How To Set Up A Professional Website On Your Own Using Web Templates

It's World War Spam

Come across this on PC Pro News this morning, Search engines unite to fight spam, Google, Yahoo & MSN have joined forces to "attempt" to fight spam.

The type of spam we are talking about is the type you find on most forums, blogs and guestbooks. The search engines as well as a few big blogger sites such as Blogger.com are showing a united front (there is always a first time) and will now recognise the following code in the HTML of a link.

< href="http://www.spam.co.uk" rel="nofollow"> My Great Website < /a>

Note the rel="nofollow", this will instruct the search bots to ignore the link without ignoring the rest of the links/content on the page (unlike the META tag nofollow). Meaning no PR will be passed and the anchor text will not be parsed creating a link of no value to the person spamming.

This has got to be good news for any forum/blog owners out there that have a spam problem and may help to stop the pesky spammers. This is all well and good but you have got to ask if this alone will prevent what seems to be the unpreventable. How will any would be spammer know that many of the links they are generating are of no value and lets face it "most" spammers are using spam techniques because of their ignorance/arrogance to the web community and a small number of the remainder are quite simply some of the most savvy webmasters online who don't mind breaking a few eggs!

If the last statement is true which I believe it is, most spammers won't even no that such tactics are being used while the less ignorant others will simply look at the source code to determine if the target site is worth spamming and if not move on to the next. The real clever spammers will not be affected, it’s the old catch up game that the search engines are playing and unfortunately the seasoned spammers are not one or two but several steps ahead the game. With spammers creating large networks of sites that are built purely to be used for harvesting large quantities of links that point to the spammer’s main site.

The World War Spam Front Line

Surely this is where the front line of the World War Spam should be focused, fighting the spammers who are clogging up the search engines main arteries with spam blood cells which block the good types of blood cells trying to reach their rightful destination. You see for nearly every genuine website you visit there is several spam sites with the sole intention of making a certain site more visible by pointing tons of relevant links at it. The worst part is that it’s not difficult to create your own network of spam sites for link harvesting and the only personal cost involved is your time. With more and more networks being created everyday and the complex cross linking structures some of the stealthier ones use, its hard to see how the problem can be combated affectively without the chance of harming genuine sites.

Stealth Networks

I wrote an article some time ago about creating website networks for link harvesting and tactics people are using to protect the network from being discovered and penalised by search engines. The basic element being used is to include not only links to the network in a strategic fashion to eliminate the chances of the entire network being discovered but to include links to other sites outside of the network that are considered to be quality sites and other relevant sites. So as these types of networks get harder to discover, how are the search engines going to eliminate them.

It’s Linking All Gone Wrong

When Google introduced link analysis for first time it worked and the theory was sound, basing their algorithm on a type of voting system where each web page has a vote and the strength of the vote is determined by the number and strength of votes cast to that page. The system worked and a highly relevant search engine was the result but unfortunately as people worked out how the system worked they also discovered it was easy to influence. As Google became the number one provider of search results holding the largest share of internet traffic, webmasters needed to rank well on Google or lie at the bottom of the SERP’s with little to no traffic. In affect, Google became a victim of its own success, creating the most relevant search engine to date but one that was probably easier to influence it results than the rest. The situation we are in now was simply inevitable.

The idea would have been great and worked well to this day if wasn’t for the fact that people will always try to out wit search engines to their own advantage. The whole ethos of link analysis was based on the concept that if a webmaster reads something they like or believe is relevant to their site on another site they will link to it, which fundamentally is how linking should be conducted but due to link analysis, links have now become a commodity. You have probably seen sites that sell links for ranking purposes and some of these services (not all) are in control of these types of large networks and will simply add your links in exchange for cash. Put simply, if you want your site to succeed and bring new customers from search engines you need links and it’s only the competitiveness of the market sector you compete in that determines the amount of unnatural links required (and £) to be placed high on the results pages.

Summary

My personal view is link analysis is killing the internet and needs to be changed; we need another way of determining the relevance of a site for the search query made. The search engines need to tackle the problem at its source rather than focusing on the symptom. Until a new type of algorithm is created that doesn’t rely on links, links will be exploited creating link spam instead of being something that benefits the internet as a whole.

There is Still Some Hope

The fact that some of the search engines have opened channels of communication and have begun to look at tackling the massive problem of spam is good but its going to be a hard job and I believe that the solution to the problem is located a lot closer to home than they imagine. As the relevance of search results largly determine a search engines market share and spam is lowering that relevance, I think it is safe to say that an all mighty war has begun.

Welcome to 2005 and welcome to World War Spam.

How To Set Up A Professional Website On Your Own Using Web Templates

To create professional websites is not an easy task by any means. There are many things that you got to take into consideration like easy navigation, strategic links, clean coding, professional layout, easy downloading, scanability, usability and so on. These are the elements that differentiate a professional website from a mediocre one. So in a way it's not designing the website that counts but how the website is designed.

The only option that most of us have in order to design a good website is to hire a web- designer. Web-designers can help you come up with a great website that looks professional and is coded to perfection, but what about the time factor, leave alone the costs. Here's where web templates come to the rescue.

Wondering what web templates are? Well, to put it in simple terms, web templates are semi-finished, pre designed web pages that can be used to create and host websites in less time. They are coded and have everything from graphics to logos and can be customized if required to add new pictures, content etc.

Web templates are semi finished in the sense that they are not ready to upload as they are. You need to add certain elements to make them look complete. Some of the main elements that you need to add include

After adding these details the web template becomes ready to be uploaded using a web host for the world to see.

Web templates range in price depending on the type of templates, terms of usage, package deals, membership deals, files provided etc. Typically a professional template with non-exclusive rights could cost you anything between $20 to $100. This is way lower as compared to what a web designer would ask you for designing your website, not to mention the time factor. Copyrighted templates with exclusive rights could cost you anywhere between $350 to $1800 per template. Some template providers like http://www.buytemplates.net can offer you high quality templates for much lower costs.

The files that you get on the purchase of a template differ from vendor to vendor depending on the type/feature of the template. Regardless of the type of template some files that should accompany your purchase are as follows,

In addition to these some other files such as .js file (for templates that use JavaScript) and readme.txt files can also be provided. Generally these files are provided in a .zip format and you may need to unzip them for usage. You can make use of unzipping software like WinZip to unzip the files. This software can be downloaded from winzip.com.

Basically there are two types of templates; exclusive (copyrighted) templates and non- exclusive (non-copyrighted) templates. An exclusive template gives you ownership rights over the template whereas a non exclusive template does not give you ownership rights but only usage rights. Exclusive web templates are a bit costly and will ensure that the template is not resold to any other customer. You may use the template as your like and even resell it to other customers. A non-exclusive template on the other hand is cheaper and gives you only usage rights over the template. This means you can modify the template as per your needs but cannot resell them to a third party. Non-exclusive templates also mean that the same template can be resold by the template provider to more than one customer.

Basically editing involves inserting the content, changing the style and adding/changing graphics. This can be done using the psd, index.html and other files that the web-template provider gives you on purchase of specific templates.

You would require PSD files in order to edit images and graphics like change image color; add/remove image layers etc. PSD files are those created using Photoshop and can be edited using Photoshop, ImageReady, imac or other image editing software programs. You can also change images to your liking. The best place to look for quality images for your templates is 'gettyimages.com'.

If you only need to change/insert content of the template, you can go for editing the index.html file. The index.html file is provided by all template providers and can be edited using Html editors like FrontPage, Dreamweaver, Golive etc. You can also edit content using text editors. Index.html can also be used for removing/replacing images, changing links, adding meta-tags, adding alt texts, adding title and changing image sources.

For editing layouts and styles you would require a CSS style sheet. A CSS style sheet is a document that lets you make changes like text color, text/paragraph spacing, headings, links etc to multiple pages. Always ask your template provider to give external CSS style sheets as they are easy to edit. CSS can be edited using any HTML or text based editors.

In case you find the editing part difficult you can make use of web template customization services that are provided by most template providers.

Domain registration and web hosting are crucial for your website to appear online. There are many template providers who offer allied services like domain registration and hosting. Some even provide services like content development and search engine optimization. So be sure to buy templates from template vendors who offer these additional services. Some template providers like 'buytemplates.net' offer template related services irrespective of where you actually purchased the template from.

The internet is filled with websites that offer web templates. All that you need to do is insert a keyword like 'corporate web templates' in google or yahoo! to get a SERP crammed with web template providers. But finding quality templates from this crap is a bit difficult. A template many look glossy on your screen but may contain bad coding and low grade graphics. Some may be cheap but will have bad or no service associated. So how to find the best web templates in this heap load? The best way is to ask your-self these seven questions before making a buying decision.

Some of the best web template providers online who offer high quality web templates at affordable costs are www.buytemplates.net (Buytemplates.net offers quality templates at affordable rates. They also provides allied services like template customization, content insertion Search engine optimization and web hosting), http://www.templatemagic.net (offers quality affordable templates), designgalaxy.net (this site also offers logo designs, flash intros, Photoshop designs and PowerPoint templates along with web templates.) and interspire.com (This site is a must visit for anyone looking for free website templates. Their free templates are of good quality and are updated regularly. You can also get hold of free newsletter templates and logo designs here)

http://www.icongalore.com is a quality web portal that offers high quality professional XP icons. Their XP application icons come at extremely affordable prices and can be used for web designing, software applications and print media.

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How To Set Up A Professional Website On Your Own Using Web Templates