Articles

Basic SEO Checklist

2008-11-12T10:01:00Z

Head Section

Title

The webpage title is a crucial factor to achieve optimum search engine rankings. Each page of a particular website should use a unique title that is tightly tied up with the page’s content and targeted keywords. When creating a title, it is always best to include the primary targeted keyword of a particular page at the beginning of the title, followed by the website name.

Title: Primary Keyword | Website Name

or

Title: Primary Keyword | Secondary Keyword | Website Name

Meta Description

This is often utilized by Google as a website description in the search engine results page (SERP). Google has already stopped relying on this tag, but they still continue to use it to describe your website, when displayed in Google’s Result Page. A website with a well written meta description in 2nd and 3rd rank, can grab a bigger chunk of search engine traffic than a top website with scrap Meta Description.

Meta Keywords

Google has not put any weight on this tag for some time now, but since other search engines still find it relevant, google can’t just totally negate it. Spamming meta keywords, is still out of the question, as google can still determine if a particular page is spamming a keyword or not. Avoid using the same keyword and list over and over. Use 5 keywords or key phrases at most. Make sure that the keyword used in meta keywords shows up at least 2-3 times, in a particular page content.

JavaScript Codes

Search engine crawlers are very sensitive. They are unable to read scripts inside a page and they easily abandon a site if they come across an obstacle. Crawlers aren’t able to read JavaScript as well, that’s why it is best to consolidate all JavaScript, and use external files instead for all JavaScript codes.

CSS Files

As with JavaScript, search engine robots cannot read CSS codes so it is always best to use external files for all CSS codes.

Body Section

Title tags cannot do it alone to get on top of search engine rankings. You also need support from your targeted keywords, by building good page content and proper use of HTML tags. Below are some points that you need to consider to be able support your targeted keywords.

Website Content

Creating content for a website bears no similarity to creating content for a newspaper, magazine and other print ads; it also doesn’t observe the same rules for writing articles. You cannot create content around a particular subject only, you also need to balance both your targeted audience’s point of view as well as that of the search engine.
One way to do this is by anticipating queries that may be used by your targeted visitors, and create site content with these queries in mind - and still maintain the editorial integrity.

Header Tags (H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6)

Use header tags to highlight particular keywords which are important to a search engine robot’s point of view. Bear in mind that H1 shouldn’t be used more than once to indicate that a group of keywords are important in a particular page. It is best to use the header tags in proper order, indicating the primary targeted keyword as H1, secondary targeted keyword as H2 and so on, in a particular page.
Since header tags affect the font size, using headers with CSS helps to retain the current site design.

HTML Formatting Tags (B, I, Strong, EM)

Like Header tags, try to use HTML formatting tags together with header tags to highlight important keywords.

Alt Text

Use alt text to describe images that are used in page

Others

Site Structure

Make web pages 3 clicks always from the home page at most. Search engine robots will hardly crawl deeper pages which are 4 or more clicks away from the home page.

Sitemap

There are two kinds of sitemap:

• Sitemaps used by visitors to check website site pages if they are lost
• And xml sitemap, used by search engines to crawl website pages easily

Make sure both sitemaps exist.

Webmaster Tool / Site Explorer/ Web Master Center

Major search engines offer webmaster tools that can be setup to monitor a web page’s error and rankings.

Below is a list of my recommended free webmaster tools that you can use:

• Google Webmaster Tools
      www.google.com/webmasters/tools

• Yahoo Site Explorer
      https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

• MSN/Live Webmaster Center
      http://webmaster.live.com/

Web Analytics

This tool is used to answer questions indicated below to help us evaluate a particular site more deeply:

• How many visitors visit your website?
• Where do these visitors come from?
• How did they find your site?
• Etc.

Below are some examples of good analytics tools:

• Google Analytics   - Free analytics tool from Google
      http://www.google.com/analytics/

• Urchin – Paid Analytics tools from Google
      http://www.google.com/urchin/index.html

• WebTrends Analytics – Paid web analytics tool from Webtrends
      http://www.webtrends.com/

A New Unsubscribe Feature Every Newsletter Should Use

2008-07-09T03:56:00Z

List Unsubscribe is an optional mailing list command specification header field consisting of text that can be included in the header portion of email messages. This is usually used by online newsletter publishers and email marketers as part of their email campaign. The recipients of the email and newsletter usually don’t see the “list-unsubscribe” on the header or subject line of the messages, they can only see a clickable unsubscribe text or unsubscribe button on the email. Windows Live Hotmail already included this option for their customers to easily unsubscribe from mailing lists whenever they want to do so.

This feature works by adding this line of code on the email header.

List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:list@host.com?subject=unsubscribe>

Mailto:list@host.com is referring to the email that should receive the unsubscribe request. You can change the email to whatever email you prefer. The ?subject=unsubscribe script refers to the header or subject line of the unsubscribe request. It would be better to add this additional script on the list-unsubscribe header so that you will easily recognize the email as an unsubscribe request.

Advantage of having the list-unsubscribe header

•    Reduced email complaints – this new feature can help email senders lessen the complaints they are receiving from their customers by giving them the preference to easily unsubscribe to the email listing. Subscribers will be able to opt-out whenever they want to.

•    Protect Sender’s Reputation - Some subscribers will likely hit the “Report as Spam” link or report complaints in some other way that can hurt the sender’s reputation or worst lead them to blacklist and get the reputation of “SPAMMER”, but by having this feature on the email header, senders can conserve their “sender reputation” by providing the subscriber the alternative to directly unsubscribe instead of reporting as spam. In Windows Live, when the “Unsubscribe” button or link is enabled, the “Report Spam” link option is disabled.

•    Improve Email Deliverability – list-unsubscribe can help improve the email deliverability by reducing the spam complaints and reduce customer service requests.

•    Improve Experience for Subscribers – this can also improve user experience by helping the users manage their emails and provide a common interface for varied mailing list. They can also recede from “wrong clicks” that could cause them to miss the messages they want.

Can Overloaded Methods be Polymorphic? - Part II

2008-04-24T03:14:00Z

Why Polymorphism Deserves a Second Article

There are a number of reasons why things have a sequel. Books are written in multiple parts because sometimes it just takes too long for the next book to be written. Movies usually have a part 2, 3 or even a part 6 because they really hit it big in the box office. The same goes for video games that are really fun and have an excellent following of players. But my reason for writing a second article is different. In the first article, I explained that overloading CAN be a form of polymorphism. Now, I'm going to explain WHY I've changed my mind.

Operator Overloading Is Not Really Overloading

Operators are polymorphic, but operator overloading is not really overloading. Therefore, overloading CANNOT be polymorphic. You can think of operators as interface methods named like, + - * /, and since they're interface methods they have no implementation. The actual "adding" of the ‘+' method is implemented at the parameter type level. The method is invoked once operands of that type are used with the operator. With operator overloading, there is no real overloading that takes place. Overloading is defined as methods that have the same name, but have different parameter signatures. Having methods of the same name residing in different classes, is obviously not overloading.

Why Developers Think Overloading Itself is Polymorphic

Whoever came up with the term operator overloading made a crucial mistake. True, it does look like you're overloading a method operator by allowing multiple versions of it, as long as they have different parameter types. But why would this be overloading when the methods are not in the same place? Whoever coined the term caused a wave of misconception. Developers started seeing operator overloading as polymorphic. After that, they started thinking overloading itself was polymorphic, even though there was really no overloading that took place. But if you look deeply into how it is implemented, you will definitely be convinced it is not overloading at all, but rather interface implementation that is taking place. We should start calling it "operator implementation", which I honestly think sounds better.

Thus, "I just created a Roman numeral class and I now want to provide an operator implementation for adding."

Polymorphic Methods Should Belong to Different Types

Of course all my assumptions are based on how it is implemented in .NET. What if we examine this scenario in a different language? For example, if operator overloading is implemented at just one level, we would have an arbitrary class containing all the operators as methods. So, now the methods are overloaded. Is it polymorphic? The answer is still NO. Overloading fails to satisfy an important characteristic of polymorphism. Polymorphic methods should belong to different types. The reason something is polymorphic is because you don't really know what it is going to do at different levels. Overloading only happens at one level and with the same type. The reality is - overloading is nothing but syntactic sugar that has been added, so that you'd think it has polymorphic behavior. It's just a way to reuse the same method name.

Parametric Polymorphism

Let me debate with myself, a little bit. Since operator overloading is the closest thing to polymorphism with regard to overloading (just because the word happens to be there), hypothetically, operators can be polymorphic if they were implemented with parametric polymorphism. As discussed previously, parametric polymorphism hinges on having polymorphic parameters bound to be of similar type. Operators, in fact fit these criteria, if they are to be implemented with generics. It would look weird though having to "add" two generic parameters <T>+<T> (looks like an emoticon to me), but it would certainly work. Parametric polymorphism is polymorphic because of its parameters and not because of the method per se. The same would apply to this kind of implementation of operator overloading, thus making it polymorphic.

Can Overloaded Methods be Polymorphic?

2008-04-24T02:08:00Z

It All Starts with Classification

The need to classify things according to their proper places has been a part of the human evolution. I cannot think of another living creature on this planet that has the same yearning. Aristotle, the philosopher-mentor of Alexander the Great (my ancient namesake), created an effective method of classifying animals. Though crude and simple, it made sense. His technique was to divide the animal kingdom into smaller groups based on a certain feature. The result is a taxonomy of animals which shows how they are all similar at a certain level, and how they gradually branch out differently as they progress down. It seems tedious, but everything has to start somewhere.

How does this at all relate to the title on polymorphism then? Polymorphic methods get to be polymorphic because they respond to method calls of methods that have similar names but different behaviors.

This being the case, two aspects immediately come to mind: overriding and overloading.

Overriding

Overriding is creating a different implementation of an existing method with the same name in its base class. Knowledge of how to override a method is easy. But knowing when to allow a method to be overridden is much more challenging. Creating a virtual or abstract method which you know will eventually be overridden, is the next best thing to seeing into the future (deciding on an interface though requires thetan level 9 clairvoyance). This is definitely where our friend Aristotle the "Animal Sorter" can help us. Determining which methods you should declare virtual or abstract has more to do with how your classes are related through inheritance rather than which methods are common. A perfect example would be having an abstract "eat" method for our animal base class. All animals eat, but in different ways. At some level they will start eating the same way, but the way they eat is determined by how the deriving class is related to its base class.

Overloading

Overloading has absolutely nothing to do with Aristotle or animals. Overloading is used when you want to have the same method name, but with a different signature, while trying to do the same thing. How then can you say that, an overloaded method is polymorphic when in fact it is doing the same thing? Wouldn't a "WriteLine" method overload that behaves differently based on the number of parameters passed, be weird? So does this mean overloaded methods cannot be polymorphic? The answer is NO, overloaded methods CAN be polymorphic. Operators are in fact overloaded. Whenever you perform an assignment using the "=" operator, it actually chooses which "AssignValue" overload method is called, based on the parameters you give. The same way you can add an integer "1 + 1" and a string "a" + "b" with the same operator. This type of overloading is actually called Ad-hoc polymorphism.

Other Types of Polymorphism

There are actually other types of polymorphism which are not usually discussed but are available in .NET. Sub-type polymorphism is when a super-type is used as a replacement parameter for its sub-type. Which is why passing a "bird" object which is a sub-type of the "animal" class, to a method accepting an "animal" parameter, which is a super-type of "bird" class is acceptable.

Another type of polymorphism that is available in .NET is parametric polymorphism. When a method accepts a list of parameters that are to be of a similar type based on a certain constraint, it can be said that the method is now polymorphic because the data types passed are polymorphic. Simply put, as long as you can keep appending parameter data on a method that accepts parameters that are constrained to be similar, it can be argued that the method is polymorphic - because the parameters are polymorphic. And you can easily do these using Generics.

How to Block Unsuitable Websites Using Microsoft Windows Vista

2008-04-10T08:52:00Z

If you are using Windows Vista and want to block some websites that you think are not advisable for your children or anyone else, follow these steps:

1. Paste C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc in search box after clicking Start.

2. You will see 5 files inside the folder. Don’t forget to back up hosts first.

3. Open hosts file using notepad.

4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and find:

127.0.0.1 localhost

5. Add websites that you want to block using the format below. Please note that you only need to save one URL per line.

127.0.0.1 www.google.com

127.0.0.1 www.yahoo.com

127.0.0.1 www.digg.com

6. Save the file then close.

7. Go to Start and run “ipconfig /flushdns” Note: ipconfig /flushdns – will flush and reset a client resolver cache.

Extra Info:

Windows DNS Client may freeze your system if your hosts file is too large. Please follow the steps below to avoid this.

1. Click Start then type “services.msc” in the run box of windows.

2. Navigate to DNS Client.

3. Right click DNS Client then click Properties.

4. Look for Start-up Type then change setting to manual.

5. Click Apply.

6. Then click the Stop button.

7. This is necessary before saving a large number of websites to your hosts file.

Note: To disable website blocking, simply rename the hosts file to anything.

How to Disable Clipboard Warning in IE7

2008-04-01T05:00:00Z

If you are tired of seeing an alert box whenever copying or pasting in rich textboxes using Internet explorer 7+, you can simply follow the steps below to get rid of it.

Step 1 - Click on Tools, then go to Internet Options on the main menu, a new window will open.

Step 2 - On Security tab, click on the Custom Level button.

Step 3 - On the new window, scroll down till you find Scripting Setting then change the default value of Allow Programmatic clipboard access from Prompt to Enable, then click Ok.

7 Tips for Better Email Deliverability

2007-12-11T08:04:00Z

Try these seven tips to help you deliver email straight to your recipients' inboxes.

1. Acquire a dedicated server
This is a serious investment – but if you are serious about making improvements in your email delivery, you need to have control of your environment. Generic support gets you generic results.

2. Understand Reverse DNS
There are some very basic mistakes made at every client I’ve worked with and that usually begin with DNS problems. One of the most critical - Reverse DNS. Reverse DNS is often used as a method of checking the reliability of your mail server.

To verify your reverse DNS for the IP address you send from, visit this site (nslookup commands work as well): http://remote.12dt.com.

Your ISP will need to make the reverse DNS entry for you, as they own the IP ranges assigned to you.

3. Add SPF records
Microsoft provides a great wizard for creating your SPF records for email servers: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/content/technologies/senderid/wizard.

4. Domain Keys
Generate domain keys and add TXT records to your DNS appropriately. You can increase Yahoo delivery rates and keep it out of Bulk Mail folders by implementing domainkeys. This is becoming an important component that is often overlooked.

5. Whitelisting
Register your online business with major ISP’s like AOL so you are recognized as a bulk sender.

6. Feedback Loops
When someone marks your email as SPAM, you’ve just taken a ding on your email’s integrity. Major providers track this SPAM rate and will begin taking notice if you exceed .1% complaint rate. Many users do this rather than unsubscribing so you need to process the spam complaints. You will need to signup with providers such as AOL and Microsoft to receive these email complaints.

7. Bounce Processing
This is the obvious one, unsubscribe those that request it, and process bad emails that bounce back to you as soon as possible after receiving them.

Welcome to ISLibrary.com

2007-10-17T19:54:00Z

Welcome to ISLibrary.com, an online resource for developers who are interested in web-based technologies. We hope that you will learn new things from this community, and share your own insights with us as well. We'll be publishing more articles soon so visit us again for more updates!