Not all hosting services will prove beneficial to a site. Being associated with one that is known to host suspicious sites can actually work against a site. Sites may find themselves being considered threats for reasons they have no part in doing.
It is possible that a particular hosting service may not be the appropriate one for the following reasons:
1. If the hosting service provided is characterized by slow loading and unstable up-time
Slow loading and unstable up-time can kill a blog slowly but surely. It can also make new blogs unable to lift off if it is being hindered from the very start by such obstacles. With the wide range of choices in the sheer number of sites and blogs in the online world, readers can take their pick. Very,very few will have the patience to go back and check if the site is up after a couple of failed tries. Excruciatingly slow loading of site pages is another major turn-off.
2. If the hosting service does not provide for back-up protection
It can be very insecure for sites to be using the services of a hosting service that does not provide reliable back-up protection. The headache of losing important digital data is indescribable. It can put down the drain considerable worth of work which can be very devastating.
3. If the hosting service is not able to provide required support
It is inevitable that sites will come across technical problems in relation to the hosting service provided. It is important that the service provider is able to give the needed support and solution, whenever applicable. The worst web host is one which leaves site owners in the dark and helpless when problems are encountered.
4. If the hosting service is providing its services to malicious sites
Being associated with malicious sites even only through the use of the same hosting service may prove counter-productive to legitimate sites. It is best that hosting services have strict rules against the malicious use of sites. The fact that a web hosting service is providing its services to a known malicious site speaks clearly of its working principles.
5. If the hosting service is requiring payment not equivalent to the quality of their service
Site owners have certain expectations even in the use of free hosting services. It is even more so if the service is being paid for. When the hosting expense appears unreasonable in relation to the quality of service provided, then it is time to find another.
Teresa is a researcher-writer who covers a wide range of topics in search of useful information.
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Phishing is one of the threats presented by communicating electronically. The main purpose of this illegal activity is to obtain personal information , typically of financial in nature, which the phishers will use to steal money from the owner of the information. This is carried out either by email spoofing or sending deceitful instant messages.
Phishing is exactly what it name sounds like – fishing for personal information. It is the act of hackers to maliciously acquire critical information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details. These three are usually the main target because once they are obtained, the hacker literally gets the key to all entry points of a computer user’s life. What separates phishing from regular fraud is that it is done through electronic means rather than face to face.
Electronic communication posing as legitimate and authentic ones usually do the job by encouraging the recipients of the message to do a certain action such as clicking on a link or visiting a website. The communication serves as the bait since it will usually contain messages that will make them act before they think, typically citing urgency of the matter. Before a person realizes he or she has been falsely led, information has already been stolen.
The most common targets of the phishing scam are those that use bank and online payment services because of the need to provide financial information. While general phishing is more or less random, another more targeted form that focuses on specific individuals and companies is the so-called spear phishing. Whale phishing targets senior executives probably in reference to their expected larger financial resources.
About the author:
Teresa is a researcher-writer who covers a wide range of topics in search of useful information.
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There are a number of reasons why a blog can get reported for being spam blogs. The primary reason of course is the existence of spam content which are usually contents for mature audience, abusive, and promotes self-harm or harm to others. A blog can also be reported as a spam blog if it infringes on the copyright and trademark of an existing blog.
Why is it important to report spam blogs when Google can easily bring them down? Google can do just that but it has to discover first which blogs are doing it. This is not an easy thing to do considering the very big number of blogs involved. Tracking blogs that violate rules on duplicate content is a complicated matter. Some of these spam blogs even manage to confuse search engines into ranking them better than the real owners of the copied content.
When web masters and users take the time to report when they spot a spam blog, they are in effect making it easier for Google to cleanse the search system of undesirables. Web masters and users are in the advantageous position of identifying outright, contents copied from their respective sites. Reporting a spam blog is easy to do and can be done with a few clicks and entry of the url of the blog being reported. A short description of the specific violation made by the blog or site in question must be within the report. By being proactive in reporting online violations, web masters and users can have access to better protection from copycats.
About the author:
Teresa maintains multiple blogs
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For an original content writer, nothing can be more heart-breaking than seeing his original work in a plagiarist’s site with higher ranking. One thinks, where is the justice in that? Where indeed?
The truth is, there is nothing that can be done at this time to prevent such from happening. As long as the ranking is automated, there is no way to prevent plagiarists from benefitting from their copying activities. The more ideal option which is manual assessment of sites is not practical either due to the large number of sites involved.
Plagiarists are usually adept as well in optimizing their sites that is why they are able to achieve high ranking even if they have nothing to offer but copied content. It seems that the one option which original content writers can do is to request the plagiarist to take down the copied content. Whether this request is heeded is another thing altogether. Sending a report to Google is also an option in the hope that its crawlers will stop indexing the plagiarists’ blog so that traffic will be directed to the blog of the original writer. Google usually responds to issues like this by giving a low rank to the plagiarist’s blog or completely de-indexing it.
Writers of original content should and must protect their work from being used for other’s selfish reasons of making money out of somebody else’s work. Preventing the furtherance of plagiarism is necessary if an original content writer wishes to avoid being bypassed in favor of the plagiarist. Google puts much emphasis on originality and quality but it needs some assistance from legitimate content owners themselves.
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Since splogs are counterproductive to blogs whose content are being copied , their removal is of primary importance to bloggers. This is easier said than done. The works of sploggers are so rampant and purposeful that it is almost impossible to believe that they will stop if told to do so.
Legitimate bloggers will be highly interested to know how to avoid being victimized by sploggers. A legitimate author of any stolen work cannot begin to describe the feeling of seeing his/her work printed verbatim in another blog without any attribution whatsoever. What’s worse is that the work is now under another author’s name who is earning from the various ads surrounding it.
Bloggers victimized by sploggers are bound to encounter problems when they submit their copied work such as stories, poems, and other literary works to publishers since they would appear to have been previously published, and in another name yet. The burden of proving ownership to third parties can be a very difficult process to go through. Pleas and requests to sploggers to take down copied content often fall on deaf ears and may sometimes feel like a useless exercise.
As of this time, there is no clear procedure to follow in accomplishing a desire to remove splogs. The best bet is to practice preventive measures such as placing links on all post which will lead readers to the author page or the “about me” page as is commonly used in blogs. Another way is to watermark photographs used so they will also link back to the original site. Bloggers are likewise encouraged to do online plagiarism checks regularly.
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WordPress offers anti-splog plug-ins and services for the purpose of eliminating spam blogs or splogs from the platform. It offers protection against bots and is able to identify human spammers. Splogs are essentially spam blogs or fake blogs which has for its one and only purpose to promote an affiliated website.
The intended result is the highly skewed search results favouring these affiliated sites. Because of the devastating effect of a splog attack, Google introduced the CAPTCHA to make sure that every entity that seeks to open a blog are actually humans. The use of CAPTCHA is still very common today but is more often seen as a protection against spam comments.
Sploggers fool crawlers by using large numbers of links to a website. Their methods are becoming sophisticated and are therefore causing much harm even with the standard protection in place. Splogs seek to gain positive page rankings.
Because a splog has never been intended to be an authentic blog, it does not contain information that is original and usual. The most that can be found are scraped materials or excerpts from valid blog contents. Scraping is done without obtaining permission from original content owners.
Splog sites actually eyes recently expired domains to take advantage of existing page rank. Others choose names that are very similar to popular blog names counting on the carelessness of blogger who will link. Splogs can affect legitimate blogs when a domain is blocked because of suspicions.
In a site’s bid to rank favorably in the reader’s view, site owners would definitely find ways to make it work for their site. While in the process of doing so, they will encounter many unsolicited offers that would magically raise a site’s ranking in a matter of days. Offers would vary from guaranteed Page 1 Google Ranking, listing in thousands of search engines, and submission to hundreds of directories, with the use of some secret methodology known only to them.
These offers are just too good to be true and yet many fall for it just the same especially the novice. The more experienced ones tend to know better and just ignore these offers. For those who are tempted to try, it would help to pause for a while and think if the offers being made make sense at all.
No one can guarantee Page 1 Google Ranking except of course Google itself which we all know will never make such an offer. Google algorithms have been purposely made to be complex enough so that no person can second-guess the outcome of results. Even SEO practitioners who religiously abide by the guidelines of Google cannot be assured of this since there will always be unknown factors to consider.
Being listed in a thousand search engines and hundreds of directories is not actually needed. A site just needs to be listed in the relevant ones. What site owners should be looking for are listings and submissions that could actually help the site. Unnecessary listings and submissions are just a waste of time and money which the person making the offer expects to get. Some would even say that they have an insider from Google working for them who is in the know of its algorithms. Judging by how Google goes about its task, it would be highly improbable for them to allow a single person to be in the know to get pass the restrictions that can affect results.
Legitimate content owners have long been battling with content thieves over the defense of their stolen content. Many have found it a useless exercise believing that nothing can be done about it. Fortunately, something can still be done and all need not be surrendered to these heartless offending parties.
Since it is impossible for anyone to detect whether an original article or excerpts of it have been copied due to the sheer number of sites online, site owners can use an online tool such as Copyscape to check for possible online plagiarism by identifying sites that have similar content including those that quote your site for the content they publish in theirs. This tool does not make any judgment as to which is original but merely provides the results of the search conducted based on the submitted material.
Most blogs display a plagiarism warning banner on the pages of their blog. Although it is not a fool-proof way of preventing online plagiarism ,it sends a message that you are vigilant and active in ensuring that your contents are not copied. This may serve to discourage potential plagiarists from pursuing their intentions. Additional protection can be obtained by signing up with a reliable site that automatically monitors the web for copy of the site materials and alerts the owner through email as soon as they are detected.
It is necessary to take immediate action once plagiarism of one’s work is known. The main action to be taken is to seek taking down of the copy/ies made of the material. The first step is to send a message to the offending site to ask for the same. In lieu of contact details of the offending site, the message can be sent to the web hosting company. These information are usually obtained by conducting a Whois search. The Internet archive can provide ample proof to settle the issue of where the material appeared first. For unproductive requests, a notice of copyright infringement can be sent to search engines for the possible removal of the offending site from their search results.
The anonymous nature of most Internet transactions has served to embolden many a crook to try to put one over unsuspecting online users. Prospective victims on the other hand sometimes seem to pave the way for online irregularities when they trust too much against their better judgment. Dubious intentions usually reveal themselves with the obvious.
One of the most common irregularities over the Internet is when users are asked to confirm their personal data purportedly by a service provider or a business institution. The communication which typically comes through an email will appear like the genuine one complete with the logo and the expected tenor of a true-blue official letter. Since the message usually carries a certain sense of urgency, the person being asked about his or her personal information will most often than not provide it first and then think about it later.
This is where the provider of information commits the biggest mistake. Before he or she knows it, all established contacts will be harassed by spam emails supposedly coming from him or her. Since messages will show a known email address, contacts will most probably open the mail in the belief that it contains a valid message.
Here lies the story of thousands of pesky offers of sex enhancement drugs and devices as well as the sale of various products from food items to real estate properties. When the dubious messages are received by family and friends who can easily set them aside as the common hoax they are, the only real result is the inconvenience. It is not quite the same when the same emails are sent to business associates or business customers who might make the mistake of being offended at the expense of the business relationship without the supposed sender’s knowledge. Many companies would rather terminate relationships using general explanations instead of providing the details. In this case, the person who was tricked into providing his or her personal information is the greatest loser.
If mail boxes can be clogged by spam messages, so do blogs with spam comments. The only difference here lies in the target of the spamming activity. While the former targets individuals, the latter targets search engines.
The intent of spam commenting is to create an effect that would result to a higher page rank for the spammer’s preferred site. The idea is to provide a vision of popularity by leaving comments to thousands of websites thus creating an illusion of genuine linking. It is no secret that one of the main criteria of a high page rank is the quality and quantity of links.
Blog owners can protect their sites from spam commenting primarily through comment moderation. This means that no comment gets to be visible to the public unless it is expressly allowed by owners. The comment management option provides a listing of comments given to posts which can be scanned and decided upon quickly. Obvious comment spam therefore rarely sees the light of day through prudent assessment of incoming comments. It is particularly important to address spam comments in the soonest possible time lest it be inadvertently allowed along with relevant comments. There are also several plug-ins made available to fight comment spam.
Some spam comments are not readily ascertained when they are effectively cloaked as a genuine comment except for the accompanying url. It is best therefore to use varied forms of defenses just to assure protection. Comment moderation sometimes result to confusion to commenters who do not see their comments published right away. To avoid repeat comments, appropriate information to the effect that the comment is under review should be provided.
