A web crawler is a program that methodically browses through the websites on the internet and allows the search engine to index them. How a web crawler works can be crudely summarized by these steps.

1. The web crawler visits the webpages that it has previously indexed.
2. It searches those webpages for outbound links.
3. It visits those links and indexes the pages that are new.

These steps are repeated as new webpages are found.

As you can see, the best way to get the search engine to index your page is to get another webpage that is already indexed to link to yours.

The other, less recommended, way of getting your webpage indexed is to submit your webpage URL to the search engine directly. This lets the search engine know that a webpage exists and needs to be crawled. However, this does not guarantee that your webpage will be crawled.

Here are some of the URL submission pages for the more common search engines.

Google - http://www.google.com/submityourcontent
Bing & Yahoo! - http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster

If you want to submit your webpage URL to the search engines directly, it is recommended that you submit it to Google, Bing, and Yahoo!. This is because online sources say that these search engines sell their search results to the other smaller search engines.

Remember, when building a website, CONTENT IS KING. If you website has good content and is updated frequently with fresh material, people will come and naturally link your webpages.

In this video tutorial, we will teach you how to submit your website for Google search. Enjoy

FTP is a useful tool for transferring files from webmasters’ computers to their websites. Many webmasters choose to upload their files to their websites through FTP program. In fact, in Doteasy’s cPanel, there is another useful tool called File Manager which lets you manage your web files using a web browser rather than a third-party FTP program. The below video tutorial teaches you how to upload and unzip files to your website through File Manager.

Stored Password

Website owners are required to use FTP to upload files to their websites. Many of the FTP programs allow you to store your password. With this feature, you only need to enter your login name and password the first time when you setup the FTP program and will help you connect automatically each time you upload files, without asking you to login again. Although this feature is extremely convenient, it may increase the risk of having your password stolen. If your computer is infected with a virus, the virus can examine your computer and FTP program, and find the username and password to your FTP account.  Hackers can then access to your website files using your login and deface your website.

What to do?

First of all, regularly scan your computer with your anti-virus program.  Secondly, we recommend that you don’t store your passwords in your FTP program or in your internet browsers (in fact, we strongly recommend you using our File Manager in cPanel to upload files to your website) .  This way, your chances of getting your password stolen are greatly reduced.

• In 2010, there were 7.3 million victims of cybercrime in Canada. Most of the crimes involved online passwords. – Source: Global News Canada
• Numerous data breaches from major firms (Sony, Zappos, etc.) happened in the past few years.

Now you know why you need to change your passwords regularly.  So what’s next?  A change of password from “ABCD” to “EDFG” will not get the job done.  Take a look at this article by Technolog on MSNBC.com to find out what kind of passwords should you choose.  Another great tip with online passwords is to try having different passwords for different accounts (e.g. the password for your online banking account should not be the same as your Groupon account!). Hence, even if you become a victim of data breach from a website, only a few of your accounts will get affected.

However, it’s definitely not an easy task to remember so many sets of passwords. A simple way to handle numerous different passwords may be creating a file on Microsoft Excel and make the file “password-protected”. Other alternatives include subscribing online password managers such as KeePass and 1Password.

Change your passwords now to protect your online security. To change your passwords for your Doteasy account, log in to Doteasy’s Member Zone and look for “Change Password”.

How It Works:

The amount of Google AdWords credit you’ll receive depends on the amount of services you subscribe with us. If your service is worth for US$25 annually, then you will receive US$25 worth of Google AdWords credit. Similarly, you will receive US$75 worth of Google AdWords credit if your service is worth for US$75 or more.

What Is Google AdWords:

Not familiar with Google AdWords? You simply create ads that appear next to relevant search results on Google.com and its network of partner websites. Potential customers see you ads when they are making relevant searches on Google.com.

Just choose the search terms your potential customers are likely to use, then write your ad with your desired daily budget and the specific area you would like to target. That’s it! You are only charged when people click your ad.

How To Redeem:

Simply login to Doteasy’s Member Zone and you’ll see a large icon of Google AdWords on the top left of your Member Zone page. Follow the steps and you will see a unique Coupon Code. Then visit Google AdWords Page and open a new account. Follow the procedure and make sure you enter your assigned Coupon Code when entering your billing info.

Good luck in reaching more audiences to your website with Doteasy Hosting Services and Google AdWords!

Promotional credit must be applied to a new AdWords account within 15 days of creating the AdWords account and is valid only for new Google AdWords customers with self-managed signup accounts. Advertisers will be charged for all advertising that exceeds the promotional credit. Advertisers can suspend their ads anytime before the promotional credit amount is exhausted if they do not wish to receive additional advertising charges. Offer subject to ad approval, valid registration, and acceptance of the Google AdWords Program standard terms and conditions. The promotional credit is non-transferable and may not be sold or bartered. Offer may be revoked at any time for any reason by Google Inc. One promotional credit per customer. Advertisers with self-managed signup accounts are subject to a $5 (CAD10) activation fee and Advertisers who choose prepay billing are subject to a $10 (CAD20) minimum prepayment fee before their account is activated. Any such prepay amount will be credited to Advertiser’s account once account is activated. However, these fees will be debited from the promotional credit if Advertiser’s account was created after July 15, 2010 — that is, you will not be charged the activation fee. Offer valid only for sign ups through the URL provided for the promotion by customers with a billing address in the US or Canada. Your use of this voucher and/or the promotional credit constitutes your acceptance of these terms and conditions. Offer void where prohibited by law. Expires 07/31/2012.

Doteasy accepts no liability or responsibility for the AdWords credit.

Managed Hosting is perfect for customers who need some extra help in maintaining their website so that they can focus more on their business. With Managed Hosting, we maximize the security, administration and maintenance of your website for you. Whenever you need to update your website content or upgrade your web apps, we recommend that you come to us first and have our Managed Hosting support team handle it for you. On top of our regular hosting service support, you will get extra support on managing and maintaining your website.

What does Managed Hosting include?

Managed Hosting gives you all of the features you would normally get with your hosting plan, plus one hour of website administration service. Here are some website administration services that are included with Managed Hosting that you wouldn’t normally see with regular hosting support.

• Installation and upgrades for many open source web apps such as WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal
• HTML website updates such as image changes, logo changes, and contact info updates
• Setup of Doteasy web tools and hosted applications for your website
• Import, export, and optimization of your MySQL databases
• Automated website backup
• Email archiving and log checking
• Install 3^rd party SSL certificates
• Basic script debugging
• Website data migration
• Toll free phone support

How much does it cost?

Our Managed Hosting add-on service costs $28.95 per month in addition to the cost of your hosting plan. If on any month you exceed the one hour of administration time, you can purchase additional administration service hours from us at a discounted rate of $50.00 per hour (regular price $75.00 per hour). For complete details of the services included in our Managed Hosting Plan or subscription inquires, please contact our Customer Support team or submit an online ticket.

But how do you make your website mobile compatible?

The simpliest way – test them on all mobile devices and solving any problems that you encounter.

Unfortunately, due to the many operating systems and browsers on the market for mobile devices, it’s unpractical to test your website on every mobile device out there – not everyone can afford to buy multiple mobile devices just for testing purposes.

Choose your test device

According to ZDNet, the Top 10 Smartphones of 2011 and the Top 10 Smartphones of 2010, uses more or less these operating systems: iOS, Android, webOS, Windows Phone 7, MeeGo and BlackBerry. While the operating system is the most important ingredient of a platform, browsers are also important. Every platform has its own default browser. So, if a certain platform should become more popular, its browser would gain a large market share and thus forcing web developers to pay attention to it.

Installing browsers

Once you have decided on your test device, install additional browsers you can download on the device. Two browsers are inevitable: Safari and Opera Mini.

Keep in mind, according to StatCounter, the Opera has dominated the market with almost 22%. The iPhone and Nokia comes in at close to 17% each, with the Android at 15.5% and BlackBerry at 14%. Compared with stats from two years ago, the iPhone Safari has fallen while the Android has risen by a few percentages.

Designing for mobile devices

The basic principles – Easy, Visual, Results, Fast

1. Easy – navigation needs to be simple and straightforward.
2. Visual – Buttons should be big and spaced reasonably far apart. All clickable areas should be made large enough to grab attention of the user and easy enough to click with their fingertips.
3. Results – understand the specific goals of the mobile users and design your site to accomplish those goals as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Just remember, a mobile site needs to help customers go directly to the information or content they require.
4. Fast – make sure content is light weight so that it loads as quickly as possible. Content load times that may be acceptable to a personal computer user on broadband may not be acceptable to a mobile user on a wireless network.

Good-to-know: Screen, Resolution and Browsers Capabilities

Screens on smartphones vary largely in both display size and resolution. Screen sizes range from 2 to 5 inches, with resolutions ranging from 240×320 to 640×960. The most common resolution is 480×800, which is higher than most desktop monitors.
Other good-to-knows:

• Neither the iPhone nor the Palm Pre support Flash content.
• Javascript and CSS support in mobile browsers is as good as it is in their desktop counterpart.
• Most mobile devices have no cookie support.

Tips and tweaks

1. You can tell the iPhone (MobileSafari) that your page is a certain size thus optimizing the viewport of your mobile website, add this code to the head of your HTML page:
   meta name=”viewport” content=”width=790”
2. Single column layout work best. Remember, zooming in isn’t ideal because it adds an extra step and zooming in and out might not be as easy as said on all phones. Remove low priority content and present content with single column pages that use up the whole width of the screen.
3. Take advantage of inbuilt functionality, such as making calls. Including your phone number on your “Contact Us” page allows users to automatically call that number when they tap on it.
4. Touch screens can’t detect when a finger is getting close to touching it, so the concept of hovers or mouseovers does not apply.

We all need holidays, but it’s always a good idea to let you clients know that you are away. To keep your customers “endlessly” waiting for your reply is indeed an unprofessional business practice. So, when you take your day off, an email auto responder is an important tool.

Under cPanel, there is an option called auto responder where you can customize your auto reply message for your domain email account. Have a view on this video tutorial which teaches you how to setup your auto responder. Cheers.

Other things to keep in mind when redesigning:

1. People love consistency. For the consideration of your visitors, you might want to make sure your redesign is not so drastic that it is not recognizable to your regular visitors.
2. Do not break your brand with your new design. Consistency is important, especially when talking about your business’ branding.
3. Create a planning sitemap. Draw out every page on your website in a map format so that you can clearly see the interaction and navigation between pages.
4. Avoid unnecessary bells and whistles. Keep your redesign simple.
5. Don’t forget the small stuff: favicon, custom default gravatar, broken links, etc.

Useful Tools:

1. Google Analytics – it’s always important to take a look at what’s working and what’s broken on your current website. With Google Analytics, you can see what pages are being viewed, how people are navigating your site and what browsers and screen resolutions are most popular.
2. Theme Switch (for WordPress only) – If you are redesigning a WordPress site, Theme Switch is a plugin that you should consider using. It allows you to view a different theme then the rest of your visitors.
3. Adobe Kuler – it offers a collection of color schemes that will help finding the perfect colors fast and easy, and best of all, all swatches are sortable and exportable right into Photoshop.
4. Adobe Browser Lab – nothing will slow down a redesign more than spending hours browser testing. The Adobe Browser Lab allows you to test your site across all major browsers, including Internet Explorer, Chrome, FireFox and Safari.

When and how your launch your redesign can have a big impact on your traffic and in generating buzz about your new site and your product. A big relaunch around the holidays or at the start of a big promotion can draw traffic and general interest. For example, Smashing Magazine timed its redesign to coincide with the introduction of the Smashing Network.
Ways to make the transition smoother:

1. Try to keep vital elements of your website similar to their existing counterparts (ie. the main navigation and header)
2. Provide users a blog post or news announcement discussing the change
3. Set up a 301-Redirect (permanent redirect) for all pages and URLs on the old website. This will ensure that visitors who click on indexed search results are still taken to the relevant pages and it also eliminates 404-Error pages from showing up as a result of your redesign’s new URL structure.
4. Make sure error pages contain helpful, updated information

1. They want/need information
2. They want/need to make a purchase
3. They want/need to be entertained
4. They want/need to be part of a community

It’s just that simple, all visitors care about is solving their problems.
So, when designing a website, remind yourself:

1. The only reason my website exists is to solve my customers’ problems.
2. What problems do my webpage solve?

2. Visitors can’t figure out the purpose of your website in less than five seconds.
Mistake: After five seconds on your website, visitors are still wondering are you trying to sell something, what is your website about, etc.

Why:
Visitors are not going to stay around, dig around and find out. If your name or tag line does not tell them what your website is about, they will simply leave and go on to the next website.

3. Visitors can’t read the text on your website.
Mistake: Many web designers like to use light type on a white background.

Why:
Unfortunately, because you know your content so you can read it even if you can’t really see it. But, without proper contrast, visitors can’t see the text and if they can’t read it, they will leave.

Tools that can help you:

1. Graybit.com – the best way to evaluate a website’s contracts is to examine the website in grayscale. Graybit.com will convert your websites to grayscale, so you can ask yourself: Can you read the text?
2. Check My Colors – an easy-to-use contrast-analysis tool that will provide a thorough analysis of the website’s color combinations. It checks for contrast ratio, brightness difference and color difference.
3. Color Scheme Designer – Not only can this tool help you choose a proper color palette, it can also simulate how people with colorblindness will interpret your color scheme.
4. Coblis-Color Blindness Simulator – allows you to uplod an image and view it as if you had different types of colorblindness.

4. Too much material on one page.
Mistake: You don’t know where to put most of the material so you’ve crammed them all on to one page.

Why:
With so much content vying for attention, it is difficult for the eyes to find the focal point. People get confused and they leave (and most likely find another site that is less confusing). A long web page also means you have failed to organize your website properly.