If you want to increase you website traffic quickly there is only a few ways to it. One of the ways is by Writing good quality articles that people would want to read.

It is not easy to increase your website traffic without cutting corners and this is something you should never do. There are a few things that can increase you traffic that are legal as long as you have the time and skill to be able to write interesting articles.

So you’ve built your wonderful new website and submitted it to the search engines and directories. In your eyes you are so proud of all your hard work that Google and all the search engines will just fall over themselves to add you to the top page.

So you wait…and you wait…and nothing happens. It takes a very long time for a newly developed website to get any form of listing in search engines and directories and even longer to get any meaningful listing. So, what’s the solution to speeding up the process?

The best way you can increase traffic to your website for a short period of time is to write and submit newsletter articles. The beauty of this method is that anyone can do it all you need is a good idea, the ability to write accurately and some spare time. I’m not talking here about working for a magazine or website but the wonderful world of free articles. If you are short on cash and can’t afford to promote your business then this technique is especially suited to you.

There are many websites that require constant content on a daily basis and most Newsletter editors are always looking for well written content. This is more so if their newsletter or blog is updated daily or weekly. As you can imagine it would be very difficult to maintain that level of content and prohibitively expensive and so they turn to free articles to ensure their website is relevant and interesting to their visitors.

As with most things on the internet if a gap appears it’s very quickly filled and so we have the wonderful world of free articles. The deal is that in exchange for allowing the authors content to be published for free, the author of the article is allowed to place a link or advert at the bottom of the article without any charge.

Just imagine that for a minute, if your article is interesting enough and good enough it could be included in hundreds of websites in a matter of days and what does that mean, one way in-links. This of course is great for your pr ranking and will no doubt increase your traffic for as long as the article is placed high on the publishers website pages. The thing to remember is that you are not giving the article away just given away the rights to use the article on other peoples websites…you still own the article.

These links or adverts are usually placed just below the article and are called “resource boxes”. The resource box is your chance to sell yourself or your website or both. It usually contains information about the author and a link to his website.

It’s important that you take some time over the content of the resource box because if it is well written then more people will be tempted to click through to your main website and let’s face that’s the main reason you’re given this information away in the first place. Don’t add a affiliate link or straight link to another persons site as most publishers are wise to this and would not add your article.

Once you have written your article you now need to find the write publishers and newsletters that will take your work of art. This can be a long and boring job but it is a very important one. I would suggest you find at least 20-30 newsletters of a decent size and don’t give up until you have done so.

The main reason why taking a little time over this part of the process is simple It does not take much longer to submit your article to 500 sites that only main difference is the amount of traffic you will receive.

It’s hard to say how much this type of approach will increase your traffic because it’s very dependent on how well your article is written and how well you market it. In the best case scenario your article could be accepted at several larger ezines that have 150,000+ subscribers each and could result in 1000+ visitors to your website.

On the other hand you could end up with nobody publishing your article and not single hit. My personal opinion and experience is that a reasonably well thought out and written article usually produces around 500+ unique visitors per article.

There is another way you can get help with the tiresome job of finding publishers and newsletters and that is to pay one of the many companies out there to submit your article for you. I have used several of these companies and the quality and cost of their work can vary enormously. Some of these companies charge per submission ad some charge a flat monthly fee. The most important thing is that you are getting your article to enough quality publishers.

Choosing the right dedicated web server provider or best dedicated server is something you should spend a little time on. If your e-commerce website is growing fast and you are suffering from slow page re-fresh times, it may be time for you to consider upgrading to a cheap dedicated server on a new supplier contract.

So what is a dedicated web server? A dedicated web server on the web is a term which describes a type of server supplied by your hosting provider. They will charge you for the exclusive right to use a dedicated computer that will be installed with a dedicated web server, the related software and connection required to run your website.

A dedicated web server is more expensive than a shared server but does give you far more power and flexibility in controlling your website and online business. Of course you could buy your own computer and install all the necessary software to run your own dedicated web server but you would need to service and maintain it yourself, by no mean a trivial task.

Using a hosting provider for your dedicated web server will save you time and effort in relation to ensuring it is well maintained and also if it crashes completely they will replace it with a new one. In most case the hosting provider will also allow you to choose the operating system and components used in the best dedicated server.

What type of dedicated web server is best for you? So what is the best dedicated server for your needs. There are two main types of dedicated web server you can choose from and they include:

A Managed Dedicated Web Server - In this case the hosting provider maintains and supports the dedicated server and operating system and you provide the data. You do not need to have system admin rights or resources as the hosting provider takes care of the dedicated server and all technical issues that might arise. Its a good choice for medium and large business owners as it offers fast and reliable hosting that is professionally maintained.

An unmanaged Dedicated Server In this scenario the dedicated server is managed, operated and maintained by you. The hosting provider only organizes the storage space, the bandwidth and security. This option means that you will need a team of dedicated specialist with enough knowledge to deal with any technical issues that might crop up. This is not quite as bad as it seem as the hosting provider will supply technical consultancy at an agreed fee.

What are the advantages of a dedicated web server. There are several advantages of a dedicated server and they are as follows::

Increased performance and high reliability are the two main factors of a dedicated server. Also you will get complete and exclusive use of the dedicated server, the system and network resources, plus greater security. Due to the fact that the server is dedicated to your website and only to your website the performance is enhanced. Sharing of network and resources is the biggest cause of network and website issues.

No need to purchase or maintain the dedicated server so saving you money of purchasing a server. Good support and technical service due to the fact that the hosting provider will support and maintain a dedicated server for you.

Defective parts or software are cover by the hosting providers guarantees and they should be able to replace and upgrade the server in a fast and efficient manner. What are the disadvantages of a dedicated server? The disadvantages of a dedicated server include the following:

They are not cheap! A dedicated server is an expensive purchase and should not be taken lightly. It important that you factor in the costs of a dedicated server to your yearly business projections to make sure the service is feasible.

Although you have control of the dedicated server it is still owned and is the property of the hosting provider. The only thing that you own is the information or data you put on it so make sure all the information you put on the server is clearly backed up to a separate system.

Most hosting providers will make you sign up for a deal involving a set amount of time, this can make it difficult to cancel the service or move to another supplier. So remember to check the small print and be aware of the tie-in requirements before you sign on the dotted line.

Domains names are more than just a useful address for storing and showing business or personal information on the internet, they can bee the difference between a successful and non successful business.

Selecting the right domain name, hosting provider and website design, plus website development is not a small job.

The domain name market

A study of internet businesses showed that most of them spend less than 2 hours choosing their domain name, web hosting providers or doing a detailed plan of thier website requirements.

This can only lead to problem later on in the website development process and could cost you a lot of money.

The report also said that 45% of those businesses thought that they had chosen the wrong domain name and could increase sale with a better name. No surprise there when they are putting less time into the decision than they do deciding on the venue for the office xmas party.

Using domain names that are complex and too long for your customers to remember and you will miss out on traffic and valuable business emails.

Although there is much controversy around the whole domain name business one thing is for sure…can you really afford to let someone else capitalize on your company domain name or names.

The number of domain names is increasing with most of them linked to geographical locations such as .nl for Holland, .de for Germany and .FR for France.

These local TLD’s or Top Level Domains help to categories the internet and help the customer find a supplier in their own country.

Every country in the world has been supplied with a Top Level Domain and so you can imagine the choice of TLD’s is vast.

There are also continental TLD’s that are now available such as .eu and .asia, again this allows you to have a presence in a specific area of the globe.

There are other TLD’s that are Global such as .com and .net and these tend to bee used by people or businesses who require a global presence. Of course this will also make them very sort after and extremely valuable.

There are constantly new TLD’s coming online all the time for example we now have .mobi domain that are primarily for mobile devices .xxx for the adult industry.

Many other domain names are in the pipeline and I’m sure will eventually cover most categories from .clothes to .cars. This idea is generally to help make addresses more relevant.

How Domain Names Work

Domain names are a shortcut to a designated Internet address. The internet works by giving every device that is connected to it a unique identification number called an IP address and packets of data sent to and from that device are marked with that ip address.

IP addresses are not the most friendly of address to remember and can bee up to 12 digits long so the number is converted into something we all understand, “domain names”

They are used as direct links to web and e-mail servers. If you Type 216.109.112.135 into your browser you will find that this takes you to yahoo.com as a good example.

The domain names and IP Addresses that are relevant to your searches are stored in a domain name server or (DNS).
So when you type the URL you want to find into your web browser, your computer sends a request to the DNS at your Internet service provider in order to find the IP address of the web server.

Once it has the correct address it can talk directly to the web server and you can search the site for as requested.

I quick way to find the ip address of any web site is to use the ping command. Go to Start - Run and type, for example ping www.yahoo.com into the box.

A small window will appear with the IP address of the web server. There are also many great domains that supply this service and more, try www.ip-adress.com and see what I mean.

Knowing this can help you understand why you will get delays when you register a new domain name and web site or any changes you make to an existing web sites dns settings.

The DNS information need to propagate correctly and this can take up to 24 hours for all the DNS servers globally to update and list your new domain setting that hold your website.

Who Controls Domain Names?

Domain Names are controlled by an organization called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or ICANN. They are responsible for deciding how the internet TLD structure should look and what TLD’s should be used.

ICANN is a non-profit organization acting under the authority of the US Government, Department of Commerce.

Although ICANN make the big decisions on what TLDs are available, each TLD or country has its own domain registry.

Nominet for instants looks after all .uk domains and decides on the structure and release of the UK’s second level domains. Second level domains can be useful for a country and can include many variables such as .co.uk, .sch.uk and .me.uk.

Registering A Domain Name?

To register a domain name, there a few thing you need to know. First need to check that the domain name you want is still available.

The easiest way to do this is to just go to the top of this page and use the domain name search box supplied.

Anyone can register a domain name within the framework of allowed suffixes provided it isn’t already taken.

There are some restrictions on TLD’s such as .eu, .us and .Asia requiring to registrar to reside within a specific geographical location.

But be careful in your choice of domain name, although there a few restriction on registering a domain name this does now mean that someone may not consider they hold title of the name.

This could result in a person or company taking action against you through the disputes tribuneral in order to protect their names and trademarks or worse still take over your domain name.

This is known as cyber squatting - where an individual as registered a domain name purely in the hope they can sell it on or cause disruption or brand damage to the rightful owner.

Domain Auctions

If the domain name you want is not available it’s still possible you may bee able to buy it. If the domain name does not have a web site you can find out who owns it and contact them about the possibility of purchasing the name from them.

There is nothing stopping you doing this and it is perfectly legal to do so as long as both parties are in agreement.

To find out who owns a domain name you can do a search on websites like whois.net A search with Whois will show you details on who registered that domain, their name, address and contact details.

Once you have decided on your domain name or names you need to contact a domain registrar. Domain registrars are approved companies that can register domains on your behalf.

It pays to shop around when choosing your domain registrar and often several are needed depending on amount and type of TLD’s you wish to purchase.

Prices can vary widely due to the global nature of the web. It doesn’t really matter where the domain company is based and big saving can be found by selecting a registrar based overseas.

Once you have successfully acquired your domain name you will want to setup your web site, before you can do this you need to research web hosting providers.

They will supply you with a web hosting and email hosting package. This basically means that you have hired web space on that companies web servers.

The beauty of owning your own domain and setting up a web hosting account is that it will give you full control of how you want you domain structure and control over the email for that web site and domain name.

Web hosting providers and the services they supply could be a whole article in itself but I will not go into to much detail here.

Basic web hosting packages supply you with about 50MB of space and usually there will bee bandwidth restriction on the amount of data you can downloaded per month.

You need to spend a little time working out exactly what your site will be doing and what kind of services you require. It’s no use paying $100 a month for a dedicated server just to run a word blog that’s updated once a month.

New category-based TLDs are coming online all the time and available for the general public to register.

When a new TLD becomes available, there is a period of time where businesses get the chance to apply for domains to register that they consider as their trademarks ahead of the general public.

The .asia TLD is going through this process now. During this ‘Sunrise’ period, companies and individuals have the chance to apply for specific names or trademarks before the general public.

The sunrise period lasts for four months and names that are not allocated in this period are opened up to the general public on a first come first serve basis.

There is now an entire industry setup to help you get your name from these situation and it is called the pre-registration scheme.

For an extra fee you can be top of that companies attempt to secure your name. Depending on the name and amount of interest this process can be a good way of ensuring your domain name or names.

Some companies use a slightly different approach and start a pre or post auction on the domain name they manage to acquire.

Great business when you think of it, if they manage to register hosting.eu or hosting.asia for $15 then auction it to the highest bidder they can make themselves a lot of money for very little work.

This in itself is a very contentious issue but until the different governing bodies get their act together you have little choice to play the game.

If you do find a company that will pre-register your domain name for a fee make sure they ensure a full refund of all fees if they are not successful in registering your chosen name.

The pre-registration service is not officially recognized by the domain registration organizations and so you have no rights to that name until it is fully registered.

The rise in hacking attacks on web servers is increasing and it is important that you understand a few basic facts about web servers and vulnerability security to ensure you protect your hard work from attack.

You’ve chosen your hosting provider, you’ve got the great idea for the website and started to build it but, there are things you need to be aware of concerning web server security issues. So take a few minutes to read this article on web server management and vulnerability security.

If you are developing the website yourself then it is essential that you understand the web server security issues associated with website development. The problem starts the moment you install a web server on your hosting provider account. This action opens a tunnel into your network for the whole world to look through and without vulnerability security you are dead in the water.

Although most people who visit your website are content to shop, a few will try to dig a little deeper into things you don’t want the general public to see on your website such as vulnerabilities, this is where vulnerability security comes in.

Of course you also have the main threat and that is the type of person who specifically wants to see the things they shouldn’t and will attempt to force there way in by any means available to them. The affects can range from the inconvenient, for example the discovery that your web site’s home page has been changed.

To the really damaging problem of theft of your customers personal data and your entire database, plus the inclusion of viruses and Trojans to spread to customers pcs the next time they visit your site. To stop this you must include vulnerability security in your system design.

It’s well known in website security forums that badly designed and updated software opens up possible security holes in your system, also that overly complex software also contains bugs that can be exploited. The problem is web servers are usually large and complex programs that can contain security flaws causing web server security issues and that’s why It’s so important to understand web server management.

CGI scripts can be executed via remote request due to the open architecture of web servers. There is a good chance that any of the CGI scripts installed on your web site could contain bugs or flaws and could be a potential security hole and this is not the problem of your hosting provider.

The general goal for all web developers in relation to web server management and vulnerability security concerning network security of their web servers is to keep the bad guys out and control their database and website. The irony is that the whole idea of a website is to provide the world with access to certain parts of your database and network. A badly configured and maintained website and web server can result in large holes in the most carefully designed firewall. Yet over eager controls can make the website hard to use and not customer friendly.

There is a general opinion by most web users that surfing the web from their home is safe but it is not. Web pages contain such things as active content like ActiveX controls and Java applets. These can introduce the possibility of viruses or other malicious code or software into the user’s system when they are browsing without their knowledge.

Active content can also cause major problems if not controlled properly. ActiveX is not the only problem the mere act of browsing the internet leaves a record of your surfing history for an unscrupulous person to reconstruct an accurate picture of your surfing tastes and habits.

Also the users and web developers implementing web server management need to worry about the lack of confidentiality of the transmitted data across the internet. The protocol (TCP/IP) was not designed to ensure security and so is vulnerable to eavesdropping over the network. Most of the data transmitted over TCP/IP is in the clear.

When a sensitive document is transmitted from the website server to the internet browser or a customer sends their private or personal home banking details to a website someone may be eavesdropping on that transmission.

To help you ensure that you are not taking unnecessary risks with your service and customer data remember these simple tips:

Remove unnecessary services like interpreters - If you don’t need services such as FTP (File Transfer Protocol) remove it. FTP is a protocol that comes with your website server and could be used by hackers. Spend some time analyzing your scripting languages and remove any that are not required for the website.

Make sure you enroll in the security list for your server vendor - You don’t necessarily have to join up with them but you must at least monitor their website on a regular basis for any new patches and make sure you apply them straight away. Also make sure you checkout your operating system for updates and patches as well.

Use strong passwords - Try to avoid easy to guess passwords and use alpha-numeric, this means adding numbers, symbols and capitals to make guessing and cracking much harder. But don’t make the password policy so strict that it makes remembering your password to hard . Make sure you always change the default password and remove unused accounts.

Monitor your server logs - All request and activity on your web server is tracked so review the logs regularly for signs of suspicious behavior.

Segregate you Data - Separate any private customer information from publicly available data by storing them on different machines if you can.

Learn how to configure your server properly - It’s important than you understand the basics about configuring servers so try to limit the executable files to your specific directories and make sure that the source coding cannot be downloaded.

Automatic directory indexing is another service you can disable if you don’t need it. Any automated security tools you can run that are supplied or provided by your OS or web server vendor. Some examples of such tools include Microsoft IIS Lockdown Tool. This will help to identify potential weak spots in your settings.

Check programs for security holes. An area that is particularly prone to security breaches is CGI scripts on web servers especially if the scripts do not validate the user supplied data before trying to accessing operating-system services or system files.

Of course as the web got more popular and more people began to see the value of good domain names things began to get a little harder.

Expired Domain name Companies

In this discussion I will be mainly concentrating on the .com TLD as this is the biggest and by far the most valuable extension available. As we speak the total number of registered .coms has crossed the 70m mark and so you can imagine, finding a good quality generic domain name can be a slow and painful process.

All 3 and 4 letter combinations (that includes numbers) have gone and the majority of English dictionary words to. This is why you should consider the world of drop catching expired domain names.

I still believe that there is hope and if you are armed with the right knowledge and time you can still pick up expired domain names that in my opinion are grossly undervalued.

The allocation of .com domains are controlled by a body called ICCAN, (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) formed in 1998 as a not-for-profit organization with contributing members from all over the world. The duty of organizing the release of the domain names was handed to Verisign, a company that has become very rich on the back of its contract with ICANN.

The process of domain name registration changed dramatically with the introduction of drop catching companies that help you acquire expired domain names but more about that later.

Lets look at the basic process involved with registering a domain name.

Registering a domain name

A person as the right to register a domain name for a time period ranging from 1 -10 years. If the domain name is not renewed by the required date it then enters the position known as the grace period. The original owner still has the chance to re-register the domain but must do so within a set time period. During this time the domain name is still unavailable to register.

If the domain name is not re-registered in the allotted time it is made available to the general public and becomes one of the many expired domain names in a process now known as the drop.

Drop Companies

It is very unlikely that even if you knew when a expired domain was about to drop that you would get it by simply trying to register it. There are several companies that specialize in this field and can afford to implement sophistication drop catching software to help in the process, they even have contracts with registrars such as Network Solutions to allow first choice of all available expired domain names.

The most popular companies in the field are: Pool, Snapnames and eNom and I would advise you to set up an account with all three of them to ensure you have a better chance of getting the domain you desire. All the above companies allow you to backorder any and as many of the currently registered domain names and this service is totally free.

You will find that they can supply you with a list of pre-release and pending delete names and this can run into the thousands.

This is where the money is, consider this expired domain names list like a gold mine, all you have to do is dig out the nuggets and hope nobody else has spotted them. Of course you will find that you are not the only one to have spotted these little gems and so the domain is often placed into a closed auction and sold to the highest bidder.

These are closed auctions so you must do your homework and get your bid in before the drop or you will not get the chance to bid in the auction for that domain.

You should find that the price you pay in these auctions is significantly cheaper than dedicated auction sites such as Sedo and Afternic. The art of course is knowing the worth of expiring domain names before the auction starts and stick to your target. Many people get carried away in this situation and let the process become personal, this is a big mistake and only leads to over inflated prices. Set your budget and stick to it.

So remember, if you have your heart set on a particular domain name or want to get into the domain name acquisition business you must involve the big expired domain names drop catchers in your plan or you could be watching your dream name disappear for another 1-10 years. Trying to manually capture good quality domain names is near on impossible these days so be warned.

Also if you are interested in a particular expiring domain name it might pay to check which registrar the domain is with as they may have their own agreements with different companies in terms of expired domain names, drop catching, for instance, Network Solutions has an agreement with Snapnames for all its domains and Godaddy has setup its own drop service.

So make sure you check the registrar just in case it is not covered by the big three.

Good luck and happy hunting.