Definition

Essentially, server virtualization is partitioning a single physical computer server into several ‘virtual’ servers, so that each can run their own functions with the full capability of a server. Special software enacts this division, meaning you can run several functions or operating systems on a single computer or computing system without any decline in performance. Like the ‘cloud’ is spearheading the idea of storing data in locations that are auxiliary to physical drives, server virtualization is doing a similar thing for operating systems.

Advantages of Virtualization

The primary benefit of server virtualization is the ability of companies to keep IT costs down. Physical servers and the software they require are expensive, so the ability to pay for just one server, but be provided with multiple functions is very advantageous. It also means that smaller companies can run their websites more cheaply. You also save on maintenance costs, with only a single server to maintain, and reduce energy consumption.

Sever virtualization helps increase efficiency. Data storage is used more effectively and different functions, because they are on their own servers, do not impact upon other. As a small-scale example, if you are trying to use several different programs on your personal PC, performance is slowed because a single server (which is running the software on your computer) is trying to execute all the tasks. If each had its own server, this does not occur.

Server virtualization also enables you to run multiple operating programs through a single hardware server.

Disadvantages of Virtualization

There are potential downsides to server virtualization. One of the most obvious is that if the host server fails, all of the clients dependent on that server (which is running each of the virtual systems) will find there functions halted. Increasingly, server virtualization providers are using clusters of physical servers as backups for such an eventuality, but this may increase costs.

A second drawback is unequal growth between common server clients. If, say, one client, experiences major growth in traffic to their website, they will require more bandwidth and data storage allocation than their smaller counterparts, leaving the latter with fewer resources and less functionality to run their operations. A follow-on from this is the question of bleed-over, when a function – such as limiting bandwidth for each user – is instigated by one client without applying the function to their site only, meaning others are affected by the limitation.

As with many computing functions, a major concern with server virtualization is security. While such a system is designed to keep each virtual server separate, the fact that they are on the same physical system can mean security breaches, such as another client being able to access your website. These are uncommon, but worth bearing in mind when choosing a provider – check the security features they offer.

Credits

Information provided by Nexus Open Systems Ltd.

Photo taken by “Brcwcs” on sxc.hu.

• Saint Michael’s Hospice - http://www.saintmichaelshospice.org/
• North Yorkshire’s Air Ambulance - http://www.yorkshireairambulance.org.uk/
• Girlguiding North East - http://www.girlguidingnortheast.org.uk/

There was also a stand to hook a duck up with the potential of winning some sweets and a Cake Stall (would be rude not to have visited there right?). We also spent a sometime talking to the Girl Guide’s own stand, where Oliver got to have a go at cooking some sausages in true survival style. On top of a tin with a candle, which he enjoyed a lot. And of course lots of sitting and enjoying the music.

The trip was rounded up with a play in the park, then getting three Hot Chocolates to go from the local Cafe, giving some Money to a Lady dressed like Queen Elizabeth, who Oliver managed to spend a good 2 -3 minutes discussing his play in the park with (we think) and finally some more local  music.

A list of the bands who played (apologies if I’ve missed any), also a link to all the relevant Facebook Fan Pages I could find:

• Tweak - http://www.facebook.com/TweakAreCool
• The Dukes of Bevington - http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Dukes-of-Bevington/241569737871
• Kasiuss - http://www.facebook.com/kasiuss
• The Specs - http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Specs/141502132580946
• The Tickets - http://www.facebook.com/TheTicketsMusic
• Dark Days of September

I have to be honest, it was a lot better than I expected so didn’t take my camera, I did manage to get a few snaps on my iPhone though which I share with you below:

The first question I asked myself was how many possible combinations are there. I assumed there would be a lot. But the total number is actually lower than I expected. A simple sum to work it out:

26 x 26 x 26 = 17, 576 Possible combinations of 3 letter .co.uk domain names.

So, the next task was to attempt to figure out what all the possible combinations are, as my programming skills aren’t the best, I  figured it would be best to start with a Quick Google search to see if I could find a list of all the possible 3 letter combinations. Sure enough I found an excel spreadsheet linked to from a forum. After collating all of these together, I actually only had 17,496. Either my math is wrong, or I’m a few short. Alas, its good enough to fulfil my question.

So from this spreadsheet I’ve managed to create a full list of all the possible 3 letter .co.uk domains. If your interested, the text file can be downloaded here, you might want to Right Click, Save As, rather than just viewing.

The next thing to do is find out which ones are taken and which are still available to register. To do this I’ve used my DAC access, a MySQL Database and a PHP Script I knocked together to store whether each domain is available.

The Results

The results of this investigation show that 100% percent of 3 letter .co.uk domain names are currently registered or within the suspension period. The only exceptions being: org.co.uk; net.co.uk and com.co.uk which aren’t allowed to be registered. From this its clear that values probably aren’t being over inflated at all, so if you have the opportunity to pick one up – it could well be a worthwhile investment, especially as the amount of .co.uk domain’s being registered continues to increase year on year.

If you want to see the results, click here to see the exported CSV from my database.

When I get a spare 5 minutes, I might have a look at how .org.uk fairs up against its more popular rival.

Identify the Problem(s)

The first and probably the most important part of this is identifying the problem with your inbound links or website. As Google is becoming more and more transparent this is now pretty easy to do, but there are still plenty of instances of websites disappearing without any real explanation as to why.

If you don’t know the problem

When your in this boat, life is probably the hardest, I would start by taking a long hard look at your own website. Ask yourself some simple questions:

• Do I have plenty of unique content and a functional, clearly laid out website? If the answer is no, then you need to clean this up. With millions of websites on the internet, in a single sector – why is Google going to rank a confusing website? It isn’t.
• Am I cloaking users? Whether intentional or not, I’ve seen it done unintentionally many times before. This can be hard even for someone internal to detect, but Google has fortunately provided a simple tool for you to begin. Go into webmaster tools and request your website (both homepage and internals) as Google Bot. If the sources are different, you have a big problem.
•  Do I have lots of Content (good or bad) detached, or difficult to Navigate to from the rest of your site? The chances are these pages are there for Google’s benefit only. These are called doorway pages, remove them.
• Why did I drop for Key Phrase [x]? Assuming you haven’t done any radical on-site changes, I think that pretty much means you’ve been filtered for buying/sourcing too many links either on the wrong types of websites or with very similar anchor text over and over again.
• But I got a great big slap? I didn’t just lose one or a couple key phrases, I lost everything, brand included – well I’ve seen this a couple of times and its usually because your a link buying machine with an impressively big budget. This is usually a big clean up moment, or time to change domain. Oh as well as time to look at how your link buying. Quality, not quantity, if your going to buy at all.

So assuming you’ve figured out what your doing wrong (you can skip the next heading).

I’ve had a message in Webmaster Tools..

So you’ve identified the problem, in most cases you won’t have much to prepare – if its on-site, you just need to fully document what you identified as the problem and how its been fixed. If however your reinclusion request relates to the Unnatural Link Warning, please read on..

Square one, don’t panic. Your probably going to lose most if not all of your non-brand rankings in the very near future, if you haven’t already. A reinclsuion request takes up to 3 weeks, so it might be worth going and telling the boss the bad news. Now, lets get these links tidied up.

Step two, depending on who you are:

• Time to call your SEO Agency, and ask them what they’ve been doing? (Although your probably already aware). Get them to send you a list of all the links they’ve ever placed and begin reviewing them. Begin formulating a plan with them.
• Alternatively, if you are the SEO Agency and you have no idea whats happened, time to login to Majestic SEO or Google Webmaster Tools and get the full list of back links from either.

Put the data you’ve collected into a spreadsheet, in particular we’re just interested in the URL’s, so filter it down to just that, and then create a comments and status columns.

Examples of Messages

If you’ve got Doorway style pages, poor site architecture and a lack of quality content would cause one of these:

The Unnatural Links Detected Message will look a lot like this:

Identifying the Bad Links

This is the first painful bit your going to have to endure. Its time to view every page thats linking to you. Obviously don’t view every page if you have a sitewide link though

So, if your fortunate to have two screens at work, you want your spreadsheet open on one side and your web browser on the other, this is the questions I’d be asking myself as I viewed each website linking to me:

• Did I pay for this?
• Is it a HTML Widget/Banner?
• Does the website look like its only there to push links out to other websites? There are some pretty obvious things to look for..
  - If its a Blog, does every or most link look like a commercial kind of link? With strange anchor text?
  - Again, if its a blog, check out the about page – if its the wordpress default, this probably isn’t someone you want a link from
  - Does it have clear Contact Details?
  - Does it have affiliate or Adsense as well? If not what monetisation is it using..
• Why would a website talking about Fishing, be linking to a Cruise Company? Or more seriously Is this website not about the same thing as my website is about? Exclusions: Someone talking about there Holiday, a News outlet, a sensible forum conversation, etc.
  If you answered, well because they can both happen in the same place, your definitely an SEO.
• Is this link a comment? And is the Commenters name your target Key Phrase?
  NB: Its ok to link in comments, note I said ‘in’ comments, as part of a sensible conversation. Using your name as a Key Phrase is in Matt Cutts words SCSI.
• Is this forum user, who lists my website as his own not a member of my organisation?
• Is the content labelled as Advertorial?
• Should this site really be giving me a sitewide link? Is it on-topic? Do I have a relationship with the site?

A little common sense throughout this task will go along way, but those are some pointers to get you underway. Go through and evaluate all the links, mark comments against each. Anything deemed ok, should be filtered out. You now have a hit list. Timeto get your SEO pulling them down.

The Pull Down

Everything you deem bad, should be removed, get your SEO to begin contacting all the webmasters of these sites, regardless of how embarising it might be for him or her and get it all taken down. Everything. This needs to be full documented in the spreadsheet, detailing the Status of each link e.g. “Requested” or “Removed” or “Changed to No-Follow”. In the comments you need to note how many times you’ve followed this up. Be pro-active, chase these webmasters if they arent responding but dont harass them. Dont let your SEO agency talk you out of removing anything you’ve decided doesn’t quite fit.

So now you’ve reached a point where you have essentially done as much as you can. Put all of this data in a Google Doc Spreadsheet and get ready.

Writing your Reinclusion Request

Google have really provided plenty of information on what you should include in a reinclusion request (in the YouTube video below) however some general pointers:

• Document everything you’ve done in great detail, e.g. if you’ve noticed your site was cloaking (whether intentional or not) explain the process you’ve gone through to indentify the cloaking
• Share your Google Document, with detailed notes on whats been done with your links
• Don’t try and pull a fast one, this is Google – they have massive data centres, masses of data and they’re one of the biggest companies in the world who only employ graduate educated staff. It won’t work.
• Make it clear that you will not be violating there Webmaster Guidelines again, essentially tell them you’ve learn’t your lesson.
• Ask for reinclusion.

Googles Engineers talk about Writing a Reinclusion Request

This will help, watch it:

The Reply

Depending on Circumstance one of three things could happen at this point, we’ve only ever seen two through the Webmaster Console, you could get a prewritten “no” or “welcome back”. There are a few variations of each. If your really lucky, or a really big brand, you might get a special message back from someone properly.

Some examples of replies in the Google Webmaster Console:

 Manual Spam Action Revoked:

You still have bad links, clean up more an try again:

There are some others to, but these are the important ones..

Concluding thoughts

Its never very easy to get back from a Penalty, but it is possible, it does require a genuine effort from the SEO Agency and Webmasters alike. I’m not going to sell myself as I really have no interest in spending my personal time getting your website reincluded,  it is a hard job. However my employers and I do have a lot of experience. So if you have tried and tried and do need some help, feel free to talk to Bronco. We will be able to offer a one-off consultancy call (we usually review the sites before calls) or a full reinclusion service*. Click here to get in touch with them..

* = No Guaranteed Reinclusion, but we do our best!

Now, while his story is a modern morality tale, his words – taken out of context and with a sly wink – apply powerfully to SEO.

Lunch is for wimps

Google never sleeps. Round the clock, the algorithm works, finding new flaws and opening up new loopholes. Knowledge is out of date faster than an overripe banana. If you’re not checking your rankings every day, if you’re not reading the latest thoughts

It’s a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses.

In SEO, there is only one #1 position. From #2 on down, you’re picking up the crumbs from someone else’s table. Those crumbs can be enough to make a living – but you should always, always be driving for that #1 slot. If that means someone else gets hurt, who cares?

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.

Always want more. If you have a million organic visits a month, you have to be greedy for 2 million. Without that drive, you find yourself sliding back without even noticing it. If you’re not hungry enough, you can be certain that someone else is – and unless you want them to eat your lunch, it’s better to eat it yourself first. Even if you’re not hungry.

What’s worth doing is worth doing for money.

If you’ve got a talent – for building links, driving traffic or getting better rankings – it’s worth money. If you can’t find someone to pay your commercial worth, go create your own value. Every day, billions of queries run through Google alone  – every one of them can be monetised if you’re smart. Find a niche and dominate it. Your time and knowledge is money – treat it accordingly.

The most valuable commodity I know of is information.

Data. Data. Data. It’s the lifeblood of SEO. If you don’t what links the competition have got, how they got them and what they’re worth, then you’ve got nothing. You need to know how websites work – from the front end, through the back end, and through to the very infrastructure on which they run. You need to know how and why Google do what they do. Research, test and discuss: there is no other way.

Sheep get slaughtered.

If your only strategy is to follow the competition, you’ll lose. You get no prizes for finding the same loophole that your competitor found last week. By that time, he’s cleaned up and you’re just chasing his tail.

It’s all about bucks, kid. The rest is conversation.

A number one ranking is great for bragging rights. But if that isn’t creating money, who cares? Ranking is only a means of getting traffic. And traffic is only a means of getting money. If all you’ve got is a ranking, then you’ve really got nothing. Turning that into cold, hard cash is the name of the game.

The information was exposed by a blogger, Chris Soghoian. He was approached by the PR company, Burson-Marsteller, and asked to publish these anti-Google stories on his blog. He decided he did not want to continue with doing this and so made public the emails he had received form the marketing company.

There was much speculation about which company it could have been that were behind them. However, eventually The Daily beast, which is a news website uncovered that it was Facebook who were paying the PR company to do it.

Facebook has admitted that it was them who paid the PR company but have denied reports that it was a smear campaign. They claimed that they just wanted to make people aware of what Google was doing with their data.

It is no secret that Facebook and Google do not get on. They cannot agree on data sharing methods and they have also both worked hard at projecting a relaxed image of their companies being owned by laid back young men when in fact this has revealed the power and energy of the corporate giants.

It has not only damaged the reputation of the PR company but will have also tarnished that of Facebook, meaning that Google has come out as the victim, which is a good thing for them and certainly not the result that Facebook were looking for.

They have had Google’s backing on this and it will not include organic search results unless they are to be used in any marketing content. It could be confusing to therefore work out exactly what is included in this. Examples could be if Google has a search result with an incorrect price in it, due that price recently changing. This could be a big problem if the price has increased but the ASA would consider it to Googles responsibility to check the details and therefore there would be no action taken.

However, the type of things they are interested in is if there are paid links which are undisclosed. An example of this would be an SEO company buying a link from a blogger in order to increase their rankings in search engines and directories. They will not be banning this type of thing but want to make sure that people using the blog would easily know that it was a paid link.

This has consequences in that it is unlikely that SEO companies would want bloggers to reveal that their link is a paid one. In fact many SEO companies that buy blog posts and links at the moment specifically ask, in their guidelines, that the fact it is a paid link should be kept quiet. We all like them to be well hidden within an article or list of links and look like a genuine part of the blog.

It is obvious why we need to do this, but with other advertising, it does have to be clearly labelled. Such as an advertising feature in a magazine or a television advertisement that runs for longer than you would expect and is in a documentary type style. It is easy to see why they think that the Internet should not be managed in a similar way.

This will mean that certain links that don’t current fit Google’s guidelines will not be acceptable by the ASA’s standards and vice versa.

Many people complain about the way Google operates especially with regards to the way they do not take action against larger brands. Although they claim that they do, it is most likely that the ASA will do so as they risk no financial loss in doing so.

The impact this investigation is going to have is not easy to predict, there are already companies such as the Office of Fair Trading who take action to ensure disclaimers are appropriately used. For example many companies that currently pay bloggers for posting have a rule that the blogger must state in the terms and conditions that some of their posts are sponsored. However, this may not be enough to satisfy the ASA.

If the ASA do start acting and forcing these changes then more people are likely to highlight the problems to them and it is likely that they will be more influential than Google in these matters.

The bottom line is – this could potentially hurt SEO a lot!

Dating Profile and Sign Up

You can just sign up to the site with an email and a username, but your profile will only be visible in the site by completing all of the sections. Sign-up is painless, and it’s reassuring to see that they promise not to share your data with any other sites or advertisers. There are two ways to create a profile. The Profile Wizard is the quick and painless way and good for starters – you choose from a series of word clouds, and a templated profile is created for you. Alternatively you can write it yourself (in my experience, you get a much better response if your write something personal).

Search and Contacting

You can search by several different criteria on IllicitEncounters.com (gender, location, photos etc.). Results are displayed in an easy-to-read list, with a photo and decent description. There were hundreds of female members in my area, who seemed of a much higher quality than I’ve seen on similar sites.

Contacting other members is only possible if you upgrade, but free membership thankfully gives you a very good idea of what you’re going to get if you do. Once upgraded, contact is simple (message or chat), and IE has the added option of showing your full conversation threads with other members meaning that you don’t have to sift through your inbox looking for earlier correspondence!

Special Features

Not so much a ‘feature’, but the site’s members just seem of a completely different league to most sites; intelligent, genuine, and refreshingly honest about what they’re looking for. Profile are well-written and heartfelt, and the response rate to messages is very good. Also, IE is unique in that it is policed by a human admin team, meaning that scammers and escorts are nowhere to be seen. The site are so confident that you won’t find any ‘professionals’ that they offer members free membership packages if they find one. If you have any problems, you can just pick up the phone and call them – a world away from the White Label sites that make it impossible for you to contact them. I also like the ‘Panic’ button which instantly takes you to an innocuous site such as Google should your other half inadvertently enter the room whilst you’re surfing Illicit Encounters.

It also bears repeating that you can try out 95% of the site without even signing up. It’s nice to know that the site trust their success enough to invite possible members in to try it out for themselves without paying a penny.

Conclusion

IllicitEncounters.com is one of the more expensive dating sites out there, but you pay for what you get – a real quality service and access to thousands of genuine, like-minded individuals. Most definitely the wisest choice for UK spouses looking for a bit of extramarital fun.

Call of Duty is a game set in a warzone and can be played on a personal computer. The game features the voice of actor Kiefer Sutherland. The game can be set to single player mode but there is a multi player mode as well as a co-operative mode. Players tend to compete against each on line, trying to get the highest scores that they possibly can.

The attack on the game made it impossible for a selection of people to play the game online and the Metropolitan police were responding to a report made to them in September when the attack happened. Many people reported problems with the connection not working and the company who

A denial of service attack is normally made towards a particular website in order to stop it being used by anyone. It can be extremely detrimental, not only to users but also to the website owners. This particular attack used a program called Phenom Booter. The Phenom Booter program has been found to be on sale on a web forum. The web forum explained how by disabling other players it would allow you to score more points while playing the Call of Duty game and this was possibly the motive for the attack, although police have not yet reported their findings.

The attack did not completely disable the game but ensured that a large amount of people were affected and could not play it. This inconvenienced a lot of players as well as the game company, who had to fix the error. This is why the problem was reported to the police, as it is illegal to attack any online company with anything which causes a denial of service, meaning anything which stops the website working properly.

Police firstly found out that the Phenom Booter program was being run from a UK based server and then eventually traced it to Manchester and specifically the Greater Manchester Area. This allowed them to identify the teenager they feel was responsible. He was arrested under the offences under the Computer Misuse act and is in custody while he is questioned and evidence is gathered.

A police spokesman explained how online gaming is very popular and a lot of sales are made at this time of the year. Anything, which disrupts these games, has an impact of sales as well as on people who currently play the game. They can also tarnish the reputation of the companies who sell the games, making it seem like their games are possibly not worth buying because of this sort of thing happening.  He also explained that this sort of crime can lead to further online crime and so it is important to make sure that it is dealt with properly.

My opinion is based on a couple of local key phrases I’ve been working on which were always organically positioned at number 1, but drowned out by the traditional Google Local listings and map. The change is (again) in my opinion an update to the algorithm.

My trail of thought:

• My organic result which was positioned number 1 organically got merged with my Google Local listing, therefore the site is now Position 1, without a map above it. I.e. we are now being seen an awful lot more which is awesome.
• The people who had optimised for Google Local are still on page 1, if they have a website. Which tends to make me think the ranking factors used in Google Locals top 10 map listings are now part of Googles main algorithm. Thus a local company would stand a better chance of ranking locally because of these new “credits” Google is giving local companies for there target phrases.
• However what this also means (and is being observed) is national companies which have strong pages can build past the new merged local results.

I could be wrong, but I actually think this is a beneficial change which will benefit SEO’s as Local SERPs are now open for play again within Google’s main algorithm and most importantly the top slots which were previously dominated by Map listings have now gone.

Why would they do that?

You may be wondering, well to me it seems obvious. The map listings alone without the rest of the Google algorithm were extremely easy to gain/weak. A lot of affiliates were cloaking the crap out of it for terms such as “Dating in London” which would should channel you off to Adult Friend Finder .. Dirty Affiliates.

So to incorporate Local as a “bonus” to local companies within the main Organic Results seems like an obvious solution.

Of course I haven’t tested it nearly enough to confirm this, but I know if I were Google, this is what I would do.