Why you should avoid Duplicate Content on your Site

February 21st, 2011

There is plenty of misconception about the term “duplicate content”. For some reason, it has become the buzzword of the century. Frequently, you will read posts on forums that say there can be no duplicate anywhere on the internet. Logic tells us this is incorrect, since newspapers have been publishing the same articles for years. Likewise, syndication would be dead if this rumor was true. But every time someone starts a conversation about writing content for various article directories, someone else chimes in right away about how no two websites can use the exact same words or paragraphs. Contrarily, what is more accurate is that duplicate content on the same website is taboo.

copierEveryone agrees that search engines have built-in mechanisms to identify duplicate content. But the idea that most do not grasp is why you should avoid duplicate content on your site? Today, it is increasingly difficult to avoid duplicate content because it does not happen intentionally for many site owners. Typically, it happens because blog themes are poorly designed in relation to how content is distributed. In this article, however, we are going to discuss specifically why you should avoid duplicate content on your site. In the next article, we will show you ways to prevent duplicate content from appearing on your WP site.

Spam – Duplicate content is most commonly seen as spamming. When webmasters realized that they could “play or dupe” the search engines with thousands and thousands of pages through a technique called “mod_rewrite”, they just spammed the internet with the same content. They used it as a way to monopolize the top ranking positions, thus ensuring people came to their websites. Obviously, there were no user benefits in the pages. There was no substance or value for visitors. Now search engines are continually looking for duplicate content in order to stamp out spamming.

Poor Earnings or Commissions – Along the same lines as spamming, webmasters found that the more pages they had, the more money they could make from the same content. Of course, their ROI was high because they never had to develop the sites. And when pay-per-view commissions were the rage with companies paying webmasters every time a banner was seen, duplicate content was the norm. Nowadays, webmasters would not even be accepted into any network with excessive duplicate content.

Angy Users – If you own a hobby site that is important to you, or you earn your living from one website or many, duplicate content is not going to make your visitors very happy. If they have to read the same thing over and over on different pages, they will eventually give up and leave your site permanently. This defeats the purpose of owing a website, if you have no readers.

Banned or Filtered by Search Engines – Another “technique” that webmasters tried was duplicate websites. Once they hit on a successful topic or niche, they just made clones. The only thing that changed was the domain name and sometimes the color or graphics. They might have even housed the sites on different servers, but the search engines read text, so the sites were flagged. Typically sites that are clones of others or sites that engage in excessive duplicate content will invariably be removed or filtered from the search engine results. Nowadays, they might not even make it to the results pages.

As you have probably now surmised, duplicate content on the same website is a serious issue. It is one that should not be taken lightly when building websites and using themes that perpetuate problems. Understanding why you should avoid duplicate content is the key to fixing the problem and preventing duplicate content from happening.

What is Robots.txt?

September 24th, 2010

When you host a website, search engine spiders (otherwise known as bots) will take a tour of the portal for indexing purposes. Search engines will index websites and update the indexed data regularly. In fact, the search engines employ the very same data to display search results. Normally, these bots will index all the web pages originating from a website. Can we control these bots? Robot TXTI mean, if you wish not to index certain particular pages of your website, can you do it? Yes, you can execute it with the help of robots.txt file. What is the need for a robots.txt file? Is it mandatory to include this for your website? How will it affect the search engine visibility of your website? I will answer these in the succeeding sections.

There was a time when search engines used to penalize webmasters for promoting duplicate content (within the same website). While some administrators did it knowingly (with the very intention of increasing the page ranking), the others had to post duplicate content because they had to. For the sake of illustration, consider that you wish to make a web page printable. You will have to develop two web pages with the same content – but only one among them will be printable!

In the earlier example, with the help of the robots.txt file you can instruct the search engine bots to skip indexing the printable page. Bear in mind that this is just another instance with the help of which you can understand the true importance of the robots.txt file. Plenty of websites contain confidential data, and it is a smart practice to keep them away from search engine bots. Once indexed, it is tough to flush them off. Webmasters often employ the same robots.txt file to choose the web pages that the search engine must index.

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Choosing a web host for your new site launch

December 19th, 2009

So here you are planning you your next big site launch. You have taken into account everything so far. The theme is very fresh, edgy and matches perfect for its purpose. The content is all completed, from web pages to blog posts to forum rules, it is all there. Now there is a sneaky suspicion that you may be forgetting something. The last thing on the list, and often times overlooked aspect of launching a new site is the web host you choose to put it on.

Now, deciding on which web host is the best for your new site comes down to a few things. First thing you need to keep in mind is what kind of initial traffic you will be receiving when you open your site. If the site is for a planned product launch, and you expect a large amount of traffic, then a regular shared hosting account might not be adequate. These large launches often times will crash servers, especially ones that do not have the processing power.

Shared hosting is a good option for startup sites that will not be receiving any initial traffic until you are able to promote it. The bandwidth requirement will be substantially lower than a product launch, and traffic will slowly build over time. Shared hosting is the perfect option for this kind of site. As the site beings to gain more traffic, you always have the option to upgrade later.

If you are starting a membership site that offers different tools and options for new webmasters, then a different choice might be appropriate. Reseller hosting can be a great tool to use when starting a website such as this. The advantages of using a reseller hosting account are numerous. You have the ability to sell the hosting service to your new subscribers, and package it as if it were your own. Spread out the allotted bandwidth and memory between subscribers, and charge a couple dollars more than you are spending. As your website grows, you have the ability to gain a sizeable income, which comes in every month.

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Free Web Hosting: How Reliable can they be?

November 3rd, 2009

How reliable is free web hosting you ask? That is a very good question. Free web hosting has the best cost in the business, at least in regards to the upfront costs. Most people are intrigued by anything free, so it is no surprise you would like to know a little bit about it. When it comes to reliability, free web hosting is normally hit and miss. FREE WEB HOSTWith any paid web hosting service, you have a guaranteed uptime, and if you for some reason do experience extended downtime, you will normally be reimbursed with a free month. Free web hosting holds no such guarantee.

It is hard to put a percentage on uptime for free hosts. Some companies randomly cause problems with free hosting in an attempt to subtly encourage the user to purchase the upgraded hosting package. You could go forever without having a problem, or you could get unlucky and have multiple problems a day. It all affects your bottom line. Any time that your web site is down, you are losing possible customers. The lack of a guaranteed uptime is normally a breaking point for anyone considering free hosting.

For sites that lack the constant traffic, the downtime might not affect you much. At the same time, your lack of traffic will in no way guarantee a smooth load for your web page. You are at the mercy of the other users that are on your server. Unlike paid shared hosting, free hosting servers are regularly abused by hackers. The price is good and there are so many to bounce around to. Security is also a risk when using free hosting, due to the shared hosting.

Free web hosting also lacks many of the necessary tools to help your website grow. Most free web host companies put a low cap on the amount of bandwidth, as well as memory you can use. With a lack of bandwidth, your website could be restricted at any time. The worst case scenario is that the web site will go down when you are having an onslaught of traffic. This is a major problem to have when running your business. The free hosting continues to cost you money. It makes you wonder where else free web hosting is lacking.

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How to Determine How Much Space and Bandwidth You Need For Your Website

October 15th, 2009

Figuring out the amount of bandwidth and space that you will need for your website is a common concern that many individuals have when setting up web hosting. If you pick one that has too little bandwidth, then you are putting yourself at risk of being charged overage fees or even having your site become disabled for some time. On the other hand, if you get one that has too much space and bandwidth then you will be paying for stuff that isn’t being used and that isn’t needed.

Bandwith Web HostingBandwidth which is also commonly called data transfer is used each time someone downloads a file or even simply clicks to view a web page. There are two main factors to keep in mind when deciding on the amount of space you will need for your website. The first factor is the amount of traffic you may potentially bring in and the second is the size of the content that will be on the website. The average website will generally bring in anywhere from 50-500 visitors a day. Using this amount of visitors a day as an example, simply having 3-5 gigabytes (GB) of data transfer a month should be perfect. Obviously if you are generating more traffic than that, such as having 500+ visitors a day then it would be beneficial for you to buy a hosting plan that has 50 gigabytes of data transfer a month. Obviously, a small site like “Free Stock Market Tips” won’t need the same amount of bandwith as one of the biggest Beachwear Blogs on the web!

When it comes to space, it is a little more difficult to determine. Remember to read the fine print when choosing your storage space. Although some websites offer unlimited space, they make it so that certain files cannot be larger than 25 MB. If you are uploading a video series, it could be tough to break up your videos into small files and then have them downloaded one at a time. This inconvenience can be avoided by looking into the file size allowed, as well as the overall space available.

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The Importance of Backlinks in SEO

August 3rd, 2009

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When trying to gage the important of back links in SEO, it is smart to keep in mind which search engine you are competing in. Google counts back links much more than MSN, although both take them into account. Back links are links that are directed towards your website. The number of back links that your website has depends upon its popularity. Back links go hand in hand with search engine optimization; Google especially gives credit to the websites that receive a good number of back links from a variety of different websites.

Remember that just simply having back links isn’t as effective as having quality back links. There are two aspects to think about when figuring out if you have quality back links. One is if the keywords put in your anchor text that goes directly back to your site for which you are trying to optimize. Link BuildingThe second is making sure the website that links back has the same theme as your website. This will then make the websites more relevant than other websites in the same search. Back links are important to SEO because as you build up back links, you are boosting up your website and have a greater chance of getting indexed faster. Not only does it help with the short term, but in the long run, it also helps to increase the traffic to your site.

Search engines now are very keen for websites that actually take the time to build up quality back links, over an extended period of time. It is quite easy to get your web page up in rankings however, when it comes to search engines, you can’t fool them with inbound links from other sites. Trying to cheat with the quality back links to the search engine will get your site sandbox, which can take weeks to months to resurrect it back to its reigning position. Building up quality links is a very time consuming task and requires a lot on your part. Back links potentially determine the fate of your website and it can either be a complete dud or a huge success.
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How to Choose the Best Web Hosting Service

July 12th, 2009

A big decision that you will have to make when it comes to an online business is figuring out which web hosting service is best for you. When choosing a web host service, there are different aspects that you need to investigate before purchasing to see if you will need them for your server Server Hosting Rackor not. When you know what you need, then it will make it easier for you to narrow down your search.

First things first, check out the price.

This is a big factor when considering which web host server to choose. When it comes down to it, the most expensive hosts are not necessarily the best, so don’t solely go with that mind set. When you know what features you need, just compare the prices before settling with one. Compare bandwidth, space, and the amount of websites you are allowed to host. Whichever offers the most for the cheapest is probably the best deal.

How is the support?

Check to see if the hosting that you are choosing offers support to their clients and if so, exactly how much. You need to plan for the worst case scenario so that when a situation arises, you can take it with ease and know how and when it will get fixed. Find out if an issue does arise, how long it will take them to respond back to you. If you are looking for something with support 24/7, then you need to keep that in mind when it comes to the price. Having someone on call at all times will cause the price to be higher, due to the pay that the person will need to receive.

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Does my web Hosting Affect my Search Engine Rankings?

July 6th, 2009

There are a number of different things that go into finding the perfect host. Between the many factors to take into account, few people ask themselves the question, “Does my web hosting affect my search engine rankings?” To answer this question, it is pertinent to say that the actual hosting company will not affect your search engine rankings, as long as they haven’t been blacklisted. But it can, however, indirectly have a negative effect on your SEO. If you see that a hosting company is promising you search engine rankings, steer clear. This is just not within their capabilities.

So how does your web hosting selection affect your SEO? It really doesn’t come down to the web hosting company as much as the hosting plan you choose. Any host that provides shared servers for customers has the ability to negatively affect your SEO. This cheap and normally capable type of hosting is a regular choice for up and coming webmasters. The main problems arise when certain users of the same server start to do things that are frowned upon by the big search engines.

Individuals that spam email, recklessly accumulate links, promote certain material such as adult related, and a variety of other actions can black list an entire server or IP. Cheaper plans seem to attract these types of activities, so be weary of overly cheap plans. Check and make sure that your web host does not accept any adult type websites, or any of the actions stated above. Then research if the web host has had past problems with these issues. The better the web host’s security, the greater the chance tSEO Positionhat your web host will not negatively affect your ranking.

A problem that can arise from choosing the wrong host is that the company’s server IP address can possibly become on the spam list and become part of a black hat technique. With such behavior, Google will penalize you, so why bother taking the risk when you can do things right the first time? To achieve greater security, it is pertinent to upgrade to a better hosting plan. Virtual private servers are the first step up, and really lower the amount of users sharing the responsibility of playing it straight. This instantly minimizes the chances of being affected by the other users, simply because they have more invested and are less in number.

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How to know whether or not a web host is reliable

June 25th, 2009

When you are trying to figure out if a web host is reliable or not, there are several aspects that you need to look at. As with anything, use the internet to your advantage and do as much research as possible. Word of mouth is one of the greatest things to go by. If customers are not happy with a company they will do whatever possible to make it known.

There are a few different factors to take into account when judging whether your web host is reliable or not. Mainly, you have to look at the uptime to start. Anything less than 99.9% is not good enough. If there are constant down times when your web site is not capable of receiving traffic, you are losing out on money. This is a sure sign that your web host is not reliable.

Another factor to think about is whether the web host is capable of handling your traffic. The original page said unlimited bandwidth, but we all know that is not the case. Make sure that the web host will not automatically cap and close your web site when you receive a large amount of traffic. Any host that is rumored to do this to their customers cannot be called a reliable host.

When searching for information on a web host that you are not currently using, it is important to look past the biased reviews. Search through webmaster forums and look for unbiased information on the web host. Normally you will hear about all the different possible issues you can have with the company, and how they treat customers that are in these situations.

Large authority web sites also have a unbiased reviews to offer. Follow along and see if any of the same complaints are coming up. If downtime is a problem, there is no point in researching further, move on. Another major factor to take into account is how the web host’s support treats customers. If they are not capable of returning answers within a short window of time, they are not taking their business seriously.

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Why is Web Hosting so Cheap Today?

May 16th, 2009

There are so many different options on the internet when it comes to choosing a web host company. Each offers their own guarantees, as well as different incentives to buy from them. With so many different things accompanying the web hosting package, how can the price be so cheap? Cheap seems like a word that undervalues what you receive when signing up, so instead we will say what makes web hosting affordable? Let’s take a look at the main reasons the price has stayed at such a bargain.

Web hosting has been priced so that just about anyone can afford it, whether it is for business or personal use. This open availability opens the market to a whole new generation of customers. You may be asking yourself why web hosting has dropped dramatically in its price throughout the years, making it so cheap now. There are a variety of different reasons. One such reason is the increase in technology. Servers that use to take warehouses to store are now a small portion of the size. Not only are they smaller, but they are also faster. As the technology continues to advance, it becomes more cost efficient for customers, which in turn brings in more revenue for web hosts to upgrade again.

Another reason that web hosting is so cheap today is because of shared web hosting. Because of the shared web host options, websites will be placed on one server, but the price is split between all of the clients on that one server. With this kind of web hosting, many things are limited such as the amount of space that you have to work with, and the amount that you have to share. Although there are limitations, the shared costs allow for much cheaper prices across the board. Most sites don’t require more space or bandwidth than shared hosting supplies, so it is a good median for both the consumer and the company.

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