Technically Easy

Search results for: “label/Web%20Site%20-%20Design”

  • How to View Your Web Site as Search Engines See It

    For many who start out in web site management, they learn quickly from the experienced webmasters about search engine optimization. Such things as layout and keywords are usually discussed with many tips and tricks offered to improved a web site’s earch engine ranking. There are many web sites that are made up mainly of flash or images which can cause problems with search engines since they have difficulty reading either format.

    One of the biggest tips is good unique content with lots of text. The text is what search engines use to rank a web site. In this post I will show you a quick method of viewing your web site as search engines may see it. This will allow you to determine if what the search engines see is how you expect them to see your web site.

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  • 4 Easy-To-Follow Ways To Decrease The Web Page Loading Time

    4 Easy-To-Follow Ways To Decrease The Web Page Loading Time

    A Web page’s loading time plays a great role in not only quickly delivering the information to the users but also helping the website owner increase the visitors to his website. Users want to see the Web page as soon as possible once they have clicked a link. If the Web page takes time, then users normally quit the page and go to another page for information.

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  • What exactly is Nanographic Printing?

    What exactly is Nanographic Printing?

    Printing has come a long way in a short space of time. Years ago, black and white documents were the only available option. Although colour printing existed, this was expensive and a very large printer was required. Nanotechnology has changed the world in many ways, such as printing. There are many printing processes, which are inspired by nanotechnology, such as nanographic printing. So, what is it?

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  • Web Site Design Tips

    Like many of you, I have been surfing the Web for many years and have visited hundreds of Web sites. I have found Web sites through search engines, e-mails, and other Web sites. Many of these Web sites have a great layout and provide very valuable, useful information. Others are more complex to navigate and don’t really help with anything.

    In this post I will provide several points that I think makes a Web site great. Many of these points are common sense, and can easily be implemented.

    Points to Keep in Mind

    1. Easy Navigation – This is a very important point, and one that will determine whether I stay and visit more pages. It is important to ensure that your visitors can easily find their way around your site. This can be a simple menu list on the left or right side of the Web page, with the content right next to it. You can even have a menubar at the top of the Web page for more important categories.
    2. Readable Text – Many sites now try to use a very small font size. The author of the Web site may be able to easily read the text, but many of the visitors may have trouble reading small fonts. I try not to go below a 10pt font equivalent on my Web pages. I also try to find a common font that is easy to read such as an Arial or Verdana font. If you use CSS, then you can set the font family and size in one file that can be easily changed if you choose.
    3. Appealing Colours – I am not to keen on Web sites that have a bright pink or yellow background. I find it hard to view the Web page, let alone read the content. If I want a bright background, then I usually choose white and have black text. This is what most people are probably used to. I then add colours to my Web pages through the use of images and borders.
    4. Small Image Sizes – I hate Web sites that have large images that take some time to download. I have a broadband Internet connection, but there are still sites that make take some time to download because of a large image. You should try to compress your images as much as possible to reduce the size of the images.

    5. Reduce Page Size – This point goes hand-in-hand with the previous point. I like to write long posts in this blog, but if you can try to keep your page sizes to a minimum. Including the previous point you should try to break large articles into several pages, reduce the Javascript, CSS and HTML sizes. Create separate Javascript and CSS files that are included in your HTML pages, and remove excessive spaces, tabs and comments from your HTML.
    6. Flash Introduction – This is a worthless and pointless page. I have seen sites that display some flash animation when you visit the Web site. If the there is a skip intro button, I usually just click that to avoid seeing the introduction.
    7. Too Much Advertising – I don’t mind if people place ads on their Web sites, but sometimes they can go overboard. I have visited Web sites that have ads on what seems like every inch of a Web page. Sometimes there is so many ads, that I have trouble finding the actual page content.
    8. Write Unique Content – This is probably the most important point when creating a Web site, especially for generating traffic. Spend the time to write you own unique content instead of copying someone else’s content. There are sites out there have the same content as many other Web sites. I like to read unique content that provides more and different information than other sites.
    9. Ask for Opinions – Join Web sites that have the same niche as yours and then ask others to visit your Web site and provide an opinion. This can help you determine what you need to change.

    Summary

    This post provided many points that you can apply to your Web site to make your visitors enjoy their visit. As always, your Web site will probably change over a period of time since no Web site keeps the same look over many years.

  • 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.

  • What Web Programming Language Should I Learn?

    What Web Programming Language Should I Learn?

    One of the common questions that I have seen with regards to getting started online is regarding the web programming language someone should learn. It is important to understand that what you need to learn is dependent on what you are looking to achieve with regards to website design. There are a few programming languages available that can easily allow you to create complex designs.

    If you aren’t familiar with programming or design web sites, you should first start simple and learn the basics of website design before getting into a programming language. Once you and understanding of the basics of website design, then you can look at learning the more complex aspects of a web programming language.

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  • Introduction to HTML

    I recently wrote two posts regarding designing Web sites: Designing Web Pages: Tables or CSS and Introduction to Cascading Stylesheets (CSS). The information presented in both of those articles may be advanced for those just starting out with creating Web pages.

    I decided to create this post to provide an introduction to HTML and create a Web page. This post will create a very simple Web page that you can then display in a Web browser.

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  • Free Web Site or Blog Review

    I have been thinking about how generating backlinks is a great way of getting exposure for your web site or blog. It takes time and effort to generate backlinks to your web site, and it is a never ending experience.

    I have decided to help out those who have a web site but are having trouble getting others to link to them. I’ll even go one step further than providing a backlink, I’ll write a full review about the web site in a future post.

    The details about getting a review of your web site can be found in this post.

    Requesting a Review

    To get a review done about your web site, you simply need to contact me in the e-mail address provided on Technically Easy. When you do send an e-mail to psalmon12@gmail.com, include the following:

    • Your web site name.
    • Your web site URL.
    • A description of your web site.
    • Your name and e-mail address. (Don’t worry these won’t be published in the review).
    • The subject of the e-mail should read Free Web Site Review.

    I’m interested in relatively new web sites and blogs to help them out, but I do have my limits. I won’t review sites that only have a few pages (less than 10), or blogs that have few posts (less than 10). I will review sites only if they look like the owner has put some time and effort into the site, and not some quickie, spur of the moment site.

    I can’t give a timeline on how quickly your site will get reviewed, but I’ll try to create a review on a regular basis. Depending on how many requests I get, it could take some time to post a review of your web site. I’ll send you an e-mail once the review is available.

    Review Criteria

    I have decided to rate a web site on the following elements:

    • Design – Is the look and feel of the web site pleasing to the eye and easy to navigate? Does the entire site seem to flow or is it a jumbled mess?
    • Focus – What is the focus of the web site? Is it easy to determine or does a visitor have to hunt around for one?
    • Content – I’ll read through some of the content to see if it matches the focus of the entire web site. I’ll check to see if it is easy to read and understand and make note of any content that stands out.
    • Spelling and Grammar – I’ll see if the content is well-written by checking the spelling and grammar. Having bad spelling or grammar can make the content more difficult to understand.

    There may be other criteria in the future, but these are the main elements that I will be targeting. I will rate each element out of 5 stars, and then rate the entire site overall out of 5 stars.

    I will be honest with my reviews but will mention both the positive and negative aspects of the web site. Don’t get angry with me if your site doesn’t receive a high rating. I am just one person, and another may have a different opinion about your web site. Keep in mind that I’m writing a review for free.

    Summary

    Generating backlinks to your web site is one of the best methods you can do to increase the exposure, and eventually traffic, to your web site. It takes time and effort to generate backlinks, but I can help to make it easier for you. I will write a free review for your web site and post it on Technically Easy.

    I will review several elements of your web site and rate them out of 5 stars, and also rate your entire site out of 5 stars. If you would like a review, simply send me an e-mail that includes the information outlined in this post, and I’ll visit your web site and write a review.

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