Controversial Issues

Google Tips & Tricks

1. Use the Advanced feature of Google to be more specific in your search
2. Type "intitle:" to search only page titles.. Try intitle:digital divide (no space!)
3. Type "inurl:" to search only the web address of a page. Try inurl:raynor
4. Type "related:" to find pages that Google thinks are related in content. Try related:www.marquette.edu/library
5. Type "search tips site:" to specify a site to search within. Try search tips site:www.usps.com international shipping
6. Access Google Directory at directory.google.com
7. Type "site:" to return results from a specfic domain. Try site:.org library
8. Type "intext" in Google News to pull terms from the body of the story
9. Type "define:" to access the built-in dictionary
10. No Calculator handy? Type 12*78 and hitting search will give you the answer
11. The calculator also converts measurements and currency.  Try 200 pounds in euros
12. Type weather and a location or zipcode to get a four day forecast.
13. By attaching a postcode at the end of your search will give you results for your inquiry
14. Type time and a name of place to find the time anywhere in the world
15. Enter a statistics-based query like "population of Britain" and it will show you the answer on top of the results
16. You can search foreign sites by clicking "language tools" on the right of the search box which allows you to choose what countries sites to translate your query to.

Research tools

12 Content Research Tools You Should Be Using

Sep 25, 2012 at 9:00am ET by Arnie Kuenn

• inShare29

When it comes to content marketing research, there are a lot of tools at your disposal — so many that it can be overwhelming.
From keyword tools and question-and-answer sites to open discussion forums and backlink analyzers, there are tools designed to help you with every step of your content marketing research.
But don’t let the sheer number of tools available drive you into analysis paralysis. Remember, this is an idea generation strategy, so try them all, pick a few favorites and make this a part your continuous content research and planning. Here are twelve you should be using if you aren’t already:

1.      Google AdWords: Keyword Tool

All research starts with keywords, so if you haven’t already conducted thorough keyword research for your business, I recommend this as your very first step. The Google AdWords: Keyword Tool is one of the best free keyword tools available to marketers. This tool is tied directly into Google AdWords, and it uses approximate search frequency from Google (read: don’t rely too heavily on this search frequency data).
This tool can tell you which keywords are searched more than others based on broad, exact or phrase match volumes, depending on your settings. You can also view local (U.S.) or global data, which is essential for some location-based businesses. Additional data includes local search trends and location and languages for international research.
Overall, the Google AdWords Keyword Tool is extremely useful for the optimization part of any content marketing campaign. It is imperative to optimize your compelling content, otherwise, it may not be found.

2.       Soovle

This is a great little site to help quickly generate ideas. All you need to do is enter a keyword phrase and Soovle will display keyword suggestions from up to 15 different websites. You are able to customize which sites are included, which can be useful depending on your niche. For example, Amazon and eBay are choices, so if you are in the ecommerce business, these choices make more sense for your research.
This tool is helpful for researching quickly across a number of platforms. You also have the ability to save searches, making it easy to see how keywords have performed over time.  This tool provides a different keyword research perspective compared to the Google AdWords tool.

3.       Ubersuggest.Org

This next tool is similar to Soovle, but Ubersuggest alphabetizes the results – and that’s a good thing, because the results are plentiful. Using Ubersuggest is easy: type a term in the search box, choose a language, choose where you would like your results from (the Web overall, or certain verticals like shopping or news) and click suggest. The tool takes your base search term, adds a letter or a number after it and brings back alphabetical keyword suggestions.
Ubersuggest allows you to add suggested keywords to your “basket,” which is just a collection of the keywords you have selected. You are then able to export your basket as a text file or copy and paste it, so you may do further research.

  4.       Topix.Com

Topix.com is a helpful resource for anyone looking for content ideas. Just enter a search term and the Topix engine will produce results that include news articles, forums, question-and-answer sites and blog posts that relate to your keyword.
The variety of search results allows you to find a vast amount of information from all over the world in just a few seconds. If you’re looking for geo-specific results, Topix allows you to set a location to get local results, making this idea engine a content marketing research hotspot for local, national and global businesses.

  5.       Bottlenose

Bottlenose is a relatively new tool which can be used to highlight trending articles and social commentary based on specific keywords. It’s a social search engine and can really help you create news or hot topic-led content.
While Twitter, Facebook and other large social media networks are great for content marketing research, there is so much information available, it can become hard to digest. Bottlenose allows you to view social media information in a way that is more easily digestible.

  6.       Spezify

Similar to Bottlenose, Spezify is also a social search engine – though it is less structured and more visually interesting. This tool creates a tapestry of related tweets, images, music etc. And not only does it look cool, it’s also extremely useful.
Spezify offers a different way to take in the abundance of social information. For visual learners, there couldn’t be a more effective tool. Also, the range of sites Spezify searches is across all industries and verticals, which makes it useful for a variety of different projects.

  7.       Yahoo Answers

Question-and-answer sites can be a gold mine. Yahoo Answers is one of the biggest answer sites, getting millions of questions and answers. The way it works is pretty simple: people submit questions and the Yahoo Answers community answers them. When someone submits a question, the person has to categorize it by topic, which makes it easy to find and easy to answer.
Yahoo! developed a point system so other users rank answers and the “best” answers are given the most points. Users that accrue points have proven to be reputable and are granted certain privileges, such as the ability to ask, answer, vote, and rate more often.
Wouldn’t we all like to know what questions our customers have about our products and services so we can answer them with our marketing? We can, through answer sites like Yahoo Answers and Quora.

  8.       Quora

This Q&A site is considered more high-end compared to Yahoo Answers. Quora is a continually improving and refining its collection of questions and answers. The questions and answers on Quora are reviewed, edited, flagged (useful or not) and organized by users. Like Yahoo Answers, the questions are categorized for easy browsing.
The creator of Quora has said the goal is to have each question page be the best available resource for someone who wants to know the answer to any particular question. Though Quora is only a few years old, this site is rapidly growing and the average caliber of answers is quite high. This site is a great resource for finding out what type of content could be useful to customers by learning what industry questions are frequently asked.

  9.       LinkedIn Discussions

LinkedIn is best known as a B2B website connecting people. But did you know they have lots of great discussions going on too? There are thousands of industry groups on LinkedIn – truly something for everyone. In these groups, industry professionals discuss industry news, events, standards and more.
These group discussions can give insight into industry communities that may not be found elsewhere. By perusing these industry groups, you can see frequently asked questions, spot industry trends and identify sentiment towards products or services. As LinkedIn requires a LinkedIn account login for participation, discussions are full of high-quality content, as people are held accountable for their contributions.

  10.       Discussions On Google

One of my favorites is Google Discussions.  It’s not easy to find on the Google.com page, but if you perform a keyword search and click “More” on the left column, you will find “Discussions.” This is a very easy way to find people discussing products or services specific to your industry.
A Google discussion search usually brings results from question-and-answer sites, review sites and more. By browsing these results, you can gain insight into consumers’ thoughts, experiences and questions with products or services, making Google discussion search a valuable content marketing research tool.  While you are there, you just might want to participate in the discussions!

  11.       Open Site Explorer

The SEOmoz tool Open Site Explorer pulls the back link profile of websites, making it tremendously useful for content marketing research. By using the “Top Pages” tab and browsing a competitor’s back links, you can see where they have been successful in content marketing.
Are lots of reputable websites linking to one certain piece of content? Are there lots of spammy sites linking to their landing pages? What blog post has the most back links? The answers to these questions can provide a look into your competitor’s content marketing strategy, allowing you to fill in the gaps or piggy back off of what they have started. What is working for them could work for you – if you do it better.

12.   Your staff

Last but not least: talk to your employees.  Interview the person in the warehouse, the delivery gal, accounting team, sales people, the help desk, and so on. Ask them what questions they are asked by your customers. You will discover all sorts of ideas. And believe me, if they are being asked in person, people are searching online for those answers, too.
This is where you come in. You need to provide the answers to these questions in your content in a compelling way. You must produce quality content that positions your brand as the expert in your industry – the company to trust – so consumers will choose you over your competition.

Conclusion

With these tools, almost anyone in any industry can generate hundreds of content ideas. Did I miss your favorite content marketing research tool or method? Or do you have any great examples of how you put one of these tools to use? Let me know in the comments below.

Content Optimizing

11 Things To Ask Yourself When Optimizing Content

Sep 25, 2012 at 12:29pm ET by Jenny Halasz

• inShare70

A client asked me the other day why we were optimizing his software for Los Angeles, when he’s located in Raleigh, NC. In explaining the reason to him, I realized that a basic guideline for optimizing pages is long overdue. I’ve developed the following flow chart and explanation in response.

Theming Content

The first question you need to ask yourself when optimizing a page is, What is the Page About?
If you can’t answer this or your answer is a keyword, then maybe you shouldn’t be building the page. Seriously. You need the page to be about something in order for it to have value on your website.
In the case of my client, the page was about a conference in Los Angeles where the company was going to exhibit. It’s starting to make sense now, isn’t it? Specifically, the page was about a single type of software it sells. Let’s call it Software A.

Putting Content Into Context

The second question you need to ask yourself is, What is the Purpose of This Page?
Is it news, a press release, a blog post, an educational piece, a sales piece? What are your goals with the page?
In my client’s case, the goal was to announce that it would be at the event and give a little bit of background about Software A. I’d call it a press release.

Consider Content Timing

The third consideration is: How long will this content remain relevant?

• Is it an educational piece that will always be useful?
• Is it a product explanation that will be relevant until the next version comes out?
• Is it a news item that will always be interesting?
• Is it an event that will recur?

In my client’s case, the page was about an event that would happen once (next week, in fact) and then be over.

Content Optimization

Finally, we get to optimization for search. Given the other questions you’ve asked, what makes sense for optimization?

• Are there relevant keywords to use?
• Should you include links to other content?
• What should the Title, Description and Heading say?

Making Decisions

The answer is, it depends. Don’t apply a one-size-fits-all method to your optimization. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to even put keywords on a page. Sometimes a few well-optimized links are all you need. Either way, the answer is common sense.
In my client’s case, they were putting out a news item about a conference for Software A in LA next week. I chose two key phrases in the text and linked them back to Software A’s pages. I chose a Title and Heading that read something like, “Company Presents Software A at Conference.” Anything beyond that would have been overkill.
So next time you’re wondering how to optimize a page, first use the handy chart below.

Consider Topic, Purpose, and Timing

Keep in mind, this isn’t a prix fixe meal where you can choose one salad, one entree and one dessert. Good optimization isn’t done that way.
Great optimization is more like a four course a’ la carte meal, where you carefully select each element based on what you know about your users. Just throw a few crumbs in every now and then for the search engines.

10 Free Tools to check Social Media Backlinks & Popularity of your website

1. PageBoss - Checks backlinks from all reputed social media sites. Clean interface. Supports four languages.

2. URL Matrix - Amazingly fast tool. Analyzes everything from Alexa to Technorati to Compete.

3. Social Scan - Quick and easy to use tool. Scans popular social media channels like Stumbleupon, Delicious, Digg for backlinks.

4. Site Mention - Cool tool, digs up all possible social media mentions about your site on Twitter, Friend Feed, Youtube, Myspace, Flickr, Yahoo Answers, Digg, Delicious, Furl and Reddit.

5. Quark Base - Analyzes every detail possible about a website including its ownership, server details and a huge list of details from social media channels.

6. Website Grader - The popular grader platform. Does a pretty job in grabbing all the info related to a website right from on site optimization metrics to off site factors like inbound links to social media channels pointing to the site.

7. Back Tweets - This tool finds you all the backlinks from Twitter to your site. Amazingly quick !

8. Popuri.us - Nice tool with a great visual appeal, check major factors like Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, Technorati, del.icio.us, etc for mentions.

9. Social Meter - An average tool that checks the basic numbers from Del.icio.us, Digg, Furl, Google, Jots, Linkroll, Netscape, Reddit, Shadows, Spurl, Technorati, and Yahoo My Web.

10. Site Volume - This is a nice tool that will help you find the frequency of mentions abut a particular keyword on social media sites like Digg, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube etc, and make comparison charts, giving you idea about what content is popular on each site.

Short List of keyword

Shortlist your keywords

Sorry, you are not logged in. Please login to get full access to this page or register if you're not registered yet.

Now you have a long and versatile list of keywords and keyphrases to choose from.
For my little son this would be enough, but we're after something much bigger than pocket money. Thanks, Andy, now your dad has to make a final decision. Alas, it's always dad who bears the burden of responsibility. ;)
So let's brush aside all stuff and shortlist your search terms. Again, you can choose between a free but long way to do this, or use Rank Tracker tool you already know to make this task a snap.

Option 1: Sweep away the keyword trash, by hand

Calculating KEI

Here we go with the magic wand of SEOs. That's the SEO know-how called KEI, or Keyword Efficiency Index. This index shows you how good a keyword is for bringing traffic to your site.

You need keywords with high KEI.

Here's what the importance of your keywords depends on:

• Relevance (R): it is how closely your keyword is related to what you offer to your customers.

We use the three-grade scale to estimate relevance. So now you need to make a separate column for Relevance in your spreadsheet, and put one of the following numbers next to each word or phrase:

• 1 for Excellent
• 2 for Good
• 3 for Poor

• Search Volume (Sv): it is how many queries are made for a keyword per month.

Here's how you can check Search Volume for each word or phrase: go to Wordtracker and type in your search term, say free ecard. Wait a while, and along with keyword suggestions, you'll see number of searches per month.

Free Wordtracker Keyword Suggestion Tool

Just like you can see on this picture, people search for free ecard 11384 times per day, or about 347201 times per month.
Now, in your spreadsheet, make a column for Search Volume and enter the number of searches values for each phrase.

• Competition (C): that's how many websites are already more or less optimized for this keyword. Generally, all sites that have the same keyword as you are your online competition. And the fewer websites are optimized for the same keyword, the better KEI this keyword has.

The way to check competition is simple. Enter the keyword in Google and click to search. Now look at the image below to see where you find the Competition value:

Google competition for the free ecard keyword

In a separate column for Competition in your spreadsheet, enter values for each keyword.
Here's how your table will look:

Relevance, Search Volume and Competition Values in Excel worksheet

So what makes a KEI better? Higher relevance, higher search volume, and smaller competition.

Now, let's count the magic KEI number for your keywords.
The classical formula for KEI looks like this:

Keyword Efficiency Index formula

I personally use, and always recommend an improved formula. Use it to get a much better estimation. It takes into account real relevance of your keywords.

Keyword Efficiency Index with Relevance

Now make a column for KEI in your Excel spreadsheet and apply the second formula to calculate KEI for each phrase.

Keyword Efficiency Index in Excel worksheet

Let's choose the best keywords

First, sort all keywords in your spreadsheet by KEI. As I already said, the higher KEI, the better your keywords.
You do not need many keywords to optimize your site for, so look at your list and choose top 5 keywords. Mark them as the major ones (say, color them green.) Then, choose the following 30 and mark them as important (you can color them yellow.) Some more 65 or so keywords should be marked as supplemental (e.g. red.)
Now you've got a nice list. We'll target the green-marked keywords in the first turn, make use of the yellow ones as alternative and mind the red ones just in case.

The Robots.txt Super Solution

Use robots.txt can prevent effective inbound link

http://seobiginners.blogspot.in/search/label/google%20algorithm

The only thing about using robots.txt to block indexing of search engines is not only that is quite inefficient, but may also reduce the flow of inbound links. Locking a page using robots.txt, search engines are not indexing the content (or links!) Page. This means that if you have inbound links to the page, the link juice can not flow to other pages. It creates an impasse.


While inbound links to the blocked page is probably some benefit to the general area, this value inbound links are not used to their full potential. You missed an opportunity to convey a certain value link internal page blocked in several important internal pages.

3 Big Sites with Blocked Opportunity in the Robots.txt File

*1 - Digg.com

*2 - Blogger.com or Blogspot.com

*3 - IBM

Super Solutions to the Robots.txt

Great site, for example above, we have covered the wrong robots.txt file. Some of the scenarios were not included. The following is a list of effective solutions to maintain the contents index of search engines with no link juice to lose.

Noindex

In most cases the best alternative to robots.txt robots exclusion meta tags. By adding "noindex" and make sure it does not add 'nofollow' your pages will remain in the results of search engines, but will link value.
301 Redirect

The robots.txt file is not a place to list the old worn pages. If the page has expired (delete, move, etc) is not only the block. Redirect this page through a 301 to replace the most relevant. Get more information about redirecting the Knowledge Centre.

Canonical Tag

Do not block your overlap since the versions in robots.txt. Using the tag canon to keep the additional versions of the index, and consolidate the link value. Where possible. Get more information at the Information Centre on canonization and use the rel = tag canon.

Password Protection

The robots.txt is not an effective way to keep the information confidential at the hands of others. If you have confidential information on the Internet, password protect. If you have a login screen, go ahead and add meta tag "noindex" page. If you expect a lot of incoming links on this page for users, be sure to link to some of the most important pages of internal login page. This way, you pass through the link juice.

Effective Robots.txt Usage

The best way to use a robots.txt file does not use it at all. Use it to report that robots will have full access to all files on the site and to control a robot in the sitemap.xml file. That's it.

Your robots.txt file should look like this:

-----------------

User-agent: *
Disallow:

Sitemap: http://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml

-----------------

Bad Bots

"Robots and instructions for the robots.txt file," which means that there are robots that do not follow the robots.txt at all. So when you do a good job of keep away with a good, you are doing a horrible job to keep away from "bad" against. In addition to filtering to allow access only to the Google bot Bing is not recommended for three reasons:

1. The engines change/update bot names frequently.
2. Engines employ multiple types of bots for different types of content.
3. New engines/content discovery technologies getting off the ground stand even less of a chance with institutionalized preferences for existing user agents only and search competition is good for the industry.

Competitors

If your competitors are warned SEO in any way whatsoever, they look at your robots.txt file to see what they can discover. Say you are working on a new design or an entirely new product and you have a line in your robots.txt file that disallows bots "index" it. If a competitor appears, check the file and see this folder called "/ newproducttest" when they just won the jackpot! Better to keep it on a staging server, or behind a login. Do not give all your secrets in a small file.

Handling Non-HTML & System Content

* It isn't necessary to block .js and .css files in your robots.txt. The search engines won't index them, but sometimes they like the ability to analyze them so it is good to keep access open.

* To restrict robot access to non-HTML documents like PDF files, you can use the x-robots tag in the HTTP Header.

* Images! Every website has background images or images used for styling that you don't want to have indexed. Make sure these images are displayed through the CSS and not using the tag as much as possible. This will keep them from being indexed, rather than having to disallow the "/style/images" folder from the robots.txt.

* A good way to determine whether the search engines are even trying to access your non-HTML files is to check your log files for bot activity.

Beginners for SEO Search Terams

There are the google seo search,google blog search,google search tips,google search tricks,google search terms for seo beginners.

FINDING FORUMS

inurl:viewtopic your keyword
Powered by Phbb your keyword
Powered by vBulletin your keyword
Powered by SMF your keyword
Phbb your keyword
powered by IPB your keyword
MyBB your keyword
powered by PunBB your keyword

FINDING DIRECTORIES AND SUBMISSION SITES

intitle:add+url "your keyword"
intitle:submit+site "your keyword"
intitle:submit+url "your keyword"
intitle:add+your+site "your keyword"
intitle:add+site "your keyword"
intitle:directory "your keyword"
intitle:sites "your keyword"
intitle:list "your keyword"

GETTING LINKS FROM SQUIDOO

site:squidoo.com "new links plexo" "add to this list"
site:squidoo.com "your keyword" "add to this list"

FLICKR

site:flickr.com "your keyword"
http://digg.com/search?s=flickr.com

STUMBLEUPON

site:stumbleupon.com "your keyword"

DIGG

site:digg.com "your keyword"

.EDU AND .GOV SITES

site:.edu inurl:wp-login.php +blog
site:.gov inurl:wp-login.php +blog
site:.edu "your keyword"
site:.gov "your keyword" - "you must be logged in" - "comments are closed"
site:.edu "no comments" +blogroll - "posting closed" - "you must be logged in" - "comments are closed"
site:.gov "no comments" +blogroll - "posting closed" - "you must be logged in" - "comments are closed"

PROPELLER

site:propeller.com/member keyword

GETTING LINKS FROM SLIDESHARE

site:www.slideshare.net keyword "comments 1"

BLOG

site:.com inurl:blog "post a comment" - "comments closed" - "you must be logged in" "ADD YOUR KEYWORD"

site: .org inurl:blog "post a comment" -"comments closed" -"you must be logged in" "ADD YOUR KEYWORD"

site: .gov inurl:blog "post a comment" -"comments closed" -"you must be logged in" "ADD YOUR KEYWORD"

site: .com "powered by expressionengine" "ADD YOUR KEYWORD"
site: .org "powered by expressionengine" "ADD YOUR KEYWORD"
site: .edu "powered by expressionengine" "ADD YOUR KEYWORD"
site: .gov "powered by expressionengine" "ADD YOUR KEYWORD"

site: .com "Powered by BlogEngine.NET" inurl:blog "post a comment" -"comments closed" -"you must be logged in" "ADD YOUR KEYWORD"

site: .ORG "Powered by BlogEngine.NET" inurl:blog "post a comment" -"comments closed" -"you must be logged in" "ADD YOUR KEYWORD"

site: .edu "Powered by BlogEngine.NET" inurl:blog "post a comment" -"comments closed" -"you must be logged in" "ADD YOUR KEYWORD"

site: .gov "Powered by BlogEngine.NET" inurl:blog "post a comment" -"comments closed" -"you must be logged in" "ADD YOUR KEYWORD"

The Yahoo Code

linkdomain:yourdomain.com -site:yourdomain.com

WORDPRESS

powered by wordpress your keyword
powered by wordpress intitle:your keyword
powered by wordpress inurl:your keyword
If you have a TypeKey or TypePad account your keyword
site:blogspot.com your keyword
powered by wordpress your keyword -comments are closed

Operator

Seo Operator

Intitle. The intitle operator instructs Google to look for a search word in

the title of documents. It can be mixed with a search for other words anywhere

in the document.

Allintitle. If you want to specify more than one word in a title, use the

allintitle operator. This operator cannot be combined with a search for terms

anywhere in the documents and thus must begin your query.

Inurl. The inurl operator tells Google to return pages that contain the attached

word somewhere in the URL of the document. This operator can

be combined with other search terms as well. For example: acid rain

inurl:cbs will return pages with cbs somewhere in the address and with

the search terms acid and rain on them.

Allinurl. This operator can be used to search for documents where all the

query words are located somewhere in a document’s URL. For example,

the query allinurl:diabetes faq will find Web pages with both diabetes

and faq in the URL (site name, directory, or file name). The allinurl has

a use similar to that of inurl because it allows you to find sites with directories

or files that include specific search concepts.

File Extensions Accurately : If you are looking up a Web page you have found mentioned in a

print source or otherwise need to type in a URL manually, be sure

not only to get everything spelled right, but pay attention to the file

extension. Originally, most pages ended in html, but now many end

in htm. Adding or omitting that one letter can make the difference between

finding the page and getting a “Page not found” message.

And now, of course, many pages end in other extensions, such as

asp, cfm, php, and so on.

Cache. Using this operator in a query will return the page that Google

has stored in its database. For example, cache:www.cnn.com will bring

up the main page of the CNN Web site. Note that popular and frequently

updated sites like this one are spidered much more often than other sites.

In a test of this query, the cached page was only two days old. Other sites

may have cached pages up to a month old.

Link. This operator allows you to find out what other pages link to the

page you name. The number of links can be a measure of importance (or

at least popularity). More valuable, though, is the fact that pages with

similar content tend to link to each other, so this is a handy way of doing

some cross searching. Example, suppose you like the art museum site

www.getty.edu. The Google query link:www.getty.edu will return a

list of pages linked to that page. After the internal page links (from other

pages on the same Web site) you’ll find links from external sites, many

of which also cover art topics.

Related. The related operator returns a list of Web pages that contain

content similar to the content on the page named in the query. In the

Getty Museum example above, the query related:www.getty.edu will return

a list of other art museums’ Web sites. This command is also available

as a hyperlinked “Similar pages” choice on the Google results page

after each result.

The related operator is one of the most powerful and useful ways

to locate other information about your topic quickly. Often you will find

entire sites devoted to the topic of your query. This operator allows you

to locate other focused pages in one step.

Related. The related operator returns a list of Web pages that contain

content similar to the content on the page named in the query. In the

Getty Museum example above, the query related:www.getty.edu will return

a list of other art museums’ Web sites. This command is also available

as a hyperlinked “Similar pages” choice on the Google results page

after each result.

The related operator is one of the most powerful and useful ways

to locate other information about your topic quickly. Often you will find

entire sites devoted to the topic of your query. This operator allows you

to locate other focused pages in one step.

Stocks. This operator will cause Google to return stock information for

the stock ticker symbol you enter. For example, stocks:wmt will return a

page of stock market information for Wal-Mart, together with news and

other links. If you don’t know the ticker symbol for a company you’re

interested in, just type in the company name with the stocks command,

as in stocks:honda. You’ll get a “no such ticker symbol” notice and the

option to look up the symbol of the name you typed in. You’ll find the

symbol in one more click.

Now you can perform advanced searches either with the Advanced

Search Page or directly from the Google search box on the main page.

Importent Tearms

What are Sitemaps?

Sitemaps are an easy way for webmasters to inform search engines about pages on their sites that are available for crawling. In its simplest form, a Sitemap is an XML file that lists URLs for a site along with additional metadata about each URL (when it was last updated, how often it usually changes, and how important it is, relative to other URLs in the site) so that search engines can more intelligently crawl the site.
Web crawlers usually discover pages from links within the site and from other sites. Sitemaps supplement this data to allow crawlers that support Sitemaps to pick up all URLs in the Sitemap and learn about those URLs using the associated metadata. Using the Sitemap protocol does not guarantee that web pages are included in search engines, but provides hints for web crawlers to do a better job of crawling your site.

What is Flame?
Flame is a complex data stealing Virus that contains about 20 times as much code as Stuxnet about and about 100 times as much code as a typical virus designed to steal financial information.

Spoofing in IT

Making an e-mail message appear to have come from one place when really it comes from another is called spoofing. It is generally used by spammers, who do not want their real address to appear on the e-mails they send. Since the messages they send out have web links in them, they do not care if people click `reply' and send an e-mail to the wrong place. It also makes it a lot harder for ISP to track them down and close their accounts.

Google Panda

Google Panda refers to the change introduced to the search algorithm used by Google in 2011, to give better search results. The change aims to lower the rank of "low quality content sites" in search results and return high-quality sites to its users. CNET reported a surge in the rankings of News websites and Social Networking sites, and a drop in rankings for advertising sites. This change reportedly affected the rankings of almost 12 percent of all search results. According to Amit Singhal, the head of Google's core ranking team; Google Panda is named after an engineer at Google. (wikipedia entry reproduced).

Google Bomb

A Google bomb is an effort to inflate a website's search ranking for a particular term. Google gives importance to pages linking to a particular page for ranking purposes. In case of Google bombing, pranksters use a phrase to link to a particular page from their sites multiple times, to push that page to the top of search results. One of the most (in)famous examples of this was "miserable failure", which placed the official White House homepage of George W Bush atop the search results for that term.

Website Pharming

Pharming involves rerouting the traffic of a particular website to a bogus one. This is done by exploiting the weaknesses of the site's Domain Name System (DNS) server. Pharming poses major concerns to corporates and e-commerce sites. Anti-pharming measures are required to safeguard sites.

Cybersquatting

Cybersquatting is registering a website in the names of popular brands. The word squatting in this context means unauthorised occupation of someone else's property. In the internet domain, techsavvy entrepreneurs register websites in the names of popular brands, whose owners do not have websites of their own. This can lead to misrepresentation in the internet media about the products or services the brand sells in the market. The brand owners naturally would like to buy the domain either to give authentic information about products and services or to stem the ill-effects of such misrepresented sites. The person who first registered the brand name sells the site and makes a profit. The ethical and legal aspects of such practice are ambiguous as the intention of the original owner of the site can either be genuine or fraudulent.

Cyberchondriacs

Much like hypochondriacs who obsess about any small ache or pain they may have, cybercondriacs frequently surf the internet to glean information about anything that affects them. They now form 84% of all adult net users. Cyberchondriacs are even said to discuss what they learnt from the net about a particular ailment with their doctors. The term could also refer to people who imagine they have a disease because their symptoms match those on a health website.

Simputer

The word 'Simputer' is an acronym for 'simple, inexpensive and multilingual people's computer'. It is a small, inexpensive, handheld computer, intended to bring computing power to developing countries. It includes textto-speech software and runs the GNU/ Linux operating systems. The device was designed by the Simputer Trust, a non-profit organisation formed in November 1999. Simputers are generally used in environments where computing devices such as PCs cannot be used.

Digital Nomad

A person who works on the move is called a digital nomad. Such a worker may or may not be on the rolls of a company, and could be a consultant/freelancer/a writer on the move. They are persons with a free spirit who like a remote lifestyle and earn as they move, and believe that with discipline and the correct technology, they can be as productive as a person sitting in office. This is new tribe of people and for them, the economic downturn has brought little distress as companies turn to part-timers to save on costs.

Digital Cleanse

Digital cleanse is a term mooted by John Mayer, musician and avid blogger and tweeter, as a resolution and challenge for the first week of 2010. It means keeping off all digital contraptions — a stop to emailing, texting, social networking, blogging and surfing sites. It is seen as a new health craze, considered good for the body and mind. The basic idea is to unplug and meet people.

Captcha

Captcha refers to Completely Automated Public Turing Test to differentiate between computers and humans. A Captcha Security Code is an image of letters that a person must type in to match the Captcha image they see. It is a type of challenge response test used in computing to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer. This code was created to stop automated computer spam robots from filling out forms and harvesting email addresses and then sending out spam emails. Only a human can type out a code he sees correctly, an automated computer programme cannot.

E-mail Apnea

Email apnea is the stress caused by the inability to process emails and connect even as mails flood the inbox. It is marked by a suspension of breathing, shallow breathing or hyperventilating while checking mail. Researcher Linda Stone coined this term after realizing that many people go through this process every morning, the mind whirling from mail to mail, filing, forwarding etc. She also found the effect of this kind of apnea on general health to be negative in the long term.

Software Entropy

The tendency, over time, for software to become difficult and costly to maintain is known as software entropy. A software system that undergoes continuous change, like new functionality added to its original design, will eventually become more complex, losing its original design structure, and may even become disorganized as it grows. In theory, it may be better to redesign the software in order to support the changes rather than build on the existing programme.

Cookies

A cookie is a text string that is included with Hypertext Transfer Protocol requests and responses. Cookies are used to maintain information as we navigate different pages on a website or return to the website at a later time. Cookies cannot be used to run code (programmes) or deliver viruses to computer. One of their primary purposes is to provide a convenience feature that one can use to save time — it tells the web server that you have returned to the page. If you personalize web pages or register for products and services, a cookie helps the page server recall your specific information, like billing address, shipping address.

Why the symbol @ used in e-mail is addresses?

An e-mail address identifies a location to which e-mail messages can be delivered. Ray Tomlinson needed a way to separate, in the email address, the name of the user from the machine the user was on. He wanted a character that would not, under any conceivable circumstances, be found in the user's name. He looked down at the keyboard and chose the @ sign among various punctuation marks available on his Model 33 teletype keyboard, without an idea that he was creating an icon for the internet world. A general format for an e-mail address is: username@computer_name. The part before the @ sign is the local part of the address, the user name of the recipient, and the part after the @ sign is the domain part which is a host computer name.

The `@' symbol indicates that the user can be reached on the Internet by giving the email address(also called the User's Uniform Resource Locator (URL)).

In 1973, the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) was designed and in 1983 it became the standard for communicating between computers over the Internet. In 1976, US Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter and running mate Walter Mondale used email to plan campaign events. In the same year, Queen Elizabeth sent her first email, becoming the first state leader to do so. In 1982, the term "Internet" was used for the first time.

How do search engines work?

A search engine does not search the entire Internet, but databases of Web pages. When a designer contacts a search engine for the addition of his website in the database, a program called Spider visits the site, reads the pages, indexes the contents and follows links to move on. Search engines like Google use algorithms to find pages with matter relevant to the keywords entered by the user. If the title or headings of the page contain the keywords, then it gets higher preference. Google also uses a patented algorithm called PageRank system that ranks a website based on how many sites have links to it and their ranks as well. 

What are Beta testing and Alpha testing?

Software testing is to test a software or software code to find bugs and errors. There are basically of two types: alpha testing and beta testing. The first is done at the developer end, while the second is at the user end. A beta tester is the customer itself and notes down defects and reports them to the developer. The user/ customer is called a 'beta tester' because he is the second one to carry out the testing. The term is derived from the fact that beta comes after alpha in the Greek alphabet.

Digital Versatile Disc (DVD)

Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) is also an optical storage device that looks the same as a compact disc but is able to hold about 15 times as much information and transfer it to the computer about 20 times as fast as a CDROM. The CD and DVD have the same dimensions.

DVDs come in two formats: the DVD-Video and the DVD-ROM (DVD Read Only Memory) format. The DVD-Video format is used for home movie entertainment through a DVD player.

What is difference between Cold Boot and Warm Boot?

We actually perform a Cold Boot every time we turn on the power switch of our computer. To "boot'' the computer means to start it up and reset the memory and BIOS. Sometimes, the programme running hangs and we press the ctrl-alt-delete keys simultaneously. This is called Warm Boot. So, when a computer stops responding because of memory problems or the "blue screen of death'' appears, we need to do a warm boot. The latest operating system Windows 7 responds with task manager when we press the ctrl-alt-delete keys simultaneously. We can choose the not responding programmes to close and continue. However, if the warm boot fails to restart the computer, we need to resort to a cold boot by shutting off the power switch, waiting few seconds and then turning it back on.