A hard-core Windows lover takes on Ubuntu 7.04 for the first time and Live Blogs the whole experience. Does he love it? Hate it? Can he even get it working? Is Linux finally ready for the desktop? more

Please excuse the dramatic start to this post. Between the anticipation of rolling this out and my incessant Harry Potter reading, I couldn’t resist.

Once upon a time, on the World Wide Web, all URLs were fixed strings — static in form. The idea of URL parameters then came along, allowing for database driven sites and session ids in URLs to create personalized experiences for users. At that time, the Web was alive with rich data and experiences. Then came the crawlers, which made it easier for users to navigate through the Web; however, they inevitably battled with dynamic URL parameters and every webmaster had to choose between a dynamic site and search traffic. more

On Friday, Google Operating System noticed that Google Reader will tell you Google Reader subscriber numbers for a blog when you search to add a new feed. It didn’t take long for different folks to start collecting subscriber numbers for different blogs. I haven’t asked the Reader team about this, but it looks like this is just the counts for Google Reader subscribers. Before charging off to compute a bunch of stats, you should know a few things: read full article

A web counter or hit counter is a computer software program that indicates the number of visitors, or hits, a particular webpage has received. Once set up, these counters will be incremented by one every time the web page is accessed in a web browser

The number is usually displayed as an inline digital image or in plain text. Images may be presented in a variety of fonts, or styles; the classic example is the wheels of an odometer. The counter often is accompanied by the date it was set up or last reset, otherwise it becomes impossible to estimate within what time the number of page loads counted occurred.

Web counters are not necessarily trustworthy. A webmaster could start the counter at a high number to give the impression that the site is more popular than it actually is or use a traffic generator to increase their hits automatically.

Some websites have been known to offer prizes to the visitor who makes the web counter roll-over to a specific number. Such an event is known as a kiriban.

At one time it was common to see a hit counter on every page, but this is no longer the case for several reasons:

• They have been replaced (or augmented) by more complicated web analytics methodologies that give the webmaster a better overall picture of site traffic besides a simple, perpetually increasing number.
• As style elements, they are no longer associated with the impression of professional web design—some people consider web counters to be a “gimmicky” feature and they are thus typically found on personal pages created by individuals.
• The number of visitors to a site may be a trade secret
• Too small a number might indicate the page’s lack of popularity. Removing the counter thus levels the playing field.

Despite this, numerous companies continue to offer free and premium webcounter services. Some services also provide more detailed information on visitors, pages views, etc., using advanced techniques.

A number of factors are important when optimising a website, including the content and structure of the website’s copy and page layout, the HTML meta-tags and the submission process as well as off page factors, such as the number of links you have to your website. This work needs to be done on an ongoing basis to improve your search engine rankings, Google especially is always looking for fresh content as well as links to your site from established third parties and well respected websites.

How to get a high ranking?

As well as having a well optimised and well designed website here are some of the current known facts that will assist your website in obtaining better rankings:-

The number of links to your website

The age of your website

Quality content & regular updates

The addition of new web pages

A well designed website

Links on web pages of Google PR4, or above

On page factors such as your Title & Meta tags

Ethical Methods

If you are unfamiliar with optimisation, we should mention that ethical methods for website seo are essential, to ensure that any seo work will have a positive effect on your site, not a negative one.

Over the past few years the search engines have clamped down on various ‘non-ethical’ methods of optimisation, a few such examples include ‘keyword stuffing’, ‘doorway pages’ and ‘hidden text’. It is important that your optimisation company is aware and up to date with all the latest requirements regarding the design and optimisation of your site, otherwise rather than having a top ten listing for your site, you may find your site banned instead?.