Archive for February, 2009

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Safari 4 Hidden Preferences

Thursday, February 26th, 2009

With the release of Safari 4, many people have been asking how to move the tabs back to the bottom, where it originally was. I did some searching and found this site http://swedishcampground.com/safari-4-hidden-preferences. The site has been up and down over the past couple of days, so I have copied it below for your reference. All credit goes to swedishcampground.com.

Safari 4 Hidden Preferences by Caius – 2009-02-24 16:11:05

Having a quick poke through the new Safari binary yields the following strings:

$ strings /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari | grep DebugSafari4
DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop
DebugSafari4IncludeToolbarRedesign
DebugSafari4IncludeFancyURLCompletionList
DebugSafari4IncludeGoogleSuggest
DebugSafari4LoadProgressStyle
DebugSafari4IncludeFlowViewInBookmarksView
DebugSafari4TopSitesZoomToPageAnimationDimsSnapshot
DebugSafari4IncludeTopSites
NB: Run these commands in Terminal.app and then you need to restart Safari for them to take effect.

DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop
This moves the tab bar back where you expect it to be:

$ defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop -bool NO

DebugSafari4IncludeToolbarRedesign and DebugSafari4LoadProgressStyle
When both set to NO it restores the blue loading bar behind the URL. Also puts a page loading spinner in the tab itself, which looks odd with the new tabs.

$ defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeToolbarRedesign -bool NO
$ defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4LoadProgressStyle -bool NO

DebugSafari4IncludeFancyURLCompletionList
Switches off the new URL autocomplete menu and goes back to the original one.

$ defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeFancyURLCompletionList -bool NO

DebugSafari4IncludeGoogleSuggest

Turns off the new Google suggest menu.

$ defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeGoogleSuggest -bool NO

DebugSafari4IncludeFlowViewInBookmarksView
Removes CoverFlow from the Bookmarks view entirely. (Credit to Erik)

$ defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeFlowViewInBookmarksView -bool NO

DebugSafari4TopSitesZoomToPageAnimationDimsSnapshot
Disables the dimming when you click on a Top Site and it scales the screenshot up to fill the screen.

$ defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TopSitesZoomToPageAnimationDimsSnapshot -bool NO

DebugSafari4IncludeTopSites
Disables Top Sites feature completely.

$ defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeTopSites -bool NO

Undoing changes
Just run the defaults command with the delete flag for the appropriate key you wish to delete.

$ defaults delete com.apple.Safari

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Four Simple SEO Tips for Good Search Engine Rankings

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

by Tim Jones

Making simple changes to a website to improve search engine rankings and drive traffic is not as complicated as it sounds. This article details the factors that can be simply manipulated yet produce big improvements if implemented correctly.

They are worth bookmarking or printing so they can be used in the future as a checklist when creating new pages or reviewing your website.

1) Keyphrase Research

Before you can begin implementing any of the optimization techniques mentioned in the rest of this article, you will need to know which keyphrases you are going to optimize your site for. Once this is decided, everything becomes a lot clearer.

You should be able to get a rough idea of target keyphrases from the content on the pages within your site. At the end of the day, if there’s not any content at which to target optimisation, achieving good search engine rankings will be very difficult and ultimately pointless! Visitors will leave immediately if they are not provided with the content they are searching for.

A frequent mistake is to target the keyphrases that drive the largest search volumes. It’s important to target keyphrases that directly relate to your websites content, and the more defined the keyphrases are the better.

Using keyphrases that may drive 120 high convertible visitors to your site each month is likely to be much better than targeting a highly competitive broad keyphrase that is only vaguely related to your business, even if it does attract 30,000 searches each month.

2) Page Titles

This is one of the key on-page elements that can be optimized. Each title should be different, and full of keyphrases related to the content of its page. Search engines often only display the first 65 or so characters of the page title, so it’s important to get the most important keyphrases at the beginning of the page title. Also, the characters near the front of the page title are given more significance in algorithms.

The page title is displayed in the search engine results, so must make sense and encourage browsers to action the link. Finding a balance between readability and keyphrases density is a challenge but something that will improve with time and practise.

3) Meta Description

The meta description is not actually included in search engine algorithms, although as it is displayed in search engine results pages, it is vital it is optimised. Like page titles, the meta description should be specific to every page and contain text that is relevant to the keyphrases that page is aimed at.

The meta description is limited to around 160 characters, so it can often be challenging to fit all the required info into such a small space. However, if no meta description is entered, search engines tend to grab a random chunk of text from the page, regardless if it makes sense or is useful to the searcher. You can avoid this from happening, by ensuring every page has a meta description of some variety.

4) Page Content

Page content is viewed as the best method of attracting visitors and incoming links to a website, so it’s important that it is given sufficient time and resource. Search engines thrive on content, so the more content on your site the better for search engine rankings.

Content is less important now in search engine algorithms than it has been however, I suggest ensuring every keyphrase that is being targeted is mentioned about every 100 words or so.

Beware – don’t fall into the trap of keyphrase stuffing! Search engines employ advanced techniques to track this and will more than likely pick up on it immediately and you could end up with a blacklisted site that is impossible to rank.

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Posted in SEO, Website Development | 1 Comment »

Apple releases Safari 4 Public Beta

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

by Peter Smith

Apple released a beta version of their Safari 4 web browser for Mac OS X and Windows today. What’s new? Well Apple has a huge list of 150 features (not all of them new) online, but the biggies are a claimed speed increase in running Javascript (the Apple website claims “Safari 4 executes JavaScript up to 6 times faster than Internet Explorer 8 and up to 4 times faster than Firefox 3.1.”) and some eye-catching interface additions.

The biggest of these is the new “Top Sites” page; a panorama of “previews” of the sites you visit most frequently. This feels a lot like the “Most Visited” page in Google Chrome, but it’s flashier and has more functionality. For one thing, you can “Pin” Top Sites so they’ll always be there. Also, if one of your Top Sites has been updated since your last visit, the top right corner of its preview will be folded down to reveal a star. This lets you quickly scan favorite sites and identify new content. Clicking a preview takes you to the site, and the bookmarks toolbar has a new “Show Top Sites” icon to take you back. (Tip: You can also access Top Site via the “url” topsites:// — you can use this to set a Top Sites bookmark or set your homepage to the Top Sites page.)

The second big change is the location of tabs for tabbed browsing. The tabs now appear at the very top of the browser window (again, similar to Google Chrome). The ‘close tab’ icon is on the far left, and a ‘handle’ icon is on the far right of each tab. By grabbing this handle you can rearrange tabs or tear them off into a separate window. Conversely you can take the single tab of a freestanding window and drag it into the tabs of another window to merge the two. You could do all this with Safari 3 but the operation of merging a single window with a tabbed window was clunkier. You actually had to open a 2nd tab in the single window to get the tab interface to show. On the other hand in Safari 3 you could grab any part of a tab to manipulate it, while in 4 you have to zero in on the handle. Not a big deal but it takes some getting used to.

Another downside of the new tabs is that a page’s title appears only in the tab. If you have a lot of tabs open you won’t be able to read the entire title unless you hover your mouse cursor over the tab for a few seconds (this is also a limitation in Chrome).

Viewing your bookmarks or history has gotten an update as well. This information is now displayed using the “Cover Flow” system that we first saw in iTunes and now is used in the OS X Finder for all kinds of files. The jury is still out on how much value this adds; to me, flipping through your bookmarks feels slower then scanning a textual list.

Under Windows you can hide the menu bar to give Safari a very small UI footprint. Again, (Dare I say it?) similar to Google’s Chrome. But where this is an option in Safari, in Chrome there is no way to turn on a menu bar if you prefer that ease of access.

The Mac version of Safari 4 Beta requires Mac OS 10.5.6 with all current security updates. Keep in mind that installing the beta will clobber Safari 3. The Mac installation package (both Windows and Mac versions can be downloaded from the Apple website) includes an uninstaller application that will remove Safari 4 and revert you back to version 3 (I tested this and it worked as advertised). The Windows installation seems to be less fussy, though on one XP machine the Top Site functionality wasn’t there. I don’t mean it didn’t work; the option simply didn’t seem to exist (on a second XP machine all was well). The problem XP installation was running under VMWare Fusion on a MacBook Pro, so that may have had something to do with it; we couldn’t duplicate this “missing feature” phenomenon.

I’m traditionally a Firefox person, but after running Safari 4 for most of the day today, I’m going to stick with it for a while. It feels very snappy, and it has handled every site I’ve thrown at it so far (and although it’s a beta, I haven’t had any crashes yet). I can’t totally discard Firefox though; I rely on too many extensions for my day-to-day work. I’d also like to see more interface options in Safari. For instance in Firefox there is a “New pages should be opened in a new tab” setting and I can’t find a similar option in Safari, and so I have to use some kind of modifier key in order to keep all my web pages in one neatly tabbed window. I can adjust (or just use a mouse instead of a trackpad) but it’s curious the kinds of little things that end up meaning a lot.

Bottom line, Safari 4 Public Beta is well worth a look; there are a lot more new smaller features and improvements beyond the few I’ve covered here. Whether or not you end up sticking with it will probably depend a lot on whether you can get by without your favorite Firefox extensions. Both Safari and Chrome need to tackle this problem. If you don’t use Extensions, then the choice between Safari and Chrome (under Windows for now, but Chrome should be coming to OS X in the near future) will be an interesting one.

safari_4.jpeg

Source: http://www.itworld.com/software/63216/apple-releases-safari-4-public-beta

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Posted in Browsers, Webcrowd News, Website Development | 1 Comment »

Use Keywords In Page Titles

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

It is recommended to use keywords in page titles itself. This title tag is different from a Meta tag, but it’s worth considering it in relation to them. Whatever text one places in the title tag (between the portions) will appear in the title bar of browsers when they view the web page. Some browsers also append whatever you put in the title tag by adding their own name, as for example Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or OPERA.

The actual text you use in the title tag is one of the most important factors in how a search engine may decide to rank your web page. In addition, all major web crawlers will use the text of your title tag as the text they use for the title of your page in your listings.

If you have designed your website as a series of websites or linked pages and not just a single Home Page, you must bear in mind that each page of your website must be search engine optimized. The title of each page i.e. the keywords you use on that page and the phrases you use in the content will draw traffic to your site.

The unique combination of these words and phrases and content will draw customers using different search engine terms and techniques, so be sure you capture all the keywords and phrases you need for each product, service or information page.

The most common mistake made by small business owners when they first design their website is to place their business name or firm name in every title of every page. Actually most of your prospective customers do not bother to know the name of your firm until after they have looked at your site and decided it is worth book marking.

So, while you want your business name in the title of the home page, it is probably a waste of valuable keywords and space to put it in the title line of every page on your site. Why not consider putting keywords in the title so that your page will display closer to the top of the search engine listing.

Dedicating first three positions for keywords in title avoiding the stop words like ‘and’, ‘at’ and the like is crucial in search engine optimization.

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Effectively Using Contextual Link Building To Get On Top

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

Everybody wants to get up in the top ten search results on Google and other major search engines. To get targeted, quality back links to your website is one of the ways in which you can improve your standing with search engines. There are a number of link building strategies that one can make use of in order to boost their link popularity. Contextual link building is one of the most powerful methods.

The effectiveness of contextual link building however depends on how you make use if it. Basically, the strategy of link building involves getting back links to your website combined with the benefits of keyword targeting.

So what’s the big idea?

The idea behind contextual link building is to receive inbound links from other websites and blogs to your website. The web pages that you link to however should be topically or contextually related to your website. Furthermore they should be popular and heavily promoted having a fan following of their own. The PR of the web pages that will contain back links to your website has a profound effect on the effectiveness of the strategy. The more popular they are the more link juice they will be able to draw to your website. This is why professional SEO companies have a blog network of popular blogs that receive direct traffic of their own. Posting blog reviews with back links to your website on such blogs will get you direct targeted traffic.

Getting it in writing

You will be required to get some high quality informative blog reviews in writing. These should be based on your keyword topics because it is within these blog reviews that a link back to your website will be placed. It is important to pay due diligence to the writing of blog posts as it has to appeal to the masses in a manner that intrigues them to click on the web link. Professional SEO companies can help you with the writing of high quality blog reviews that will captivate the readers and drive traffic to your website.

Balancing it out

The benefits of contextual link building are many but let it be clear that webmasters should not rely on this strategy of link building alone. Rather, in order rank in the top ten sites of search engine results you need to back up your contextual link building efforts with other link building strategies.

Other methods that can be used to compliment contextual link building are

* Article marketing

* Directory submissions

* Forum posting etc.

The use of all these link building strategies should be nicely balanced so as to pave a smooth way to the top for your website. When it comes to contextual link building, the posting of unique well written blog reviews should span over a time period of up to a month. The number of blogs that you should be posting up in a month can range from twenty to sixty. The new content will attract the search engines while spacing it out will give the search engines the impression of a slow and natural link building thereby paving the way to success for your website.

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Free Web Hosting Plan

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

Mostly, new people get attracted towards the concept of free web hosting plan. However, they don’t know about the actual issues involved in a free web hosting plan, until they use it. One must understand that a paid web host provider has got better services to offer, compared to free hosts. Free web hosting facility might be suitable for personal homepages and other types of websites which do not depend on online advertising or sales revenues. more visit to:-www.instant-audio-mastery.com A paid hosting service is ideal for those in business and who are interested in online selling or just want to have a professional web presence with regard to their business.

You might be hunting for an appropriate host for your website and then suddenly you feel like asking yourself, “why should I pay for a web hosting plan, when I can get easily acquire a free website for myself?” Well, it all depends on the type of website that you are dealing with. With a free hosting plan, you might end up being frustrated due to various reasons. Some of the points are explained as follows:

1) Down time is common in free hosting plans: It is common to experience downtime issues with free web hosts. Since you do not pay for the service, free hosting providers feel less obligated to offer good service. The free web hosting providers don’t really value a free subscriber, since they feel that this group is not really beneficial to them. Hence, free web hosting providers are not bothered if their users are dissatisfied with the service.

2) Free flow of advertisement: In a free hosting service, you will definitely be disturbed by constant, unwanted ads on all your web pages. You may even see a pop up banner as soon as you click a link etc. You can hardly do anything about this situation because many free hosts rely solely on these advertisements in order to make money. So, you must be aware of the fact that these advertisements will reduce your professional image just because you have opted for a free web hosting plan.

3) Bad customer support: Most of the free web hosting providers cannot effort to provide customer support facility to their users. In such a case, it is always better to rely on the FAQ page (frequently asked question). The FAQ can come to your rescue when in case, live or email support is denied by the free web hosting provider.

4) Restricted hard disk space: Think twice before you opt for a free web host. If your website is large enough, you might then experience free web host being quite limited. Mostly, free hosts can provide hard disk space of about 5 to 10MB. more visit to:-www.29-web-design-tricks.com You will experience difficulties when your website is growing and you are thinking of expanding your website beyond your allotted disk space.

5) Lengthy domain names: In a free hosting plan, customers are not allowed to use their own names, as in the case of paid hosts. Those users who are opting for free hosting services are required to choose a sub domain off the host’s name. Thus, you land up having a lengthy domain name for your website. Visitors will find it difficult to remember your lengthy domain name. Hence, you are then likely to loose potential customers. If customers want to access your website, they will have to bookmark your site instead of depending on their own memory.

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