TheInternet is a “network of networks” that links computers around the world. They all use a set of rules called TCP/IP to exchange information. Driven by services, such as, electronic mail, file transfer, news groups, and the World Wide Web.
At one time funded by the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation, the Internet is now paid for and operated by the thousands of institutions that use it. A committee known as the Internet Engineering Task Force defines technical standards. The Internet is not controlled by a single administrative body; rather, it is an aggregation of schools, corporations, government agencies, and other organizations that share resources and jointly fund the regional “backbones” that interconnect their campuses.
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Go beyond connecting people and transferring documents.
Once a client's web site has been completed, constantly monitor the site. Frequently back-up all the data, while keeping a log of the site "hits". Upon request can create and analyze Website activity statistics and Search Engine position ranking reports.
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TheIntranet is a network of computers within a corporation. The computers are connected to each other by means of the Internet Protocol. This internal network is separated from other networks and computers outside by “firewalls.” Firewalls, in effect, act as a moat separating the Intranet from other networks and other computers. The firewall is a means of preventing unauthorized access to the internal network from the outside.
TheIntranet is a protected neighborhood of computers within the larger city of the Internet. When you allow access to someone else's Intranet, that site becomes an Extranet for your users as a private network that uses Internet protocols and the public telecommunication system to securely share part of a business's information or operations with suppliers, vendors, partners, customers, or other businesses. An Extranet can be viewed as part of a company's Intranet that is extended to users outside the company. The same benefits that Web technologies have brought to corporate Intranets are now starting to accelerate business between businesses.
Extranets can be used to exchange large volumes of data, share product catalogs, share news with trading partners, collaborate with other companies on joint development efforts, jointly develop and share training programs with other companies, provide or access applications between companies, and much more.
Win-Win-Win Situation
Cascading style sheets, when used properly, can enhance your site design for viewers, ease the maintenance load for the webmaster, and improve search engine rankings. We’ll get to how one tool can do so much, but first- the basics on CSS for those who have not yet met the web design superhero.
CSS- What is it?
CSS is a style sheet language that allows web designers to attach style (fonts, spacing, colors, etc.) to HTML documents. Cascading style sheets work like a template, allowing Web developers to define a style for an HTML element and then apply it to as many Web pages as they'd like. CSS separates the presentation style of documents from the content of documents simplifying site maintenance. (We won’t cover the technicalities here, but check out our recommended reading at the end of the article for more on the actual implementation of CSS.)
A More Beautiful World (Wide Web)
Call it vanity if you like, but the Web shouldn’t be subject to unaesthetic web sites just to please search engine ranking powers that be. As search engine optimization has called for simpler HTML sites, web designers have struggled to maintain viewer friendly web sites using simple HTML. It is difficult- if not impossible- to do so. But CSS allows designers to do what they want with design without risking clouding up HTML code.
Using relative measurements in a style sheet webmasters can style documents to look good on any monitor at any resolution. Web pages today need to be versatile for viewing on various media (computer monitor, printed, PDA’s and handhelds, cell phones, etc.) CSS has the capability of determining how a page is viewed on different media and designers have a more predictable control over the presentation.
How CSS Blesses the Lives of Webmasters
Webmasters can define the look of a site in one place, and change the whole site by changing just the one file. With CSS, when you want to make a change, you simply change the style, and that element is updated automatically wherever it appears within the site.
What About Browsers? Do They Recognize CSS?
While the relationship was rocky at first between browsers and CSS, CSS is now recognized by all major browsers (Netscape, Explorer, Mozilla) Because CSS is so very functional, browsers have struggled to keep up. But improvements are being made, and it is definitely safe for web designers to use CSS now.
Search Engine Optimization with CSS
Lastly, the benefits of using CSS for search engine optimization purposes- because it doesn’t matter how lovely your site is if no one sees it!
To put it simply- search engine spiders are lazy. They don’t like to sift through mountains of garbled HTML design code to get to the indexable content. Tables, font tags, and formatting code require more time to spider through and decrease the relevancy of the actual important content on the page. Using external CSS files to determine design attributes, HTML code can be clean and concise- just the way the spiders like it.
How to Begin Using CSS
Webmasters who’ve spent years patching and functioning with HTML may feel hesitant to ‘learn a new trick’, but beginning to implement CSS into web design is not as difficult as one might think. If you want to learn more about using CSS to enhance your web pages the following two resources have (free) cutting-edge information and tutorials. W3.org, AListApart.com
Intranet/Extranet Solutions
Solutions that go beyond the Internet.
Go beyond connecting people and transferring documents.
Once a client's web site has been completed, constantly monitor the site. Frequently back-up all the data, while keeping a log of the site "hits". Upon request can create and analyze Website activity statistics and Search Engine position ranking reports.
Web Design utilizing (Shockwave, Flash, QuicktimeVR, SVG, VRML, Video production and Editing on a broadcast level, 3DMF(Animation) ActiveX, Pearl(cgi), UNIX, MacOS, NT, XML, PHP, dhtml, shtml, C/C++, Java Script, Java & Relational Database).
Web to database integration
Electronic commerce solutions
Interface and design
Web and application hosting
Custom messaging applications
Secure messaging solutions
Network mail and messaging
E-mail migration services
E-learing services
Database integration applications
Workflow process applications
Secure site accessible only to your company's employees
Streaming media platforms open standard MPEG-4
PDA development
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What is a Meta Tag?
Meta tags are commands in the HTML code, residing in the header, that instruct the browser or search engines to perform specific tasks, identify keywords, site definitions, page authors, plug-in requirements, etc. These tags are not visible to site visitors. They are only visible in the code. Simply, Meta tags describe the content of the document in which they're written.
Where are Meta Tags Found?
Meta tags are author generated source code that is placed in the header section of an HTML document. They always go in the [head] section of the document. For example a simplified version of your HTML code may look something like this:
As you can see, the Meta tags go inside the head tags along with the title tag.
Parts of a Meta Tag
Meta tags are constructed of three main parts: Meta 'type', 'name' and 'value. And look something like this:
[meta type="name" content="value"]
The Meta 'type' defines whether the Meta tag will be speaking to search engines or browsers. The 'name' refers to what type of tag it is and the 'value' is the actual content of the tag.
Meta Types- NAME and HTTP-EQUIV
There are two different 'types' of Meta tags- "meta NAME" and "meta HTTP-EQUIV". Meta tags with the 'HTTP-EQUIV' attribute are for web browsers, and Meta tags with the 'NAME' attribute are used primarily by indexing and searching tools like search engines.
Meta HTTP-EQUIV
Meta HTTP-EQUIV is for the web browser. These tags can indicate to the web browser how to display the page. Webmasters can specify through Meta HTTP-EQUIV tags if they would like the page to be in a specific language, cached, redirected, or refreshed after a given amount of time. (We won't cover the specifics here, but the Emirates Network had a good article on the browser Meta tags.)
Meta NAME
Meta NAME tags are for search engines. Current popular Meta name tags that can affect search engine rankings are keywords and description:
The Meta KEYWORDS tag is used to group a series of words that relate to a website. These tags can be used by search engines to classify pages for searches.
The Meta DESCRIPTION is used to describe the document. The Meta description is then displayed in search engine results underneath the link to a web page.
An example of the meta keywords and description might look like this for a page about blue widgets:
[meta name="description" content="Blue Widgets Inc. reviews and sells blue widgets."]
[meta name="keywords" content="Widgets, blue widgets, widget sales, widget reviews"]
You don't need to use every type of meta tag on every page, but for your general reference here is a template of the main ones:
Note to Newbies
If you are using the above code in your HTML exchange the brackets [ ] for alligators, < >.
For a more in depth discussion on how to use Meta tags for search engine optimization purposes check out our article below. Or, for listings of web designers in your area who could do all this for you, visit Best Web Marketing Providers.
What is a Shared IP Address?
Every web server is assigned an IP address. An IP address might look something like this: 248.57.240.83. The server’s IP address generally stays the same all the time. Most websites on the internet are hosted on shared IP addresses, which means that one server with one IP address holds multiple domain names.
It used to be that every domain name had a different IP address, but with the rapid increase of domains needed and the finite number of IP addresses they began to share IPs. Now servers are able to determine by the domain entered in a user’s browser which domain is being requested, even though it may send a request for an IP with hundreds of domains.
What is a Dedicated IP Address?
A dedicated IP address is set aside specifically for one domain, like in the old days. This means that if someone types in the numeric form of the IP address the same domain will always appear in the browser. Dedicated IP addresses are no longer the norm and it usually costs more to get one.
Who Needs a Dedicated IP Address?
Usually dedicated IP addresses are used for large web sites or secure e-commerce web sites.
Benefits of Having a Dedicated IP Address
Although, shared IP is usually easier and cheaper, there are a few advantages to having a dedicated IP address. Besides looking ‘cool’ for fellow webmasters, a dedicated IP is needed for three specific reasons:
Using your own Private SSL Certificate. This applies only if you need to have your own SSL certificate. SSL certificates are needed for accepting credit cards online. Web hosts that offer SSL usually offer a shared SSL certificate where users can share the web host’s SSL. If you are using your web host’s SSL you don’t need a dedicated IP.
Anonymous FTP for some web hosts. Anonymous FTP is a method of sharing files on the Internet. Anonymous FTP means a computer will allow anyone using the FTP software access a special directory for files on its disk drive. This service is called Anonymous FTP because the user name used to sign in is "anonymous." To enable anonymous FTP certain web hosts require dedicated IP for the anonymous FTP function to work properly. Check with your web host if this is an issue for you.
Setting up your own Domain Name Server. A name server looks like this: ex. NS1.yoursite.com, NS2.yoursite.com. Since all web hosts provide you with their DNS servers, you don't need to have your own. But if you choose to have your own name server you will need to have a dedicated IP address to do so.
Do Search Engines Ban Shared IP Users?
Recent rumors suggested that search engines have blocked spam activity, by blocking ip addresses. Since shared IP address users are bundled together on the same IP address with many others, innocent sites would be banned from search engines if this were the case. The rumor, however, is false. Most web hosting services use an IP sharing environment and it would be unprofitable to search engines to penalize a site based on IP.
Using modern name-based technology a search engine is able to ban anything on a domain name instead of an entire IP neighborhood. So it continues to be search engine safe to host a site on a shared IP environment. (However, sharing a mail server with a spammer is still a bad idea. If you are concerned about being penalized for a fellow shared user’s activity, get your own mail server.)
To sum up- serious webmasters who would like total control over their server and space, and e-commerce web sites who need their own SSL certificates are the best candidates for dedicated IP addresses. The rest of us can just happily coexist on the cheaper shared IP’s
