo! already has a boatload of their own content they would like to promote (including verticals like Yahoo! Shopping)
• Yahoo! offers paid inclusion, which can help Yahoo! increase revenue by charging merchants to index some of their deep database contents.

You can use Yahoo! Site Explorer to see how well they are indexing your site and which sites link at your site.

•c)                   Query Processing

Certain words in a search query are better at defining the goals of the searcher. If you search Yahoo! for something like “how to SEO ” many of the top ranked results will have “how to” and “SEO” in the page titles, which might indicate that Yahoo! puts quite a bit of weight even on common words that occur in the search query.

Yahoo! seems to be more about text matching when compared to Google, which seems to be more about concept matching.

•d)                   Link Reputation

Yahoo! is still fairly easy to manipulate using low to mid quality links and somewhat to aggressively focused anchor text. Rand Fishken recently posted about many Technorati pages ranking well for their core terms in Yahoo!. Those pages primarily have the exact same anchor text in almost all of the links pointing at them.

Sites with the trust score of Technorati may be able to get away with more unnatural patterns than most webmasters can, but I have seen sites flamethrown with poorly mixed anchor text on low quality links, only to see the sites rank pretty well in Yahoo! quickly.

•e)                   Page vs Site

A few years ago at a Search Engine Strategies conference Jon Glick stated that Yahoo! looked at both links to a page and links to a site when determining the relevancy of a page. Pages on newer sites can still rank well even if their associated domain does not have much trust built up yet so long as they have some descriptive inbound links.

•f)                    Site Age

Yahoo! may place some weight on older sites, but the effect is nowhere near as pronounced as the effect in Google’s SERPs.

It is not unreasonable for new sites to rank in Yahoo! in as little as 2 or 3 months.

•g)                   Paid Search

Yahoo! prices their ads in an open auction, with the highest bidder ranking the highest. By early 2007 they aim to make Yahoo! Search Marketing more of a closed system which factors in clickthrough rate (and other algorithmic factors) into their ad ranking algorithm.

Yahoo! also offers a paid inclusion program which charges a flat rate per click to list your site in Yahoo!’s organic search results.

Yahoo! also offers a contextual ad network. The Yahoo! Publisher program does not have the depth that Google’s ad system has, and they seem to be trying to make up for that by biasing their targeting to more expensive ads, which generally causes their syndicated ads to have a higher click cost but lower average clickthrough rate.

•h)                   Editorial

Yahoo! has many editorial elements to their search product. When a person pays for Yahoo! Search Submit that content is reviewed to ensure it matches Yahoo!’s quality guidelines. Sites submitted to the Yahoo! Directory are reviewed for quality as well.

In addition to those two forms of paid reviews, Yahoo! also frequently reviews their search results in many industries. For competitive search queries some of the top search results may be hand coded. If you search for Viagra, for example, the top 5 listings looked useful, and then I had to scroll down to #82 before I found another result that wasn’t spammy.

Yahoo! also manually reviews some of the spammy categories somewhat frequently and then reviews other samples of their index. Sometimes you will see a referral like http://corp.yahoo-inc.com/project/health-blogs/keepers if they reviewed your site and rated it well.

Sites which have been editorially reviewed and were of decent quality may be given a small boost in relevancy score. Sites which were reviewed and are of poor quality may be demoted in relevancy or removed from the search index.

Yahoo! has published their content quality guidelines. Some sites that are filtered out of search results by automated algorithms may return if the site cleans up the associated problems, but typically if any engine manually reviews your site and removes it for spamming you have to clean it up and then plead your case.

•i)                    Social Aspects

Yahoo! firmly believes in the human aspect of search. They paid many millions of dollars to buy Del.icio.us, a social bookmarking site. They also have a similar product native to Yahoo! called My Yahoo!

Yahoo! has also pushed a question answering service called Yahoo! Answers which they heavily promote in their search results and throughout their network. Yahoo! Answers allows anyone to ask or answer questions. Yahoo! is also trying to mix amateur content from Yahoo! Answers with professionally sourced content in verticals such as Yahoo! Tech.

•j)                    Yahoo! SEO Tools

Yahoo! has a number of useful SEO tools.

• Overture Keyword Selector Tool – shows prior month search volumes across Yahoo! and their search network.
• Overture View Bids Tool – displays the top ads and bid prices by keyword in the Yahoo! Search Marketing ad network.
• Yahoo! Site Explorer – shows which pages Yahoo! has indexed from a site and which pages they know of that link at pages on your site.
• Yahoo! Mindset – shows you how Yahoo! can bias search results more toward informational or commercial search results.
• Yahoo! Advanced Search Page – makes it easy to look for .edu and .gov backlinks
• Yahoo! Buzz – shows current popular searches

•k)                   Yahoo! Business Perspectives

Being the largest content site on the web makes Yahoo! run into some inefficiency issues due to being a large internal customer. For example, Yahoo! Shopping was a large link buyer for a period of time while Yahoo! Search pushed that they didn’t agree with link buying. Offering paid inclusion and having so much internal content makes it make sense for Yahoo! to have a somewhat commercial bias to their search results.

They believe strongly in the human and social aspects of search, pushing products like Yahoo! Answers and My Yahoo!.

I think Yahoo!’s biggest weakness is the diverse set of things that they do. In many fields they not only have internal customers, but in some fields they have product duplication, like with Yahoo! My Web and Del.icio.us. 

•l)                    Search Marketing Perspective

I believe if you do standard textbook SEO practices and actively build quality links it is reasonable to expect to be able to rank well in Yahoo! within 2 or 3 months. If you are trying to rank for highly spammed keyword phrases keep in mind that the top 5 or so results may be editorially selected, but if you use longer tail search queries or look beyond the top 5 for highly profitable terms you can see that many people are indeed still spamming them to bits.

As Yahoo! pushes more of their vertical offerings it may make sense to give your site and brand additional exposure to Yahoo!’s traffic by doing things like providing a few authoritative answers to topically relevant questions on Yahoo! Answers.

•VI.     Msn Search

MSN Search had many incarnations, being powered by the likes of Inktomi and Looksmart for a number of years. After Yahoo! bought Inktomi and Overture it was obvious to Microsoft that they needed to develop their own search product. They launched their technology preview of their search engine around July 1st of 2004. They formally switched from Yahoo! organic search results to their own in house technology on January 31st, 2005.

•a)                   On Page Content

Using descriptive page titles and page content goes a long way to help you rank in MSN. I have seen examples of many domains that ranked for things like

state name+ insurance type + insurance

on sites that were not very authoritative which only had a few instances of state name and insurance as the anchor text. Adding the word health, life, etc. to the page title made the site relevant for those types of insurance, in spite of the site having few authoritative links and no relevant anchor text for those specific niches.

Additionally, internal pages on sites like those can rank well for many relevant queries just by being hyper focused, but MSN currently drives little traffic when compared with the likes of Google.

•b)                   Crawling

MSN has got better at crawling, but I still think Yahoo! and Google are much better at crawling. It is best to avoid session IDs, sending bots cookies, or using many variables in the URL strings. MSN is nowhere near as comprehensive as Yahoo! or Google at crawling deeply through large sites like eBay.com or Amazon.com.

•c)                   Query Processing

I believe MSN might be a bit better than Yahoo! at processing queries for meaning instead of taking them quite so literally, but I do not believe they are as good as Google is at it.

While MSN offers a tool that estimates how commercial a page or query is I think their lack of ability to distinguish quality links from low quality links makes their results exceptionally biased toward commercial results.

•d)                   Link Reputation

By the time Microsoft got in the search game the web graph was polluted with spammy and bought links. Because of this, and Microsoft’s limited crawling history, they are not as good as the other major search engines at telling the difference between real organic citations and low quality links.

MSN search reacts much more quickly than the other engines at ranking new sites due to link bursts. Sites with relatively few quality links that gain enough descriptive links are able to quickly rank in MSN. I have seen sites rank for one of the top few dozen most expensive phrases on the net in about a week.

•e)                   Page vs Site

I think all major search engines consider site authority when evaluating individual pages, but with MSN it seems as though you do not need to build as much site authority as you would to rank well in the other engines.

•f)                    Site Age

Due to MSN’s limited crawling history and the web graph being highly polluted before they got into search they are not as good as the other engines at determining age related trust scores. New sites doing general textbook SEO and acquiring a few descriptive inbound links (perhaps even low quality links) can rank well in MSN within a month.

•g)                   Paid Search

Microsoft’s paid search product, AdCenter, is the most advanced search ad platform on the web. Like Google, MSN ranks ads based on both max bid price and ad clickthrough rate. In addition to those relevancy factors MSN also allows you to place adjustable bids based on demographic details. For example, a mortgage lead from a wealthy older person might be worth more than an equivalent search from a younger and poorer person.

•h)                   Editorial

All major search engines have internal relevancy measurement teams. MSN seems to be highly lacking in this department, or they are trying to use the fact that their search results are spammy as a marketing angle.

MSN is running many promotional campaigns to try to get people to try out MSN Search, and in many cases some of the searches they are sending people to have bogus spam or pornography type results in them. A good example of this is when they used Stacey Kiebler to market their Celebrity Maps product. As of writing this, their top search result for Stacey Kiebler is still pure spam.

Based on MSN’s lack of feedback or concern toward the obvious search spam noted above on a popular search marketing community site I think MSN is trying to automate much of their spam detection, but it is not a topic you see people talk about very often. Here are MSN’s Guidelines for Successful Indexing, but they still have a lot of spam in their search results.

•i)                    Social Aspects

Microsoft continues to lag in understanding what the web is about. Executives there should read The Cluetrain Manifesto. Twice.Or maybe three times.

They don’t get the web. They are a software company posing as a web company.

They launch many products as though they have the market stranglehold monopolies they once enjoyed, and as though they are not rapidly losing them. Many of Microsoft’s most innovative moves get little coverage because when they launch key products they often launch them without supporting other browsers and trying to lock you into logging in to Microsoft.

•j)                    MSN SEO Tools

MSN has a wide array of new and interesting search marketing tools. Their biggest limiting factor with them is that they have limited search market share.

Some of the more interesting tools are

• Keyword Search Funnel Tool – shows terms that people search for before or after they search for a particular keyword
• Demographic Prediction Tool – predicts the demographics of searchers by keyword or site visitors by website
• Online Commercial Intention Detection Tool – estimates the probability of a search query or web page being commercial, informational-transactional, or
• Search Result Clustering Tool – clusters search results based on related topics

You can view more of their tools under the demo section at Microsoft’s Adlab.

•VII.     Google Search

Google sprang out of a Stanford research project to find authoritative link sources on the web. In January of 1996 Larry Page and Sergey Brin began working on BackRub.

After they tried shopping the Google search technology to no avail they decided to set up their own search company. Within a few years of forming the company they won distribution partnerships with AOL and Yahoo! that helped build their brand as the industry leader in search. Traditionally search was viewed as a loss leader.

Google did not have a profitable business model until the third iteration of their popular AdWords advertising program in February of 2002, and was worth over 100 billion dollars by the end of 2005.

•a)                   On Page Content

If a phrase is obviously targeted (ie: the exact same phrase is in most of the following location: in most of your inbound links, internal links, at the start of your page title, at the beginning of your first page header, etc.) then Google may filter the document out of the search results for that phrase. Other search engines may have similar algorithms, but if they do those algorithms are not as sophisticated or aggressively deployed as those used by Google.

Google is scanning millions of books, which should help them create an algorithm that is pretty good at differentiating real text patterns from spammy manipulative text (although I have seen many garbage content cloaked pages ranking well in Google, especially for 3 and 4 word search queries).

You need to write naturally and make your copy look more like a news article than a heavily SEOed page if you want to rank well in Google. Sometimes using less occurrences of the phrase you want to rank for will be better than using more.

You also want to sprinkle modifiers and semantically related text in your pages that you want to rank well in Google.

Some of Google’s content filters may look at pages on a page by page basis while others may look across a site or a section of a site to see how similar different pages on the same site are. If many pages are exceptionally similar to content on your own site or content on other sites Google may be less willing to crawl those pages and may throw them into their supplemental index. Pages in the supplemental index rarely rank well, since generally they are trusted far less than pages in the regular search index.

Duplicate content detection is not just based on some magical percentage of similar content on a page, but is based on a variety of factors. Both Bill Slawski and Todd Malicoat offer great posts about duplicate content detection. This shingles PDF explains some duplicate content detection techniques.

•b)                   Crawling

While Google is more efficient at crawling than competing engines, it appears as though with Google’s BigDaddy update they are looking at both inbound and outbound link quality to help set crawl priority, crawl depth, and weather or not a site even gets crawled at all. To quote Matt Cutts:

The sites that fit “no pages in Bigdaddy” criteria were sites where our algorithms had very low trust in the inlinks or the outlinks of that site. Examples that might cause that include excessive reciprocal links, linking to spammy neighborhoods on the web, or link buying/selling.

In the past crawl depth was generally a function of PageRank (PageRank is a measure of link equity – and the more of it you had the better you would get indexed), but now adding in this crawl penalty for having an excessive portion of your inbound or outbound links pointing into low quality parts of the web creates an added cost which makes dealing in spammy low quality links far less appealing for those who want to rank in Google.

•c)                   Query Processing

While I mentioned above that Yahoo! seemed to have a bit of a bias toward commercial search results it is also worth noting that Google’s organic search results are heavily biased toward informational websites and web pages.

Google is much better than Yahoo! or MSN at determining the true intent of a query and trying to match that instead of doing direct text matching. Common words like how to may be significantly deweighted compared to other terms in the search query that provide a better discrimination value.

Google and some of the other major search engines may try to answer many common related questions to the concept being searched for. For example, in a given set of search results you may see any of the following:

• a relevant .gov and/or .edu document
• a recent news article about the topic
• a page from a well known directory such as DMOZ or the Yahoo! Directory
• a page from the Wikipedia
• an archived page from an authority site about the topic
• the authoritative document about the history of the field and recent changes
• a smaller hyper focused authority site on the topic
• a PDF report on the topic
• a relevant Amazon, eBay, or shopping comparison page on the topic
• one of the most well branded and well known niche retailers catering to that market
• product manufacturer or wholesaler sites
• a blog post / review from a popular community or blog site about a slightly broader field

Some of the top results may answer specific relevant queries or be hard to beat, while others might be easy to compete with. You just have to think of how and why each result was chosen to be in the top 10 to learn which one you will be competing against and which ones may perhaps fall away over time.

•d)                   Link Reputation

PageRank is a weighted measure of link popularity, but Google’s search algorithms have moved far beyond just looking at PageRank.

As mentioned above, gaining an excessive number of low quality links may hurt your ability to get indexed in Google, so stay away from known spammy link exchange hubs and other sources of junk links. I still sometimes get a few junk links, but I make sure that I try to offset any junky link by getting a greater number of good links.

If your site ranks well some garbage automated links will end up linking to you weather you like it or not. Don’t worry about those links, just worry about trying to get a few real high quality editorial links.

Google is much better at being able to determine the difference between real editorial citations and low quality, spammy, bought, or artificial links.

When determining link reputation Google (and other engines) may look at

• link age
• rate of link acquisition
• anchor text diversity
• deep link ratio
• link source quality (based on who links to them and who else they link at)
• weather links are editorial citations in real content (or if they are on spammy pages or near other obviously non-editorial links)
• does anybody actually click on the link?

It is generally believed that .edu and .gov links are trusted highly in Google because they are generally harder to influence than the average .com link, but keep in mind that there are some junky .edu links too (I have seen stuff like .edu casino link exchange directories).

When getting links for Google it is best to look in virgin lands that have not been combed over heavily by other SEOs. Either get real editorial citations or get citations from quality sites that have not yet been abused by others. Google may strip the ability to pass link authority (even from quality sites) if those sites are known obvious link sellers or other types of link manipulators. Make sure you mix up your anchor text and get some links with semantically related text.

Google likely collects usage data via Google search, Google Analytics, Google AdWords, Google AdSense, Google news, Google accounts, Google notebook, Google calendar, Google talk, Google’s feed reader, Google search history annotations, and Gmail. They also created a Firefox browser bookmark synch tool, an anti-phishing tool which is built into Firefox and have relationships with the Opera (another web browser company). Most likely they can lay some of this data over the top of the link graph to record a corroborating source of the legitimacy of the linkage data. Other search engines may also look at usage data.

•e)                   Page vs Site

Sites need to earn a certain amount of trust before they can rank for competitive search queries in Google. If you put up a new page on a new site and expect it to rank right away for competitive terms you are probably going to be disappointed.

If you put that exact same content on an old trusted domain and link to it from another page on that domain it can leverage the domain trust to quickly rank and bypass the concept many people call the Google Sandbox.

Many people have been exploiting this algorithmic hole by throwing up spammy subdomains on free hosting sites or other authoritative sites that allow users to sign up for a cheap or free publishing account. This is polluting Google’s SERPs pretty bad, so they are going to have to make some major changes on this front pretty soon.

•f)                    Site Age

Google filed a patent about information retrieval based on historical data which stated many of the things they may look for when determining how much to trust a site. Many of the things I mentioned in the link section above are relevant to the site age related trust (ie: to be well trusted due to site age you need to have at least some link trust score and some age score).

I have seen some old sites with exclusively low quality links rank well in Google based primarily on their site age, but if a site is old AND has powerful links it can go a long way to helping you rank just about any page you write (so long as you write it fairly naturally).

Older trusted sites may also be given a pass on many things that would cause newer lesser trusted sites to be demoted or de-indexed.

The Google Sandbox is a concept many SEOs mention frequently. The idea of the ‘box is that new sites that should be relevant struggle to rank for some queries they would be expected to rank for. While some people have debunked the existence of the sandbox as garbage, Google’s Matt Cutts said in an interview that they did not intentionally create the sandbox effect, but that it was created as a side effect of their algorithms:

“I think a lot of what’s perceived as the sandbox is artefacts where, in our indexing, some data may take longer to be computed than other data.”

•g)                   Paid Search

Google AdWords factors in max bid price and clickthrough rate into their ad algorithm. In addition they automate reviewing landing page quality to use that as another factor in their ad relevancy algorithm to reduce the amount of arbitrage and other noisy signals in the AdWords program.

The Google AdSense program is an extension of Google AdWords which offers a vast ad network across many content websites that distribute contextually relevant Google ads. These ads are sold on a cost per click or flat rate CPM basis.

•h)                   Editorial

Google is known to be far more aggressive with their filters and algorithms than the other search engines are. They are known to throw the baby out with the bath water quite often. They flat out despise relevancy manipulation, and have shown they are willing to trade some short term relevancy if it guides people along toward making higher quality content.

Short term if your site is filtered out of the results during an update it may be worth looking into common footprints of sites that were hurt in that update, but it is probably not worth changing your site structure and content format over one update if you are creating true value add content that is aimed at your customer base. Sometimes Google goes too far with their filters and then adjusts them back.

Google published their official webmaster guidelines and their thoughts on SEO. Matt Cutts is also known to publish SEO tips on his personal blog. Keep in mind that Matt’s job as Google’s search quality leader may bias his perspective a bit.

Google Sitemaps gives you a bit of useful information from Google about what keywords your site is ranking for and which keywords people are clicking on your listing.

•i)                    Social Aspects

Google allows people to write notes about different websites they visit using Google Notebook. Google also allows you to mark and share your favorite feeds and posts. Google also lets you flavorize search boxes on your site to be biased towards the topics your website covers.

Google is not as entrenched in the social aspects of search as much as Yahoo! is, but Google seems to throw out many more small tests hoping that one will perhaps stick.They are trying to make software more collaborative and trying to get people to share things like spreadsheets and calendars, while also integrating chat into email. If they can create a framework where things mesh well they may be able to gain further marketshare by offering free productivity tools.

•j)                    Google SEO Tools

• Google Sitemaps – helps you determine if Google is having problems indexing your site.
• AdWords Keyword Tool – shows keywords related to an entered keyword, web page, or web site
• AdWords Traffic Estimator – estimates the bid price required to rank #1 on 85% of Google AdWords ads near searches on Google, and how much traffic an AdWords ad would drive
• Google Suggest – auto completes search queries based on the most common searches starting with the characters or words you have entered
• Google Trends – shows multi-year search trends
• Google Sets – creates semantically related keyword sets based on keyword(s) you enter
• Google Zeitgeist – shows quickly rising and falling search queries
• Google related sites – shows sites that Google thinks are related to your site related:www.site.com
• Google related word search – shows terms semantically related to a keyword ~term -term

•k)                   Business Perspectives

Google has the largest search distribution, the largest ad network, and by far the most efficient search ad auction. They have aggressively extended their brand and amazing search distribution network through partnerships with small web publishers, traditional media companies, portals like AOL, computer and other hardware manufacturers such as Dell, and popular web browsers such as Firefox and Opera.

I think Google’s biggest strength is also their biggest weakness. With some aspects of business they are exceptionally idealistic. While that may provide them an amazingly cheap marketing vehicle for spreading their messages and core beliefs it could also be part of what unravels Google.

As they throw out bits of their relevancy in an attempt to keep their algorithm hard to manipulate they create holes where competing search businesses can become more efficient.

In the real world there are celebrity endorsements. Google’s idealism associated with their hatred toward bought links and other things which act similarly to online celebrity endorsements may leave holes in their algorithms, business model, and business philosophy that allows a competitor to sneak in and grab a large segment of the market by factoring the celebrity endorsement factor into being part of the way that businesses are marketed.

•VIII.     Ask Search

Ask was originally created as Ask Jeeves, and was founded by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen in 1996 and launched in April of 1997. It was a natural query processing engine that used editors to match common search queries, and backfilled the search results via a meta search engine that searched other popular engines.

As the web scaled and other search technologies improved Ask Jeeves tried using other technologies, such as Direct Hit (which roughly based popularity on page views until it was spammed to death), and then in 2001 they acquired Teoma, which is the core search technology they still use today. In March of 2005 InterActive Corp. announced they were buying Ask Jeeves, and by March of 2006 they dumped Jeeves, changing the brand to Ask.

•a)                   On Page Content

For topics where there is a large community Ask is good at matching concepts and authoritative sources. Where those communities do not exist Ask relies a bit much on the on page content and is pretty susceptible to repetitive keyword dense search spam.

•b)                   Crawling

Ask is generally slower at crawling new pages and sites than the other major engines are. They also own Bloglines, which gives them incentive to quickly index popular blog content and other rapidly updated content channels.

•c)                   Query Processing

I believe Ask has a heavy bias toward topical authority sites independent of anchor text or on the page content. This has a large effect on the result set the provide for any query in that it creates a result set that is more conceptually and community oriented than keyword oriented.

•d)                   Link Reputation

Ask is focused on topical communities using a concept they call Subject-Specific PopularitySM. This means that if you are entering a saturated or hyper saturated field that Ask will generally be one of the slowest engines to rank your site since they will only trust it after many topical authorities have shown they trusted it by citing it. Due to their heavy bias toward topical communities, for generic search they seem to be far more biased on how many quality related citations you have than looking as much at anchor text. For queries where there is not much of a topical community their relevancy algorithms are nowhere near as sharp.

•e)                   Page vs Site

Pages on a well referenced trusted site tend to rank better than one would expect. For example, I saw some spammy press releases on a popular press release site ranking well for some generic SEO related queries. Presumably many companies link to some of their press release pages and this perhaps helps those types of sites be seen as community hubs.

•f)                    Site Age

Directly I do not believe it is much of a factor. Indirectly I believe it is important in that it usually takes some finite amount of time to become a site that is approved by your topical peers.

•g)                   Paid Search

Ask gets most of their paid search ads from Google AdWords. Some ad buyers in verticals where Ask users convert well may also want to buy ads directly from Ask. Ask will only place their internal ads above the Google AdWords ads if they feel the internal ads will bring in more revenue.

•h)                   Editorial

Ask heavily relies upon the topical communities and industry experts to in essence be the editors of their search results. They give an overview of their ExpertRank technology on their web search FAQ page. While they have such limited distribution that few people talk about their search spam policies they reference a customer feedback form on their editorial guidelines page.

•i)                    Social Aspects

Ask is a true underdog in the search space. While they offer Bloglines and many of the save a search personalization type features that many other search companies offer they do not have the critical mass of users that some of the other major search companies have.

•j)                    Ask SEO Tools

Ask search results show related search phrases in the right hand column. Due to the nature of their algorithms Ask is generally not good at offering link citation searches, but recently their Bloglines service has allowed you to look for blog citations by authority, date, or relevance.

•IX.     Technical Working of a Search Engine – Taking Google as example

•1)     Google Architecture Overview

 

In this section, we will give a high level overview of how the whole system works as pictured in Figure below. Further sections will discuss the applications and data structures not mentioned in this section. Most of Google is implemented in C or C++ for efficiency and can run in either Solaris or Linux.

 

 

In Google, the web crawling (downloading of web pages) is done by several distributed crawlers. There is a URLserver that sends lists of URLs to be fetched to the crawlers. The web pages that are fetched are then sent to the storeserver. The storeserver then compresses and stores the web pages into a repository. Every web page has an associated ID number called a docID which is assigned whenever a new URL is parsed out of a web page. The indexing function is performed by the indexer and the sorter. The indexer performs a number of functions. It reads the repository, uncompresses the documents, and parses them. Each document is converted into a set of word occurrences called hits. The hits record the word, position in document, an approximation of font size, and capitalization. The indexer distributes these hits into a set of “barrels”, creating a partially sorted forward index. The indexer performs another important function. It parses out all the links in every web page and stores important information about them in an anchors file. This file contains enough information to determine where each link points from and to, and the text of the link.

The URLresolver reads the anchors file and converts relative URLs into absolute URLs and in turn into docIDs. It puts the anchor text into the forward index, associated with the docID that the anchor points to. It also generates a database of links which are pairs of docIDs. The links database is used to compute PageRanks for all the documents.

The sorter takes the barrels, which are sorted by docID, and resorts them by wordID to generate the inverted index. This is done in place so that little temporary space is needed for this operation. The sorter also produces a list of wordIDs and offsets into the inverted index. A program called DumpLexicon takes this list together with the lexicon produced by the indexer and generates a new lexicon to be used by the searcher. The searcher is run by a web server and uses the lexicon built by DumpLexicon together with the inverted index and the PageRanks to answer queries.

 

•2)     Major Data Structures

 

Google’s data structures are optimized so that a large document collection can be crawled, indexed, and searched with little cost. Although, CPUs and bulk input output rates have improved dramatically over the years, a disk seek still requires about 10 ms to complete. Google is designed to avoid disk seeks whenever possible, and this has had a considerable influence on the design of the data structures.

•a)                   BigFiles

 

BigFiles are virtual files spanning multiple file systems and are addressable by 64 bit integers. The allocation among multiple file systems is handled automatically. The BigFiles package also handles allocation and deallocation of file descriptors, since the operating systems do not provide enough for our needs. BigFiles also support rudimentary compression options.

•b)                    Repository

  

The repository contains the full HTML of every web page. Each page is compressed using zlib. The choice of compression technique is a tradeoff between speed and compression ratio. We chose zlib’s speed over a significant improvement in compression offered by bzip. The compression rate of bzip was approximately 4 to 1 on the repository as compared to zlib’s 3 to 1 compression. In the repository, the documents are stored one after the other and are prefixed by docID, length, and URL as can be seen in Figure below. The repository requires no other data structures to be

 

 

 

used in order to access it. This helps with data consistency and makes development much easier; we can rebuild all the other data structures from only the repository and a file which lists crawler errors.

•c)                   Document Index

 

The document index keeps information about each document. It is a fixed width ISAM (Index sequential access mode) index, ordered by docID. The information stored in each entry includes the current document status, a pointer into the repository, a document checksum, and various statistics. If the document has been crawled, it also contains a pointer into a variable width file called docinfo which contains its URL and title. Otherwise the pointer points into the URLlist which contains just the URL. This design decision was driven by the desire to have a reasonably compact data structure, and the ability to fetch a record in one disk seek during a search

Additionally, there is a file which is used to convert URLs into docIDs. It is a list of URL checksums with their corresponding docIDs and is sorted by checksum. In order to find the docID of a particular URL, the URL’s checksum is computed and a binary search is performed on the checksums file to find its docID. URLs may be converted into docIDs in batch by doing a merge with this file. This is the technique the URLresolver uses to turn URLs into docIDs. This batch mode of update is crucial because otherwise we must perform one seek for every link which assuming one disk would take more than a month for our 322 million link dataset.

•d)                   Lexicon

 

The lexicon has several different forms. One important change from earlier systems is that the lexicon can fit in memory for a reasonable price. In the current implementation we can keep the lexicon in memory on a machine with 256 MB of main memory. The current lexicon contains 14 million words (though some rare words were not added to the lexicon). It is implemented in two parts — a list of the words (concatenated together but separated by nulls) and a hash table of pointers. For various functions, the list of words has some auxiliary information which is beyond the scope of this paper to explain fully.

•e)                   Hit Lists

A hit list corresponds to a list of occurrences of a particular word in a particular document including position, font, and capitalization information. Hit lists account for most of the space used in both the forward and the inverted indices. Because of this, it is important to represent them as efficiently as possible. We considered several alternatives for encoding position, font, and capitalization — simple encoding (a triple of integers), a compact encoding (a hand optimized allocation of bits), and Huffman coding. In the end we chose a hand optimized compact encoding since it required far less space than the simple encoding and far less bit manipulation than Huffman coding. The details of the hits are shown in Figure below.

 

 

Our compact encoding uses two bytes for every hit. There are two types of hits: fancy hits and plain hits. Fancy hits include hits occurring in a URL, title, anchor text, or meta tag. Plain hits include everything else. A plain hit consists of a capitalization bit, font size, and 12 bits of word position in a document (all positions higher than 4095 are labeled 4096). Font size is represented relative to the rest of the document using three bits (only 7 values are actually used because 111 is the flag that signals a fancy hit). A fancy hit consists of a capitalization bit, the font size set to 7 to indicate it is a fancy hit, 4 bits to encode the type of fancy hit, and 8 bits of position. For anchor hits, the 8 bits of position are split into 4 bits for position in anchor and 4 bits for a hash of the docID the anchor occurs in. This gives us some limited phrase searching as long as there are not that many anchors for a particular word. We expect to update the way that anchor hits are stored to allow for greater resolution in the position and docIDhash fields. We use font size relative to the rest of the document because when searching, you do not want to rank otherwise identical documents differently just because one of the documents is in a larger font.

 

The length of a hit list is stored before the hits themselves. To save space, the length of the hit list is combined with the wordID in the forward index and the docID in the inverted index. This limits it to 8 and 5 bits respectively (there are some tricks which allow 8 bits to be borrowed from the wordID). If the length is longer than would fit in that many bits, an escape code is used in those bits, and the next two bytes contain the actual length.

•f)                    Forward Index

 

The forward index is actually already partially sorted. It is stored in a number of barrels (we used 64). Each barrel holds a range of wordID’s. If a document contains words that fall into a particular barrel, the docID is recorded into the barrel, followed by a list of wordID’s with hitlists which correspond to those words. This scheme requires slightly more storage because of duplicated docIDs but the difference is very small for a reasonable number of buckets and saves considerable time and coding complexity in the final indexing phase done by the sorter. Furthermore, instead of storing actual wordID’s, we store each wordID as a relative difference from the minimum wordID that falls into the barrel the wordID is in. This way, we can use just 24 bits for the wordID’s in the unsorted barrels, leaving 8 bits for the hit list length.

•g)  

About the Author

Super Build Primer 302 Ga Converter For Super Build 304 $125.94 Super Build Primer 302 Ga Converter For Super Build 304 Alexseal Yacht Coatings Super Build Primer 302 – GA CONVERTER FOR SUPER BUILD 304

Therm O Web Memory Tape Runner XL tape runner $4.71 This extra-long tape runner goes anywhere on the page. With a patented pivoting head, the Memory Tape Runner XL allows you to apply precise curves and lines evenly. The tape is clear, acid-free, and photo safe. It also bonds instantly. It’s great for attaching photos, die-cuts, ribbon… practically anything The tape measures 5/16 in. x 50 ft.

Build Web Page From Database

Dynamic Web Pages

There are two types of websites that can be found online: dynamic and static. Static pages stay the same no matter what. No user can personalize these sites, nor are there any options to do so. Every visitor to that site sees the same information. In order to find new information on a static page, the user must navigate through links. Static pages are based on hypertext language and there’s nothing wrong with having static pages. In fact, sometimes static pages are all a particular website needs in order to convey their information.

Dynamic pages, on the other hand, enhance the user’s experience online. Dynamic pages change with the user. They can be personalized, changed, and updated constantly. Databases can feed information to the site directly without having any human contact, thus allowing the site to show the latest information. Dynamic pages can be used to show shopping preferences and for shopping carts in online stores. These carts contain all the items a visitor wishes to buy, then stores this information for the visitor in case they leave the site. Dynamic pages can work through cookies, databases housed on servers, or a combination of those elements. Here are some dynamic elements commonly found on websites:

Forms that allow a page to change in response to the information entered into those forms. This can include quizzes and other “check mark” type forms.

Sites that interactively link the user to music, pictures, and videos, like pages prepared in Flash.

Sites that run PHP, JavaScript, DHTML, or other dynamic web languages.

Search engines have a hard time with dynamic content. For example, search engines won’t crawl dynamic URL’s, which are URL’s that contain characters like ?, .cgi, cgi-bin, %, and other characters. They also won’t index JavaScript in most cases, though they will often take a cursory look at the code. Search engines definitely won’t index Flash sites, as they can’t read the Flash language. This is a shame because Flash is a great way for some sites to use a dynamic interface.

The limitations of search engine spiders do not prevent sites from using dynamic pages, however. Using a dynamic interface isn’t necessarily problematic, as long as certain precautions are taken. For instance, a Webmaster who creates a Flash site should offer the exact same page in a non-Flash version for users who choose not to run Flash on their computers. Also, by providing non-dynamic links and providing others with non-dynamic links to the site, website owners can increase the likelihood that their site will gain in rank.

Robots.txt Files

Robots.txt files direct search engine traffic and help direct search engines to the right place. The file extension “.txt” is a text file format generally used for unformatted text. Simple programs like Notepad can be used to create and read .txt files.

In general, the robots.txt file is a .txt file that sits in the main root directory of a website site. So, for example, this file would probably look like http://www.yoursite.com/robots.txt. The purpose of this file is to direct search engine spider traffic, specifically by excluding information from a page. Why would anyone want to exclude any of their website from a search engine? If someone had an experimental site, a secret site, or a site that uses language that a search engine spider can’t read, they might direct the spider away from those pages using the robots.txt file. For great information on building and maintaining these types of files, visit http://www.robotstxt.org/, a site devoted to web robots.

Clearpath Technolog -  Search Engine Optimization company based in New Delhi, India provides private label SEO services for hundreds of agencies based in USA, UK, Australia, Amsterdam, Canada, and other countries. Dedicated 24 Hours Support.

About the Author

Search Engine Optimization company based in New Delhi, India. Private Label SEO Service for hundreds of agencies based in USA, UK, Australia, Amsterdam, Canada, and other countries. Dedicated 24 Hours Support.

Willow Creel with Web Strap $27.99 The traditional Willow Creel with Web Strap is a great way of preserving your catch and is designed to absorb water without deteriorating. Ideal for decoration, but extremely functional and durable enough to be used on the water, this quality creel is hand woven from willow and then lacquered for durability. Measuring in at 16”, the creel is equipped with a leather latch strap with rust-resistant buckles and comfortable web shoulder strap. The top opening allows you to place your catch inside quickly. Manufacturer model #: ECREEL16.

Sterling The Boy Mechanic: 200 Classic Things to Build The Boy Mechanic: 200 Classic Things to Build ISBN: 1588165094 $9.25 Take a look back at the simpler, good old days of the early 1900s – and at what we may have lost in our high-tech era – through these engaging projects, all published in Popular Mechanics during the first two decades of the 20th century. The range is simply amazing, and bound to appeal to woodworkers who love classic ideas. Projects include tools, like T-squares and sawhorses; an animal-proof gate latch and a birdhouse made from an old straw hat; household gadgets and handcrafted furniture; camping gear (including a screen door for a tent); and toys and games. Many of these appealing trellises, decoys, puzzles, and tents are quite doable today. Inveterate do-it-yourselfers will be astonished at the resourcefulness required to build a stove for a canoe and even a houseboat. Book specifications: paperback, 272 pgs., 5 in. x 7 in. Publisher: Hearst Books, 2006.

Popular Mechanics Build A Real Working Model Engine Kit W/Lights And Sounds $28.88 Build a real working battery-powered 4-cylinder model engine with lights and sounds. Watch the spark plugs fire and the valves open and close. Learn how a real engine works and see how the pistons fire with the correct timing and watch the belts and fan turn. Now there are no more excuses – literally ANYONE can learn the ins and outs of a modern engine with the Motor-Works kit from Popular Mechanics. In fact, you can actually build a motor from the ground up, a fun, fascinating, step-by-step process, resulting in a real, working, 4-cylinder engine with absolutely authentic lights and sounds. So rev up your brain and prepare to learn things you never knew before about what goes on under the hood. Includes: Over 100 parts! Screwdriver Convenient instructions Popular Mechanics Motor Works See related categories of science kits , science toys , and educational toys for children.

Build Web Page Program

Web Page Ranking Superpower

Your web page ranking may not be that impressive, in fact you might be more pages down the listings than you can count, but don’t give up! With the right tools you can get back to the top spots where you and your site belong.

The above scenario was me a few months back with one of my own websites, I would struggle to get any kind of decent rank in the search engines, and I was starting to take it personal.

Web page ranking is not an easy thing to do. It seems that anything you try today could drop your rankings, or even get banned tomorrow! So how can you stay on the right path to better rankings.

I discovered a powerful seo program called Market Samurai, and was very interested to see what this software could do for me.

What I did was apply this superpower software to a site I had that was struggling with its web page ranking. And I’m glad I did.

By using this software I realized I had left out some important seo components that my competition had, and I didn’t. I also discovered I needed to concentrate on building back-links, and Market Samurai showed me where to find them.

Anyway a couple of weeks later my web page ranking had skyrocketed to new levels all over the listings!

The best thing about those results is the huge amount of competition I was up against for my keyword. Take a look at this…

118 million sites, and I found myself at number 2! Just goes to show you that with the right information, and the right seo tools, you can boost your web page ranking without the worry of ever being banned or resorting to spamming methods.

Seo does not have to be hard, and I hope this proves that you should also never give up on a site for not having the ranking you desire. You just have to go out and get it.

About the Author

For more seo information and tips, and even a free trial of Market Samurai join my web page ranking journey today.

Tube-Tech PE-1C Program Equalizer $2475 The Tube-Tech PE 1C Program Equalizer is the design that started it all for John Petersen and Tube-Tech. It's an all tube version of the legendary Pultec EQP 1A, an equalizer that was, and still is, known for its uncanny ability to make things sound better by just running signal through it. Has Tube-Tech captured that magic? Just do a Google search for Tube-Tech PE 1C. Page after page of world class and mid- to upper-level recording studios come up. That alone tells the whole story. Tube-Tech PE 1C Program Equalizer, First Take: Passive Pultec-style EQ Tube-based gain-makeup amplifer Balanced I/O and Floating TransformersPassive EQ The PE 1C contains a passive filter and a tube-based amplifier to restore the loss from the filter. The filter has a low frequency boost/attenuate section with 4 selective frequencies, a high frequency boost section with a variable bandwidth and 10 selective frequencies and a high-frequency attenuation section with 3 selective frequencies. The filter is placed directly after the input transformer therefore eliminating noise from the amplifier when boosting either low or high frequencies. The amplifier consists of two tubes (valves) in push-pull configuration (one ECC 83 as the pre-amp and phase splitter, and one ECC 82 as the output stage), and an output transformer. Both input and output are balanced and fully floating. The in/out key switches the filter in and out without clicks and changes in level, while the amplifier remain in the signal path.Balanced I/O and Floating Transformers Input and output are balanced as well as fully floating. This provides maximum electronic isolation for superior noise rejection. The power supply for the pre-amp and phase splitter are stabilized and the heaters of both tubes (valves) are fed with a stabilized DC voltage. This prevents any variation in the DC energy when combined with the musical signal, which would otherwise cause certain types of distortion. Put simply, the PE 1C's DC-stabilized circuits keep the EQ bands free of any unwanted artifacts. EQ is smooth and distortion-free. About Tube-Tech For over twenty years, Tube Tech has been one of the most prominent names in all-tube signal processing equipment. You'll find their gear in the best recording and mastering studios around the world. The company's founder, John Petersen is an electrical engineer who was factory trained at Solid State Logic, EMT, Studer, Sony, Neumann, and NTP Electonik (digital audio routers). He also designed tape recorder playback/recording amps for Lyrec tape recorders (found in the studios of the legendary Joe Meek and Vangelis). His first design under the name of Tube-Tech was an all-tube equalizer based on the legendary Pultec EQP 1A. Petersen continued to design and manufacture a number of innovative all-tube outboard processors including preamps, multiband compressors and summing amps. Thanks to John's dedication to high-quality analog sound you'll see Tube-Tech gear in t

Build Web Site Free Trial

Acquire Free Web Site Promotion

You have finished making your own website. You have introduced your company and presented your products and services. You have added propositions and promos to catch your target audience’s attention. You have achieved the dos and don’ts of building a company web site. But why isn’t your website a major success?

Maybe you’re not planning the key to the best promotion of your web site. Here are some guidelines on how to acquire free web site promotions for your company’s success.

If you have started to promote your web site, keep it constant. If you promote your site with persistence, it will catch your audience’s attention.

Be patient. Try each method in promotion until you acquire the best, free promotion there is. You have to accept trial and error for your web site to reach the top.

There are many ways for your web site to be seen. Here are some free web site promotions you could try until you find the most effective.

*Free promotions such as search engines and directories would give your web site the deserved traffic you always wanted. Make sure to check your web site’s ranking to know whether or not this type of free promotion is right for you.

*Make a deal with other web sites on trading links which could help both web sites. Make sure to use words that could easily interest the audience.

*Find free classified ads that could boost the promotion of your web site. These ads could be seen by other people who you are not targeting for, but may as well be interested in your services.

*Free and low-cost internet banners are spread all through out the World Wide Web. Banners that pop-up at the top of a page or in a separate window would automatically catch your target audience’s attention.

If your web site and its free promotion did not work even after accomplishing these methods, analyze your web site. Track down all visitors, advertisements, and transactions. Then locate errors in your web site. Upload new files to your web site continuously for audience to return for new products and services. Monitor your own web site if it’s up in the market or down.

Then be ready to try the methods again and surely it will work.

It has always been said that the best things in life are free. Yes they are. And as soon as your free web site promotion proves to the audience its worth, then you’ll believe it’s true.
You have finished making your own website. You have introduced your company and presented your products and services. You have added propositions and promos to catch your target audience’s attention. You have achieved the dos and don’ts of building a company web site. But why isn’t your website a major success?

About the Author

For more useful tips & hints, please browse for more information at our website:-

http://www.the20seotools.com

http://www.seo.reprintarticlesite.com

Break-Free Powder Blast $11.99 A powerful, high pressure solvent gun cleaner that blasts away powder residue, grease and oil build-up, leaving the firearm clean and ready for lubrication.

Tru-Fire Hurricane Small Hybrid Web Camo Bow Release $39.99 Hybrid strap combines the advantages of a VELCRO brand strap and a buckle strap Dual-caliper jaws Free-floating and self-centering steel roller for smooth operation Web connection for a perfect fit Trimmed down to fit smaller hunters, the Tru-Fire Hurricane Small Hybrid Web Camo Bow Release features the new Hybrid strap and dual-caliper jaws, a free-floating and self-centering steel roller for smooth operation, and a web connection for a perfect fit. Manufacturer model #: HCHWS.