What is a sitemap and Why Use a Sitemap for website?

What is a sitemap?

 A sitemap is a file where you can list the web pages of your site to tell Google and other search engines about the organization of your site content. Search engine web crawlers like Googlebot read this file to more intelligently crawl your site.

Also, your sitemap can provide valuable metadata associated with the pages you list in that sitemap: Metadata is information about a webpage, such as when the page was last updated, how often the page is changed, and the importance of the page relative to other URLs in the site.

If your site’s pages are properly linked, our web crawlers can usually discover most of your site. Even so, a sitemap can improve the crawling of your site, particularly if your site meets one of the following criteria:

Your site is really large. As a result, it’s more likely Google web crawlers might overlook crawling some of your new or recently updated pages.

Your site has a large archive of content pages that are isolated or well not linked to each other. If you site pages do not naturally reference each other, you can list them in a sitemap to ensure that Google does not overlook some of your pages.

Your site is new and has few external links to it. Googlebot and other web crawlers crawl the web by following links from one page to another. As a result, Google might not discover your pages if no other sites link to them.

Your site uses rich media content, is shown in Google News, or uses other sitemaps-compatible annotations. Google can take additional information from sitemaps into account for search, where appropriate.

Why Use a Sitemap

Using sitemaps has many benefits, not only easier navigation and better visibility by search engines. Sitemaps offer the opportunity to inform search engines immediately about any changes on your site. Of course, you cannot expect that search engines will rush right away to index your changed pages but certainly the changes will be indexed faster, compared to when you don't have a sitemap.

Also, when you have a sitemap and submit it to the search engines, you rely less on external links that will bring search engines to your site. Sitemaps can even help with messy internal links - for instance if you by accident have broken internal links or orphaned pages that cannot be reached in other way (though there is no doubt that it is much better to fix your errors than rely on a sitemap).

If your site is new, or if you have a significant number of new (or recently updated pages), then using a sitemap can be vital to your success. Although you can still go without a sitemap, it is likely that soon sitemaps will become the standard way of submitting a site to search engines. Though it is certain that spiders will continue to index the Web and sitemaps will not make the standard crawling procedures obsolete, it is logical to say that the importance of sitemaps will continue to increase.

Sitemaps also help in classifying your site content, though search engines are by no means obliged to classify a page as belonging to a particular category or as matching a particular keyword only because you have told them so.

Having in mind that the sitemap programs of major search engines (and especially Google) are still in beta, using a sitemap might not generate huge advantages right away but as search engines improve their sitemap indexing algorithms, it is expected that more and more sites will be indexed fast via sitemaps.

Generating and Submitting the Sitemap

The steps you need to perform in order to have a sitemap for your site are simple. First, you need to generate it, then you upload it to your site, and finally you notify Google about it.

Depending on your technical skills, there are two ways to generate a sitemap - to download and install a sitemap generator or to use an online sitemap generation tool. The first is more difficult but you have more control over the output. You can download the Google sitemap generator from here. After you download the package, follow the installation and configuration instructions in it. This generator is a Python script, so your Web server must have Python 2.2 or later installed, in order to run it.

The second way to generate a sitemap is easier. There are many free online tools that can do the job for you. For instance, have a look at this collection of Third-party Sitemap tools. Although Google says explicitly that it has neither tested, nor verified them, this list will be useful because it includes links to online generators, downloadable sitemap generators, sitemap plugins for popular content-management systems, etc., so you will be able to find exactly what you need.

After you have created the sitemap, you need to upload it to your site (if it is not already there) and notify Google about its existence. Notifying Google includes adding the site to your Google Sitemaps account, so if you do not have an account with Google, it is high time to open one. Another detail that is useful to know in advance is that in order to add the sitemap to your account, you need to verify that you are the legitimate owner of the site.

Currently Yahoo! and MSN do not support sitemaps, or at least not in the XML format, used by Google. Yahoo!allows webmasters to submit “a text file with a list of URLs” (which can actually be a stripped-down version of a site map), while MSN does not offer even that but there are rumors that it is indexing sitemaps when they are available onsite. Most likely this situation will change in the near future and both Yahoo! and MSN will catch with Google because user-submitted site maps are just a too powerful SEO tool and cannot be ignored.

You can learn how to create indices and more about sitemaps at sitemaps.org.

After you’ve created your sitemaps (and potentially sitemap indices), you’ll need to register them with the various search engines. Both Google and Bing encourage webmasters to register sitemaps and RSS feeds through Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools.

Taking this step helps the search engines identify where your sitemap is — meaning that as soon as the sitemap is updated, the search engines can react faster to index the new content. Also, content curators or syndicators may be using your RSS feeds to automatically pull your content into their sites.

Registering your sitemap (or RSS feed) with Google and Bing gives the search engines a signal that your content has been created or updated before they find it on the other sites. It’s really a very simple process with both engines. 

To submit a sitemap to Google:

1. Ensure that the XML Sitemap is on your web server and accessible via its URL.
2. Log in to Google Webmaster Tools.
3. Under “Crawl,” choose “Sitemaps.”
4. Click on the red button in the upper right marked “Add/Test Sitemap.” Enter the URL of the sitemap and click “Submit Sitemap.”

To register a sitemap with Bing:

1. Ensure that the XML Sitemap is on your web server and accessible via its URL.
2. Log in to Bing Webmaster Tools.
3. Click on “Configure My Site” and “Sitemaps.”
4. Enter the full URL of the sitemap in the “Submit a Sitemap” text box.
5. Click “Submit.”

Another great reason to register sitemaps with Google specifically is to catch Sitemap errors. Google Webmaster Tools provides great information about the status of each Sitemap and any errors it finds:

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What’s A Domain Name and Web Hosting ?

What’s A Domain Name
When you register a domain, it gives you sole ownership and rights to the name of your site. No one else in the market has the access to the actual name of that particular domain besides you.
However, just because you have a domain does not mean that you are ready to serve your website to the world. To put up and operate a website, you will need a domain name, and a proper-configured web server (hosting).  (1) a domain name is like your house address; and, (2) a domain name can be registered only with a domain registrar.

For Example:
We like to use the "Car / Garage / DMV" analogy.
Your domain is like the license plate for your car. With it, you can be identified and located on the world wide web.
You can't get a license plate for your car until you register it, nor can you have a domain until you register it, either.

A domain registrar is like the DMV of the internet. You use a registrar to register your domain for a period of time - 1, 2, 5 or more years.
Once you have registered your domain, you need a place to park it - a "garage". A web host is where you do that.
Now that you have registered your domain, and have a place to host it, you need to set up your website - your "car" - for all the world to see.

Website - Car
Registrar - DMV
Domain Registration - Registration
Domain - License Plate
Web Host - Garage

What’s A Web Hosting
A web hosting normally refers to the web server (big computer) that stores lots of data files).

A web hosting providers normally rent out web servers and network connection to the end-users or the resellers. For most cases, the hosting providers will be the parties handling most server maintenance work (such as backup, root configuration, maintenance, disaster recoveries, etc); but for certain cases, the end users will need to get everything cover by themselves.

Types of hosting"

Smaller hosting services

The most basic is web page and small-scale file hosting, where files can be uploaded via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or a Web interface. The files are usually delivered to the Web "as is" or with minimal processing. Many Internet service providers (ISPs) offer this service free to subscribers. Individuals and organizations may also obtain Web page hosting from alternative service providers.

Free web hosting service is offered by different companies with limited services, sometimes supported by advertisements, and often limited when compared to paid hosting.

Single page hosting is generally sufficient for personal web pages. Personal web site hosting is typically free, advertisement-sponsored, or inexpensive. Business web site hosting often has a higher expense depending upon the size and type of the site.

Larger hosting services

Many large companies that are not Internet service providers need to be permanently connected to the web to send email, files, etc. to other sites. The company may use the computer as a website host to provide details of their goods and services and facilities for online orders.

A complex site calls for a more comprehensive package that provides database support and application development platforms (e.g. ASP.NET, ColdFusion, Java EE, Perl/Plack, PHP or Ruby on Rails). These facilities allow customers to write or install scripts for applications like forums and content management. Also, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is typically used for websites that wish to keep the data transmitted more secure.

• Shared web hosting service: one's website is placed on the same server as many other sites, ranging from a few sites to hundreds of websites. Typically, all domains may share a common pool of server resources, such as RAM and the CPU. The features available with this type of service can be quite basic and not flexible in terms of software and updates. Resellers often sell shared web hosting and web companies often have reseller accounts to provide hosting for clients.
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• Reseller web hosting: allows clients to become web hosts themselves. Resellers could function, for individual domains, under any combination of these listed types of hosting, depending on who they are affiliated with as a reseller. Resellers' accounts may vary tremendously in size: they may have their own virtual dedicated server to a colocated server. Many resellers provide a nearly identical service to their provider's shared hosting plan and provide the technical support themselves.
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• Virtual Dedicated Server: also known as a Virtual Private Server (VPS), divides server resources into virtual servers, where resources can be allocated in a way that does not directly reflect the underlying hardware. VPS will often be allocated resources based on a one server to many VPSs relationship, however virtualisation may be done for a number of reasons, including the ability to move a VPS container between servers. The users may have root access to their own virtual space. Customers are sometimes responsible for patching and maintaining the server (unmanaged server) or the VPS provider may provide server admin tasks for the customer (managed server).
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• Dedicated hosting service: the user gets his or her own Web server and gains full control over it (user has root access for Linux/administrator access for Windows); however, the user typically does not own the server. One type of dedicated hosting is self-managed or unmanaged. This is usually the least expensive for dedicated plans. The user has full administrative access to the server, which means the client is responsible for the security and maintenance of his own dedicated server.
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• Managed hosting service: the user gets his or her own Web server but is not allowed full control over it (user is denied root access for Linux/administrator access for Windows); however, they are allowed to manage their data via FTP or other remote management tools. The user is disallowed full control so that the provider can guarantee quality of service by not allowing the user to modify the server or potentially create configuration problems. The user typically does not own the server. The server is leased to the client.
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• Colocation web hosting service: similar to the dedicated web hosting service, but the user owns the colo server; the hosting company provides physical space that the server takes up and takes care of the server. This is the most powerful and expensive type of web hosting service. In most cases, the colocation provider may provide little to no support directly for their client's machine, providing only the electrical, Internet access, and storage facilities for the server. 
• In most cases for colo, the client would have his own administrator visit the data center on site to do any hardware upgrades or changes. Formerly, many colocation providers would accept any system configuration for hosting, even ones housed in desktop-style minitower cases, but most hosts now require rack mount enclosures and standard system configurations.
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• Cloud hosting: is a new type of hosting platform that allows customers powerful, scalable and reliable hosting based on clustered load-balanced servers and utility billing. A cloud hosted website may be more reliable than alternatives since other computers in the cloud can compensate when a single piece of hardware goes down. Also, local power disruptions or even natural disasters are less problematic for cloud hosted sites, as cloud hosting is decentralized. 
• Cloud hosting also allows providers to charge users only for resources consumed by the user, rather than a flat fee for the amount the user expects they will use, or a fixed cost upfront hardware investment. Alternatively, the lack of centralization may give users less control on where their data is located which could be a problem for users with data security or privacy concerns.
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• Clustered hosting: having multiple servers hosting the same content for better resource utilization. Clustered servers are a perfect solution for high-availability dedicated hosting, or creating a scalable web hosting solution. A cluster may separate web serving from database hosting capability. (Usually web hosts use clustered hosting for their shared hosting plans, as there are multiple benefits to the mass managing of clients).
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• Grid hosting: this form of distributed hosting is when a server cluster acts like a grid and is composed of multiple nodes.
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• Home server: usually a single machine placed in a private residence can be used to host one or more web sites from a usually consumer-grade broadband connection. These can be purpose-built machines or more commonly old PCs. Some ISPs actively attempt to block home servers by disallowing incoming requests to TCP port 80 of the user's connection and by refusing to provide static IP addresses. 
• A common way to attain a reliable DNS host name is by creating an account with a dynamic DNS service. A dynamic DNS service will automatically change the IP address that a URL points to when the IP address changes.^[2]

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How To Be Successful in Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing has been one of the easiest and fastest ways to make money online. Many webmaster feels that their earning potential has been going with pay per click programs and the revenue generated according to the traffic they generate is nowhere near satisfaction. Hence, they are switching to affiliate marketing.

Google Adsense program most of time approved for Google adsense account is very difficult and adsense account goes Disabled for any reason either you are working right on adsense programm ads.
So, most of Publisher chosse Affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is a way of making money by promoting other’s products or services and earning commissions whenever there is a sale. You do not need to go into the details of buying and selling and neither have to set up a website selling a product. You just promote or rather compel your readers into buying a product or service, and you make money whenever a sale is made. Affiliate marketing works on a commission based referral system where you sign up in an affiliate program and earn through the sales.

After reading all the benefits of affiliate marketing if you think you will be rich over night by selling affiliate products online then you are wrong. Affiliate marketing is definitely an excellent way to make money online but it’s highly competitive too. In order to be successful in Affiliate marketing you need to know the market needs, learn how to promote products, what works and what doesn’t. 

Must Read: What is Affiliate Marketing?

 

Only Choose a Handful of Good Products
The first mistake a lot of affiliate marketers make is that they register with too many different affiliate programs and try to promote everything. Pursuing affiliate marketing down this path can become very overwhelming and you won’t be able to promote any product properly. All you need in order to be successful is a handful of good products to promote. Try to understand the market needs and look for products that align correctly with the topic of your site.

Niche
Niche is the most important factor that will contribute in your success. Concentrating on one particular niche will be more profitable rather that selling everything. Target a particular audience and stick to specific products.
Evolve around the niche you have build and promote products and services related to it.

Use Several Traffic Sources to Promote Products
Most affiliate marketers put up the ads only on their sites. There is nothing wrong with this approach but know that there are many other traffic sources that you can tap into and promote the products simultaneously. The more targeted traffic you can send to the sales page the more your chances are of making money.

Google Adwords can be used to drive targeted traffic to a sales page. You simply make an ad in your adwords account then use your affiliate link in the target page URL of the ad. Obviously, you will have to continuously measure the conversions and see if the campaign cost is less than the campaign profit in order to keep the campaign running.

Marketing
Just like other advertising services, you need traffic. You need to show your presence on social media and in search engines. You need to get targeted traffic and buying traffic won’t help you much. Search Engine traffic is considered highly targeted and you will have to go through search engine practices and optimization practices and market your blog. If your blog is discovered in search engine, that will itself prove that your blog is related to the search query.

Research your audience
Providing wrong products for your audience will ultimately lead to your failure in affiliate marketing. You need to know your audience. You should know which category the readers of your blog belong to. This is why selecting a particular niche helps. Someone searching information about XBOX games will have more interest in buying games rather than books and novels.

Test, Measure and Track Your Affiliate Campaign
It is a very good idea to use different product promotion strategies so you can figure out what is working and what is not. Try to do split testing and measure the performance of each campaign then take actions accordingly. Changing a few things here and there can increase your profit dramatically. Make sure to place the banner ads on different areas of your site’s pages. Some positions will make the ads more noticeable than others.

Most affiliate programs will give you basic stats that you may need but there is nothing stopping you from using your own conversion tracking software too. There are many conversions tracking software out there that you can use to track your affiliate campaign.

Stay Current with New Methods and Techniques
Affiliate marketing is a very competitive field and people are always coming up with new techniques. Try to stay current with these new techniques and market trends otherwise you will fall behind.

Choose the right affiliate
Webmasters have contrasting opinions about sticking to one particular affiliates. There are several affiliate services available like ShareaSale, Commission Junction, Amazon Associates etc. Amazon is so vast that it has almost everything that can be bought.

The point is all these affiliates will work almost the same. Some have a better percentage commission as compared to others. You have to market research before getting into any affiliate program and decide which one is best for you.

Get in front of breakout and seasonal trends
Affiliate marketers have been taking advantage of trends for a long time. Yet, new trends continue to breakout, creating hundreds of new weird and wonderful multi-million dollar niches every year.
The first differentiation to make is between seasonal and breakout trends. Seasonal trends are recurring, and often predictable, peaks in popularity that you can prepare for in advance.

Google Trends is your best friend for identifying seasonal trends. While you can just type in a keyword to see how it’s search volume fluctuates throughout the year, you can also use the category functionality to find seasonal trends in specific industries.

Be selective when it comes to merchants
There are a lot of merchants out there so it is okay to be picky.  Many people decide on their merchants strictly based on high commission, rather than quality of product or even reputation.  Sell-through rate should also be a factor in determining which merchant to use.  The sell-through rate can make or break your business.

Avoid overcrowding
There would be lots of millionaires in the world, even more than the world could handle if affiliate marketing were as simple as throwing up a few banner ads here and there.  A site is more effective if content on the site, rather than strictly ads.  Be selective and avoid overcrowding when it comes to ads.

Track results
One of the most important keys to successful affiliate marketing is to track results.  There are just too many affiliate programs out there with no results or very little.  Look for a reputable company that offers a track record and results to match.  You do not want to work with an affiliate program that is not performing well.

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Google Webmaster Manual Action Penalties

As a webmaster or SEO, there's nothing worse than getting a message from Google Webmaster Tools about a manual action that has been placed on your website. Manual actions are Google's way of demoting or removing web pages or websites as a whole based. They aren't related to Google algorithm changes like Penguin, Panda, Hummingbird, or the others. They are simply Google manually punishing websites for spammy behavior.

How often do manual actions occur?

Here's Google's chart showing the number of manual actions they have imposed over the course of one month.

Manual actions chart

Should you worry about a manual action?

The answer depends on an important factor: whether the manual action affects your website's organic search traffic and rankings.

Some manual actions may not significantly impact your website's organic search traffic and rankings as a whole. They may only impact pages that you no longer care about or pages that do not generate revenue for your business. Instead of fighting the manual action, it may be worth just deleting the page(s) in question.

So how can you tell if a manual action is hurting your website and your business? Start with your Google Analytics. Note the date Google applied the manual action on your website and look at your organic search traffic before and after the action. Does it change significantly?

Organic search traffic

You can also use the compare to previous period option in the date selector to see how your traffic has changed over a longer span of time.

Previous period

If you measure goal conversions in Google Analytics, the traffic may not be as big of a concern as a change in the number of conversions.

Conversions

If you don't see a significant, negative change in organic search traffic and conversions after the manual action was taken on your website, then you may not need to worry about it. Or at least, you don't need to be aggressive about fixing it. On the other hand, if you do see a significant, negative change that is hurting your business, then you will want to be aggressive about fixing it.

Now, let's look at the types of manual actions Google imposes on websites and how to work towards fixing them.

Unnatural Links to Your Site

There are two types of manual actions regarding unnatural links to your website. The first type is where Google acknowledges that the unnatural links they found are out of your control, and therefore they don't take it out on your site's overall rankings. They do suggest you try removing links that you can control, but they don't punish you for the ones you can't.

Unnatural links message

The second type is where Google believes that you have been involved in link schemes and deceptive or manipulative link practices. This one likely affects your site's rankings overall in search.

If your website has received the latter manual action, you may have a long, hard road towards getting it rectified. You will have to show Google that you have made a strong effort to remove as many unnatural links to your website as possible and explain any links that you were unable to remove.

Link Detox can make the process of rebounding from an unnatural links manual action a little less painful. For starters, you can use it to analyze your backlink profile, including the backlinks you export from Google Webmaster Tools.

Link detox high risk links

Link Detox will quickly identify the links that are at the highest risk of being considered unnatural by Google. You can then use LinkResearchTool's integration with Pitchbox to contact webmasters with customized templates and ask them to remove links to your website

Pitchbox integration

With automated follow-ups, you don't have to worry about trying to remember to email people again and again. You can just create a template that does the job for you!

Once you have removed (or attempted to remove) your high-risk links, you can ask Google for a reconsideration request. If they deem you have done a good enough job of removing your unnatural links, they may remove the manual action. You should then monitor your analytics to see if the removal leads to regaining your site's organic traffic and rankings.

If your reconsideration request is denied, then you will need to continue to remove links that are considered at a high or above average risk.

Note that, in either case, no matter how good of a job you do of removing unnatural links, you may not receive a complete recovery of your organic search traffic. Since the links were helping your website rank for specific keywords, having those links removed alone will lower your ranking. You will, therefore, have to work towards link building the Google-approved way.

Unnatural Links from Your Site

Google doesn't only punish websites with unnatural incoming links. They also will impose a manual action on websites with unnatural outbound links. This likely occurs on websites that Google believes is selling links to other websites directly, or by offering dofollow links for sponsored or paid reviews. It can also affect outbound links that are a part of link exchanges or other link schemes.

Manual-Actions-unnatural-links-from-website

If you receive this manual action, your job will be to remove paid links, exchanged links, and other links you have given to other websites.

Alternatively, you can mark them as nofollow. Depending on how many links you have given on a paid basis, you may have a large task at hand.

If none of the outbound links you have on your website are part of a link scheme, then you may want to look for dofollow links in comments on your blog or posts within your forum. You may also want to look for links that are completely unrelated to your website, as those may be the ones Google has identified as unnatural outbound links.

Hacked Site

While a website hacking is not your fault, Google will apply a manual action to your website as soon as they detect malicious code.

The fix for a hacked site is to get all of the malicious code and malware removed as quickly as possible. Once you have done this, the manual action will be removed, and Google will no longer warn visitors to your website that your website is infected.

If you have no idea how to fix your website in the event of a hacking, you can turn to services like Sucuri or SiteLock that specialize in malware monitoring and cleanup. You can prevent these events from happening by paying similar services to constantly monitor and secure your website from hackers and malware.

You can also use Link Alerts to constantly monitor your backlinks since  having too many links from websites affected by malware, may get you in trouble as well.

hacked-website-manual-action

Thin Content

When Google decides that you have content that provides little value, they may impose a manual action for thin content.

Google defines thin content like the following.

Automatically generated content - If a human is not creating your content, then it will likely fall under this category and be considered thin content.

Thin affiliate pages - If the only content your website has is for the purpose of promoting products or services as an affiliate and provides no additional value, it might be considered thin content.

Content from other sources - If you rely upon content scrapers to steal content from other websites, or you get low-quality content from outside contributors (guest posts), then it might be considered thin content.

google-manual-action-thin-content

Doorway pages - If you have multiple pages or websites that you are trying to rank for specific queries that take the user to essentially the same piece of content, then they might be considered doorway pages.

If your website contains any of these types of content, you should look to create new, valuable, and unique content to replace the poor quality and automated content or remove the pages altogether. Once you have updated your website's content, you can submit a reconsideration request.

Not sure about what constitutes high-quality content? Be sure to review Google's guidelines. You can also look at Google's guidelines for content reviewers see what they look for when evaluating web pages for quality.

For those who do not have the time to create the replacement, high-quality content, you should consider outsourcing the content development. You don't want to get in trouble for the same low-quality issues. Therefore you will want to find content creators who specialize in creating high-quality content within your niche or industry.

Pure Spam

The manual action for pure spam can cover a lot of different abuses of the Google Webmaster Guidelines. These include scraped content, automated gibberish, cloaking, and other items that are covered by previously covered manual actions. This includes spammy incoming and outgoing links.

google-manual-action-pure-spam

The only way to recover from this manual action is to clean up any pages and links that are considered to be spam by Google. Depending on the type of spam and how much you have on your website, this may involve completely restructuring your website's architecture, content, on-site optimization, and off-site optimization.

User-Generated Spam

If you own a blog, forum, social network, or membership site with public profiles, you may receive the manual action for user-generated spam based on the behavior of visitors and members of your website. User-generated spam can include blog comments, forum posts, and profiles that are spammy in nature.

manual-actions-user-generated-spam

Depending on the size of your website, number of users and the amount of user-generated content, you may have a tough road ahead of you to fix these issues. You can start by looking through the names of people who have signed up to your website to see if they are real names or computer generated usernames. Google also suggests that you use searches like site:domain.com keyword to find profiles and user-generated content that includes keywords used by spammers related to adult content, online pharmaceuticals, insurance, payday loans, casinos, and similar niches.

Another way to help combat this issue is to implement a system of user voting. This way, real users of your website can down vote content and profiles that they consider spammy or offensive. Instead of you having to find all of the problems on your own, you can let your users help you moderate the community.

If that is not an option and you don't have time to police your community, you may want to hire someone who can moderate the spam out of your website and keep it moderated going forward.

Once you have managed to remove the spammy user-generated content, you can submit a reconsideration request to Google showing that you have cleaned up your website and put assurances in place to make sure the user-generated spam does not build up again.

Cloaking and Sneaky Redirects

redirects

This manual action covers two scenarios. If your website has content that is shown to Google, but not shown to visitors, Google may consider it as cloaking.

If your website has any pages that are indexed in Google, but redirect users to pages that they would not have gone to intentionally, you may have what Google considers sneaky redirects. Sneaky redirects can also apply to redirects that are conditional, such as redirects that are only applied to visitors from Google search.

Sometimes, cloaking and sneaky redirects can be the result of hacking. For example, you see a normal web page as a user, but the code behind the page has been stuffed with various spammy keyword phrases.

If you do not know of any instances of cloaking and sneaky redirects that you have set up on your website, you may want to have your website checked by a hacking or malware removal service to ensure that your website hasn't been hacked in a way that you cannot detect.

Once you have removed instances of cloaking and sneaky redirects, or have determined that both were due to hacking or malware, you can contact Google for your reconsideration request.

Hidden Text and Keyword Stuffing

Manual actions for hidden text and keyword stuffing happen when Google discovers keywords on a page that are not shown to users or an overuse of keywords in the website's optimization. This manual action can sometimes include websites that have been hacked or infected by malware, where the hack injects keywords that you do not know about in your websites code.

If you do not know of any instances of hidden text or overused keywords that you have done to your website, you may want to have your website checked by a hacking or malware removal service to ensure that your website hasn't been hacked in a way that you cannot detect.

Once you have removed instances hidden text or overused keywords, or have determined that both were due to hacking or malware, you can contact Google for your reconsideration request.

Spammy Freehosts

For the most part, Google can tell when a website has spam versus when a website on the same hosting server has spam. But in some cases, if your website is hosted on a server is full of spammy websites, your website might also be lumped into the same grouping.

If you suspect that your website is hosted on a server with other spammy websites, your options are as follows.

You can contact the web host and have them see if they can remove the other spammy websites based on a breach of the host's terms and conditions.

You can ask to have your website moved to another server or a dedicated server that would separate your website from the spammy websites.

You can move to a different hosting company where you can get assurance that your website will not be hosted with other spammy websites.

Once you have removed the association between your website and the spammy websites on your server, you can submit a reconsideration request to Google. Your rankings and organic search traffic should recover.

Spammy Structured Markup

Structured markup for websites can help make your website stand out in search results. If you have knowingly abused structured markup by using markup on your web pages that does not match your content, then you could receive a manual action for spammy structured markup.

Start by reviewing Google's rich snippets guidelines to see if you might have accidentally misused structured markup on your website. Remove any instances of misused structured markup, and you should be able to submit a reconsideration request to Google.

In Conclusion

If you have received a manual action from Google, it isn't the end of the world. You may have a long way to go to repair your website and recover your rankings. It can be done if you are honest about what has gone wrong and can invest the time and resources into making things right again.

"Always follow Google Webmaster Guidelines"

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What is Spyware and Methods of Prevention.?

What is Spyware?

Strictly speaking, the term “spyware” could be used to describe all of the tools and technology with which espionage is conducted – including the poison-tipped umbrella. But in the context of digital/information technology, spyware is any software that obtains information about a person or organization – usually without their knowledge or consent.

At the more legitimate end of the spectrum, this definition would include cookies deposited in your web browser cache when you visit a website, or software used to gather data on you and your habits for marketing and targeting advertising purposes – so long as these operate without your knowing about them.

Spybots or tracking software are terms often used to describe the class of spyware which is installed without a user’s consent – typically through deception (an infected website, pop-up window, or other malware trap) or camouflage (with a spyware program bundled as part of an otherwise legitimate download). Once installed, these programs gather information on the infected target and transmit it to third parties, who may use it for any number of purposes.

A Brief History of Spyware

Back in October 1995, the term “spyware” first appeared in a public forum called Usenet – which was a distributed internet discussion where users could post messages in an email-like format. It featured in an article analyzing the business model then adopted by Microsoft, in a largely conceptual context.

Spyware made its first significant public impact in 1999, when the popular freeware game Elf Bowling was discovered to be laced with tracking software. Also in that year, Steve Gibson of Gibson Research uncovered a form of spyware which, under the pretext of advertising, was actually pilfering confidential information – the first significant intrusion of adware. In response, Gibson went on to develop OptOut, the first anti-spyware program.

A press release for a personal firewall package which appeared in the year 2000 contained specific reference to spyware, and marked its official entry in the modern language of computing.

The Current State of Spyware

As with other forms of malicious application, spyware has enjoyed a rapid evolution since its humble beginnings. In no small part, this may be attributed to the proliferation of websites, portals, file-sharing resources and torrents that enable users to exchange files and bypass officially sanctioned software distributors and app stores to download free software, or cracked and pirated versions of commercial packages.

Authors of spyware have been known to pay the developers of shareware (limited or zero functionality after a certain period, unless you choose to buy) to bundle their tracking software with legitimate packages. They may also re-engineer freeware applications to include their own spyware code.

Beyond the booby-trapped email attachment or infected pop-up window, internet spies may lure unfortunate victims to tainted websites, where spyware is undetectably and automatically downloaded onto a visitor’s machine – the so-called “drive-by download”. This points to the principal weapon that cyber-criminals use in getting their targets to install spyware: stealth.

Spyware works best when the target is unaware of its presence or activities. So today’s spyware practitioners take great pains to ensure that victims have no idea that the software package they’re installing comes bundled with spybots, or that the website they’ve just visited left them with more than what they’ve just seen.

Once established on a host system, spyware may then go on to observe a user’s activities and provide a steady stream of information to its controllers. This could include personal data, contact lists, financial information, account and user credentials, intellectual property, or operational data crucial to businesses. In some cases, the tracking software may also make changes to a system or network to make its own work easier, or as a form of sabotage.

Types of Spyware

There are several forms of tracking software in current circulation, including:

• Adware: The paid advertising which appears on program windows and makes such software notionally free may also mask underlying code which observes a user’s system or activities and relays information to third parties for semi-legitimate marketing or more nefarious purposes. Pornware and riskware may also be used as avenues for tracking software installations.
• Cell Phone or Mobile Spyware: A range of applications, including device-resident software installed by manufacturers to track a user’s position, internet use and activity for targeted advertising and other purposes, and spyware installed manually (by a user, or a malicious outsider gaining access to their phone) or from an infected file download or website.
• Cookies: For the most part, tracer cookies are placed for legitimate purposes – and websites specifically display their cookie and consent policies to the user in their browser window. But they may also be placed surreptitiously, and employed to track users without their knowledge.
• System Monitors: Installed secretly, or slipped in as hidden features of otherwise legitimate-looking security software, spyware system monitors may capture keyboard activity (keyloggers), track and record emails, observe browsing and websites visited, etc.
• Trojans: Seemingly innocent or legitimate software installations and document files that contain spyware in various forms.

Effects of Spyware

The pilfering of confidential personal or corporate data and intellectual property can lead to identity theft, fraud, financial losses, and damage to individual or organizational reputations once the breaches come to light. That’s why spyware is a lucrative option for cyber-criminals, who can sell information on to third parties, or hold people and organizations to ransom over the return of their data or the threat of exposure.

Spyware can also cause real damage to infected systems. There’s often a performance dip associated with a spyware installation, which may manifest as a device or system running slowly, crashes and freezing, increased stress on the processor, higher operating temperatures, battery drains, and so on.

The tracking software may also make changes to system configurations, change port and browser settings, spoof or redirect homepage settings, alter a user’s search engine results, or cause a user’s web browsers to automatically visit infected or fraudulent sites.

Methods of Prevention

New software should be downloaded from approved app stores and manufacturer websites, whenever possible. File-sharing (unless within a secure network environment) and torrent downloads are generally not a good idea. Neither is haphazard clicking on unsolicited email attachments or pop-up windows and advertising.

Security and anti-virus software is always a recommended option – as long as it originates from a reputable manufacturer, and has dedicated anti-spyware facilities. Look for anti-spam filters, cloud-based detection, and virtual encrypted keyboard tools for entering financial information and transactions. Some internet security solutions also offer spyware removal capabilities, in the event of an existing infection.

Device security should also be maintained. So keep a close eye and hand on cell phones and tablets, use password protection and lock screens, and secure all hardware against physical theft or tampering.

Origian from: https://blog.finjan.com/the-past-and-present-state-of-spyware/

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What is Affiliate Marketing?

A common way to make money online is through affiliate marketing.Affiliate marketing is internet advertising that allows any online business to affiliate themselves with web site owners (known as affiliates or publishers) using affiliate programs. Affiliates make money by generating sales, leads and traffic for the Merchants business. Merchants who sell goods and services online or seek other affiliate business activity typically use one of the affiliate program commission payment models below:

Cost Per Sale (CPA) 

A visitor referred by the Affiliate purchases goods and services from the Merchant. This payment structure is referred to as - cost per sale or cost per acquisition (CPA). 

Cost Per Lead (CPL) 

A visitor referred by the Affiliate completes a form on the Merchants web site. This payment structure is referred to as - cost per lead (CPL). 

Cost Per Click (CPC)

A visitor to the Affiliates web site clicks on a Merchant's banner and visits the Merchant's web site. This payment structure is referred to as - cost per click (CPC).

Merchants - Affiliate marketing is a excellent way to build your own large online sales team and drive customers to your affiliate business web site on a 'pay for performance' basis. As a Merchant you can build your own pay per sale, pay per lead or pay per click Affiliate program and use graphic, text and custom HTML/Flash advertisements to promote and drive customers to your web site. Affiliates will join your program and display your advertisements on their web sites, sending customers and traffic back to your site. All the Affiliate programs you build are free and provide you with comprehensive online management and sale reporting tools, so that you can track your sales, impressions and the customer traffic reaching your web site. 

You have full control over your Affiliate program, what country your traffic comes from and which Affiliates promote your program. You also have complete control over the rate paid for each sale(cpa), lead(cpl), click(cpc) or the display of one thousand of your banners(cpm). You may also choose to use our additional promotional service ensuring that your program reaches a very wide and large US, European, Asian or Australian based customer audience. 

Affiliates - Affiliate marketing allows you to earn high income from your web site while providing related services to your visitors.You can start earning money today with your web site by joining one of the thousands of Affiliate programs located on this site. Many online businesses offer Affiliate programs as a way of generating sales and traffic for their online businesses. These companies will pay you high commissions based on the traffic they receive from advertisements you place on your site. You can choose from pay-per-sale, pay-per-lead, pay-per-click or pay-per-display Affiliate programs. 

All the listed programs are free to join and provide you with online statistics so that you can track your commissions. Once you have joined an Affiliate program, you will be paid according to the programs pay type. (i.e.) a pay-per-sale program pays you each time a sale is made by a customer sent from your web site; a pay-per-lead programs pays you each time you forward a lead to the Merchant; a pay-per-click program pays each time an advertisement is clicked and pay-per-display of 1000 of a merchants banners(cpm).

Following are some of the common terms associated with affiliate marketing:

Affiliates: Publishers like you and me who are using affiliate program links to promote and make sales.

Affiliate marketplace: There are many marketplaces like Shareasale, CJ and Clickbank, which work as central databases for affiliate programs in different niches.

Affiliate software: Software used by companies to create an affiliate program for their product, for example: iDevaffiliate.

Affiliate link: Special tracking link offered by your affiliate program to track the progress of your affiliate promotion.

Affiliate ID: Similar to the affiliate link, but many affiliate programs offer a unique ID which you can add to any page of the product site.

Payment mode: Different affiliate programs offer different methods of payment. For example: check, wire transfer, Paypal and many more.

Affiliate Manager/OPM: Many companies have dedicated affiliate managers to help publishers to earn more by giving them optimization tips.

Commission percentage/amount: The amount or percentage you will be receiving in affiliate income from every sale.

2-tier affiliate marketing: This is a great way of making money from an affiliate program. With this method you recommend that others join affiliate programs, and you receive a commission when a sub-affiliate makes a sale, (similar to MLM or multi-level marketing.) This income is popularly known as sub-affiliate commission.

Landing pages: A unique product sales or demo page used for the purpose of increasing sales. Most of the programs that you will be promoting have many landing pages, and you can run A/B testing to see which pages convert best for you.

Custom affiliate income/ account: Unlike a generic affiliate account, many companies offer custom affiliate income to people making the most affiliate sales for them.

Link clocking: Most of the affiliate tracking links are ugly. Using a link clocking technique like URL shorteners, Thirsty Affiliates, etc., you can turn ugly links into links that can be read and understood by your readers.

Custom coupons: Many programs allow affiliates to create custom coupons which are also used to track sales. Custom discount coupons help you to increase affiliate sales as well.

Who can be an affiliate?

Any person or company who owns a website from which they can send traffic via links (banners or text links) to the advertiser’s website could be an affiliate. In addition to the above, an affiliate can also be anyone who sends users to the advertiser’s website via Pay per Click (PPC) campaigns the affiliate has created, on Google, Facebook and other search engines. The rise in popularity of social media websites like Facebook and Twitter has created another type of affiliate, who sends traffic to advertisers via their social media profiles and pages.

Affiliates send traffic to advertisers in order to receive a pre-agreed sum of money or level of commission, if the users they have sent perform the agreed action (usually a sale). The simplicity of the affiliate model means that anyone can become an affiliate, from a price comparison website, to a content site, a forum or even a blog.

Who can be an advertiser?

Any company owning a website where users can perform some sort of transaction could be an advertiser. Most of the times, this transaction refers to an order/sale, in which case the advertiser has an e-commerce website (e-shop), but it can also refer to other actions like the completion of an order form, sign up to the newsletter, catalogue request etc.

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