The Cotton Club

The Cotton Club Has Moved...

2007-07-31T16:11:00.000-04:00

I am not blogging here anymore but will leave the blog here in order to keep my old posts online, but if you want to read any of my new posts, go to: http://www.cottonrohrscheib.com

Is Dial-Up Still Standard?

2007-01-29T22:44:00.000-05:00

As web developers, we like to equip ourselves with the speediest computers, the fastest Internet connections, and the most standards-compliant browsers, but how is the rest of the world keeping up?

Albert Listy writes:

With all of the things you hear and see about Ajax these days I would think that dial-up should no longer be considered the standard. When you look at .NET you have post-backs and you take care of most of the page control on the server side and just serve up HTML (mostly) to the client. With Ajax you send more files and control substance to the client which take more bandwidth.

My web development question is should we still consider a “dial-up” connection the “standard” for our web design projects?First off, I should point out that some of the conclusions you’re drawing are a little off. The heavy use of post-backs in ASP.NET is actually a real source of pain for dial-up users, who are being forced to reload an entire page with almost every action they take. A well-designed AJAX application, meanwhile, can significantly reduce bandwidth usage by sending relatively small parcels of JavaScript code to the browser at page load, which then allow the browser to handle much of the user interaction without having to reload entire pages from the server.

At last check, more than a quarter of active Internet-connected users in the United States were still on dial-up, and predictions state that they won’t be making the move to the fat pipe anytime soon (due in part to the fact that local calls are free in North America).

Other countries seem to be having more success in fostering broadband adoption, so the answer to this question depends in part on your target audience.

Here at the Yank family cottage, where it’s dial-up or nothing, my sympathies lie with that stubborn minority. Unless your site can better fulfill its purpose by taking advantage of broadband (e.g. a video sharing site), I’d say you should still design with an eye to limiting bandwidth usage. Even your broadband users will thank you when your site loads in the blink of an eye.

Kevin Yank
Sitepoint Times…

Is Ajax the future of Desktop Software?

2007-01-29T22:07:00.001-05:00

Since the emergence of Dynamic HTML circa 1997, pundits have predicted the death of desktop applications. Will AJAX prove to be the magic ingredient that makes these long-standing predictions come true?

From David McLeary of Cloud Ten Limited: “The use of AJAX has made it almost possible to replicate most operations of software that is available such as Microsoft Excel. Do you think the use of this is the future or are the limitations placed on it by, for example, browser security going to prevent it from reaching its full potential.”

Let’s stop for a moment to examine the benefits that AJAX-based web applications have to offer over their desktop counterparts:There is no software installation required, removing a barrier to entry for some users.

Users can access the application, along with their data and preferences, from any Internet-connected location with a modern desktop browser.The latter has had a significant impact on which AJAX applications have been successful in attracting users. AJAX has been successful in spaces like email, calendaring, mapping and photography, where mobile or multi-location access is clearly beneficial.

More office-oriented applications like spreadsheets will struggle to find a market for AJAX implementations, at least for now. Having ad hoc mobile access to these types of applications may become important to users somewhere down the line, but it isn’t yet. Consequently, users will tend to stick with traditional desktop software solutions, where the interface can be completely tailored to the needs of the application.

That said, I don’t mean to imply that traditional desktop software and AJAX-powered web applications are the only two options. There are many hybrid solutions that are attempting to blur the lines between the Web and the desktop, attempting to harness the benefits of each to capture the hearts and minds of mainstream users.

For example, Adobe Flex and OpenLaszlo add the requirement of an up-to-date Flash plug-in to the browser, but in return offer greater control over the user experience, and an escape from certain browser sandbox restrictions (such as local data storage).

Closer to the desktop, there is Java Web Start, that can download, install and launch a desktop application when the user clicks a link in a web page. Upcoming alternatives such as Adobe’s Apollo and Microsoft’s XAML will work in a similar fashion. It will be interesting to see if any of these platforms can achieve the ubiquity of the AJAX-capable web browser as a means of accessing applications away from the home/office desktop.

Simplicity Sells!

2007-01-29T22:00:00.000-05:00

This is a good article I found on Sitepoint that was
written by Brendon Sinclair

I booked my wife some plane tickets online last week and it was a very frustrating experience. I would enter the date she wanted to travel, select a timeframe in which she wanted to fly, check the availability of a flight and, when the date I wanted was sold out, I’d have to hit the Back button and start all over again.

Each time, I had to input in every single bit of information again. I was so frustrated with the process after the fourth or fifth time that I was ready to leave the site and try the competition.
It was only then that I realized that I didn’t have to go back each time: my details were being saved below the fold, at the bottom of the page. But I didn’t see that the first few times I tried to use the booking service.

I’d love to know just how many people give up on that site because they become frustrated with the process, and don’t realize their details are being saved to the form. With an average air ticket sale being around $500, a 1% shift in conversion rates would add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars per month.

Testing every aspect of your business is essential. After all, you don’t want to spend thousands of dollars on ineffective advertisements, or waste the opportunities that each visitor to your site presents.

Test and measure. Test and measure. Just because huge companies don’t bother to do it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t!

Brendon Sinclairtribune @ sitepoint.com

Essential Programs For Your Virtual Toolbox

2007-01-29T21:27:00.000-05:00

Essential Programs For Your Virtual Toolbox
By Kim Roach (c) 2006

As an online marketer and webmaster, there are a number of tools that you will want in your virtual toolbox. To get you started, I have scoured the net to find some of the best programs to help webmasters improve their sites, their rankings, and their productivity. Best of all, each one of these tools is free. We’ll start with one of my favorites.

Good Keywords

Good Keywords is a program that allows you to quickly and easily create an extensive list of targeted keywords for your website using Yahoo, Ask, and Overture. This frëe tool comes loaded with a link popularity meter, a keyword phrase builder, a misspelled word generator, and a web page explorer tool that will allow you to quickly see what keywords other sites are targeting. Once you have found your desired keywords, you can group them into keyword sets, which can then be copied into your clipboard. To find out more about this handy tool, go to http://www.goodkeywords.com.

BackLinks Master

It is a well-known fact that search engines use link popularity as one of their top ranking factors. However, quality is much more important than quantity when obtaining inbound links. In addition, many of the search engines place importance on the use of relevant anchor text. With a tool known as Backlinks Master, you can monitor your link popularity in Google, Yahoo, and MSN. This tool finds direct links, JavaScrípt links, and others. In addition, you will be shown the anchor text and link type that others have used to link to you. To start taking control of your link popularity, go to CleverStat.com.

SEOpen

SEOpen is a Firefox extension that provides numerous SEO tools at the clíck of a mouse. All of its features can be easily accessed by right-clicking on a web page.
Using this tool, you can examine your competitors:
Yahoo BacklinksPages in Yahoo IndexGoogle BacklinksGoogle CachePages in Google indexGoogle RelatedPageRank ReviewMSN BacklinksPages in MSN IndexAlexa OverviewAlexa TraffícAlexa RelatedAlexa Backlinks“Mass Chëck” multiple sources at onceConfirm DMOZ InclusionKeyword DensityPage Size CheckerHTML ValidatorServer Header ViewerWayback MachineReview robots.txt

Whois Info

To quickly and easily perform competitor analysis, visit http://seopen.com/firefox-extension/index.php.

Active Web Reader Customizer

RSS is becoming one of the best ways to increase your online exposure. With the upcoming release of Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7, RSS usage is expected to rise significantly. However, RSS is also new enough that you can use this technology to create an effective viral marketing campaign.

You can do this by distributing your own RSS aggregator. If your RSS aggregator becomes popular, your brand could become very well known on the Internet. With the Active Web Reader Customizer, you can recommend and distribute an RSS reader that is preloaded with your feeds and web pages. By doing this, you are giving your visitor additional value and increasing your brand exposure at the same time. Start creating your very own customized RSS reader at http://www.deskshare.com/awrc.aspx.

RSS Wizard

We’ve talked about the wonderful benefits of promoting an RSS feed, but how do you actually create one. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a techie to create your very own RSS feed. All you need is a tool like RSS Wizard. This tool will automatically convert almost any web page into an RSS feed. With the RSS Wizard, you can create, edit and publish an unlimíted number of RSS channels. To start creating your own RSS feeds, go to http://www.extralabs.net/rss-wizard.htm.

FeedDigest

Not only can you create RSS feeds for your own website, but you can also incorporate other peoples’ RSS feeds into your site to increase your publishing power, deliver value to your readers, and ensure that your website is constantly up-to-date and changing. In fact, with a tool called FeedDigest, you can mix multiple feeds into a single feed to post on your website. By doing this, you will be able to deliver your visitors a unique mix of automatically updating content. You could also create a news dashboard to syndicate the latest news on any topic. The possibilities are unlimíted. You could create a feed that combined forum posts, news headlines, Ebay items, Digg posts, Flickr photos and even podcasts all rolled into one, constantly updating stream of related content. To start creating your own customized RSS feeds, go to http://www.feeddigest.com.

MailWasher

If you’re like most online marketers, you are probably receiving a flood of sp@m in your inbox. Fortunately, there is a frëe tool that will help remedy your sp@m problems. This software is known as MailWasher and it helps you eliminate your unwanted email, thus allowing you to have greater productivity. Best of all, this increased productivity ultimately leads to increased revenues. Start increasing your own productivity at http://oss.firetrust.com/home/.

Audacity

Audacity is an open source program that allows you to record live audio, edit audio files, cut, copy, slice and mix sounds together. Whether you are looking to record interviews, create your own podcasts, or edit your audio files, Audacity is a great solution. Look it over at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/.

CamStudio

CamStudio is a great piece of software for creating screen capture videos. This software records screen activity from the Windows desktop and then turns it into standard AVI movie files. In fact, CamStudio can then convert these AVI files into bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash Videos (SWFs) with its built-in SWF Producer. These are great for creating info products, video tutorials, and software demonstrations. In terms of quality and price, there is simply no better solution for Screen Cam software. Try it out at http://www.camstudio.org.

About The Author

Kim Roach is a staff writer and editor for the SiteProNews and SEO-News newsletters. You can also find additional tips and news on webmaster and SEO topics by Kim at the SiteProNews blog. Kim’s email is: kim @ seo-news.com

Pleth's Default DNS Settings

2006-11-29T21:32:00.000-05:00

In the past we have been asked what DNS settings are put in place for our clients domains when we add their sites to our servers, hopefully the information below will provide the answers for you. If not, please do not hesitate to contact our support department about any questions you might have prior to transferring your domain regarding your DNS zone files.

Occasionally our clients will have their own mail servers, such as Microsoft Exchange that they prefer to run in tandem with their websites in which we host for them. We can accommodate these needs for clients without any problems, in fact through the PLESK control panel, our clients have the ability to edit their own zone files, or we can handle it for them.

yourwebsite.com. NS ns.yourwebsite.com.
mail.yourwebsite.com. A 70.86.194.00
ns.yourwebsite.com. A 70.86.194.00
yourwebsite.com. A 70.86.194.00
webmail.yourwebsite.com. A 70.86.194.00
ftp.yourwebsite.com. CNAME yourwebsite.com.
www.yourwebsite.com. CNAME yourwebsite.com.
yourwebsite.com. MX (10) mail.yourwebsite.com.
70.86.194.00 / 24 PTR yourwebsite.com.

Avoiding SQL Injections

2006-11-10T22:09:00.000-05:00

Since it first saw success as a powerful web development platform, PHP has suffered from the ease of use that bred that success. Inexperienced developers can all too easily build applications that are vulnerable to attack, and one of the most common vulnerabilities is the SQL injection.

From Kees Kodde of Qrios Web Design: “In most security related articles about web development, the threat of SQL injections is mentioned, and there seem to be a lot of ways to defend against this. What is, in your opinion, the most simple and effective way to filter possible SQL injections out of user input?”

The biggest challenge of defending against SQL injection attacks is understanding them, so let’s start with a simple example in PHP. This script fragment determines the price of a product given its ID as submitted by the browser:

$id = $_POST['id'];$sql = "SELECT price FROM
products WHERE id = $id";$result = mysqli_query($db, $sql);$row =
mysqli_fetch_row($result);$price = $row[0];

The problem here, as in most scripts vulnerable to SQL injection attacks, is that an assumption has been made about a value that is being received from the browser. The code assumes that the ‘id’ value sent by the browser will be a number, and can be placed into a string to form an SQL query like this:

SELECT price FROM products WHERE id = 123

But what if the ‘id’ value contains a maliciously-crafted string instead? When the value is placed into the string, it could instead form a query like this:

SELECT price FROM products WHERE id = 123 OR price
<>

That’s an SQL injection. In this example, it will fool the script into fetching a price less than 10 (assuming there is another product with such a price in the database) instead of the actual price. In other cases, SQL injections can be used to bypass password checks when logging into a site, and in some rare cases even modify the data stored in the database.

In general, the solution to SQL injection attacks is to enforce every assumption you make about any value that you insert into an SQL query. You can either do this manually, or use a pre-built library to do it for you. The above example could be modified to force the ‘id’ value to be interpreted as an integer:

$id = (int) $_POST['id'];

For numbers like this, you can force the language to convert values to numbers. For strings to be included in SQL queries, you need to use tools like PHP’s mysqli_escape_string function to convert special characters like quotes into a form that will not interfere with the query’s operation.But relying on yourself and your fellow developers to remember to enforce these rules for all browser-submitted data is problematic. Instead, you should use some library that will do it for you.

PHP5.1’s PHP Data Objects (PDO) API allows you to place values into SQL queries safely, specifying the expected data type.

$stmt = $db->prepare('SELECT price FROM products
WHERE id = :id');$stmt->bindValue(':id', $_POST['id'],
PDO::PARAM_INT);

So to answer your question, the simplest way to defend against SQL injection attacks is to avoid building your own SQL queries, and instead to use an API like PDO that will do it for you, safely. Indeed, PHP is one of the few languages where building SQL queries by combining strings is a common practice, and I’d say the prevalence of SQL injection attacks on PHP-based applications can be largely attributed to this.

2 New Sites Launched!

2006-10-05T21:06:00.000-04:00

Cotton Rohrscheib, Partner and Co-Founder of Pleth, LLC, announced today that his firm had recently launched two new client projects.…

Holidays In the Rock
Brought to you by The Little Rock Conventions and Visitors Bureauwww.holidaysintherock.com

Holidays in the Rock was developed by Pleth, LLC and Strategic Partner, the Angela Rogers Group of Little Rock. Holidays in the Rock showcases the breathtaking foliage, harvest celebrations, haunted museums, historical home tours, cultural attractions, flavorful gourmet dining and more that is going on in Little Rock this holiday season! A treasure of festivals, live entertainment, exciting events and special promotions showcase just a few of the things brought to you from the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“Everything from where to have dinner to the best places to shop and stayover can be found on this website,” said Greg Smart, Founding Partner and Project Manager for Pleth, LLC. “The site is also very dynamic in that it will be evolving the closer we get to the Holiday Season. The site is also open to the public to submit events for inclusion on the widely publicized holiday calendar, those interested should contact the Angela Rogers Group or send an email to: brenda@theangelarogersgroup.com.” added Smart.

Re-Elect Valley for Mayor
Brought to you by The Committee to Re-Elect James Valley, Mayor
www.valleyformayor.com

Valley for Mayor is the official re-election website for James F. Valley, Helena – West Helena, Arkansas’ Incumbent Mayor and local attorney. Since Mr. Valley’s victory in the previous election he has worked very hard in establishing Arkansas’ newest city as a competitor again for commerce and industry. Mayor Valley was also pivotal in the drive to have Helena and West Helena consolidated.

“In addition to James being a long-time client, he has also been a good friend for several years.” said Rohrscheib. “James is a very intelligent person, and an extremely hard worker that knows how to rally people to work together for a common goal.”

While the Valley for Mayor website was launched this week, there are some components of the website that will be following in the weeks to come. “We have officially launched the website, but a lot of the functionality hasn’t been developed just yet. With Mayor Valley currently in office, the time that we get to spend w/ him is limited so there are items we are waiting on that will have to come later such as content for some sections of the website. Also, we are awaiting processor information for his campaign contributions module,”

“Currently the site isn’t barren though, we do have a large number of photographs available online from the past term that were provided by Mayor Valley’s Office, as well as a few family photos of Mayor Valley. The photos section will also see quite a few new photos added on a daily basis as we get closer to the election. A new section has also been added to the site this year that will allow voters and constituents the opportunity to create an account and interact with Mayor Valley about any issues they would like to discuss,” said Rohrscheib, who assists Mayor Valley in monitoring the site’s blog traffic.

In addition to launching these two new projects, the Pleth, LLC development team has been very busy as of late. Last Month, a major development project for Wal-Mart sponsored Hofi, Inc. Kids All-American Fishing was launched. The Team has continued to monitor the solution with the client to iron out any bugs that might exist with a new solution this detailed.

New Contracts Announced…

Stephen Smart, Founding Partner of Pleth, LLC also announced today that three new clients had signed Contracts with Pleth, LLC to begin work on web development projects. These new clients include: the New York Based, InternetLawFirm.com, the Oklahoma Association of Health Care Providers, and Hagan’s Auto, located in Morrilton, Arkansas with a new location opening very soon.

Pleth, LLC Launches EzCya

2006-09-01T22:57:00.000-04:00

EZCYA.com, a Division of PLETH Networks, LLC has launched their website and service. At this time the EZCYA.com website offers a simple description of EZCYA’s services and outlines their current pricing structure.

“In the very near future we plan to add total automation to our offsite data warehousing business,” said Cotton Rohrscheib, Partner of PLETH Networks, LLC. “We plan to allow visitors to EZCYA.com the ability to purchase storage space online, and then access their products and services online instantly using the credentials they provide.”

It has been rumored that PLETH Networks, LLC will soon be announcing a strategic partnership with Modernbill, a totally automated accounting solution geared toward Web Hosting Providers. No specific date has been named as the target date for this announcement.

Uniforms Worldwide Launched!

2006-08-31T21:38:00.000-04:00

August 29, 2006 — Batesville, Arkansas. Greg Smart, of Pleth, LLC announced today that his firm had launched a new e-commerce project for Uniforms World Wide. Uniforms World Wide, A Florida Based Corporation specializing in the Sale of Medical, Industrial, and Food Service Uniforms. The new website allows visitors to place orders from their extensive online catalog and offers convenient shopping cart functionality with ssl encryption for added security.

In addition to web development and hosting services, Uniforms Worldwide has also contracted Pleth to manage their PPC and online marketing campaign. For additional information about Uniforms World Wide, or this new website, please visit: www.uniformsworldwide.com or contact Pleth, LLC, corporate@pleth.com for details…

Pleth Meets with Planet CEO

2006-08-31T21:11:00.000-04:00

In this month's Telemetry Newsletter from the Planet,
which goes out to all of their clients and probably released to countless media
outlets that serve the technology industry there is a photo of Doug Erwin, the
new Planet CEO, discussing future plans and answering feedbacks from leaders in
the hosting industry. You guessed it, the guys from Pleth made the
photo...

CEO Doug Erwin is focusing on getting to know you, our customers. He recently said, “Listening to our customers is absolutely a priority for me. Our success depends on being in tune with our customers’ needs.”

Since joining the company in July, Erwin visited with our clients at HostingCon as part of an open-forum session. Customers asked questions about the company and provided us with valuable feedback. He has also made personal phone calls to many of you, soliciting your opinions on the challenges and benefits of being our customer.

Continuing his open dialogue, Erwin conducted a candid online chat with our customers on September 9th. He plans to continue this conversation with you several times a year.
Erwin has also pored over your ideas and suggestions from the recent customer survey and products are launching in response to those results.

Highlights from the recent customer survey include:

1,309 customers completed the survey
More than 80% have been with us for over a year.
70% of you work for a start-up or a small business.
Most of you are very interested in security audits and hourly system administration support, with a tech staff that is a scalable, on-demand extension to your team.
Only 5% of you maintain servers with both Houston and Dallas.
We are integrating our order systems, making it easier for customers to access the best services we have to offer.
85% of respondents expect growth in the coming year
75% plan to order new servers or upgrades from us.

Press Release: Pleth Updates Control Panel

2006-08-09T22:26:00.000-04:00

08/09/2006 04:04:58 AM - DALLAS, TX: While locating their Server Farm to the PLANET NOC in Dallas, Texas, PLETH Networks, LLC made the switch from Ensim to PLESK as their primary Control Panel Software Solution. PLETH and their 300 licensed clients have utilized the PLESK Control Panel Solution on both Microsoft and Linux Hosting Platforms with great success since the migration.

On April 3rd, SWSOFT, Inc. announced the release of PLESK 8.0. The PLETH Team implemented the upgrade to 8.0 from 7.5.4 on April 4. During the upgrade only isolated accounts of interruption was experienced by PLETH and it’s clients. During the installation, the PLETH team was assisted by the Award Winning Support Team at the PLANET NOC.

Launch: White River Health System

2006-08-09T22:19:00.000-04:00

Published Tuesday April 18, 2006 in the Batesville Guard

To better serve its patients and to make medical information more accessible to the region, White River Health System launched a new Web site, www.whiteriverhealthsystem.com, today.
According to hospital officials, health care consumers use the resources of the Internet for information about specific health conditions and for advice on healthy lifestyle choices. The totally redesigned site incorporates all the facilities and services of WRHS in one convenient location with a universal resource locator name that better describes the organization. New information and updates are posted to the site daily.

“We wanted the community to be able to research the services offered by our system and access health education and community links all at one site,” said Rachael Fisher, Web site manager. “The page with photos of new babies is one of the most popular features of any hospital Web site. We are confident that parents, families and friends of babies born at WRMC (White River Medical Center) will be pleased with the new look on this page.”

E-mail addresses of hospital staff will not change.

WRHS partnered with Pleth, LLC, a local Web hosting firm six months ago to begin the redesign process. WRHS retained the services of a professional web hosting firm to increase traffic and improve the navigational quality of the site. Features of the new site include a site search engine where individuals can locate health care services, facility specific information, physician office information and more.

A calendar of events will feature happenings within the health system such as childbirth education, seminars and health screenings. Facility specific information is available for all WRHS divisions, White River Medical Center, Stone County Medical Center, rural health clinics and long term care.

“The new Web site is a great resource for our patients,” said Larry Sandage, WRHS director of institutional advancement. “We’ve created a better way to manage our Web site information with Pleth responsible for the technical elements and Rachael as our internal content manager.”
Additional online services are under consideration to further improve the Web site, such as an online health information encyclopedia. Further announcements will be made as those services become available.

WRHS includes two hospitals, seven medical clinics, physician offices, three outpatient therapy centers, three nursing homes, two residential care facilities, two home health agencies, hospice, and a home medical equipment company.

Links, such as Batesville Area Chamber of Commerce and Arkansas Children’s Hospital, are provided to assist individuals searching for information about the community. Organizations interested in links to the WRHS Web site and individuals who want more information may contact Fisher at rfisher@wrmc.com or 262-1225.

Google XML Sitemaps - The Basics

2006-08-08T22:13:00.000-04:00

By Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO,
StepForth Placement Inc. (c) 2006

Google XML Sitemaps have been around for a while now and many webmasters are starting to become familiar with them. They can help you to achieve up to date indexing in Google, and, in a round about way, play a small roll in assisting with rankings. Sitemaps are not needed by everyone, but can be of significant use for many websites. This article will touch on the basics of what they are, who can use them, and how to implement them.

What is a Google XML Sitemap?

In short a Google XML Sitemap allows webmasters to submit a master list of all their site’s pages to Google for indexing. This information is stored in an XML file along with other relevant information where specified by the webmaster. It can be as simple as a list of URL’s belonging to the site, or can include, last modified date, update frequency, and priority. The purpose of this Sitemap is to have the most recent version of your URL’s indexed in Google at all times.

Who needs a Google XML Sitemap?

XML sitemaps can generally help any site needing to be indexed by Google; however, small sites may not see the need for this. For example, if you have a small 10 page website that seldom sees any of its pages updated and your entire site is already in Google’s index, the XML Sitemap is not necessarily going to help much. It is best used when trying to keep the latest versions of your pages current in Google. Large sites with an extensive list of URL’s will also benefit, especially if 100% of their pages are not appearing in the index. So a general rule of thumb, if you have either a dynamic or large site, Google XML Sitemaps just may benefit you.

Will using XML Sitemaps improve my Google Ranking?

In most cases this will not improve your rankings, however it can help. By having the most current version of your site in Google’s index, this can speed up your movement in the results pages. This is because if you make an update to a page for optimization purposes, Google’s index will have this page updated more quickly than without the XML sitemap. What this essentially means is that with more frequent spidering you can help influence what version of your site is in the index, and ultimately, help with rankings by decreasing response time.

How do you create the XML Sitemap?

If you have a very small site, or a lot of time on your hands you can create your XML sitemap manually, but for the vast majority of webmasters, automated tools are an absolute must. There are a number of available solutions for this. One of the simplest methods of creating XML sitemaps is through the use of VIGOS GSitemap. This is a frëe, easy to use tool that will help you create your XML sitemaps with ease.

There are also number of downloadable and online tools listed on Google’s site which cater to both beginners and seasoned professionals alike.

Submitting your XML Sitemap to Google is relatively straightforward. After the file has been created the first thing you want to do is upload the file to your server, preferably at the root level. Log into the Sitemap console using your Google account login. From hëre you can add a site to your account. Simply enter your top level domain where it says “Add Site” (see fig 1.0).

This will add the domain to your account and allow you to then submit the XML sitemap.Figure 1.0After this is done it will take you to a screen with the summary for this site. You will see a text link that says “Submit a Sitemap”. Clicking hëre will take you to a screen to enter the online location of the XML sitemap. (see fig 1.1 below). Clíck “Add Web Sitemap” and you are on your way.

Once this is complete you have the option of verifying your Sitemap. This can be done by placing a specific meta tag on your home page, or by uploading a blank html file with a file name provided by Google. Verification will allow you to access crawl stats, and other valuable information regarding your Google listing.

Implementing an XML Sitemap is generally straightforward and worth the effort. Taking the time to implement them is well worth it as there is no negative down side to this tool provided by Google. Every little thing adds up in terms of obtaining site rankings and frequent spidering by Google is certainly one of them.

About The AuthorScott Van Achte is the Senior SEO at StepForth Search Engine Placement. Since graduating from Camosun College several years ago, Scott has been working with StepForth Placement and has thoroughly enjoyed his position in the search engine industry. When he’s not busy working he can be found spending quality time with his wífe Lyndsay, or out on the golf course. Scott would be happy to answer any questíons, and can be reached at scott @ stepforth.com.

Managed -vs- Unmanaged Hosting

2006-08-04T22:53:00.000-04:00

One of the core aspects of our business model here at Pleth, LLC is Managed Hosting. We have found that many of our new (potential) customers have a difficult time differentiating between Managed vs. Unmanaged hosting. I recently ran across an article at The Whir that did a good job of explaining the benefits of Managed Hosting. We also offer Unmanaged services through Pleth Plus if this is a service that may interest you.

Operating a Web presence can become very involved once a company’s hosting requirements progress beyond simply needing a dedicated server. Managed services are therefore geared toward organizations that don’t have the time or capital to invest in server administration.
Managed services normally provide equipment procurement, provisioning and installation, and network monitoring and management backed by Service Level Agreement. Managed services also provide end-to-end network management and maintenance support for locations around the world.

Think of a managed server as a server armed with extended features and support. A managed server will come equipped with the features one would expect from a dedicated provider, including choice of OS, routing equipment, network connectivity and complete administrative control. However, instead of leaving most of the administrative tasks to the customer, a managed provider will typically handle that as well. Many companies will often assign you a dedicated service representative who will cater only to you and a handful of other accounts.
This support also comes in the form of proprietary control panel technology that enables the inexperienced administrator to easily set up and maintain sites on a server. This is achieved through an intuitive and user friendly point and click method rather than by typing complicated commands at a prompt line.

Many hosting companies offer a supplementary suite of features and services that related to managed hosting, including application and database management, high-availability services and load balancing.

Most reputable Web hosting firms will offer managed Web hosting services, and will back up their services with performance guarantees and Service Level Agreements. (At Pleth, LLC we focus primarily on fostering and maintaining managed hosting relationships)

Unmanaged services, on the other hand, give the customer complete remote server administration capability and freedom. The downside to this is that unmanaged servers require a large amount of time and technical expertise, as the customer is ultimately responsible for the instillation and management of the server - not the Web host. For this reason, unmanaged servers are only recommended for individuals and companies with extensive server administration resources or expertise, as well as a significant amount of time available to take care of the server.

If you’re unsure about which service to choose, give serious consideration to choosing a managed server. While taking the managed route is more expensive, it is also much more reassuring for the inexperienced administrator.

Launch: City of Batesville, Arkansas

2006-08-01T22:30:00.000-04:00

The City of Batesville, Arkansas recently released their new website portal that was developed by Pleth, LLC. The all-new website for the city will consolidate many key services provided by the city into one convenient web portal. The website was just launched this month and will gradually be adding new functionality to it’s overall design to provide many conveniences to Batesville residents.

► Click here to visit the City of Batesville Online

Planet Announces New CEO

2006-07-29T23:28:00.000-04:00

Attending HostingCon 2006 this year in Las Vegas, will be the new CEO of the Planet / EV1Servers. While we are there we plan to hopefully have an opportunity to shake hands and meet with him. More later as things start to come together closer to the Conference.

———— NEWS RELEASE FROM THE PLANET ——————

The best just got better.We are pleased to announce that EV1Servers and The Planet have merged. Combined, we are now the largest dedicated web hosting provider in the world, providing customers with access to even greater resources, knowledge and technology.
Customers will continue to enjoy the same industry-leading products and service they have come to expect from our companies, but will now be able to tap into a larger network of resources, for even better service and reliability.

Leading the joint effort is newly appointed Chairman and CEO, Douglas J. Erwin, who brings extensive leadership experience and industry intelligence to the companies.

“With EV1Servers and The Planet already representing the upper echelon of Web hosting companies, our merger creates a powerhouse of resources for our customers,” said Erwin. “We have the scope, scale, and financial strength to deliver unmatched service levels and ground-breaking product offerings to existing and new customers.”

Erwin brings more than 30 years of leadership experience to the companies, with a track record of funding, building, acquiring and integrating technology companies. Most recently he was chairman and CEO of blade server pioneer RLX Technologies. Under Erwin’s leadership, RLX’s Control Tower blade management software became an industry standard, leading to the company’s October 2005 acquisition by Hewlett Packard. Prior to RLX, Erwin was chairman, co-founder and CEO of PentaSafe Technologies, a startup that became recognized as a leader in integrated security management solutions. PentaSafe was acquired by NetIQ in October 2002.
Erwin in 2000 was runner up for the Ernst and Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” in Houston. In 2001 he was voted one of the top ten most influential in Texas in the high tech industry.

Guarantee ROI for PPC Management

2006-07-29T23:14:00.000-04:00

Key Components That Guarantee a Return on Investment for PPC Management
The Four E’s of a Successful Pay-per-Click Advertising Program
By Kent Lewis (Anvil Media, Inc.)

The good news: you can setup and manage a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising program on Google, Yahoo! or MSN within minutes. The bad news: you can setup and manage a PPC advertising program within minutes. That means anyone can set up a PPC program, which has led to higher overall cost, lower click-through rates and conversions. There is hope, however.

The Process

Developing and refining a PPC advertising management process is essential. It enables a company or individual to train, automate and scale a PPC program, compounding the ROI. There are four key components of a winning PPC advertising program: explore, evaluate, expand and enhance. By following the 4E process, you can virtually guarantee an ROI on your PPC advertising program.

Explore

The exploration phase requires information gathering and assessment, which includes historical PPC account data, internal Web analytics data and peripheral research on customers and competitors. Determining the amount of additional keyword and competitive market research depends on the quality and quantity of information collected in the initial research phase. The desired goal is to formulate a PPC advertising program test campaign that runs anywhere from two to four weeks in duration.

Evaluate

The evaluation phase consists of implementing the PPC program test strategy (keywords, text ads and associated landing pages) and monitoring performance. In this phase, the goal is to determine which keyword phrases, ad copy, landing pages and bid strategies have the greatest potential, and will serve as the foundation for the ongoing PPC advertising program.

Expand

The expansion phase focuses on leveraging insights from the evaluation phase to increase the number of keyword phrases in the overall PPC advertising program to generate the desired quantity of leads or sales without sacrificing conversion performance. For example, a test campaign may incorporate 50 keyword phrases, while the expanded campaign may include 500.

Enhance

The enhancement phase involves constant tuning and tweaking of keyword phrases, text ad copy, landing page elements and bid strategies. Typically, this phase incorporates A/B or multivariate testing to ensure optimal PPC program performance. Developing a highly successful PPC advertising program is an iterative process that is never fully-optimized due to changes in the technology, industry and competitive landscape. As such, it is often necessary to cycle back to the exploration phase and test peripheral keywords, ad copy and landing page creative.

Campaign Elements

Once you’ve mastered the “4E process” concept for PPC advertising, the next step is to apply it to the core PPC advertising campaign elements: keywords, structure, copy, landing page, bid strategies and testing. Each of the following campaign elements are incorporated into each phase of the 4E process.

Keywords

There are an abundance of tools and techniques for identifying possible keyword phrases. While compiling your list of keywords for testing in the evaluation phase, don’t forget to explore “tail” terms, which are typically 4 to 6 keywords in length and are highly focused. Although they generate less traffic, they are often more qualified, less expensive and have a higher conversion rate. Always look at your competitor’s sites and PPC advertising campaigns to enlighten your overall PPC strategy.

Account Structure

One of the most overlooked aspects of a PPC advertising campaign is the PPC account structure. An improperly configured PPC account can nullify brilliant keyword selection, ad copy and landing page creative. Key considerations in PPC account setup include the use of campaigns and ad groups that focus on business or keyword seasonality, geographic targeting, branded terms and the buying cycle.

Ad Copy

When it comes to creating PPC text ad copy that generates clicks and conversions, pay close attention to the following elements: messaging, offer and display URL. Utilizing dynamic keyword insertion (DKI) in Google AdWords can be very powerful, but can backfire if not properly implemented. For example, try a search for “scum” on Google and look at the PPC text ads.

Landing Page

The single most important element of an effective landing page is the “scent.” Does the scent, or theme, of the PPC text ad carry through to the landing page? If not, you can all but guarantee low performance. For example, there are very few good reasons to direct PPC text ads to a home page. Beyond targeting each PPC text ad to a specific landing page, ensure that messaging is consistent across campaigns. Also offer limited options to maximize conversion. If you haven’t implemented conversion tracking by this point, you’ll never be able to truly optimize your PPC advertising campaign.

Bid Strategies

With keywords, text ads and landing pages set up and ready to go; the next step is to determine the overall bid strategy. Are you going to manually manage the PPC advertising program, or utilize automated bid software? There are benefits and drawbacks to both, but our experience is that PPC bid software is overrated, even for larger campaigns. Consider PPC platform capabilities such as geographic targeting and day-parting in your overall PPC strategy. Also consider what time of day, days of week or months of the year you will advertise heaviest.

Testing

Virtually every component of a PPC program can be tested, but that doesn’t mean it should be done all at once. An effective approach to optimizing a PPC advertising program includes a structured and methodical assessment of each component, one at a time. Once you’ve mastered A/B testing of text ad copy and landing page creative over time, move on to simultaneous multivariate testing. This requires additional infrastructure and support, but can boost overall conversion in a time-compressed manner.

Conclusion

Utilizing the 4E process (explore, evaluate, expand and enhance) ensures maximum ROI on your PPC advertising program. This process requires assessing key elements of your PPC advertising campaign: keywords, account structure, ad copy, landing page, bid strategies and testing. In the end, you’ll be pleased with the results.

Search Engine Friendly Flash Web Site

2006-07-26T23:13:00.000-04:00

By Scott Goodyear

Most SEOs and many web designers know that Flash based web sites are a challenge not only to get indexed but to even get the site or pages to rank well in the search engines. This article will explore a few of the challenges and provide a few tips that may come in handy if you are asked to work on a site or pages that include Flash based content.

First, consider how Flash is being used. Some web sites are nearly 100% Flash driven. These sites often have non-SEO traditional factors that help create popularity for them and in turn drive inbound links to the site through sources such as a national television/press campaign, a movie or DVD tie in, tremendous industry buzz including reviews, high profile news paper or magazine articles, or other factors that are not easily reproducible.

If your client has a site like this, consider the use of an HTML based landing page under the main URL and/or HTML container for the Flash content at a bare minimum. The object in this case is to at least have a title tag and meta content that can be indexed by a search engine. An example of an HTML container concept would be Warner video’s Gone with The Wind Flash page. Because it does use the term “official” in the title, meta tags, as well as in a brief description of the Flash page in a “no script” tag, this site actual ranks better for a search on official gone with the wind rather than simply gone with the wind.

As noted above, this site uses the ‘no script’ tag to describe the Flash based content. Others have pointed out that you can also use the ‘no embed’ tag as well as a ‘div id’ tag to add content about your Flash content. The goal behind these methods is to provide a bit of content for users who do not have Flash installed, have it blocked/turned off, as well as for search engines to index. This content should serve to represent exactly what is in the Flash file, not as a method to add extra content, keyword stuff, etc. Think of it much like a an alt tag on a normal web site. If I am displaying a gray car that has feature x, y, z in my Flash file, I should describe that… not go into a semi-unrelated dialog. A tool called ‘SWF2HTML’ is available through Adobe as part of a ‘Macromedia Flash Search Engine SDK’. This tool can be used to extract the text and links from a Flash file and output this into very basic HTML which can then be used to describe the Flash file. As this is much the same content that some search engines can extract from your Flash file it can help you to tweak the content within the Flash file too, just in case it is being extracted.

If you have a specific font/formatting style that you wish to use with certain portions of your site, consider using sIFR. Normally web designers will use a graphic to replace headline text or cascading style sheets (CSS) to set the font/style that should be used on a given web page or site. The problem with a graphic is that it can not be seen by a search engine, so you loose out on text that might otherwise help describe the page’s content. A problem with both graphics and CSS is that across different monitor/operating systems/browser combinations, the pages will not look the same at all. With sIFR, the same exact content is presented to both engines and site visitors with an improvement for site visitors as the sIFR content scales to the font that the Flash designer wishes to use and scales with the available space specified on the web page instead of relying on the browser/installed fonts to be interpreted through CSS. See this sIFR page for an example of the code in action.

In the most ideal of SEO circumstances, the entire site should not consist of Flash in and of itself. As has been discussed many times in previous articles, search engines rely on the text based content of a web site including on page content, title tags, image alt information, text based links, as well meta information to a much lesser degree, among other factors in order to index and sort sites for relevance. The ideal web site uses Flash to add to a visitor’s experience. There are certainly all Flash web sites that do quite well, but this is an exception and not a rule for the average web site. If you have a Flash web site, try turning cookies and JavaScript off as well using a program like Flash Block to view your site. Make sure that your site can work with out Flash from a visitor point of view. And that any information that would have been in the Flash content is available on the page.

HostingCon 2006 - 07/18/06: SaaS (Software as a Service) on Demand

2006-07-21T23:23:00.000-04:00

Don Best, from JamCracker.com was the guest speaker for this informative seminar highlighting one of the most popular buzzwords of the entire HostingCon 2006 Conference, SaaS. SaaS, an acronym for software as a service, is basically the wave of the future for hosting providers. For many years the hosting industry and development community have taken two seperate paths, but w/ the advent of websites like jamcracker.com, the roads have converged. Many hosting companies are now going to be offering specific software applications to their clients based on individual needs and not feeling the urge to hire out custom application work to development firms for various vertical applications. For instance, a development firm like PLETH, that has a particular application that is valuable to widget manufacturers, can really benefit by posting their software into the ecosystem of applications that are available and a hosting company w/out a design department or another development firm might have a client who manufactures widgets who could benefit from this product. In a sense PLETH has already been a part of the ecosystem, providing everything from Intranet solutions to Real Estate MLS IDX to clients across the United States, but I think that since the industry has decided to follow the PLETH business model, things will only be getting better.

In a seperate lunch conversation with Don Best, we shared our business model with him and how we service our clients and he immediately understood where we were coming from. That wasn’t a common thing at HostingCon in talking with service providers from other parts of the United States, in fact I would go as far as to say that most of the ones we talked to probably do not know their clients. The hosting industry as a whole is an inpersonal type of industry that strives to obtain quantity moreso than to provide quality of service. I have to also admit that prior to PLETH I was guilty of having this mindset, but I have seen that Hosting clients that are also development clients that trust 100% of their online presence to us are willing to outsource the technical aspects of managing servers, configuring dns, managing email configurations, etc. to a firm like PLETH than they are to try to hire a full time IT department. These clients also aren’t concerned in the least that they are paying a little bit more for web hosting since it also comes with support that is fanatical and around the clock. I can see many of todays larger firms eventually getting this and transferring the management of their web presence entirely to an outside firm as opposed to an internal staff of IT professionals who clock out each day at 6pm.
A couple of suggestions that we did hear that we will likely be incorporating over the next few months were:

- Offering Hosted Microsoft Exchange as a Service
- Providing a Disaster Recovery and Offsite Backup Solution
- Offering more Services geared toward Mobile Messaging / Applications

One of the other sessions we attended was for recognizing the trends that are growing in todays marketplace and one that I was a little surprised by but shouldn’t have been was mobile messaging. In fact, I was text messaging a friend as the speaker pulled up his powerpoint slide displaying a graph that showed many business’s today are using Mobile Messaging as well as bundled Mobile Applications in tandem with their regular management software. I was impressed that we had thought of this about 6 months earlier when we added SMS to our already robust PLETHWARE Groupware / Webmail solution.

HostingCon 2006 - 07/19/06: Growing Trends in Today’s Business’s

2006-07-21T23:21:00.000-04:00

Another very informative session at the conference for me was the Growing Trends session that was put on by a top representative from Hostway, Inc. They had spent a considerable amount of money this past year surveying their clients and identifying the top trends among todays businesses. I was surprised to learn that 43% of small businesses today still have servers and try to host their websites internally. This figure drops every year but is still surprising to me to learn this. I don’t think that this figure is completely accurate, but that’s my opinion. I find that a lot of the clients we see that have hosted their websites elsewhere have predominately all been in another data warehouse or hosting provider and very few try to manage their own servers, etc. I guess a few of the larger clietns we see today that have a full time IT department might still be hosting internally but I bet that they are likely looking to outsource to cut costs and reduce the workload of their already overworked IT departments.

Another trend that couldn’t be ignored was that Text messaging had become a vital part of a lot of todays operations. There was a lot of talk about how email was still considered by many to be the killer app, but there was no real email solution providers in attendance, other than Microsoft, that I could see. We felt pretty good in learning that messaging was earning it’s place in the service offerings arena because we had already been there for over 6 months with our PLETHWARE product.

Disaster Recovery and Offsite Data Backups also were popular buzzwords during the conference, and PLETH is already in talks with a software firm to create the ultimate CYA (Cover Your Assets) type of software application that will completely automate the tasks of backing up critical and sensitive data such as Quickbooks, Microsoft Money, and Microsoft Outlook contacts as well as a host of other software applications popular to todays small businesses and entrepreneurs. Offsite Data Backups for personal use also make a lot of sense to us. Take for example the fire-proofed safe that weighs 600 pounds that our parents use to house important documents and family photos inside their homes. Since most of the photos taken today are digital, it only makes sense to have digital safes to store these items in. A computers hard drive can fill up pretty quick w/ digital photos. Many of todays digital cameras will default to approximately 4mb or higher resolution per image, with the higher the resolution the higher the quality of the picture. This is a sharp contrast to the size of digital images even just a year or so ago, most of which were in the 2mb range with some defaulted to even smaller file sizes. In the event of a fire, or even a stolen computer system, an entire lifetime of digital photos would be lost forever, but with the offsite data backup solution in place, digital photos can be stored a mouseclick away…

Another trend in todays hosting industry that doesn’t really fit into the PLETH portfolio of business offerings was game hosting. Game hosting is extremely popular, probably moreso than any of us had really imagined. It wasn’t until I heard the new CEO from the PLANET, Doug Erwin mention that Insomnia365 was one of their popular offerings that it really sank in for me. In further talks with Julia Morgan, VP of Sales and Marketing for the PLANET, we learned that our network center was equipped with one of the most state of the art centers for game hosting in the world. Cortex, a gaming control panel, is already in place and available for our use should we decide to offer gaming as a service in the near future. We have been considering this pretty hard for the last few days and expect to have an announcement regarding gameserver offerings in the very near future…

The Fundamentals of Search Engine Optimization

2006-07-01T23:09:00.000-04:00

by Richard Drawhorn

The fundamental concepts behind Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are understood by most search engine marketers, but those new to the subject should find this article to be very useful. Informative articles on various aspects of SEO have been published here on MarketPosition.com over the years, and in this post I will summarize these concepts and provide links to relevant articles.

Keyword Research

The first step in SEO is to identify the search terms for which you would like your web site to rank well on search engines. We might believe that we know these terms already, but our intuition is often incorrect about how popular or competitive search keywords actually are in reality. People use all kinds of variations of phrases as they are searching for information on the internet. It’s important to identify these terms and use them in your site content exactly as people type them into search engines. To discover what these search terms are, a keyword research tool should be used. There are several free tools available, such as the Keyword Selector provided by Overture, but most of the robust keyword research tools are subscription based.

Web Site Optimization

You now have your well researched keyword list in hand, and are ready to use the keywords in your web site content. How should these search terms be integrated into your web pages? How often should the phrases be used, and in what sections of the pages? Those are excellent questions and the answers are not known exactly because they depend on the algorithms used by search engines. However, it is generally agreed upon that search engines look at several different sections of a page when evaluating its content:

Title tag
Heading tag
Meta Keyword and Meta Description tags
Text within the Body area
Link text and Link URL
ALT attribute for Image tags (the ALT tag may be less significant than other areas of the page)

Search engines look at the various sections of the document for repeating patterns of keywords or phrases. For this reason, it’s important to have a keyword density within a specific range. What should that keyword density be? Software tools like WebPosition’s Page Critic can help to answer that question. The Page Critic works by looking at the keyword density (and other statistics) of pages that are already ranking well on search engines. Since the search engines keep the details of how their algorithms work a secret, a reasonable strategy is to emulate pages that are well positioned.

Web Site Design

Aesthetics and user friendliness are important elements of web site design, but there are a number of other things to consider to ensure a web site will be as friendly to search engines as possible.

HTML Validation

It’s important to ensure that the HTML code that makes up a web page is correctly formatted. If there are errors in the code, then search engine spiders may have difficulty indexing the page’s content. Use a HTML Validator to check the formatting of HTML code, and read this article for more information on why this is important.

Site Map

It’s always a good idea to create a site map to make it easy for search engine spiders to index the site’s content. Link to every page on the web site that has relevant content, and place a link to the site map on the site’s home page. It may also help to sign up for the Google Sitemaps program to help ensure your content is indexed by Google.

Develop a Site Theme

One aspect of web site design that is often overlooked is theme development. If possible, organize your content so that particular themes are reinforced. Read Reinforcing Ideas and Improving Relevance to Gain Better Rankings for ideas to consider when organizing your site content.

Avoid Duplicate Content

It’s important to avoid duplicating content on the web site. Read Duplicate Content: How Does it Affect Your Rankings? for more information on how to avoid penalties associated with duplicate content.

Comply with Search Engines’ Terms of Service

There are several practices to avoid to stay on good terms with search engines. Techniques like cloaking, hidden text, or spamming, for example, violate search engines’ terms of service. If a site is found to be using these types of blackhat techniques, it will typically be removed from the search engine’s index. Read this article for more information about practices to avoid.

Build Link Popularity

The Link Popularity of a page is a term that refers to the number of other web sites that link to that page. Search engines typically consider how many other sites link to a page as a factor in determining that page’s ranking. The idea behind this is that if others link to a page, then they must consider that page’s content to be valuable in some way. However, all links are not weighted equally and it’s therefore important to try to encourage high quality web sites within your own theme area to link to your site. For a good overview of these concepts, read Link Popularity Considerations, and for some ideas about how to start building links read A Review of Link Building Strategies.

Monitor Performance

Once your optimized web site is online, you’ll want to monitor its performance on the search engines. If the site is brand new, it should of course be submitted to the search engines, or perhaps resubmitted if necessary. Monitor the site’s positions on search engines for keywords of interest to identify areas where the site is performing well and areas that can be improved. An excellent tool designed for this is WebPosition’s Reporter feature. It creates formatted reports featuring graphs of positions over time, as well as useful parameters like the Keyword Visibility Index.

A web site that is positioned well in search engines should start receiving a significant number of visitors. To monitor traffic and other useful web site statistics, a web analytics solution such as WebTrends is recommended. Read Measuring Web Site Statistics as Part of Your SEO Strategy for more information about the benefits of web analytics.

Conclusion

The art of SEO is a set of skills that can be learned and implemented by anybody who manages a web site. However, proper optimization and maintenance of the site requires time and effort, and the fundamental elements of SEO discussed above must be put into practice. Those who find they do not have the time or desire to implement their own SEO program, read Outsourcing a SEO Program for some advice on how to best seek out professionals that can help.

Launch: Wal-Mart Kids-Fishing Project

2006-07-01T22:28:00.000-04:00

Pleth, LLC announced last month that it had been retained by Kids All-American Fishing, an organization primarily sponsored by Wal-Mart, that puts on and promotes fishing derbies across the United States and promotes the fun of fishing to children and parents alike.

“We are going to be building onto what they already have in place and in some cases just making the site function a little better.” added Greg Smart, Project Manager and Partner in Pleth, LLC.

The website currently features a Derby Locator that enables visitors to the site to go in and enter a zip code and search for a Fishing Derby near them, and at the same time the locator will also display a list of Wal-Mart Stores in that same area.

► Click here to Visit the Kids-Fishing Website.

Pleth, LLC Joins SWDN

2006-06-06T22:55:00.000-04:00

PLETH, LLC is pleased to announce that they have joined the SWsoft Developer Network (SWDN). The SWDN is a resource and community center behind SWsoft’s OPEN FUSION Initiative. SWSOFT manufactures PLESK Control Panel Software that is currently used by PLETH, LLC hosting clients. The SWDN was created specifically for hosting service providers. SWDN provides API documentation and SDK’s needed for in-house customizations and integration with SWsoft software.

Some of the many benefits of SWDN:

Development Licenses: for all SWsoft products.

Software Developer Kits (SDKs) including API specs, & tech manuals.

Product Betas: early access to products before the general public.
Forums and Support: to interact and share information with SWsoft engineers

The PLETH, LLC Management Team met with Representatives from SWSOFT, Inc. this year during HostingCon 2006 in Las Vegas.

Launch: Team Caliber Project

2006-06-05T22:23:00.000-04:00

Pleth, LLC an Arkansas Based technology firm announced last week that they were preparing to launch a new e-commerce enabled project for Team Caliber, Inc. of Charlotte, North Carolina, a Division of Roush Racing.

“The new project is just getting underway,” said Cotton Rohrscheib, Chief Developer and Partner. “They have put a ton of thought into providing their wholesale customers with this tool and we want to work with them in any way to bring it to fruition.”

The new project consists of various levels of authentication and security built on top of Pleth’s already award-winning e-commerce solution. Only registered and approved wholesale customers are allowed to login and view the 2006 product line. Orders are placed online and transmitted to Team Caliber by email and their staff takes it from there.

“We have taken a lot of things into consideration in putting this product together, basically rebuilding our existing e-commerce solution and making it do things that it normally wouldn’t; changing outputs and the way it displays products and handles orders, right down to the way it generates pick tickets and packing slips,” said Greg Smart, Project Manager for Pleth, LLC.

Team Caliber is the one of the top manufacturers of die-cast cars, fan memorabilia, and clothing for NASCAR.

What is Web Hosting?

2006-06-01T22:51:00.000-04:00

I recently ran across an article at The Whir that did a good job of explaining the basic principles of webhosting.Web hosting is a service that allows users to post Web pages to the Internet.

A Web host, or hosting service provider (HSP), is a business that provides the technologies and services needed for Web sites to be viewed on the Web.

Web hosting is a primary service that consumers can utilize after obtaining either dial-up or broadband access to the Internet. It allows users to disseminate their own information resources to any Internet user that is interested in accessing them. Web hosting utilizes the server/client model to distribute content. A Web hosting provider will offer its clients access to a Web server that will push that client’s content to recipients on request. Recipients use clients, or Web browsers, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator to request content from the Web over their own Internet connection.

Web sites are hosted, or stored, on a special computer called a server. The server, or host computer, allows Internet users connected anywhere to reach your site when they put in your domain address, for example: www.yourcompany.com.

The host computers are set up so that when someone types in your domain name (your Web address), the address will follow a route from computer to computer until it reaches your host computer and your web site. Then the Internet user will be able to browse through your Web site. Hosting companies usually require that you own your own domain name in order to host with them. If you don’t have a domain name, most hosting companies will help you purchase one.

To have a Web site on the Internet you first need to have a Web server. Unfortunately, owning and operating a Web server can be very costly and requires technical expertise that most businesses do not possess. This is where “Web hosts” come in. Web hosts provide the equipment and other technical resources that are required to provide a consumer with their own customized Web site. Hosting companies charge a rental fee for the service of storing your Web site and allowing Web site visitor traffic flow to through their computers to get to the information on your site.

Web hosting services are more advantageous because they are outsourced, meaning that the physical location of the Web server does not reside at the consumer’s premises. Outsourcing your Web presence effectively transfers the responsibility for maintaining your Web site infrastructure from yourself to an organization that is more competent to do so.

Many individuals and small businesses take advantage of Web hosts in order to free themselves from pre-occupying their scarce human and financial resources on Web host issues. Individuals and companies who outsource their Web presence do so in order to achieve the following objectives: reduce and control operating costs; improve their own company focus; gain access to in-depth expertise; free internal resources for core competencies; and obtain access to world-class capabilities to control IT functions which are difficult to manage.

The best Web hosting services will provide relatively seamless access to IT functions that will allow you to self-publish your Web site. It is important to note that “Web hosting” strictly refers to providing the consumer with the capacity to upload content to a server for immediate transmission for those that request it. Web hosting does not include the authoring of a Web site or the development of database-driven components or code. It is incumbent upon the consumer of Web hosting services to develop this material or have it developed on his or her behalf.

Web hosting is offered to the consumer in multiple formats based upon the user’s requirements. These requirements are incumbent upon cost and infrastructure provided.

Web hosting can be obtained free of cost from content portal sites such as Yahoo! GeoCities. Such content sites invite individual users to establish Web sites on their domain in order to create a critical mass of core content on their online property. The user does not pay for service because it is subsidized by banner advertising. Because such sites do not charge, they offer limited service depth and quality of service. For example, free services will not provide customized hosting services where domain names are personalized (i.e., www.yourdomain.com).

The “paid” class of Web hosting services however does provide such services. Paid services are normally offered by Internet service providers (ISPs) or by hosting service providers (HSPs). Paid services provide a reliable set of offerings that ensure domain name personalization, service depth and high levels of quality of service. The paid class of Web hosting includes shared, dedicated and managed services. Shared is the most basic level of hosting. With shared hosting, numerous Web sites are shared on one server. While an economic solution, they typically cannot handle large amounts of storage or traffic.

If a consumer’s needs are more sophisticated, then they might opt for either dedicated or managed services.

Dedicated hosting allots a Web site its own server. This is more flexible than shared hosting, as webmasters typically have full control over the back end of the server, including choice of OS.
Managed hosting, on the other hand is a dedicated server that is accompanied by a full suite of technical support, maintenance and monitoring services. This differs from dedicated Web hosting, where customers are provided with their own servers but are still responsible for virtually all administrative and maintenance duties.

PCI Compliance & Credit Card Acceptance

2006-06-01T22:39:00.000-04:00

I guess that Credit Card Fraud, Chargebacks, etc. finally is getting the best of Credit Card Companies… We learned while we were out in Vegas that PCI compliance would soon become a requirement from any online vendor that is accepting credit cards online by both MasterCard and Visa. I have to say that I am not surprised and sort of glad to see it. It will help to weed through the fly-by-nights that are out there…

What does PCI compliance do? Well, basically it is peace of mind to a shopper that their information is not going to be compromised. Keep in mind that within the last 6 months, the federal government and a branch of the armed forces have both had their information compromised and sensitive information about members of the military and the government were leaked to the general public. In a nutshell, if an online business is a fly-by-night business and do not have their website installed properly on a secure server w/ ssl, pci compliance, etc. they are putting their customers information at risk from being hacked.

At PLETH we have always strived to have the best intrusion detection methods in place at all times for our clients. In fact, we have some big-time clients that will do some heavy sales numbers this year. In our efforts we have learned that you just can’t be on top of everything at all times but you really need to be! With this in mind, we have contracted out with the top Security Auditing Firm in the United States, ScanAlert.

ScanAlert’s signature Hacker-Safe Certification can be found on over 55% of the top 400 e-Commerce websites in the world! We are bringing them to our clients and sparing no expense in doing so. In fact, with our new partnership arrangement that was formed at our meeting in Las Vegas, it is expected that our clients will receive a larger discount than firms that work directly with ScanAlert!

Pleth will soon be launching a co-branded website with ScanAlert that promotes the Hacker Safe Certification program that will ensure that websites meet the criteria for the following:

HIPAA Compliance
PCI Compliance

Both of these certifications will be in the news a lot in the very near future…

ScanAlert’s services monitors a websites vulnerabilities 24hrs a day, 7 days a week and watches for vulnerabilities, port scanning, and network fingerprinting services that are patent pending.
HackerSafe certification is currently being sought out by the United States Government, FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, and the Marine Corps. We feel that if providing our clients with peace of mind is our number one priority. In doing so, no other security auditing firm in the United States could be brought in as a partner other than ScanAlert, they are simply the best!

If you have questions regarding PCI compliance please contact a member of our team to discuss your immediate needs. Also, stay tuned to our blog for important announcement regarding the co-branded PLETH / ScanAlert Website that will be available for one stop certification shopping.

Thanks,
Cotton Rohrscheib, Partner
PLETH Networks, LLC

Pleth, LLC Partners with ARG...

2006-05-26T23:30:00.000-04:00

Cotton Rohrscheib, of PLETH Networks, LLC made the Announcement on Friday that his firm had partnered with Little Rock Consulting Firm, The Angela Rogers Group. “I have known Angela for a while now, when she was with the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau and she has always been a hard worker. I attended her wedding last year and her husband was in mine, we are great friends. On a professional level I can attest to her work ethic, she is a leader. That’s exactly the qualities we were looking for as a strategic partner in the Little Rock Market.” said Rohrscheib.

The Angela Rogers Group was formed when Angela decided to step down from her position with the Convention and Visitors Bureau in Little Rock where she had a hand in coordinating just about every major event that has transpired in Little Rock or Central Arkansas for the past years. These events include everything from visiting Presidents to Foreign Heads of State and even Rock Concerts and World Championship Boxing Matches, and of course Little Rock is also home to many festivals and events throughout the year.

“With Angela’s years of experience she also brings a lot of creativity and logic to our team,” added Rohrscheib. “At times we (our development team), will sometimes tend to look only at the technical functionality of a project and occasionally overlook the smaller details that an end-user might pick up on right away. Angela brings that to our team, and it has made a noticeable difference already in recent projects.”

This strategic partnership has already yielded a few noteworthy projects such as the River Market’s 10th Anniversary Website that features a full slate of upcoming events and special promotions in recognition of the River Market District’s 10th Year in existence. Plans for several other promotional projects are also on the table with announcements expected in the very near future. A number of private firms located in the Little Rock Area have also contacted Pleth Networks since the news was made public about this partnership.

“Our business is so service oriented, not only do we provide web-hosting, but we also handle about 90% of our clients development work in house so we have managed to build some personal relationships with our clients, getting to know their businesses helps us to better equip them with the tools for success on the web.” said Rohrscheib.

While the name PLETH might be a new one to many members of the business community in the state, don’t be mistaken, PLETH was actually formed when an award-winning web design firm, the Powersite Design Group decided that they wanted to go into the web-hosting business. Powersite Founder, Cotton Rohrscheib, met with then-client, Stephen Smart and his brother Greg Smart, and from it’s conception the partnership has showed tremendous growth. In only a short period of time, PLETH was able to go from a small startup tech-firm to one of the largest web-hosting providers in the United States.

“I started developing websites as a hobby along about the time that Netscape was becoming a household name, I had a fascination then with the web and a good background in graphic design, but never anticipated being able to make a living doing something I love so much. I founded Powersite back in 2001 and have managed or had an active role in over 500 projects worldwide, and in 7 different languages. These projects have included everything from small business e-commerce websites to high-level government portals. Along the way I have had the opportunity to work with an impressive list of clients including a few best-selling authors, recording artists, and NASCAR drivers like Arkansas’ very own Mark Martin, who has multiple accounts with us right now. It wasn’t until Greg and Steve came on board that I noticed somewhere along the way that the industry as a whole was no longer a hobby and it had became big business with millions of dollars worth of revenue running throughout the world. As a company we have grown past all of our expectations, in fact we now have several servers located in one of the most elite data centers in the world. Our Network is located in Dallas, Texas.” added Rohrscheib. “There are plenty of web firms in the state, but I think that the one thing that has helped us to rise to the forefront of the industry is our one on one relationship that we establish with each of our clients, and our passion to see them succeed. This is why we are so proud to have a partner firm in Little Rock now that shares the same goals and principles.”

For more information on the Angela Rogers Group, please visit their website at: www.angelarogersgroup.com , or stop by their offices located in the Little Rock River Market District inside the Museum of Discovery.

For more information regarding the Powersite Design Group or Pleth Networks, please visit their websites at: www.powersitedesign.com and www.pleth.com or call toll-free: 888-276-0848.
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Planet / EV1 Planning Merger

2006-05-10T21:41:00.000-04:00

May 10, 2006 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — With a couple of quick announcements this week, the balance of power in the dedicated Web hosting market shifted, or rather coalesced, into the hands of one new, and very big, organization.

On Saturday, it was reported that investment firm GI Partners (gipartners.com) had acquired controlling interests in two of the dedicated hosting space’s most prominent players, Everyone’s Internet (ev1.net) and The Planet (theplanet.com).

Shortly thereafter, the two companies announced that they had merged, creating the largest dedicated Web hosting provider in the market, with more than 20,000 clients and 50,000 dedicated servers under management.

Executives from both companies say they don’t see the deal ushering in any big changes in the dedicated hosting market. But the significant resources, scale and stability of the new organization will likely enable the two brands, already leaders in the dedicated hosting field, to set the tone for that particular segment of the Web hosting business.

The companies have said they intend for EV1Servers and The Planet to continue to operate as separate brands, but the new potential for the sharing of intellectual property and business practices has obvious benefits for both sides.

Jeff Lowenberg, vice president of operations at EV1, and his counterpart at The Planet, chief operating officer Will Charnock, have begun discussing the ways in which the companies can share resources and ideas.

“The way that I look at it,” says Lowenberg, “we will certainly share technologies that the two companies have developed, and Will and I will be looking at different ways that each company does things, and whoever does it best we’ll start adopting that technology to the other company. But the two companies will continue to have their own identities and their own brands.”

And, in addition to sharing technologies the companies have developed, or are developing, the new organization will benefit from the potential to combine technology resources.

“There is that opportunity,” says Charnock. “And some of the things that we’re kicking around internally are some products that kind of leverage the two different physical locales for some products and things like that.”

The doubling up of engineering staff and resources has the potential to immediately impact the speed and confidence with which the post-merger organization can develop new products and bring them to market. Rather than fundamentally changing anything about the dedicated hosting market, the merger, say its participants, will have its most immediate and most profound effects on the way they do business, and their ability to do so. The significant boost in financial solidity, for instance, could be of considerable interest to customers.

“From my perspective,” says Charnock, “if there are going to be any changes, they’re going to be for the better. I think for the customer, as a whole, combined we’re a very strong company. We’ve seen some of our competitors disappear overnight. And when you look at us now, you have to know that we’re going to be around for the long haul. And you can feel secure when you take your services to us.”

There is plenty of overlap in the partnerships held by the two companies, and while the deal may not immediately create any new vendor relationships for either company, it may have the potential to change their existing relationships.

“We share many of our vendors,” says Charnock. “So it’s hard to pick Microsoft and say ‘that’s an immediate benefit,’ because we already have essentially the same relationship with Microsoft that EV1 does, I believe. So in that respect, I think the benefit is that we’re now a much larger entity, and we can leverage that into maybe having a little more input into features going forward, helping them develop some of their products to suit what our customers are asking for and things like that.”

Interestingly, given the nature of the Web hosting business, the similarity of the two companies in terms of their products and general approach to the business make it very easy for them to slip into a collaborative relationship. It is no big surprise that two companies succeeding in dedicated hosting are operating very similarly.

“We didn’t have a working relationship [prior to the acquisitions and merger],” says Lowenberg, “but it was good competition between us, as it was two of the biggest, if not the biggest in this particular section of the market. We drove each other to improve our service offerings, and we’ll continue to do so. Only now it won’t be so much one against the other. We’ll be forcing the rest of the market to keep up with us.”