Understanding Search Behavior and Search Engine Technology
July 30, 2008
Search can be a complex process depending on the Search Engine, search modifiers, and other factors. Each Search Engine has different parameters that affect the retrieval of information.
Similarly, searchers’ behaviors are diverse and can only be perceived through the purpose of their searches, intention, time and interpretation of the queries.
As practitioners of Search Engine Optimization, we must understand how search is conducted and the technologies available to searchers. More importantly, we need to put ourselves in the shoes of the searchers in order to understand their needs while matching those needs with the services provided by Search Engines to … Continue reading»
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Using Google Groups to Spam Google Rankings?
July 28, 2008
Recently, I was looking for information related to Google.us to write a post about the future and potential of a localized American version of Google.com. In the process I run into an interesting spamming situation that involved this Country-Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD).
After running an exact match on Gloogle.us, I found some links, either in the Google index or in websites listed, that were directing to inappropriate content. By inappropriate I mean content that has been flagged by or is not in accordance to the Google guidelines. This accounts for spam like phornn, aids for Erhectile Dhysfunction, ghambling, travel … Continue reading»
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LogZ Free Log Analyzer for User-Agent and IP Detection
July 9, 2008
LogZ is a Free Log Analyzer developed in php that retrieves data from raw log files and organizes it in an easy yet relevant way for further analysis. LogZ works with any Apache combined log file format.
Now you can know exactly which bots and crawlers visit your website. Our Free Log Analyzer tabulates data on User-Agents (UA), the number of visits they made, and shows their IP Addresses or Hostnames. LogZ also provides additional tools to perform Reverse and Forward DNS Lookups, get the Whois information of a Domain Name or IP Address, and find the Geo … Continue reading»
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How to Identify User-Agents and IP Addresses for Blocking Bots and Crawlers
July 3, 2008
In a prior post I explained the main reasons why to block undesirable bots, scrapers and crawlers in order to prevent content stealing, malware injection, and vulnerability scanning in a website. If you haven’t read that post I encourage you to do so.
One of the solutions provided was a change to the .htaccess file to block crawlers based on User-Agent or IP Address. As a result, folks were asking me how to identify which User-Agent (UA) or IP Address to block?
I am going to walk you through the log analysis process, show you what you need to know to … Continue reading»
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Domain Names Move Towards Geo Targeting and Multi Languages
June 27, 2008
One of the most transcendental changes in the last forty years of Internet history is about to happen in the second quarter of 2009 after ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, approves the implementation plan to add many new names to the Internet.
At the 32nd meeting in Paris, the Board of ICANN approved on June 26, 2008 the recommendations presented by their global stakeholders to increase the opportunity and domain name choice for the more than 1.5 billion people online. These efforts have been in the works for the last 6 years.
In a recent interview with … Continue reading»
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Practical Solutions for Blocking Spam, Bots and Scrapers
June 25, 2008
Spam has become a major problem for many of us that deal with content development on a regular basis. It takes different forms, affects performance and compromises the security of a site.
There are bots that specialize in spamming by inserting links and unsolicited information in input fields and forms of websites. The comment section of a blog, subscription or price match forms in eCommerce sites are very susceptible to these types of attacks.
Likewise, unauthorized scrapers represent a thread to intellectual property by means of extracting content of a site to generate scraper sites merely for advertisement, more specifically Adsense. … Continue reading»
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How to Geo Target Your Site with Google Webmaster Tools
June 21, 2008
Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa made a video presentation titled Geo target Your Site with Google Webmaster Tools, in which she explained the basics needed to associate a website with a particular country in order to enhance its presence in the local search results.
According to Susan, Google used to (and still does) look at a couple of signals to determine where a site was located or what particular region belonged to. Those signals included:
The server location of the website.
The Top Level Domain (TLD).
Some Challenges with Geo Targeting
There are certain TLDs such as .com, .net and .org that by … Continue reading»
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