Technically Easy

Category: Tips

Tips about managing a blog can be found within this category.

  • WordPress, Drupal and Joomla: Which One Is the Best?

    WordPress, Drupal and Joomla: Which One Is the Best?

    There are plenty of content management systems out there, but when it comes to usability and popularity, three content management systems rank high above all others. Those three content management systems are WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. If you ask developers “which CMS is best?” you will find most people are supporting these three.

    However, the problem is you can’t use all of them for one web development project. So, which one is truly best for all types of web development projects? Some may vote for Drupal and some may vote for WordPress, but there is one thing that you need to know first. While all these 3 content management systems are really good and offer plenty of tools to make the web development process easier, each of them have some drawbacks as well.

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  • Content Moderation Options for Businesses

    Content Moderation Options for Businesses

    Nowadays, many businesses have an online presence on blogs, forums and social media networks. Such platforms can be very useful tools for connecting with consumers and receiving feedback. People share their questions and suggestions about your business or brand by sending tweets, posting on your Facebook wall, leaving blog comments or posting on your forums. Responding to this feedback in a timely manner encourages more interactions and builds a strong following for your brand.

    However, at times, people are likely to post content which is misleading, irrelevant or offensive. If such content is not moderated, it might have a harmful effect on the reputation of your business or brand. Content moderation ensures that any content that appears on the business sites or forums is relevant, accurate and helpful. In turn, this maintains order in the community and protects the site from all sorts of abuse.

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  • Tips to Help You Repair a Damaged Online Reputation

    Tips to Help You Repair a Damaged Online Reputation

    With almost the entire globe heavily dependent on the Internet for meeting various requirements, one wrong move can lead your career spiralling down in the wrong direction. Usually, the availability of various resources like social media, forums and the likes enable people to be more vocal about their likes and dislikes.

    Therefore, it is very important that you constantly keep a track of what is being said about your business online. Sometimes, there is a possibility that people may get way too critical about your business.

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  • Making More of a 404 Page: How is it Possible?

    Making More of a 404 Page: How is it Possible?

    Finding out that you’ve typed in the wrong address can be just a little bit frustrating. You might have been certain that the URL was correct, but regardless of the cause, you’re likely to see a page with the headline ‘Error 404’ on it. These messages are pretty useful, though can look a little drab at the best of times; but can they be changed?

    It might seem a little weird, but in a way, Error 404 pages can act as a kind of blank canvas for web design teams to showcase their flair. They can be made to be more informative for the visitor, taking them in the direction of the page they meant to visit, to act as a vehicle for something funny that the visitor will enjoy or for something completely different.

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  • Thinking of Guest Posting? Not if You Do These 5 Things

    Thinking of Guest Posting? Not if You Do These 5 Things

    Yesterday I wrote a post where I laid out a new direction for Technically Easy. Actually, the direction I will be taking this blog is back to the original way I had intended this blog to go from the beginning. In that post I talked about how I will be evaluating guest posts more critically, and won’t be publishing such posts as often. I also talked about publishing posts less, but publishing better quality posts.

    With that being said, while I haven’t abandoned guest posts because I still feel that those types of posts have their place on Technically Easy, I have changed my guest posting guidelines to help ensure better quality guest posts. The reason for such a change has been over two years of accepting guest posts, I have been disappointed at times with some of the quality. I blame myself, of course, as I am the last in the line of publication of such posts.

    For those looking at writing and submitting guest posts, either on Technically Easy or another blog, I have put together some points on what I haven’t liked about guest posts.

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  • Successful Techniques for Blocking Web Scrapers

    Successful Techniques for Blocking Web Scrapers

    It doesn’t matter if you’re a large company or a small one, there are people out in the business world who want to take what you have worked long and hard to obtain. You want to protect all of the data that you have accumulated over the years. But what you learn from your information management team is that some software has been used to come onto your website and copy nearly every piece of data you have — you’ve been web scraped.

    Successful Techniques for Blocking Web Scrapers

    Examining Web Scraping

    People look at the information on your website on a regular basis. You put the information there so that your customers can learn about your products and services. When someone is viewing your website, they are essentially gathering data from your company. For many websites, it would take an individual a very long time to gather all of the data stored there. However, there are programs that employ a technique known as web scraping which can literally gather all of the data from your website in a matter of a few hours or perhaps even minutes. These web scraping bots are efficient, methodical, and untiring machines that simply scour your website for every piece of usable information. They then return that information to their users.

    A quick glance at your search engine’s results page will display hundreds of web scraper services and software suppliers. You can order a web scraping on any website you want, all you need is an accurate web address. The problem with web scrapping at the moment is that there are numerous legal cases pending that might have a significant impact on web scraping. Although the early court decisions seemed to suggest that information on the net was accessible to anyone and that web scraping was no different than when an individual gathers data, recent rulings are steering towards protecting web site data.

    Price monitoring and comparison is a common application of web scraping for businesses. Businesses use web scraping to monitor their competitors’ prices so that they can keep their own prices competitive at all times. Some manufacturing companies use data scraping to monitor retailers to ensure that they’re not listing their products below the Minimum Advertised Price. Popular sites to scrape data include Amazon and eBay.

    However, there are different purposes for web scraping, and this is where the rulings in the legal system get into trouble. Standard search engines are, in essence, web scrapers. People use information from search engines every day. This form of information gathering is not only acceptable but helpful. The courts seem to be leaning toward the idea that if the information is helpful to the public at large, than no crime has been committed. It’s when that information is actually used to harm or compete against another company that there is question regarding its legality.

    Prevention Tips

    Many companies are not interested in waiting for the courts to make a decision about web scraping. New software is being written each day which offers some protection against the bad bots by blocking them. This new software has built in some rather interesting methods for blocking or identifying these negative types of programs while allowing legitimate search engines to do their job.

    The difficulty with attempting to block web scrapers and other bots is that the technology behind those bots changes every day. In order to keep up with the bots, you need to have web site software that is as current and up to date as what the bot designers are using. Having this as a baseline may be a good place to start, but staying ahead of the harmful bots and web scrapers requires a sophisticated system that can anticipate their next evolutionary changes.. Here are some tips to prevent site scraping and content theft.

    • Manual code entry. Bots may be sophisticated, but they are unable to accurately interpret the images or audio clues given by even the simplest ‘captcha’ code system. These systems require the human element to recognize the value of the code and enter it into the system correctly. Failure to successfully navigate a captcha system will easily prevent web scraping.
    • Blacklists. There are some services available that will provide you with a listing of known web scraper IP addresses. You can use these lists to block users from that site gaining access to your data. These lists are updated regularly, reflecting the most currently known web scrapers sources.
    • Download detection. When one individual gathers information from your site, the speed in which they can download that information is predictable. When a web scraper begins gathering information, it happens at a rate that far exceeds the individual’s rate. Measuring this rate can identify web scrapers and add them to your IP black list.

    Web scraping is a billion dollar industry, and the people behind these programs and bots are serious about what they do. If you want to protect your site from being scraped, then it is up to you to employ the most current state-of-the art protection software available.

  • How to Negotiate Domain Name Prices

    How to Negotiate Domain Name Prices

    Negotiating domain name prices is somewhat similar to how consumers would negotiate with vendors in a street market. Both parties are out to get the best deals they can get. The buyer will want to negotiate the cheapest possible price, while the seller is gunning to convince the former to agree on the highest price he/she can afford. It’s a battle of the wills, and certainly a showdown of charm and clout.

    The following are some steps and strategies that may help domainers secure very good prices for the domains they are selling.

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  • Tools to Help Build an Amazing Website

    Tools to Help Build an Amazing Website

    If you are planning on creating a website you may want to look into the tools that can help make your online idea a reality. There are many different tools – some user-friendly, others are more advanced – that you can use.

    Below are some of the more popular tools that are used by millions of webmasters today.

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