Here's the deal. I have some simple but very useful rewrite rules on several of my CGI-driven sites, including:

It is also a good idea to use the flag on most rules, which will eliminate the danger of several rules jumping in successively. The fact that you don't see those requests in your logs could hint at a recursive application of some rewrite rules, that is then automatically cut off at a certain level without serving anything to the client.

Good luck! Jim There's nothing obviously wrong with your dynamic2 example, other than that using a relative path name in the replacement string may be ambiguous.

RewriteRule ^dynamic/(. ).html /scripts/content.cgi?page=$1

By the way, I've tested some simplified rules to make sure that my regular expressions are correct, etc. The following two rules do not work on the ISP's servers:

Thanks for your careful read on this. After prodding my ISP a bit more (I've suggested setting up a RewriteLog, but they haven't done that for me yet), I made an interesting discovery. If I browse to either the dynamic2 or the dynamic3 URL through our secure certificate, the rewriting works! Try this:

The suggestions about RewriteBase and RewriteLog are probably the way to go, as especially the latter will tell you what really happens. Hello,

So ... if anyone can suggest how I might use RewriteBase -- or explain the internal processing of a redirect, in simple enough terms for at least an experienced sysadmin at my ISP to understand -- I'd be much obliged!

Btw: In both cases, the error message that Mozilla gives me is The document contains no data.

Our ISP uses a load-balancing system for http requests, but I think https requests are handled by a single server. So it looks like the question is, what exactly about a load-balancing setup would prevent internal redirects from working? And more importantly, is there a way to get around this limitation?

http://www.typea.net/dynamic2/foo.html http://www.typea.net/dynamic3/foo.html http://www.typea.net/dynamic4/foo.html

RewriteRule ^dynamic/(. ).html http://www.typea.net/scripts/content.cgi?page=$1\&%{QUERY_STRING}

...but the links to http://www.typea.net/dynamic2/foo.html and http://www.typea.net/dynamic3/foo.html, which don't use the flag, don't show up in the access log at all. Apache is choking on those requests before it gets to the point of writing to the log. Arlo,

Thanks much, -Arlo Since it is a CGI, you need to use the hack passthrough flag in your rule. I.e.

Cheers, -Arlo Here's one more bit of information that might be useful. The link to http://www.typea.net/dynamic4/foo.html, which triggers an external redirect, shows up in the Apache access log as two requests -- one to /dynamic4/foo.html, and a second one to /greetings.swf, with the first request as the referrer. That's what I'd expect...

but this works:

About all I can think of is to have your ISP compare the server config files between the servers that work and those that don't.

See ya, -Arlo Apache 20 Are they that high? Sorry -- 20! Arlo,

I just discovered this site for the first time in a Sherlock search, and it looks fantastic. I've been trying to solve a problem for quite a while, and I think I might have found the group of people who can help! (I'm posting in this forum because it seemed to have the greatest number of mod_rewrite posts, but moderators, feel free to move it to a better spot.)

but I still received the same error. We're not using script aliases (we're running CGI's directly from a physical directory), so I don't think we need this flag; our OS X servers are working fine without it.

Since this thread has gone quiet, I assume there aren't any mod_rewrite power users available to answer your question. Personally, I just got into the Apache mod_rewrite documentation, and hacked my directives until they worked.

You can try these three URLs to see the results of the above three rewrite rules:

From the manual, it is necessary to use this when the final URL needs to pass through Alias, ScriptAlias, Redirect, etc handlers. Hi Scotty,

However, the same rewrite rule doesn't want to work on the RedHat Linux servers that our preferred ISP manages. On those servers, the rewrite rule shown above results in a browser error, The attempt to load http://www.typea.net/dynamic/home.html failed. I have to use this rule instead:

This still converts the /dynamic/home.html URL, and brings some of the same benefits as the first setup, but since it's an external redirect (the flag), it changes the visible URL in the web browser's location bar when the page loads. So it's not quite as user-friendly.

Can anyone help? What server settings, or installed modules, would allow external redirects to work but cause local redirects to fail? Is there anything I can ask my ISP to look at for clues?

My servers and the ISP's servers are both running Apache 20, and I have access to the .htaccess files on both. But apparently something else in the server configuration (httpd.conf or elsewhere) is different. The ISP would gladly make the needed changes for me, but they can't figure out what to do.

Jim {}

This takes URLs like /dynamic/home.html and converts them to /scripts/content.cgi?page=home. The apparent URLs are easy to for visitors to remember or share, and easy for search engines to index. This works just swell on several Mac OS X servers that I manage.

https://wwwtypea.net/dynamic2/foo.html https://wwwtypea.net/dynamic3/foo.html

Any other ideas?

I've experimented with different settings for RewriteBase, like putting the physical path to my web directory, but haven't had luck with that yet.

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, I tried changing my third example rule to

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_rewrite.html#RewriteBase http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_rewrite.html#InternalAPI

Your situation does sound like some sort of server config problem, since your rewrite rules work on your secure server but not on your http server.

Good luck,

The fully qualified URL in dynamic3 can't work in an internal rewrite, unless you have a subdirectory named http: ;)

(Otherwise, I will definitely get on them about that RewriteLog.)

Two ideas... I'd recommend investigating RewriteBase to see if that has any effect. And also, you might want to use RewriteLog to see if the log gives any hint as to where the internal redirects are going wrong.

I agree that RewriteBase might be the missing piece -- its documentation might at least hold some answers -- but the description of Apache's internal processing loses me every time:

(The SSL certificate on this server has expired, so you can just click through that error message.)

Featured Links:

What did you wish you knew starting out?

What are the four or five basic skills/areas of knowledge every webmaster should know starting out?

What basic info do you want to know now to expand your skills?

Any other topics that would be useful for a beginner.

This thread is meant to compile a list of ideas. We can hash out the ideas in other starter threads in the next few weeks.
JamesR, here are somethings for the idea board. These are questions that I had when I came to this site at the beginning of the year.

• What sort of software tools are available and what might I want to use for creating and maintaining a website?
  
• How can I figure out a user agent? What is a user agent?
  
• Is there a basic primer for design, development, and launch of a website? What do I need to know?
  
• Are there any things I must do?
  
• What should I avoid doing? (a subjective question, but it was a burning question for me.)
  
• How do I write good content, and why are keywords important?
  
• Where can I research keywords, and what are good keyword ratios?
  

Browser cross-compatibility issues. (what some are known to choke on and how to avoid it)

How to avoid turning the user away with pop-ups and cool jscript.

Banner ads: pros-cons

What fonts to avoid that make it almost impossible to read some sites.

Colors that hurt the eyes :)

I know these could fall under different forums - but it's nice for the beginner to find all in one place.
I think a very very infomative and descriptive section on installing CGI/perl Scripts ex.. Message boards searches etc... I think theres tons of these scripts out there and not much help getting them installed. I remember my first message board instalation... Well its still not working but thats besides the point. I think an in detail example of installing CGI Scripts would be a great great thing.

-Donny

By the way this is a great idea.
My main question was:

How can I find out new SEO info without paying $120 a year for an e-newsletter?

Answer:

WebmasterWorld

I guess if they found the site though, they already know this. :)
Dpeper,

Good idea ;)
>>Any other topics that would be useful for a beginner.

Personally, at the very beginnings, I wanted to know and couldn't find any good resources on how to build frames at the time (not sure I want to know now :).

I didn't have any idea what the head tags were.

Also, what was the structure of a html page - how should it be coded. I'm talking about the head/body areas and what should go in there.

What about mentioning dtd's?

The most useful resource that I found when I first started hand-coding (I think using NS composer had a lot to do with that :) ) was the bare bones guide to html - a comprehensive list of tags that could be used.
its a great question....

when looking back to when I truly began, I can't remember what rules of thumb and info I had :) I guess one tip would be stay adaptive - never be adapted :)

there is so much information to learn, and I found my greatest barrier to be motivation. If you are motivated to learn, share, and employ, then theres no stopping you head down the long road :)

I have no real great beginners tips cos im a beginner :) Its here and now - get it done ;)
*Building Search Engines
what about an overview of technologies? Maybe just proper names and their function within the web environment. I know that when I started people would use all these acronyms for different languages and I would have to ask every second word what they were talking about.

eg. PHP, ASP, PYTHON, IIS, PERL, XML, DHTML, CSS, Javascript, Jscript, VBscript ... etc.

Maybe a little bit on how the whole thing works? The client/server relationship?

Not sure, this might be too much but these were the things I wondered about.
I've read alot of the threads on .htaccess, and I've visted a number of websites about it, but I'm still strugling to get a handle on the basics. It seems most discussions about .htaccess start well above the entry level.
HTML/XHTML, CSS, EcmaScript/JavaScript, the Document Object Model, a server-side scripting mechanism such as ASP or PHP, the configuration for a web server such as IIS or Apache, understanding how HTTP works, understanding how a browser works, some basics about the plumbing of the internet, and HTML validation.

The links above are the technical specs or other authoritative document on the subject. A beginner should find the HTML for Dummies version, but should know of the existence of the spec.
What about .htaccess for dummies? :)
One day one, I wish I knew and understood two things:

* how to use server-side includes to save time managing a site

* how to optimize images for fastest download

I built a huge information-based site and had no headers, footers, etc. Changing a link was a royal pain in the arse. And my images were just enormous. Ugh.
How about Scam Identification 101.

There are many out there targetting the new & uninformed webmaster.

eg. why shouldn't I purchase 1,000,000 unique visitors for $1.99 or 500,000 email addresses and add them to my newsletter subscribers?
JamesR,

You had to ask didn't you ;)

Looks like you will be a busy man as these are all good suggestions.
excellant question James,

if i could start from the basic's

1. Content distribution over structure, only on the web initially does one feel compelled, due to lack of knowledge to load up pages with a multivariate of keyterms and spam. If you were going to write a book, then thats the last thing you would do, obviously websites, from all perspective of the SEO front, are to provide the quickest and most precise presentaion of information in the least complex format. Theme's, great for the user, great for the search engines.

2. Design, full principles of W3C validated XHTML, CSS, HTML, XML, etc. in laymens terms, browser compatibilities, user bandwidth realities, simplicity of use and accessibility. Graphic.extensions, various propreitry code and not using it if SEO is the major consideration.

3. Submission (part 1: directories and search engines)
section A: on a shoe string budget. Excellant cat and listing in ODP, google, fast, altavista, hotbot, northern light, hand submissions once.
section B: $2K per annum, listing in yahoo.com, and regional yahoo. LS.com partners, ink, teoma, any money left a few pages translated, and some overture listings (highly targetted). As well as A.
section C: Just want the #1 on them all. Get an experienced SEO, or submit 5 times to Yahoo, different sections or subdomains, working on theming principle, 5 * LS.com, or a mixture of general / regional listings, massive overture expenditure, Google adwords. specific industry related portals and directories, as well as A and B not mentioned.

4. Linking. Hunt links at least pr>5, and / or at the top of the ODP, Yahoo, Fast, Ink and whatever directory or search engine that is in the searchers demands, and get the links in, good for ever regular crawls and updates, highly specific, and try not let the outgoing links, work against incoming, either do it all to the main page or to subsections, with them linking out.

5. Find a home to learn at, i would suggest here, this is a pretty knowledgable and constantly expanding area of the internet, this place is slowly becoming the water fountain of knowledge concerning all things website, search engine, and SEO orientated.

6. A little bit of luck, any body that thinks they know all there is too know is chatting rubbish, the reality is that we all learn by mistakes, and they can be the most valuable of lessons.
Caine,

I have a ? about #4. How come everyone wants/expects links to them, yet everyone says do not give links to anyone it will pull from your PR? This is the most contradicting statement that I see given on these forums all the time. Or you get some that say give a link back using javascript so you don't pull from PR. I'm sorry but if someone gives me a decent themed link I will return the favor without trying to figure out a way to cheat them out of what I wanted from them. I truly believe you will see themed links the only thing that counts within the next year or so.

My 2-cents
dependant on what industry your in.

trade associations, universities, free portals, vortals, directories, that are specific to an area will give out links if they deem your site very useful, maybe its because the webmaster does not understand linking strategies, or that their site is a deemed hub, by directories / search engines, that linking to you is not going to harm them, articles in news based sites is a good example.

other means are a little more dubious as in a thousand page website, with hundreds of incoming links to that base url, and the only link to your links page is from the base url, hence the rest of the links off the base is redistributed trhough the site, back to the base.

their are many ways, but relevant freebies is by far the best.
The thing I wish I knew before my first site was the that there is a lot more available than plain HTML. In other words don't just start building table after table until it looks okay, pick an up to date tecnique and stick with it until you get it.
I can't wait for the threads that come from this because then I can find more things I wish I had Known. he he ;)
How to upload a file from a folder on the desktop to the ISP.
Having been around on the net for 5 five years... I wish I knew when I started out:

1. Knowledge in Perl and CGI. This is very important if you want to add interactivity into your site... such as message boards, guestbooks, surveys etc. Yes, there are remotely hosted versions of these, but usually they are accompanied by big banner ads and customization is very limited. After Perl/Cgi, you can opt to learn Php, mysql & asp for heavier tasks.

2. That getting my own domain wasn't really impossible. My very first site was hosted on geocities, and I thought that was it for me... I stayed for a few years until I discovered register.com and my current webhost. And the rest was history...

3. That I discovered this site much much earlier, if it already existed back then.

4. The best tools in the industry that I use right now.

Graphics - Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator
WYSIWYG HTML - Macromedia Dreamweaver
Text Editor for HTML & Scripts - UltraEdit
FTP - WS_FTP

5. Better writing skills. Nothing can beat the ability to write good content. With this talent you can build a site that people could actually go to and enjoy themselves. Oh yes, Google loves content.

6. That interface and navigation design doesn't have to be all that complicated. I used fancy DHTML menus and simply got crazy. Looked nice but ultimately futile.

One more thing... If you're a downright beginner, HTML for Dummies worked for me great. It's good to learn HTML right at its roots, before you jump to a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get software like Dreamweaver or Frontpage.

No one (I had spoken to) ever mentioned that font support between OS was different. For a very long time I thought the major font types were all supported no matter what system the user was on.
Knowing about O'Reilly books... Would have saved lots of time/money...
*Basic Webmaster Skills*

stage one:
working an FTP client
basic knowledge of HTML

stage two:
basic server side scripting
basic client side scripting, CSS
basic SEO

stage three:
No two people would fallow the same path from here on out.
What did I wish I was aware of?

Useability - and by this I don't mean the useability gurus. What would make someone look at my site and think urrggh. For example, spinning gifs, java applets, .js fades and blends, mouse trails and all the other things that beginners are attracted by (I still have the water reflection download somewhere on my hard drive).

Templates, library items (for those using WYSIWYG) or includes. Mega timesaving down the line.

Integrating SEO at the earliest stage possible. How many people (the majority of website designers?) still think it is enough to spam a couple of meta tags? Not to link willy-nilly.

Above all, the importance of content (proper content, not just SE content) and the blending of design, technique, content and marketing. Too many sales, graphics or tech specialists out there - but the people come to a site for its content and return because of what they see or what they read.
Nice thread!

2 years down the road I still consider myself a beginner, but I think for me there's two things I could and should have learned before I tried doing anything:

1. A good understanding and overview of HTTP

2. A good understanding and overview of how webserver's work. Here's a link that may help new webmasters with this one: http://webservercompare.internet.com/webbasics/

<edit> make that three things - the importance of SEO being the third. I now wish I'd started with this right at the beginning rather than playing catch-up now, if for no other reason than as far as I can see a well optimised site is also a good site for your users. </edit>
SEO is the one thing I still wish I knew well. I have always known you need keywords and the such but never really had a clear understanding of how to do it. Also the value of reading a book to learn the correct way instead of viewing source. I taught myself HTML buy veiwing source. This is not the best way to learn. Who says they did it right?
What about setting up a cross-browser testing environment with little resources?
Very important to focus your effort.. 20% of the search engines take 80% of the search referrals..

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum39/296.htm

When people recognise Google's predominance, they shout DMOZ.

Do not rush your submission to DMOZ, get your site good-looking first and make sure you choose the right category for submission and try to suggest your title/description which matches your most important search phrase.
DMOZ will probably your highest ranking pagerank link for the first months.

Featured Links:

Please report any errors, additions and changes.

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

http://www.alltheweb.com
FAST showcase
http://www.allthesites.com

http://www.t-online.de
Germany

http://www.club-internet.fr/
France

http://www.jubii.dk/
Denmark / international searches

http://www.ya.com
Spain

looks nice.
Greate Heini
Thanks Heini. I would only add that the 6 FAST partners I check all seem to have wildly different serps.

As Alltheweb has little direct traffic always make sure you check the engines that matter for you.
Thanks for the update heini. I just wanted to clarify a statement you made in the old thread before you locked it ;)
msg #:49
No more Japanese let out for Fast websearch - not good.
They do have a japanese interface though, you can set it from ATW customize options
Although ATW does let you set the default language to search in, they do not have a native language interface for Japanese. Something along the lines of Google's Japanese interface is clearly not available on Fast. That means the number of Japanese who will actually use ATW will be negligible. Unfortunate.
>native language interface for Japanese

The customize option gives the choice of charactersets for display of results, rather than the choice of language to search.

But yes - no japanese interface.

ATW does not have native language interfaces for any languages, except the default English.

Asked for localized versions of ATW FAST's answers are always the same: No, we don't plan local versions for the near future, ATW is only a showcase, we would never compete with our portal partners...

FAST, in sharp contrast to Google or Altavista, is virtually unknown to the general public.
FAST, and ATW are big names in the industry, but hardly outside.
Interesting insight about Fast/ATW and native language interfaces heini. Thanks for sharing that.
Fast press release (Deal extended)...including SOL.no and Kvasir.no in Norway, Passagen.se and Evreka.se in Sweden, SOL.dk and Kvasir.dk in Denmark, and Suomi24.fi in Finland.

Scandinavian members - a short clarification of the complexities of the SOL group would be helpful. Passagen and Evreka in Sweden, Kvasir and SOL in Norway: do they need different listings in the overview?
So - found some more candidates:
- hispavista.com, spanish

- sprint.allthesites
any info from the US and Canada on sprint.allthesites? Seems it's not promoted in any way..

- sinohome.net.cn
Couldn't verify they are still using Fast - don't know about importance/traffic

And while we are in Asian regions - I went to all Lycos.asia sites - am I correct in assuming none uses FAST anymore?
Really good post, here we got some great info. Thanks heini!

>Fast in Scandinavia

SOL (Scandinavian Online) covers all 4 countries and they each use Fast in their own way. Each local portal has a directory attatched, either as primary or secondary results.

Not much to ad other than SOL.dk should be http://soeg.sol.dk/

Fast is a major player up here due to this SOL contract.
nice to see an update on rencke's contributions, excellant work heini
OK added hispavista, and edited the SOL group.

Any info on the (former?) Asian partners?
Added Club Internet
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum18/527.htm

and
Excite Italy/UK/Germany/France
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum18/528.htm
heini,
please add these portals:

Tiscali.co.uk (through Looksmart!)
Tiscali.dk
Tiscali.at
Tiscali.no
Tiscali.es
Tiscali.fr (through Nomade.fr)
Tiscali.ch

Seems to be that except from Tiscali.co.za all of the Tiscali-net are now on the FAST-dancecard

Featured Links:

I suggest we take our linking strategies outside this box we've created for ourselves in what I now think is a mistaken belief we understand what Google wants.

What are some of the basics we've already looked at?
1. The PR of the site.
2. Where the link is placed within the site and on a page?
3. In what form the link is presented and followed?
4. Maybe the theme.
5. Where and to what neighborhoods is the site linked to?

When we look outside this box, what else is out there?

An example is articles. I'm a big believer in marketing with articles. I look at the presentation of them on a site, then the linking and archiving through the marketing opportunities. Having someone present an article you've written is great stuff, especially if a nice little bio with link included. Even better are those nice 1/3 articles with a pre-selected text link back to the rest of the article. What more is there really?

I believe getting this far is a big deal when you consider it. What more can you get from your efforts? What more can you offer? This is linking outside the box. Those ideas generated and pursued once the basics are taken care of.

Anyone else have any ideas about this?
If you give the same article to several sites and they all post it, and you post it on your site as well, would you (and the other sites) be penalized (in terms of Google ranking) for duplicated copy? Could this (or should this) be considered as Spam?

I ask becuase this very issue just came up with a client of mine who wanted to get copy from another site related to theirs and the webmaster was afraid of giving the copy as is since they get excellent PR from Google.

Pete
paynt,

You know what my feeling are on this. I believe a article with a link back to the author is the very best way to go. It lends authority in my opinion to both the author and the website hosting the article. I do not believe that the average site can have page after page of links going out (this is being discussed now in another thread). I also believe that directory style sites do not get penalized (outbound links) for this like the average site will.

My 2-cents
This is something that I use to help build my pr as well as a bit of traffic. I simply look for other cooking sites that are looking for recipes (usally they have a submit recipe) and I send them one of many. I spent about two or three hours on this about a month ago and it put me at a pagerank 6.

I will continue to look for quality sites that are in need of recipes and send mine along.

Cheers,

Chef Brian
Hello Total Hosting, welcome to Webmaster World and thanks for posting.

If you give the same article to several sites and they all post it, and you post it on your site as well, would you (and the other sites) be penalized (in terms of Google ranking) for duplicated copy? Could this (or should this) be considered as Spam? - Total Hosting

You raise a good point. Im not into overkill so I suppose its fair to say that I prefer to place the article on the hosted site and only once on an external site, at least in the same format. If its a good article I may suggest reworking it to not change the content but to change the format so its not duplicated. I would then give it a different title but thats only if I find another really good site to place it on.

I look at the keyword list first. If I have 50 really fine keywords I want to draw from its probably in my best interest to create 50 great articles, one for each, and then get those placed.

When I think about linking outside the box Im thinking about what else I can get from this networked site, beyond the initial contact of asking for a link exchange.

The Contractor Im in total agreement ;)

Chef_Brian Thats great youre working with what you have and within your niche. Is there a way to stretch that? Could you work up a guest spot as an Ask the expert Chef? Could you schedule an online chat through another site? What about themed sites perhaps an herb site can you offer a guest column about using fresh herbs to make food gifts or something along those lines?

When I think of linking outside the box Im trying to stretch the value of the link. We started the brainstorming on this at Increasing Traffic from Reciprocal Links, although I believe we have a long way to go.
I think articles are an ideal promotion tool for the aforementioned reasons. An article on your site that you author just means you own the site; the same article on another site means you are an expert!

I think the best way to promote creative reuse of your articles is to indicate their availability on the site where they appear. A few other ideas:

1) Direct submission to other sites, as Chef_Brian does

2) Spam the WebmasterWorld Content Forum

3) Uhhhhh, any suggestions?
I spent at least a month of my time givng free articles to 300 Golf Courses. They were delighted with this.I now rank high, often No1 for a search of these courses. The clients were delighted and I get big hits. With so many courses covered for my country there are always new sites using the reviews I wrote as a basis for describing the course

Because this content was often hard to come by, ie traditional snobbery of Golf Courses the work I did had high value to others as well as improving my site.

So linking outside the box in my case involved creating a new valuable commodity specifically for my purpose.

My point being if you put in the work and create something new it will by default have value and give you an edge to escape the box.
Spam the WebmasterWorld Content Forum - rogerd

Qualify that with hahaha and were ok rogerd!

Thanks shanz for your input. I enjoy hearing about successes people have with their promotional activities and thats what this is all about. Not only going for a link but also using it to bring extra promotion to your site. Turning a chore into an opportunity.

Is anyone having success with something like, Ask an Expert? Think of all the fields that this would work for, from cooking, and through golf, realtors or tour guides. Or perhaps guest spots in a newsletter. The more we talk about the need for content and content as king, the more opportunity we have to turn that around to something beneficial for both sites.

Think of all the discussions about Google as the main source of traffic and theres been fear about this shared between us as a community. So again, I believe taking these linking chores we do to boost or position with Google and pushing the envelope drawing targeted traffic, establishing relationships with other sites, and creating a solid presence in essence not only strengthens our position and eventual PR with Google but acts as a terrific buffer if the bottom should fall off like it has for so many others.

Look at the discussion started by Mayor now called, Link Leper. Heres another twist that I believe reinforces the need again to think of your linking outside the box strategies. Follow some of the comments the discussion has drawn out.

Remember, there is more to a link than just PR, there is also traffic, and some Low PR sites may have enormous traffic from email lists or whatever. Woz

Featured Links:

Business sites can sometimes be harder to get original content for - especially in highly competitive markets. The following may be seen as filler content, but it really is standard for most business to launch with the following must have material on their site(s).

A three-pronged business-oriented content attack:

1. Press Releases

Suggestion: Minimum 3 pages - 1 index page & 2 releases.

There's a site called PRWeb and it's great for distributing your press releases for free - you can just look at one of the PRs listed on the site and copy the format if you don't know how to write one properly. In some cases, you can even get an inbound link from posting a PR on there.

TIP: You can always write two releases from the start a) RE: Info about your product, services, ect., b) RE: Launch/Re-Launch of your site.

---

2. Press Coverage

Suggestion: Minimum 2 pages - 1 index page & 1 article/review

Articles and reviews written by other sources about your site/product/services. These are significant sources of info on the quality of your product - and anyt positive write-up may be the deciding factor for a prospetive client.

---

3. Media Kits

Suggestion: Minimum of 6 pages. 1 index, 4 pages of material, & one download page.

This is positively necessary on site that offer outsourcing services, advertising, affiliations and wholesale info. Provide 1) a mission statement, 2) services & rates, 3) contact info, & 4) a brief history of your company. Make all of this info available in two downloadable formats as well (besides the web-based version): a word file and an acrobat .PDF file, and then create a download page within the Media Kit.

Any other suggestions?

Althought I do not know how well it went for others, but after I made a $10 donation, the press release was only viewed 16 times in 20 or so days.

That is extreemely disappointing, because for a bit more I could have purchased advertisement somewhere.

I personally will not use them yet. Maybe in the future with their RSS feed this will become a useful tool, until then I will stick to the old fashioned paper press release to the editor.
Testimonials, third party industry reviews.

What is your track record!

Policies including (b2b and b2c) privacy, trust, security, fulfullment, customer service and support, returns, and copyright

What if you the company makes an error, what is your resolve?

My pet peeve though - email responses. Don't know how many emails I've sent to enquire about a product or service - and never, ever got a response. Auto-responders just don't cut it if your serious about taking my money!

In this case corporate turn-around!
The issue with most of the types of content listed is that it really requires the client to be on top of their game to continue posting these types of content on a regular basis; e.g. - if I visit a site and see two press releases that are 8-10 months old and nothing newer, I won't be impressed. Same with newsletters, etc. -- you can make the argument that it's better not to have a newsletter on the site than to have one from Fall 2001, for example.

On the other hand, we've had one client who has been terrific about creating and maintaining a monthly Spotlight section of their site. The client uses this to feature or profile customers who are using their product, or to announce an upcoming event or competition they'll be involved with, and things like that. Because they're committed to making sure this content stays fresh, it's been a great way to bring repeat traffic to the site.
I'll actually dump a prospective client lead if they show no interest in upkeep.

There's no way I can help their site reach a satisfactory level of commerce or otherwise without fresh content added, at the very least, monthly.

Most clients, however, are more than happy to supply articles and newletter copy for me since I usually take on fairly proactive companies.
Any scientific studies favorable to product or service.
Blogs are a great way to add content. Create a blog section on your site, and link it from your homepage. Anytime some interesting thought hits you, type it into your blog.

Actually, Blogs are a great way to create a News section for your site. If you can fit it on your homepage, that would be better. I always find myself revisiting a few sites, just to read the latest news. If you know your specialty well enough, you should have no problem finding out the latest news.

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Wonder how accurate it is?

Nick
Oh, it's very accurate.
But a bit dated.
Still a very useful list.
Maybe the IP's just have not altered since the date on the last revision?

How would you get these details, you'd have to see the IP's hit your site right?

Nick
Hi Guys...

It's my site/list ... questions? Comments?

It's as up to date and accurate as I can keep it. If anybody has IPs that I don't... I'd certainly appreciate knowing about them. I post many new ones that I find here and also glean quite a bit of info here, too, as many of you already know.

Thanks!

<added>Oh yeah, there is a rearranged version located here: http://www.iplists.com/nw/ . The rearranged version reflects some shifts in Search Engine prominence.</added>

Does MSN have a spider? Looked at my logs today and msn was all over them????

Ann
I belive MSN uses the Inktomi index... can you give some examples of the log entries with MSN in them?
Nice find Brett! I've got a new toy... AND a very useful one!
I've had 2 major sites trashed in the last 3 months owing to cloaking with outdated IP lists. Lists from an expensive service that were always current but outdated immediately when new spider IPs were introduced.

I asked one customer of mine if they were going to fire me because of it. They laughed. It seems I cost them so much money they couldn't afford to fire me. I'll be working it off with them over the next 6-8 years.

Job security in it's basic form.
>>>Lists from an expensive service that were always current but outdated immediately when new spider IPs were introduced.

You mean I can make money off of IP lists? ;) I don't cloak but I knew there was a reason why I've been hoarding those IP lists away all this time. If you don't mind, I would be interested in knowing the name of the service you were dealing with. You can stickymail it you like.
Great resource volatilegx!

Would love to see a search for ip option on your site. btw, I was hitted by 209.10.169.24 and 64.140.48.38 with 10K hits each! , are these IP belongs to SE? Whis information below:
Thanks
Hanuman

209.10.169.24
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Globix Corporation (NETBLK-GLOBIXBLK3)
295 Lafayette St- 3rd Fl

NY, NY 10012

US

Netname: GLOBIXBLK3
Netblock: 209.10.0.0 - 209.11.223.255
Maintainer: PFMC

Coordinator:
Hostmaster, Globix Corporation (GCH2-ARIN) This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
1-212-334-8500 (FAX) 212.334.8615

Domain System inverse mapping provided by:

Z1.NS.NYC1.GLOBIX.NET 209.10.66.55
Z1.NS.SJC1.GLOBIX.NET 209.10.34.55
Z1.NS.LHR1.GLOBIX.NET 212.111.32.38

64.140.48.30
^^^^^^^^^^^^
ICG NetAhead, Inc. (NETBLK-ICG-BLK5)
161 Inverness Dr. West

Englewood, CO 80112

US

Netname: ICG-BLK5
Netblock: 64.140.0.0 - 64.140.95.255
Maintainer: ICGN

Coordinator:
Taylor, Stacy (ST452-ARIN) This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
408-579-5000

Domain System inverse mapping provided by:

AS1.ICG.NET 170.147.45.163
AS2.ICG.NET 170.147.45.164
Yeah, volatilegx, it is really good of you to make this publicly available.
hanuman,

I'm following up with the network owners of those IP addresses. Hopefully, I'll get some information. I'm especially curious about the bot out of Colorado, as I've seen a number of unidentified bots coming out of Englewood, CO.

I'll post what I find here.
Thanks volatilegx !
I've added sort of a crude search feature. http://www.iplists.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi

You can input a list of IP Addresses, one per line, and you'll be told if they were found in my lists, and which list they were on.
hanuman,

64.140.48.30, the IP from Colorado, appears to belong to the company Iparadigms.com. They are a copyright violation search company. They appear to be related to TurnItIn.com, Plagairism.org and SlySearch. Prime banning material and definitely not a search engine. Did you happen to get the User Agent on this one? I'm betting it was the SlySearch bot. According to the documentation for the SlySearch bot, it obeys robots.txt. Docs: http://slysearch.com/

Still working on the other one.
hanuman,

209.10.169.24 is most likely PortalBSpider/2.0 ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )

http://www.portalb.com/sources/portalb/press/portalbpress.htm

Hope this helps.
Not sure if this is the correct place to post this?

I am currently working on a project where I need to identfy major ISP providers from IP's - much like the IPlists.com site identifies the search engines.

The ISP's i need to find are aol, bt open world, freeserve, pippex and compuserve. Are there any sites that would give me this information?

Thanks in advance
Call me stupid, but what is the benefit of having the Search Engines IP? Would it be to see their visits in your stats? Going one step further it would be cool to have a stats package that highlighted the Hits/IP's that came from search engines.
One reason to collect search engine IP addresses is for cloaking purposes.

Another is to make sure you don't ban the search engine IP addresses from your website. Many people ban other bots but want to leave the SE IPs alone.
<snip>Going one step further it would be cool to have a stats package that highlighted the Hits/IP's that came from search engines>

Analog does an excellent job of accumulating search engine stats. Although it doesn't highlight them.
Analog does most anything if you can figure out how to configure it.
hmm cloaking. is that similar to taking the invisible ink and painting yourself with? could you point me somewhere or just give me a gen. description please?
http://www.searchengineworld.com/misc/cloaking.htm is a good starting point OhMyPixel.
Also look here: http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum24/206.htm
thank you, reading it now.
Thank you volatilegx for the help in the matter! and Key_Master for the information.!

Hanuman
To block 209.10.169.24 - PortalBSpider, and 64.140.48.30 Slysearch

I added these lines to my .htaccess file

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^(SlySearch.*PortalBSpider.*)
RewriteRule ^(.*) block.htm

I would also recommend adding the following lines

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^(-?{10})$

RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST} ^private$

Thanks the group for the kind help!
Hanuman
Thanks volatilegx!

Man, that's a LOT of IPs!

Many more than I'm currently using.

Is the old list obsolete and can be ignored or should it be cm0bined with the new?

Also: Like I said, that's a LOT of IPs. Are your sure none of these are non SE spiders. I mean I've had clients get really pissed when one of their memebrs accessed cloaked pages because I included a block of IPs that contained one their ISP was using.

:-(
Regarding my above post:

I noticed some IPs in the New list that were included as entire blocks in the Old list.

Does this mean you discovered that the entire block was not correct?

Thanks Again,
Friday

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