As a person that likes to test and try out new software versions, curiosity got the best of me on this one. I read that a new beta version of Internet Explorer was available for download and install, so when I had the time I quickly downloaded a copy and ran the installation. As you might imagine, with it being a Microsoft product that tangles itself with Windows, it takes a while to setup. It almost felt like a brand new version of Windows was being installed.

Finally everything finished and it was time to give it a go. At first glance I instantly noticed the new tabs feature obviously taken from Firefox. I also noticed that the visual aspect of everything in the browser window seemed to be very smooth. This gave me a quick “false” feeling about my new install. Then the fun started. I navigated to one of our support pages and was given an IE template page telling me that I was trying to access a “phishing” website!! That led to 15 minutes I will never get back filling out a report with Microsoft explaining why our website is not what they say it is. This meant that anyone that had the new version of IE would be falsely told that our site is a site that runs in an illegal form, which is complete and utter slander. Luckily they were quick to respond and supposedly remove it from whatever list it was on.

The next issue I found was the relationship between IE and Outlook. Just like everyone else, every other email consists of hyperlinks that I must click to do whatever function necessary or visit a website that can download free invoice tools for my business. Prior to the upgrade, I click the link and a new browser window opens to the url. After the upgrade, I click a link and everything is put on hold (frozen) unless I either end the process or I get a windows error. If the windows error pops up, it is followed by a “Save As” windows explorer window like I’m trying to save something. After wasted time looking for a way to change the default browser, I have finally succumbed to highlighting the url, copying it to my clipboard and pasting it in a Firefox address bar. It has completely ruined my simplicity of email link clicking.

As if I didn’t have enough issues, the next day I was doing some accounting work in Quickbooks until I attempted to do one of our very vital weekly duties only to be told I was using an incorrect version of Internet Explorer. I thought it must have been a mistake, so I tried again and received the same message. So I tried restarting my computer and again, the same error message. This new IE version has now limited my abilities in our accounting software to where I have to move to another computer to complete them.

There have been other small issues I have come across that don’t warrant anymore time spent on them, but they are annoying enough to make the IE 7 Beta version a complete bust. I’m sure this time next year it will be updated with a lot of kinks worked out, but at this time in the ballgame, heed my warning. . .DON’T DO IT! There are many nice things that I see potential in, but the negatives far out weight the positives at this point and for someone that used IE more than any other browser, I have been forced to use it only if I have to. The uninstall might sound like a logical move, however, if you have ever uninstalled major Windows programs before, you might be familiar with the hell it “might” cause.

Microsoft software engineers. . .PLEASE release a more stable version quickly!

Cliche’s are a staple in normal every day business chatter. Once in a while a phenomenon will come out of nowhere that leaves the cliche violator speechless.

The cliche in question is occurs when you are requested to carry more than you can physically hold or you are given too much work that would be considered work required by more than one person,

“I ONLY HAVE TWO ARMS!”

The child below has been given the gift of 3 fully functional arms:

The amazing thing about this child is the discussion of removing the extra appendage. The most important part of the child is it’s health. If his health is great, then it moves into a moral standard. Some have discussed the advantage one might have with an extra arm versus someone with only two arms. This might be a gift to this poor child and the doctors want to remove it based on making him blend in with everyone else. Again, this all falls on the health risks involved, but if there are absolutely no health risks with his extra arm, this could be something that makes him stand out and be something extraordinary. You need to Check this out for top doctor’s suggestions and their reviews.

We wish the child and his family the best and hope the right decision is made.

Many search engines query and use DMOZ.org listings/descriptions for their own results. If you have had any kind of dealing with DMOZ, more than likely there is one or two horror stories included that strikes a nerve. Still today, being listed in DMOZ is a vital step to getting better visibility in the search results. Even Google themselves mirrors their directory after the listings in DMOZ.

One of the engines that use DMOZ site descriptions for their own search results is MSN Search. More times than not, webmasters are not happy with what search engines show for their own website and although there are some obvious things we have control over to set things straight, MSN has created another way to tell them to stop using the DMOZ description in their search results.

If you are not happy with what MSN is showing as your description, more than likely it is directly from what DMOZ has listed for your site. You can now add the following META tag to tell MSN not to use the DMOZ description any longer:

< meta content="NOODP" name="msnbot" />

If all of the engines begin to adopt this tag, then the proper tag would be:

< meta content="NOODP" name="ROBOTS" / >

Of course, other simple tasks to do that can change what search engines show in their results would be to update what is showing between the < TITLE > tags and also what is in the < meta name="DESCRIPTION" /> tag. Some engines also will pull the first bit of text that shows on your site, so making your first sentence something that is descriptive can help.

These days there are usually several ways to skin a cat, so covering all angles will usually ensure you get the results desired.

With LinkWorth on the verge of releasing new products in the near future, we have come to a point where it makes sense to listen to our customers and take their feedback into consideration. We have spoken with a couple of you about this one section and we would like to get as many of you as possible to provide feedback.

This pertains to the actual locations in which the text link ads are published. At present time, there are:

1. Home Page Link Location
2. Sub Page Link Location
3. Site Run Link Location

The issue is, advertisers have no selection of the geographic location on the page, only that they want their text ad on the page itself. With our upgraded locations, this will be an included option allowing advertisers to put their text ad on what page and what location on said page. Partners can also have the ability to spread things out and offer a little more.

What we would like from you, our customers, is to answer the poll on the right side navigation, or you can vote here. The answers will help us in development.

[poll=<1>]

More than ever, businesses need to offer their products and/or services online. If you are already there, it’s a no brainer. If you are still wondering if it is the right move, read this story just released. . .

WASHINGTON (AFP) – More than one billion people in the world have access to the Internet, with a quarter of them with broadband, or high-speed connections, according to a survey.

The report by the firm eMarketer said the milestone of one billion was reached in late 2005, and that nearly 250 million households had broadband connections.

The firm estimates that of these people, 845 million use the Internet regularly.

The United States is still number one in terms of numbers of Internet users with 175 million, and broadband households, 43.7 million.

In terms of regions, however, Asia-Pacific has the largest number (315 million) and is the largest broadband center containing nearly 40 percent of the world’s broadband households.

Latin America was the fastest growing broadband region worldwide, achieving 70 percent subscriber growth, the survey found. But it had just 70 million people online.

Europe had 233 million people online and 55.2 million broadband households. China had 111 million users and 34.1 million households with fast connections.

The report was based on a number of industry surveys and data from the International Telecommunication Union and Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.

Based on this story, being online and multi-cultural is the best way to maximize your earning potential. It’s rather astonishing to see that the United States is trailing in terms of broadband users. Of course, I’m sure a lot of the Asia broadband users are American’s that moved their email marketing business abroad to release themselves from the crackdown of email laws being enforced by the US government. 🙂

For those beginning to experience the advantages of our Rotating Ads, the acronym MURA might be of interest to you. Lets not confuse the MURA with the current running SURA, but they are almost identical. 😀 Ok, enough “acro” talk.

MURA stands for “Multi-URL Rotating Ad”. This is an extension of our current rotating ads, or SURA’s, which stands for “Single URL Rotating Ads”. Since we initially launched our rotating ads, customers have requested a way to change the URL along with each anchor text. At present, unique keywords are rotating with each view but the actual web link/url stays the same, along with the description.

With our new mura product, this is made possible. Rather than rotating anchor text only, it is possible to rotate an entire text ad now. This would entail a new anchor text, website url and description with each page view. Instead of sending visitors to a single page of your website, it is now possible to send them to a different page depending on the anchor text and/or description being used.
To build an effective multi-url campaign, there are many ways to get a great finished product. We will showcase one method called a “segmented MURA”. To setup this up, follow these steps:

1. Divide all of the pages or site(s) you plan to use into a list. (A spreadsheet will work fine)
2. Take each page listed, find 5 to 10 of your top keywords that page is optimized for and list them under the respective page listed
3. Now create a unique description for either each page or for each keyword. The more unique the better.
4. Next, login to your LinkWorth account and create a new multi-url text ad with the information on your spreadsheet.
5. Once the new ad is approved, look for great relevant sites to publish your rotating ad on and watch the magic.

The process of creating the new multi-url ad is almost identical as to the regular rotating ad. Just complete the form under the new button labeled “Create Multi-URL Ads”. If you have questions, please submit a support ticket .

Most of us have come across this or are dealing with it now; redirecting a page. Maybe it is a site update, maybe renaming pages, but the proper redirection methods can mean a great deal with regard to your standings in the search engines. The question of how to do this properly is a common one around here so we decided to post a great “How To Redirect” article we often refer people to at webconfs.com. They have a stellar list of tools that do many tasks.

Back to the redirection tips, here is the article:

301 Redirect

301 redirect is the most efficient and Search Engine Friendly method for webpage redirection. It’s not that hard to implement and it should preserve your search engine rankings for that particular page. If you have to change file names or move pages around, it’s the safest option. The code “301” is interpreted as “moved permanently”.

You can Test your redirection with Search Engine Friendly Redirect Checker

Below are a Couple of methods to implement URL Redirection

IIS Redirect

• In internet services manager, right click on the file or folder you wish to redirect
• Select the radio titled “a redirection to a URL”.
• Enter the redirection page
• Check “The exact url entered above” and the “A permanent redirection for this resource”
• Click on ‘Apply’

Redirect in ColdFusion

< .cfheader statuscode="301" statustext="Moved permanently">
< .cfheader name="Location" value="http://www.new-url.com">

Redirect in PHP

< ? Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" ); Header( "Location: http://www.new-url.com" ); ?>

Redirect in ASP

< %@ Language=VBScript %>
< % Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently" Response.AddHeader "Location", " http://www.new-url.com" >

Redirect in ASP .NET

Redirect with htaccess

Create a .htaccess file (if does not exists) in your root directory.
Redirect permanent / http://www.new-url.com

How to Redirect HTML

Please refer to section titled ‘How to Redirect with htaccess’, if your site is hosted on a Linux Server and ‘IIS Redirect’, if your site is hosted on a Windows Server.

It seems that today, everyone that has a website either displays AdSense (Google Text Ads) on their sites or has tried it at one time or another. One of our customers was making a killing with the program until one day earnings went from over eight THOUSAND a month to being banned from the AdSense program, as well as removing his website from the top of natural listings to nowhere to be found.

So think about it, one day your site is in the top 3 natural results getting thousands of clicks each day from Google alone; visitors clicking the AdSense ads and buying your products; you’re earning a great living, then the next day everything is gone. At this point, a frantic scramble begins, trying to figure out what in the hell is going on. You begin to back track thinking “What could have done this..”, then the thought is to contact Google to see what happened. After emails and possible phone calls, you get nowhere. If this is your bread and butter, what pays your bills, you begin to think how screwed you are now and how ends are not going to meet. All of the sudden, your AdSense that made sense, has become NonSense, that makes no cents.

This particular customer was new to LinkWorth and began asking if what they were doing with us was the cause. We explained that search engines do not actually ban websites for purchasing text ads, but they could possibly discount the value of a given link if deemed necessary. This would have nothing to do with AdSense or their removal from the search results. We began reviewing their site to see if we could help explain the situation and eventually found the problem. Before coming to LinkWorth, they purchased software that created thousands upon thousands of doorway pages.

Doorway pages (definition from wikipedia) are web pages that are created for spamdexing, this is, for spamming the index of a search engine by inserting results for particular phrases with the purpose of sending you to a different page. They are also known as landing pages, bridge pages, portal pages, zebra pages, jump pages, gateway pages, entry pages and by other names. Doorway pages that redirect visitors without their knowledge use some form of cloaking.

If you click through to a typical doorway page from a search engine result page, in most cases you will be redirectedMeta refresh command to another page. Other forms of redirection include use of Javascript and server side redirection, either through the .htaccess file or from the server configuration file. Some doorway pages may be dynamic pages generated by scripting languages such as Perl and PHP. with a fast

Doorway pages are often easy to identify in that they have been designed primarily for search engines, not for human beings. Sometimes a doorway page is copied from another high ranking page, but this is likely to cause the search engine to detect the page as a duplicate and exclude it from the search engine listings.

Because many search engines give you a penalty for using the META refresh command, some doorway pages just trick you into clicking on a link to get you to the desired destination page.

More sophisticated doorway pages, called Content Rich Doorways, are designed to gain high placement in search results without utilizing redirection. They incorporate at least a minimum amount of design and navigation similar to the rest of the site to provide a more human-friendly and natural appearance. Visitors are offered standard links as calls to action.

Many sites now use content rich doorway pages for their pay-per-click campaign landing pages. These doorway pages may employ server side scripting to count click-throughs, visits, and other user actions to assist with marketing data collection.

Now granted, the doorway pages were probably the worst thing the website owner could have done, but the concerning issue of this is how we are hearing more and more about similar situations (minus the violations). Just today a forum poster explained why he had many sites penalized and his AdSense account suspended along with the payments. These poor website owners get the false impression that since the company paying them is a corporate giant, they are assured the payments will continue to arrive, however, they learn the hard way that big companies find every way possible to cut corners and keep their stock prices as high as they can.

Do you think the advertiser is refunded when Google seizes your money? HELL NO! That turns into a 100% profit for the traffic you sent their advertisers. If it involves a large number of clicks, even better. . .for them. I’m not here to say Google is targeting innocent users to steal money, but you have to wonder how often a dedicated Google customer that supports his wife and three babies on AdSense revenue, earned legitimately, falls victim to a Google “error” like our forum posters.

Google says: You can make money without doing evil.

I guess what the world needs to know is Google’s definition of “evil”.

Publicity for your website is always a positive thing. Most of you probably are aware of the many services available to make press releases announcing new updates about your business through the many media outlets, like PRWEB. These services obviously come with a price, some better than others, but very rarely does one get pub for free.

LinkWorth has created a site dedicated solely to free pub. You can now submit articles to PubWorth.com for free and there are absolutely no strings attached. To submit an article, just create an account, verify your email, login and submit away. All articles will be subject to review and approval before they will appear in the directory, and each account is available to submit multiple articles with no limit.

Often, customers ask if we have articles on specific topics they can use on their website. Due to the demand, we decided to create PubWorth.com to not only provide a way for users to promote for free, but it will also be a way for webmasters to offer on topic information to their own readers. This means articles submitted have the ability to be shown across the net, all for free.

The site is currently live and accepting articles. We are working on a few small feature upgrades and cosmetics, but it will not affect article submission. What is free pub worth to you?

Today we completed the addition of new sub categories. With our publisher numbers growing as large as they are, it was time to start branching off into more narrow areas. We continually receive support tickets requesting a new categories but have always left things generalized.

As we continue to grow, we will continue to expand our directory. If you have time, login to your account and edit your listings to see if there are new sub categories that fit your website. We will be monitoring the new submissions closely so any changes will quickly be approved.