Starbucks knows a thing or two about loyalty. Gold Card members enjoy free refills as well as a periodic free drink. (Green Card members get the refill benefit, but not the free beverage after every 15 purchases. In addition, Gold Card members get a personalized card in that color and, theoretically, are addressed by name by the baristas.

Many other coffee shops offer complimentary in-store refills to all customers, but Starbucks has converted refills into a loyalty benefit. The Gold Card is a symbol of prestige, privilege and when in the presence of friends and colleagues the card is dropped like it’s hot. It’s a smart strategy because in a unique way it encourages people to buy more coffee.

There are many reasons for the popularity of custom web application development but the most prominent ones are mentioned below:

The Solution is Built After Much Research: Any reputed web application development company would first conduct extensive research and analysis of any project before actually getting started with it. The business analysts and project managers conduct an extensive fact finding expedition in which all the requirements of the client, their business, requirements of the personal using the software etc are found and clearly documented for future reference while developing application.

These findings are then applied to create a well formulated solution that actualizes client’s requirements into an applicable solution.

Flexible Solutions: The whole development procedure is required to be flexible in order to create a solution according to clients needs. Custom development offers a highly flexible development platform where developers can work and create the solution as envisioned by the client. The flexible development strategy allows the developers to apply their creativity and knowledge without much restrains and come up with innovative solutions for clients.

User Friendly Applications: The most critical thing to remember while developing custom web applications for organizations is that they should be user friendly. The qualifications and computer knowledge of those who would be finally using the application on a regular basis is essential to remember while developing applications. The regular users of the application would most probably be non IT enthusiasts who are more concerned with business activities rather than the technological aspects of how applications work. This requires the web application development company to come up with solutions that are highly user friendly and can be easily operated by general users. Not much technical knowledge must be required for operating the software. Custom applications can be easily formulated in such a manner.

Custom web application development is highly favorable for organizations requiring specific solutions for unique requirements, but care must be taken while choosing the development partner for a project. Clients should do thorough research and enquiries before offering their project to any web application development company.

The problem when styling input’s

Addressing the problem is fairly obvious. In HTML, there are several tag names that differentiate from each other and are easy to style uniquely from each other. However input elements can vary from a text box, radio button, and checkbox…which doesn’t make for easily styling. If we wanted to style input, we’d have to style all three types!

Styling with Attribute Selectors

If all browsers supported attribute selectors, we could easily do the following:

Styling inputs with attribute selectors

input[type='text'] { font:bold 0.8em 'courier new',courier,monospace; } input[type='radio'] { margin:0 20px; } input[type='checkbox'] { border:2px solid red; }

Appending className’s to our input’s

Since not all browsers support attribute selectors, we can simply use className’s instead. Although clever and smart, it can get tedious real fast. Thus, the CSS would then become this:

styling inputs with attribute selectors

input.text { font:bold 0.8em 'courier new',courier,monospace; } input.radio { margin:0 20px; } input.checkbox { border:2px solid red; }

And then we would have to manually add all those className’s to our html documents.

Use JavaScript to automate the process

In a situation of Thanks but no thanks, we can opt out of manually adding a className to every input element and do it with JavaScript. This function is fairly straight-forward and simple.

Function appendInputTypeClasses

function appendInputTypeClasses() { if ( !document.getElementsByTagName ) return; var inputs = document.getElementsByTagName('input'); var inputLen = inputs.length; for ( i=0;i<inputLen;i++ ) { if ( inputs[i].getAttribute('type') ) inputs[i].className += ' '+inputs[i].getAttribute('type'); } }

What this function does is basically adds a className of whatever type of input it is. So if it’s type is ‘text’, then it’s className will also have ‘text’! Neat eh?

And just to be safe…

We can keep our attribute selectors as a “progressive enhancement” and our final CSS will look like this:

Enhanced CSS for styling inputs

input[type='text'],input.text { font:bold 0.8em 'courier new',courier,monospace; } input[type='radio'],input.radio { margin:0 20px; } input[type='checkbox'],input.checkbox { border:2px solid red; }

1. Setup Domain or Subdomain on your hosting system using Plesk or CPanel. – For plesk browse to https://domain.com:8443
1. If you’re setting up a new client in plesk go to clients
2. If you’re adding adding a subdomain go to Domains and navigate to the control panel for the specific domain.
2. Use Terminal or sshXgui to access shell.  enter hostname, username, and password
3. Within Terminal or sshxgui navigate to the location of where you want to install WordPress using this command

    cd /var/www/vhosts/domain.com/httpdocs

4. Get and Uncompress the Latest Version of WordPress

   wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
   tar xfz latest.tar.gz

5. Move All Files from WordPress Back a Directory

    cd wordpress/
   cp -rpf * ../
   cd ..

6. Remove the /wordpressdirectory and the compressed file since we no longer need them.

   rm -rf ./wordpress/
   rm -f latest.tar.gz

7. For permission issues you need to make sure the User and Group is set to match what you have in plesk.  USER:GROUP

   chown domainuser:psacln pathtofiles/* -R

8. Then add your database via plesk
9. Final step browse to your domain or subdomain and walk through the wordpress setup.

At its core, Google+ is a social network. The Stream is the first thing users are introduced to. It’s much like the Facebook News Feed, allowing users to share photos, videos, links or their location with friends. Google+ categories/sections, are as follows:

Home: The search giant’s new social project will be omnipresent on its products, thanks to a complete redesign of the navigation bar. The familiar gray strip at the top of every Google page will turn black, and come with several new options for accessing your Google+ profile, viewing notifications and instantly sharing content. The notification system is similar to how Facebook handles notifications, complete with a red number that increases with each additional notice.

Circles: Most social media services (Facebook, Twitter) haven’t been successful with friend lists because they’ve been designed as a “tack-on” product rather than being integrated at every level. Circles is an attempt to address that challenge. The HTML5 system allows users to drag-and-drop their friends into different social circles for friends, family, classmates, co-workers and other custom groups. Users can drag groups of friends in and out of these circles.

Hangouts: Google’s new group chat feature. Instead of directly asking a friend to join a group chat, users instead click “start a hangout” and they’re instantly in a video chatroom alone. At the same time, a message goes out to their social circles, letting them know that their friend is “hanging out.” The result, Google has found in internal testing, is that friends quickly join. Unlike Facebook, Hangouts lets you chat with a group of friends simultaneously instead of just one.

Sparks: To spur sharing, Google has added a recommendation engine for finding interesting content. The feature, Google+ Sparks, is a collection of articles, videos, photos and other content grouped by interest. For example, the “Movies” spark will have a listing of recent and relevant content for that topic.

Photos: The photo tab takes a user to all of the photos he or she has shared, as well as the ones he or she is tagged in. It’s not just photo tagging, though: Google+ includes an image editor (complete with Instagram-like photo effects), privacy options and sharing features.

In the end, I will not be surprised if Google+ fades away faster then Google Buzz, or if it surpasses Facebook as the ultimate social network forum. Either way, I’m still waiting for my invite to Google+ to decide for myself.

The event had 21 panelists with an agenda that included:

• Welcome by O.C. Register Publisher Terry Horne
• Panelist Introductions by Jonathan Lansner
• Promote and Organize Your Event Socially: How to host a successful event, by Bryan Elliott, founder of Linked OC and the SoCal Action Sports Network and Cheril Hendry, Brandtailers and co-organizer of TEDxOrangeCoast
• You’re the News: the rising influence of community-generated content, by Eric Bryant AKA TheRECoach, V.P. of Internet Services at Coldwell Banker Coastal Alliance, Ian Hamilton, OCR technology blogger/reporter and Burt Herman, CEO & Co-Founder at Storify
• Big Food, Big Money: How the food industry uses social to drive sales, by Nancy Luna, OCR reporter and Fast Food Maven, Beth Mansfield, Director, Public Relations at CKE Restaurants, Inc., Marcy Massura, Weber Shandwick digital community manager for Oscar Meyer, and Rob Poetsch, Founder and President, Rob Poetsch Consulting Group
• Buying Influence: How social influences purchasing decisions, by Lauren Drell, Assistant Editor of Supported Content at Mashable and Sonya Quick, OCR leader and also a consumer
• Social Media for Social Good: Using social media to change the world, by Kohl Crecelius, CEO of Krochet Kids International, Jeffrey Friend, manager of Social Good Today (and director of social media & marketing at The Culver Group),
  Max McGhee, Art Director for Saddleback Church and David Simmons, Professional Services Responder for the Orange Country Sheriff’s Department
• Do you need an expert? by Gary Robbins, San Diego Union-Tribune, Mona Shah, founder of Moxxe PR of Laguna, and Debbie Tesla, Dippin Dots franchisee
• The ROI: Real-life examples of how social media pays off, by Kelly Borgen, marketing consultant, creator of “I Heart Old Towne Orange,” Eva Smith, Co-Founder of Latina Mom Bloggers, and Suzanne Broughton, blogger, columnist and SM community manager for OC Family Magazine.

Each group of panelists had 15 minutes to speak which made each topic short and sweet. Overall I’d say the event was a success. Although The OC Register played great hosts to the overwhelming turnout of people, I believe next year they need to host this somewhere that can accommodate the growing network of social media enthusiasts.

Email signatures contain alternative contact details, pertinent job titles and company names, which help the recipient get in touch when emails are not responded to. Sometimes, they give the recipient an idea of who wrote the email in case it has been a while since they have been in touch. They are also professional: like a letterhead, they show that you run a business (in some countries, you’re required to do so). Here are some tips on how to create a tasteful signature that works.

Be Concise

First and foremost, the sender’s header (the “From” field) should have a name, and you should use a company email address if you can. If someone sees stevies747@hotmail.com, they’ll suspect it’s spam. If the sender’s header reads, “Steve Stevenson – Mister Stevenson Design Company” <steve@misterstevenson.com>, they’ll know it’s a professional email from Steve, their trusted designer.

Start by making your website a link. Many email clients convert email addresses and websites into links automatically, but not always. When you’re creating the HTML for an email, make sure the link will appear by adding writing it in HTML. And instead of linking text like “My website,” type out the URL, which will be useful for those who want to copy and paste the address.

An email signature shouldn’t double the email’s length, so make it as short as possible (three lines is usually enough). Don’t get into your life story here. The purpose of a signature is to let them see who you are and how to get in touch with you.

Make Sure to Include…

• our name,
• Your company and position,
• How to get in touch with you.

No need to include 10 different ways to get in touch with you. As in website design, less is more; and then they’ll know which way you prefer to be contacted. Go to two or three lines, with a maximum of 72 character per line (many email applications have a maximum width of 80 characters, so limit the length to avoid unsightly wrapping). An optional fourth line could be your company address, but use caution if you work from home.

--
Steve Stevenson, Web Designer
www.misterstevenson.com | steve@misterstevenson.com

Short and Concise, but Check the Rules

In some European countries, laws dictate what items you must put in your email signature if you are a registered company. For example, UK law requires private and public limited companies to include the following:

• Company number,
• Address of registration,
• VAT number, if there is one.

You can be fined for not including this information on all electronic correspondence and on your website and stationary. Many freelancers and small businesses have ignored these rules since their inception, risking

a fine. For more information on UK rules, go here. Do some research to find out what rules apply in your country.

--
Steve Stevenson, Web Designer
www.misterstevenson.com | steve@misterstevenson.com
55 Main Street, London, UK, EC2A 1RE
Company number: 12345678

Don’t Include…

• Personal Twitter, IM or Skype details;
• Your home phone number or address (unless you want to be called by international clients early in the morning);
• The URL of your personal website;
• Random quotes at the bottom;
• Your entire skill set, CV and lifetime achievements in point form.

quotes are fun for friends, but you risk offending business associates with whom you don’t have a personal relationship. Unless you want clients contacting you while you’re watching Lost, don’t share your home details far and wide. Also, don’t share your personal contact information with your corporate partners. They certainly won’t be interested in it, and you may not want them to know certain details
about you. However, mentioning your corporate Twitter account or alternative means of contact in your signature might be useful, in case your correspondent is not able to get in touch with you by regular
email.

	Steve Stevenson, Web Designer web: www.misterstevenson.com blog: blogspot.celebritiesneedhelp.com email: steve@misterstevenson.com
	home: 613.555.2654 home (wife): 613.555.3369 work: 613.555.9876 cell: 613.555.123455 Drury Lane Apartment 22 Ottawa, Ontario Canada twitter: @stevie_liverpool_fan skype: stevie_the_man messenger: stevie_mrstevenson I specialize in: Web design Graphic design Logo design Front-end development UI design “Flying may not be all plain sailing, but the fun of it is worth the price.” -Amelia Aerheart

Don’t do this.

Images And Logos

Let’s get this out of the way now: your entire signature shouldn’t be an image. Sure, it will look exactly how you want, but it is completely impractical. Not only does an image increase the email’s file size, but it will likely be blocked before being opened. And how does someone copy information from an image?

Any images should be used with care and attention. If you do use one, make it small in both dimensions and size, and make it fit in aesthetically with the rest of the signature. 50 x 50 pixels should be plenty big for any logo. If you want to be taken seriously as a business person, do not make it an animated picture, dancing dog or shooting rainbow!

Most email clients store images as attachments or block them by default. So, if you present your signature as an image, your correspondents will have a hard time guessing when you’ve sent a genuine attachment.

Don’t Be A Fancy Pants

Use vCards With Caution

While vCards are a great, convenient way to share contact information, in emails they add bytes and appear as attachments. It is often said that you shouldn’t use a vCard for your email signature, because as helpful as it might be the first time you correspond with someone, receiving it every time after that gets annoying. Besides, the average email user won’t know what it is. Look at the example below. Would an average user know what that is?

---
Steve Stevenson, Web Designer
www.misterstevenson.com | steve@misterstevenson.com

If you do want to provide a vCard, just include a link to a remote copy.

What About Confidentiality Clauses?

If your emails include confidential information, you may need to include a non-disclosure agreement to prevent information leaks. However, good practice is never to send sensitive information as plain text in emails because the information could be extracted by third parties or forwarded by recipients to other people. Thus, including a non-disclosure agreement doesn’t make much sense if you do not send sensitive information anyway.

Keep in mind, too, that the longer a confidentiality clause is, the more unlikely someone will actually read it. Again, check your country’s privacy laws. Some big companies require a disclosure with every email, but if you’re at a small company or are a freelancer and don’t really require it, then don’t put it in. The length of such clauses can be annoying, especially in short emails.

---
Warm Regards & Stay Creative!
Aidan Huang (Editor)
-------------------------------------------
Onextrapixel
Showcasing Web Treats Without Hitch
web . http://www.onextrapixel.com
twi . http://twitter.com/onextrapixel
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely
for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have
received this email in error please notify the sender. This message contains
confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you
are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this
email. Please notify the sender immediately by email if you have received this
email by mistake and delete this email from your system. If you are not the
intended recipient you are notified that disclosing, copying, distributing or
taking any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly
prohibited.

--
This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential. If you have received
this email in error please notify the sender and then delete it immediately.
Please note that any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Company.

The recipient should check this email and any attachments for the presence
of viruses. Company accepts no liability for any damage caused by any virus
transmitted by this email.

Company may regularly and randomly monitor outgoing and incoming emails
(including the content of them) and other telecommunications on its email
and telecommunications systems. By replying to this email you give your
consent to such monitoring.

*****

Save resources: think before you print.

Don’t Be Afraid to Show Some Personality

Although your email signature should be concise and memorable, it doesn’t have to be boring. Feel free to make your email signature stand out by polishing it with your creative design ideas or your personal touch. Using a warm greeting, adding a cheeky key as Dan Rubin does or encouraging people to “stalk” you as Paddy Donnelly does, all show personality behind simple text.

The key to a simple, memorable and beautiful email signature lies in balancing personal data and your contact details. In fact, some designers have quite original email signatures; most of the time, simple ASCII is enough.

--
h: http://danielrubin.org
w: http://sidebarcreative.com
b: http://superfluousbanter.org

m: +1 234 567 8901
i: superfluouschat

k: h = home, w = work, b = blog, m = mobile, i = aim, k = key

Paddy

--

The Site: http://iampaddy.com
Stalk Me: http://twitter.com/paddydonnelly

--

With optimism,
Dmitry Belitsky
http://belitsky.info

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/// Matthias Kretschmann     ///   krema@xxxxxxxx.xx            ///
/// freelance designer &     ///   www.kremalicious.com         ///
/// photographer             ///   www.matthiaskretschmann.com  ///
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/// media studies / communication science & art history         ///
/// MLU Halle-Wittenberg                                        ///
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

--
With greetings from Freiburg, Germany,
Vitaly Friedman (editor-in-chief)
-------------------------------------------------
Smashing Magazine
http://www.smashingmagazine.com - http://www.twitter.com/smashingmag
online magazine for designers and developers

HTML?

If you can, stay away from HTML formatting. Every Web designer knows the pain of HTML newsletters, and while HTML is supported for email signatures, you’ll likely have problems with images and divider lines in different email clients. Some nice ASCII formatting may work in some Cases.

--
carole guevin . editor
//// design + digital culture magazine
//// http://netdiver.net

--
Min, Tran Dinh
Chief Creative Designer - Frexy Studio

Website: http://frexy.com | Blog: http://min.frexy.com | Email: info@frexy.com
Cellphone: (84) 012 345 678

- --
Rene Schmidt -- Berater für Web-Entwicklung & eCommerce,
Linux-Webserver-Systemadministration & Web-Programmierung
Vordamm 46, 21640 Horneburg; http://www.reneschmidt.de/
Tel: 0123.456.7.890; Skype: reneATreneschmidt.de
Steuernummer 43/141/09180; USt-IdNr 219014862
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

iEYEARECAAYFAktit8sACgkQucSanG9drm2ZYACggIeQST/C226LIsd/czEmrnrR
TjUAniVPXI2lkA68fy3n+nUawdAE1nJ/
=+vZR
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

---
Geoff Teehan
Teehan+Lax
Web Platforms  |  Digital Campaigns  |  Mobile Applications  |  Strategic Consulting

T: 416 123 4567 x 890  |  teehanlax.com  |  twitter.com/@teehanlax

----------------------------------------
Dmitry Dragilev

ZURB | Marketing Lead
getstarted@zurb.com
http://www.zurb.com
------------------------------------------

Follow our blog at:
http://www.zurb.com/blog

Follow us on Twitter: @zurb
http://twitter.com/zurb

Check out Notable - Easiest way for teams to
provide feedback on websites.
http://www.notableapp.com
------------------------------------------

______________________________________________

Website: www.webdesignerdepot.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/DesignerDepot

Regards,

Matt Ward
Echo Enduring Media

Web - http://www.echoenduring.com
Blog - http://blog.echoenduring.com
Twitter - @echoenduring - Follow me!

--
Dan Rubin
Sidebar Creative { Director of Training & User Experience }

mobile: +1 234 567 8901
http://sidebarcreative.com

--
David Leggett
Tutorial9 Founder
555.012.34567
@theleggett
Tutorial9.net

Gareth Hardy
Graphic Designer | Down With Design

www.downwithdesign.com
gareth@downwithdesign.com
+44 (0) 0123 456 789

Grant Friedman
www.colorburned.com

Follow me on Twitter!
http://twitter.com/colorburned
----------------------------------------

Many thanks,
Yaili.

yaili.com | webdesignernotebook.com | londonchronicles.com
+44 (0) 1234 567890
skype: inayaili

Thanks!
Jonathan Cutrell, Editor
FuelYourInterface.com | @FuelInterface | @jCutrell

--
All the best,

Rob Bowen
Copywriter | Designer | Creative Consultant

Co-Founder/Editor @ Arbenting
& Dead Wings Designs

http://arbent.net/blog

http://deadwingsdesigns.com

Arseny

--
Please consider the environment before printing this email.
---
Arseny Vesnin
http://designcollector.net
Calendar: http://2010.designcollector.net
Profile: http://designhub.ru
Twitter: http://twitter.com/designcollector
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/groups/designcollector-6
Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/channels/designcollector
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/designcollector

Warm regards,

Dipti Kankaliya
{ dipti.kankaliya@studiomarch.com }

Studio March Private Limited
12 Moledina Road Camp Pune 1 India
Phone: +91-20-26334002
{ http://www.studiomarch.com }

MarchCast – The Studio March blog
{ http://www.studiomarch.com/mc }
--
This is an official email from Studio March Private Limited and is protected
by a disclaimer. If you are not the intended recipient of this email, please
visit: http://www.studiomarch.com/legal/email.

Of course, if you’re really keen to use HTML, keep it simple:

• Make sure it still looks good in plain text.
• Use black and standard-sized fonts, and stay away from big, tiny and rainbow-colored fonts.
• Don’t use CSS. Inline HTML formatting is universally accepted.
• Use common Web fonts.
• Including a logo? Make sure the signature looks nice even when the logo doesn’t load or is blocked.
• Check how it looks when forwarded. Do all the lines wrap correctly?
• You may want to load your company image as your gravatar from Gravatar.com as Joost de Valk does.
• Feel free to experiemnt with your e-mail signature: Jan Diblík uses a signature with dynamicaly changed promo image.

–

Steve Stevenson, Web Designer www.misterstevenson.com | steve@misterstevenson.com

Separate Signature From Content

Your signature should clearly be a separate entity. Wikipedia explains the correct way to separate the signature:

“The

formatting of the sig block is prescribed somewhat more firmly: it

should be displayed as plain text in a fixed-width font (no HTML,

images, or other rich text), and must be delimited from the body of the

message by a single line consisting of exactly two hyphens, followed by a

space, followed by the end of line (i.e., “– \n”). This … allows
software to automatically mark or remove the sig block as the receiver

desires.”

There are other less standard ways to separate your

signature. While not automatic formatting, a line of —–, ======, or

_______ or even just a few spaces will visually separate your signature

from your email.

--
----------------------------------
Dan Oliver (editor)
.net magazine (www.netmag.co.uk)
----------------------------------
Twitter: danoliver
Email: dan.oliver@futurenet.com
Phone: 01234 56789
----------------------------------
Address for deliveries:
.net, Units 1 & 2 Cottrell Court,
Monmouth Place, Bath, BA1 2NP
----------------------------------

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Elliot Jay Stocks
Elliot Jay Stocks Design Ltd.
Registered in England & Wales #1234567

http://elliotjaystocks.com

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

###

Cheers,
-Dan

Vennlig hilsen
Lars Bæk
Byråleder & Tekstforfatter
...................................................
JØSS!
Storgata 15, 2408 Elverum
Mob (+47) 01 23 45 67
xxxx@joss.as | www.joss.as

----------------------------------------------
Information Architects Inc.
Tokyo Zurich

Oliver Reichenstein, Founder

http://informationarchitects.jp
http://webtrendmap.com
http://twitter.com/iA
----------------------------------------------

Wrestling With Your Email Client

Offering general advice on signatures is easy, sure. But anyone who has tried to implement automatic signatures in Outlook, Gmail or Yahoo knows it’s not always that simple. Here are some resources to help you get yours right every time.

Outlook
Changing Outlook’s signature is a real pain, but here‘s a guide that teaches you a few things. If you use Outlook 2003, here‘s another tutorial on custom signatures.

Entourage
Microsoft’s mail for mac works differently. Here’s a tutorial on how to set it up.

Gmail
Want just one basic signature? Here‘s how to change the text. You’d think Google would allow you multiple signatures, links and a bit of formatting. If you’re looking for something a little more designed or wish to choose between multiplesignatures, here are five ways to do it in Firefox.

Hotmail

Tips on custom images and more for Hotmail (Oh my!) can be found here. If you use Windows Live, here is a tutorial on adding images and HTML. The detail is helpful, even if the images are awful.

Yahoo

After a bit of research, I found that Yahoo used to support HTML signatures, but no longer. Here‘s how to change your signature using rich text.

Apple Mail
Here is a pretty decent tutorial, with some inline HTML for formatting. It then explains how to implement it in the application. You even get some hints on how it will look on the iPhone.

Palm Pre
Learn how to customize your message on your Palm Pre here.

iPhone
Customize your “Sent from my iPhone” message here.

BlackBerry
Some information on how to change your message on BlackBerry smartphones here.

In this article we lay out all the facts..

Over the last weeks we’ve done an extensive research and selected dozens of facts and suggestions about PageRank, which seem to be true in practice.

Besides, we’ve collected academic papers related to the issue – such as scientific proposals for better search results (such as Topic-Sensitive PageRank); you’ll also find references to mathematical background of

PageRank as well as 16 useful PageRank tools you can use to analyze und track the ranking of your web-projects.

Summary: How Does PageRank Work?

1. PageRank is only one of numerous methods Google uses to determine a page’s relevance or importance.
2. Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote,

   by page A, for page B. Google looks not only at the sheer volume of

   votes; among 100 other aspects it also analyzes the page that casts the

   vote. However, these aspects don’t count, when PageRank is calculated.

3. PageRank is based on incoming links,

   but not just on the number of them – relevance and quality are

   important (in terms of the PageRank of sites, which link to a given

   site).

4. PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + … + PR(tn)/C(tn)). That’s the equation that calculates a page’s PageRank.
5. Not all links weight the same when it comes to PR.
6. If

   you had a web page with a PR8 and had 1 link on it, the site linked to

   would get a fair amount of PR value. But, if you had 100 links on that

   page, each individual link would only get a fraction of the value.

7. Bad incoming links don’t have impact on Page Rank.
8. Ranking popularity considers site age, backlink relevancy and backlink duration. PageRank doesn’t.
9. Content is not taken into account when PageRank is calculated.
10. PageRank does not rank web sites as a whole, but is determined for each page individually.
11. Each inbound link is important to the overall total. Except banned sites, which don’t count.
12. PageRank values don’t range from 0 to 10. PageRank is a floating-point number.
13. Each Page Rank level is progressively harder to reach. PageRank is believed to be calculated on a logarithmic scale.
14. Google calculates pages PRs permanently, but we see the update once every few months (Google Toolbar).

Summary: Impact on Google PageRank

1. Frequent content updates don’t improve Page Rank automatically. Content is not part of the PR calculation.
2. High Page Rank doesn’t mean high search ranking.
3. DMOZ and Yahoo! Listings don’t improve Page Rank automatically.
4. .edu and .gov-sites don’t improve Page Rank automatically.
5. Sub-directories don’t necessarily have a lower Page Rank than root-directories.
6. Wikipedia links don’t improve PageRank automatically (update: but pages which extract information from Wikipedia might improve PageRank).
7. Links marked with nofollow-attribute don’t contribute to Google PageRank.
8. Efficient internal onsite linking has an impact on PageRank.
9. Related

   high ranked web-sites count stronger. But: “a page with high PageRank

   may actually pass you less if it has more links, because it’s spread too

   thin.” [RY]

10. Links from and to high quality related sites have an impact on Page Rank.
11. Multiple votes to one link from the same page cost as much as a single vote.

1.1. What is PageRank?

• “PageRank is [only] one of the methods Google uses to determine a page’s relevance or importance.” [PageRank Explained Correctly]
• “Google

  uses many factors in ranking. Of these, the PageRank algorithm might be

  the best known. PageRank evaluates two things: how many links there are

  to a web page from other pages, and the quality of the linking sites.

  With PageRank, five or six high-quality links from websites such as

  www.cnn.com and www.nytimes.com would be valued much more highly than

  twice as many links from less reputable or established sites.” [Google Librarian Central]

• “PageRank

  has only ever been an approximation of the quality of a web page and

  has never had anything to do with the measuring of the topical relevance

  of a web page. Topical relevance is measured with link context and

  on-page factors such as keyword density, title tag, and everything

  else.” [PageRank: An Essay]

1.2. How Does PageRank work?

• No one really knows.“No one knows for sure how PageRank is currently calculated by Google.” [Google PageRank Explained]
• PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + … + PR(tn)/C(tn)).

  “That’s the equation that calculates a page’s PageRank. In the equation

  ‘t1 – tn’ are pages linking to page A, ‘C’ is the number of outbound

  links that a page has and ‘d’ is a damping factor, usually set to 0.85.”

• We

  can think of it in a simpler way: a page’s PageRank = 0.15 + 0.85 * (a

  “share” of the PageRank of every page that links to it). “share” = the

  linking page’s PageRank divided by the number of outbound links on the

  page. A page “votes” an amount of PageRank onto each page that it links

  to. The amount of PageRank that it has to vote with is a little less

  than its own PageRank value (its own value * 0.85). This value is shared

  equally between all the pages that it links to.” [Google's Page Rank]

• “The core Google PageRank algorithm “distributes” it’s established PR across all of the outbound links.

  Put differently, if you had a web page with a PR8 and had 1 link on it,

  the site linked to would get a fair amount of PR value. But, if you had

  100 links on that page, each individual link would only get a fraction

  of the value.” [The Importance of PageRank]

• “From

  this, we could conclude that a link from a page with PR4 and 5 outbound

  links is worth more than a link from a page with PR8 and 100 outbound

  links. The PageRank of a page that links to yours is important but the

  number of links on that page is also important. The more links there are

  on a page, the less PageRank value your page will receive from it.” [Google's Page Rank]

• “PageRank [..] uses the link structure

  as an indicator of an individual page’s value. Google interprets a link

  from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. Google looks at

  considerably more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page

  receives; e.g. it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast

  by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to

  make other pages “important.” [Google: Technology]

• “Not all links weight the same

  when it comes to PR. So an ‘important’ page linking to you gives you

  more PR than a ‘less important’ one. [...] A factor in PR propagation is

  the number of out-links the ‘voting’ page have. So a PR4 page with only

  one out-link on it might give you more weight than a PR5 page with 100

  out-links on it. A typical example here would be the famous

  milliondollarhomepage. This page is PR7 page with hunderds of out-links

  therefore its weight is would contribute very little to your page PR.”

  [Google PageRank Explained]

• Each Page Rank level is progressively harder to reach.

  “PageRank is logarithmic in its calculation. In the same way that the

  earthquake Richter scale is exponential in calculation, so too is the

  mathematics behind Google PageRank. It takes one step to move from a PR0

  to a PR1, it takes a few more steps to PR3, it takes even more steps to

  PR4, and many more steps again to PR5, and so one.” [Google Page Rank FAQ]

The Page Rank algorithm]

1.3. Which factors do have an impact on PageRank?

• Each inbound link is important to the overall total. Except banned sites.

  “PageRank is a form of a voting system. A link to a page is a vote for

  that page. Higher PageRank pages are viewed by Google as more important.

  Their votes are given more value by Google — much more value, in some

  cases. In general, the more voting links, the stronger the PageRank.” [Google PageRank FAQ]

• Adding new pages can decrease Page Rank.

  “The effect is that, whilst the total PageRank in the site is

  increased, one or more of the existing pages will suffer a PageRank loss

  due to the new page making gains. Up to a point, the more new pages

  that are added, the greater is the loss to the existing pages. With

  large sites, this effect is unlikely to be noticed but, with smaller

  ones, it probably would.” [PageRank Explained]

• Page Rank can decrease.

  “You can lose some important links that are no longer linking to your

  site. PR loss can also occur if some of your linking partners also

  experience a drop in their own PR, possibly setting off a chain reaction

  of lower PageRank all through the immediate linking network.” [Google PageRank FAQ]

• Links from and to high quality related sites are important.

  “The more closely related the pages, the higher the PageRank amount

  transferred.” “Linking to high quality sites shows the search engines

  your site is very useful to your visitors. Unless your site has been

  around for years and is well established and trusted by Google, this

  factor will have an adverse effect on your site’s overall ranking.

  Linking only to high quality content sites will give your site an edge

  over your competition.” [Let Google's Algorithm Show You The Traffic, FAQ]

• Incoming Links from popular sites are important. If pages linking to you have a high PageRank then your page gains some part of their reputation.
• Site

  can be banned if it links to banned sites. “Be extremely careful of any

  out-going links from your site. Don’t link to bad neighborhoods (link

  farms, banned sites, etc.) Google will penalize you for bad links so

  always check the PageRank of the sites you’re linking to from your

  site.” [SiteProNews]

• Illegal activities will penalize your PageRank

  and possibly ban your site from Google. “Hidden text, deceptive

  redirects, cloaking, automated link exchanges, or anything else against Google’s quality guidelines” can ban your site from Google.

• Myth: the higher your google PageRank, the better the results.

  “While pages with a higher PageRank do tend to rank better, it is

  perfectly normal for a site to appear higher in the results listings

  even though it has a lower PageRank than competing pages. [..] Google

  examines the context of your incoming links, and only those links that

  relate to the specific keyword being searched on will help you achieve a

  higher ranking for that keyword.” [Top 10 Google Myths Revealed]

• Related high ranked web-sites count stronger (or don’t they?).

  “One-way inbound links from websites with topics that are related to

  your website’s topic will help you gain a higher Page Rank.” Other

  one-way inbound links from pages with high page rank but unrelated

  topics do help a little, but not nearly as much. [What Is Page Rank?]

• Different

  pages from a site can have different Page Rank. “Search engines crawl

  and index webpages not websites, that is why your page rank may vary

  from page to page within your website.” [What Is Page Rank?]

1.4. Which factors don’t have an impact on PageRank?

• Frequent content updates don’t improve PR automatically.” Although Google might send crawlers more frequently to analyze your site, what is more significant are links pointing to you.
• “Content

  is not taken into account when PageRank is calculated. Content is taken

  into account when you actually perform a search for specific search

  terms.” [Google PageRank]

• “High

  PageRank does NOT guarantee a high search ranking for any particular

  term. If it did, then PR10 sites like Adobe would always show up for any

  search you do. They don’t.” [What Is Google PageRank?

• Google considers site age, backlink relevancy and backlink duration. PageRank doesn't. If backlink isn't relevant, it won't weight much.
• Wikipedia Links don't improve Page Rank. "Wikipedia implemented a no-follow rule, indicating that outbound links should not be followed by search engine spiders." [A Survival Guide to SEO & Wikipedia]
• Listing in DMOZ and Yahoo! doesn’t give your site a special PR Bonus.

  “Google uses Open Directory Project (DMOZ.org), to power its directory.

  Coupling that fact with the observation that sites listed in DMOZ often

  get decent and inexplicable PageRank boosts, has lead many to conclude

  that Google gives a special bonus to sites listed in DMOZ. This is

  simply not true. The only bonus gained from being in DMOZ is the same

  bonus a site would achieve from being linked to by any other site.”

  However, DMOZ data is used by hundreds of sites.” [Top 10 Google Myths Revealed]

• Sub-directories don’t necessarily have a lower Page Rank than root-directories. Depending on the popularity of a web-site your subdirectories can have a higher PageRank than the root pages.
• Meta-Tags

  don’t improve PageRank. “Google can sometimes use the meta description

  tag to create an abstract for your site, so it may be useful to you if

  your home page is primarily composed of graphics. However, do not expect

  it to increase your rank.” [10 Google Myths Revealed]

• .edu and .gov-sites do not provide higher PageRank (or do they?).“We

  don’t really have much in the way to say “Oh this is a link from the

  ODP, or .gov, or .edu, so give that some sort of special boost.” Its

  just those sites tend to have higher PageRank because-because more

  people link to them and reputable people link to them.” [A Google Myth Busted]

• Links marked with nofollow-attribute don’t contribute to Google PageRank.

  “Google implemented a new value, “nofollow”, for the rel attribute of

  HTML link and anchor elements, so that website builders and bloggers can

  make links that Google will not consider for the purposes of PageRank —

  they are links that no longer constitute a “vote” in the PageRank

  system.” [Wikipedia: PageRank]

• Multiple

  votes to one link from the same page cost as much as a single vote. “It

  is reasonable to assume that a page can cast only one vote for another

  page, and that additional votes for the same page are not counted.” [PageRank FAQ]

• Links

  from one page to itself don’t improve Page Rank. “It is reasonable to

  assume that a page can’t vote for itself, and that such links are not

  counted.” [PageRank Explained]

• Bad incoming links don’t have impact on Page Rank. “Where the links come from doesn’t matter. Sites are not penalized because of where the links come from.” [Google PageRank]
• Dangling links don’t have impact on Page Rank.

  “Dangling links are simply links that point to any page with no

  outgoing links. They affect the model because it is not clear where

  their weight should be distributed, and there are a large number of

  them. Because dangling links do not affect the ranking of any other page

  directly, we simply remove them from the system until all the PageRanks

  are calculated. After all the PageRanks are calculated they can be

  added back in without affecting things significantly.” [PageRank Paper]

1.5. Ranking Factors (related to PageRank)

• Efficient internal onsite linking is important.

  “Internal linking is important to your overall ranking. Make sure your

  linking structure is easy for the spiders to crawl. Most suggest a

  simple hierarchy with links no more than three clicks away from your

  home/index page. Creating traffic modes or clusters of related links

  within a section on your site has proven very effective.” [Let Google's Algorithm Show You The Traffic

• Anchor text is important. The more specific is the reference, the better Google can evaluate it and consider it in relates search queries.
• Google penalizes link farms. "Google is only concerned with pages of over 100

  outgoing links. Google considers overly linked pages to be link farms, and they are penalized as such." [Google FAQ]

• Headers (h1, … ,h6), strong tags and semantic content are important. (Update:

  But it doesn’t improve PageRank.) “Place it in the description and meta

  tags, place it in bold/strong tags, but keep your content readable and

  useful. Be aware of the text surrounding your keywords, search engines

  will become more semantic in the coming years so context is important.” [Let Google's Algorithm Show You The Traffic

• "The anchor text of a link is often far more important than whether it's on a high PageRank page." [What Is Google PageRank?
• "If

  you really want to know what are the most important, relevant pages to

  get links from, forget PageRank. Think search rank. Search for the words

  you'd like to rank for. See what pages come up tops in Google. Those

  are the most important and relevant pages you want to seek links from.

  That's because Google is explicitly telling you that on the topic you

  searched for, these are the best." [What Is Google PageRank?]

2.1. Google PageRank: Theory & Scientific Background

• A Survey of Google’s PageRank

  Calculation of Page Rank, Page Rank Implementation, Inbound Links,

  Outbound Links, Number of Pages, PageRank Distribution, Additional

  Factors and more.

• The Lineal Algebra Behind Google

  The $25,000,000,000 Eigenvector – The Linear Algebra Behind Google.

  Google’s success derives in large part from its PageRank algorithm,

  which ranks the importance of webpages according to an eigenvector of a

  weighted link matrix. Analysis of the PageRank formula provides a

  wonderful applied topic for a linear algebra course.

• The Intelligent Surfer: Probabilistic Combination of Link and Content Information in PageRank

  We propose to improve Page-Rank by using a more intelligent surfer, one

  that is guided by a probabilistic model of the relevance of a page to a

  query. Efficient execution of our algorithm at query time is made

  possible by precomputing at crawl time (and thus once for all queries)

  the necessary terms.

• Topic-Sensitive PageRank

  To yield more accurate search results, we propose computing a set of

  PageRank vectors, biased using a set of representative topics, to

  capture more accurately the notion of importance with respect to a

  particular topic. By using these (precomputed) biased PageRank vectors

  to generate query-specific importance scores for pages at query time, we

  show that we can generate more accurate rankings than with a single,

  generic PageRank vector.

• Method for node ranking in a linked database

  A method assigns importance ranks to nodes in a linked database, such

  as any database of documents containing citations, the world wide web or

  any other hypermedia database. The rank assigned to a document is

  calculated from the ranks of documents citing it. In addition, the rank

  of a document is calculated from a constant representing the probability

  that a browser through the database will randomly jump to the document.

  By Page and Lawrence.

• How Google Finds Your Needle in the Web’s Haystack

  Mathematical Background of Google PageRank. By David Austin, Grand Valley State University

• A Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine

  Original Slides, by Larry Page.

• Wikipedia: PageRank

  Mathematical Theory Behind Google PageRank

3.1. Google PageRank Tools & Services

• PageRank Search

  Showing search results in order of PageRank.

• Google PageRank Inspector.

  Google PageRank inspector is PHP scripts that can seek all of your

  website, include out linked page or not, and display Pagerank value for

  each of your website pages. New pages linked by high pagerank pages can

  be indexed in google quickly and have higher keyword rank in google

  search.

• Google’s PageRank – Calculator

  The results produced by the calculator indicate each page’s PageRank

  share and are not equivalent to the values in the Google toolbar.

• Webmastereyes, Visual PageRank View

  The results will show the page given along with the PageRank of each

  link on that page. You also have the option to show “nofollow” and

  external links.

• Smart PageRank

  Checks PageRank from multiple datacenters and sends emails automatically if PageRank is updated.

• Google PageRank Notifier

  “This script will send you an email whenever the PageRank of the given

  page changes. PageRank is taken from the Google Toolbar “API” and is

  updated once an hour.”

• Google PageRank™ Checker (registration required)

  You can monitor site’s PageRank via RSS and you can also be notified via e-mail when the PageRank has been changed.

• Dig PageRank

  Checks the current Page Rank of a page in over 100 Google data centers.

• Live PageRank Check

  The Live PageRank value may be used as an indicator of what will show

  when Google decides to export the PageRank values to the Google Toolbar.

  The Live PageRank calculator gives you the current PageRank value in

  the Google index, not just the snapshot that is displayed in the

  toolbar. Google updates its internal PageRank value continuously as the

  web changes and their index is updated. Only once every third month or

  so this value is exported to be displayed in the Google Toolbar.

• Page Rank Widget for Mac OS X.

  Llittle Widget finds the Google Page Rank for any URL by calculating the checksum and requesting the PR from Google’s servers.

• Google PageRank Prediction

  The tool analyzes the popularity of a given web-site and tries to predict its future Google PageRank. More Page Rank Tools.

• PageRank Checker

  Shows PageRank of your backlinks.

• PageRank Overlay (PR Mapper) (both currently offline)

  Browse your competitors website and view the Google PR of all the links at once. Also available as Firefox Extension.

• PageRank Decoder (Demo)

  “This little tool is not too much different then a tool that tells you

  your PageRank, however it allows you to organize your sites (with PR

  information) in a visual network and then correspondingly connect them

  with arrows. You can move them around like cards, connect them or not,

  and even delete them by throwing them in a trash can.” [Search Engine Roundtable]

• Page Rank Export List History

  This Page Rank Update/Export List History contains the dates that Google Toolbar Pagerank (PR) was exported.

• Google Ranking Factors

  Alleged positive and negative SEO Google Ranking Factors

3.2. Google Tools & Services

• Google Quality Guidelines

  These quality guidelines cover the most common forms of deceptive or

  manipulative behavior, but Google may respond negatively to other

  misleading practices not listed here (e.g. tricking users by registering

  misspellings of well-known websites).

• Check if your site is in Google database
• Reinclusion request form

  Request reinclusion of a site that has violated the webmaster guidelines

• Google Tools

  A comprehensive overview on Dmoz.org.

]]> http://layercakemarketing.com/blog/google-pagerank/feed/ 0 http://layercakemarketing.com/blog/redirecting-an-old-domain/ http://layercakemarketing.com/blog/redirecting-an-old-domain/#comments Tue, 22 Mar 2011 17:50:14 +0000 Eric Larson http://layercakemarketing.com/?p=1817 When you migrate a site from one domain to another, it is very important that you don’t break all the links that you built to your old domain. Proper redirection of all the pages on the old domain to the same location on the new domain will ensure that visitors to the old domain will end up in the right place. A failure to redirect will result in a loss of visitors as well as search engine rankings.

We are assuming that your web server uses Apache for the purpose of this tutorial. If you have not made any changes to your overall site structure, but have simply relocated the site in its current state, you can add the following lines to your .htaccess file located at the root of your old domain:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^olddomain.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.olddomain.com$
RewriteRule (.*)$ http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

If you have made changes to your site structure, you can still use the lines above on your old domain, but you will also need to create redirects in the .htaccess file on your new domain to handle the specific site changes.

To redirect a single page to a new location on the same domain, use the following syntax:

Redirect 301 /old/old.htm http://www.domain.com/new.htm

It is possible to create rules that will redirect URLs that follow a certain pattern to a new location. Since these rules involve complex regular expressions, we do not cover them here. An SEO professional can help you create these more complex and situation-specific rules. Just be sure that you use a 301 redirect for relocated content. Any other type of redirect will not preserve your search engine rankings.

Edit the contents of the file. Check the following examples:
Point an entire site to a different URL, such as domain.net redirected to domain.com:

# This allows you to redirect your entire website to any other domain
Redirect 301 / http://example.com/

Redirect index.html to a specific subfolder:

# This allows you to redirect index.html to a specific subfolder
Redirect /index.html http://example.com/newdirectory/

Redirect an old file to a new file path:

# Redirect old file path to new file path
Redirect /olddirectory/oldfile.html http://example.com/newdirectory/newfile.html

Redirect to a specific index page:

# Provide Specific Index Page (Set the default handler)
DirectoryIndex index.html

Redirect users to access the site without www:

# To redirect all users to access the site WITHOUT the www. prefix,
# (http://www.example.com will be redirected to http://example.com)
# adapt and uncomment the following:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.mt-example\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Redirect users to use www:

# To redirect all users to access the site WITH the www. prefix,
# (http://example.com will be redirected to http://www.example.com)
# adapt and uncomment the following:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.mt-example\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mt-example.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Redirect viewers of your domain to use the secure version of your domain:

An easy to way to always redirect the user to secure connection (https://) can be accomplished with the following lines:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [R,L]

Redirect users to www for http:// and https://

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.mt-example\.net$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mt-example.net/$1 [L,R=301]

RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 443
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.mt-example\.net$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.mt-example.net/$1 [L,R=301]

Redirect users to use https:// for a particular folder:

In case you wish to force HTTPS for a particular folder you can use the following:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} somefolder
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/somefolder/$1 [R,L]

]]> http://layercakemarketing.com/blog/redirecting-an-old-domain/feed/ 0