(Gottfried Leibniz, 1670)
It is a good thing to proceed in order and to establish propositions (principles).
This is the way to gain ground and to progress with certainty. ... I hold
that the mark of a genuine idea is that its possibility can be proved, either
a priori by conceiving its cause or reason, or a posteriori when experience
teaches us that it is a fact in nature.
We are primarily philosophers who inadvertently got into Search Engine Optimisation
(so we are very different to the many thousands of other Search Engine Optimisation
websites currently on the internet).
Having had a website (with only about 5 web pages) on Philosophy ( Metaphysics
of Space / Wave Structure of Matter) for several years, and getting only
a few page visits a day, we began to realise the fundamental importance of
Search Engine Optimisation. This knowledge then led to us constructing many
different website pages on different subjects. (One of the beauties of Philosophy
{wisdom from truth} is that it applies to all subjects.) Our website now (June,
2005) has about 280 Web pages explaining knowledge and quotations from many
famous philosophers. Most importantly though (for SEO), we have tried to apply
the lessons of philosophy, which requires first determining our Principles
of Search Engine Optimisation, and then applying this method to our website
construction.
Our Website has gone from having virtually zero page views to getting around
130,000 page views per week (including images we now get about 6 million hits
per week, with a weekly bandwidth of 20 Giga Bytes!!).
Most pages now have a Google Page Rank of 5/10, the Index and a few main pages
have page rank of 6. (This page has a page rank of 4 as we focus on our philosophy
pages and don't point any links to it!)
The Alexa Website Rank has gone from 730,000 down to around 50,000 (from
January, 2004 to April, 2005). i.e. Yahoo is top, Alexa Rank = 1, MSN is
second Alexa Rank = 2, Google is fourth, Alexa Rank = 4.)
And and we are now in the Top 5 Philosophy websites on the
Internet,
(Search Alexa Philosophy in Google for more details of Top
Philosophy Websites)
(David Hume, Treatise Concerning Human Understanding. 1737) We may observe, in every art or profession, even those which most concern life or action, that a spirit of accuracy, however acquired, carries all of them nearer their perfection, and renders them more subservient to the interests of society. And though the philosopher may live remote from business, the genius of philosophy, if carefully cultivated by several, must gradually diffuse itself throughout the whole society, and bestow a similar correctness on every art and calling. The politician will acquire greater foresight and subtlety, in the subdividing and balancing of power; the lawyer more method and finer principles in his reasoning; and the general public more regularity in their discipline, and more caution in their plans and operations.
Our own results confirm that Search Engine Optimisation is very much a Science, and the scientific method achieves better results in terms of website ranking and number of page views / hits. (Which is the aim of the game.) This increase in page views will prove to be a very cheap and efficient form of marketing that will continue to work for you 24 hours a day, year in year out, all over the world.
Please browse this webpage, as there are many good search engine optimisation
articles and links to excellent websites with free and very useful optimisation
tools.
Below is a more detailed discussion of Search Engine Optimisation and some
of the Principles we apply.
It is clear that the Internet (and the major Search Engines
- Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL) are revolutionising how we access information,
and are having profound consequences for both business and academic organisations.
The monopoly on knowledge once held by Universities and Multinational Media
Corporations is now being replaced with a more democratic system of knowledge,
largely determined by the results which Search Engines display.
And this explains why Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Web Site Page
Design have become critically important to both businesses and academics.
With over three billion web pages now on the Internet, it is obvious that
a site full of useful knowledge is pointless without Optimisation for the
Search Engines as it will never be found. Likewise, poorly designed websites
simply frustrate people and they quickly move on to another web page.
Unfortunately Search Engine Optimisation has a generally poor
reputation. Because search engine 'Spiders' are still relatively primitive,
design of websites for search engine optimisation has focused more on manipulating
the search engine results and website ranking, and largely ignored the people
who actually read the websites. This has led to the mass production of millions
of 'doorway' pages, generally containing very little unique / useful information,
stuffed full of keywords and pretty much identical to many thousands of other
websites (and often responsible for masses of very annoying unsolicited emails
/ spam). This is unfortunate because it obviously taints the reputation of
good search engine optimisation services that are in fact essential for good
website design.
While it is still necessary to repeat keywords throughout your website (sorry),
with good knowledge of what 'spiders' require for good website ranking, it
is possible to design an attractive website with useful information and services
that people will enjoy and most significantly, will still rank well in the
search engines and thus be easily found by people searching the web.
As we have explained, we became interested in Search Engine Optimisation and Website Design Services inadvertently through our work in Philosophy. After several years of trial and error (a great way to learn) our Philosophy site now ranks number one if you Google search Philosophy Truth or Truth Reality out of roughly five million results. In fact we now come up in the top 50 results (in Google, which dominates the internet) for most of the main search terms in Philosophy, Physics and Metaphysics.
In one sense philosophy is the combination of Art and Science.
This is also particularly applicable to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and
Web Page Design Services. Search Engine Optimisation is pure Science, as Search
Engines use mathematical algorithms to calculate website page rank and positioning.
On the other hand, Web Site Page Design is certainly an Art as people are
far more complex and subtle in their judgments than search engines.
Thus the Philosophy of Search Engine Optimisation is to design artistic intelligent
websites that appeal to people, while also applying the Science of Search
Engine Optimisation so they rank well on the major Search Engines.
1. Simple and logical to use and thus easy to find information. This website
uses eight layers, with menu links to each layer at the top of this page.
2. Fast - by clever use of technology to minimise data rates and to ensure
that text downloads first (people are impatient). While you read this introduction
the other layers are downloading so there is no waiting when you click on
links to other layers.
3. Alive, Dynamic & Interactive - Intelligent use of both Space and Motion.
While Digital Video and Flash Movies are not spidered by Search Engines, their
judicious use is still important.
4. Honest & True - For both film and literature, if someone loves their
work, and has good knowledge, then this quality pervades the work in subtle
ways that are impossible to fake.
5. Search Engine Optimisation - This requires knowledge of relevant keywords
and their sensible use in your website page design. Further, you must understand
how the Search Engine 'Spiders' work, what they 'see' and what they like
(good relevant unique content) and don't like (Spam). Without good Search
Engine Optimisation the best aesthetic web design in the world is pointless,
as it will never be seen.
1. Search Engine Optimisation SEO is an Evolutionary Science.
Both Website Design and Search Engine Algorithms are evolving (along with
computers and software) thus SEO is an ongoing process. Changes are made
to your website founded on certain Principles, the effect of these changes
are measured (empiricism) to confirm that the changes achieve the desired
results.
Abiding by this method of Science, we will provide the Google
and Alexa Page Rank, and Ranking in the major Search Engines over the next
few years for this website (this page is part of an evolving Science experiment
to confirm that what it is saying is true).
The Website was uploaded on the 19th of September 2003, and we have now added
in our latest results from April, 2005 (which are really quite remarkable.)
See Search
Engine Optimisation Results
We have also recently added a page that contains far more information on how to optimise your website for Google, and also provides lots of useful tools and websites where you can build links back to your own webpages. However, we wish to emphasise that this is not about 'spamming' other sites. At the end of the day, if you wish to succeed on the Internet you need good quality content that people find useful, such that over time your website grows organically due to people adding links to it because they like it!
We are also into filmmaking (in the South West of Australia) and have made some digital video & flash movies for our website. And as the speed of the internet increases these moving images (which are far more captivating than text) will become more important in web site design. You can see some samples of our work by clicking on relevant links on the side of this page (still very incomplete - though there is useful digital video information and free downloads). There are also excellent articles and links on search engine optimisation services, website design, and many free tools (collected over three years) for optimisation of your own Website.
This Website Page has been HTML Validated
Flash Movie
Arriving Soon
Website Page first uploaded on 19th September, 2003
These results posted May, 2005
This website has now been online for 20 months and in January, 2005 we averaged
about 10,000 page views per day. However, to our great surprise our number
of visitors recently doubled (since the Google update in early February, 2005)
to around 20,000 page views per day. And in late April we discovered that
our website is now ranked number 4 out of all Philosophy sites on the Internet.
See Alexa details: https://www.alexa.com/browse?&CategoryID=304
We are now also ranked in top 50,000 sites on the Internet
The Website contains roughly 280 Webpages on the subjects of Metaphysics, Philosophy (Ancient Greek, Indian & Western Philosophy), Physics (Einstein's Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Cosmology), Theology & Morality, Evolution, Health, Politics and Education. The work is founded on the ideas of many wonderful minds from human history, and there are probably over 10,000 quotes from many hundreds of famous philosophers and scientists (including lots of lovely pictures which you are welcome to use).
The aim of these pages is to show how the Wave Structure of Matter explains
and solves (in a very simple sensible way) many of the current problems of
human knowledge caused by the incomplete 'Particle' and 'Field' conception
of matter in 'Space-Time'.
We continue to work very long hours on this website (it still needs a lot
of work!) and expect to greatly improve its content and increase its page
views to about 30,000 to 50,000 per day by the end of 2005.
Our thanks to the people who have written us kind letters and have taken the
time to add links to this website (which greatly helps). It motivates us to
realise that there are people who have a genuine curiosity to understand the
Truth about Reality (and thus their own existence) and have been inspired
by the simple elegance of the Wave Structure of Matter and how it explains
our Interconnection to all other matter in the Universe.
1. Submit Website to Major Directories. i.e. DMOZ, Yahoo, Zeal, GoGuides,
JoeAnt (We are just about to begin this process).
2. Build a larger network of interconnected websites (as of April, 2005 we
have about 280 Website Pages - See Philosophy
Articles). This is one of the lovely things about Philosophy, that it
applies to all subjects because Truth is important to all subjects, thus
it is possible to create a very large, diverse and unique network of Webpages
each supporting one another.
This Website Page has been HTML Validated
Search engine optimisation is the cornerstone of many webmasters' online businesses. If you are just starting out or on a small budget, it may be your only true form of advertising. While there are many articles on the basics of SEO out there, many of them are outdated. With that in mind, and knowing the numerous changes that have taken place with the search engines in the past year I decided to write a somewhat revised guideline to SEO. While some things have stayed basically the same, other areas have seen some pretty big changes. So...let's jump in.
1. Know Your Target Keywords
Without a doubt, knowing your target keywords is the single most important
part of your marketing campaign. If you don't know the words and/or phrases
your target audience uses to find sites such as yours, you have almost no
chance of generating the kind of targeted traffic you need to succeed. The
suggestions below are assuming your site is targeting a specific area. If
your site targets multiple distinctly different areas, you should repeat
this procedure for each distinctly different genre your site targets. While
there is more than this, I am going to cover three of the best ways of developing
a comprehensive list of keywords for your site. The first way is to visit
competing websites and analyse their sites. Look at what words and phrases
they are targeting. You will find the target words and phrases in the title
tags of the pages, the meta tags, and scattered throughout the body text.
Grab a sheet of paper and copy down the phrases that they are targeting.
The second way is by using the Overture keyword suggestion tool.
It can be accessed at: Search Term Suggestion Tool
Enter a word or phrase and it will return all associated searches that use
that phrase as well as the number of times they were searched for in the
previous month. Use your list from your competitors sites and gather additional
phrases with this tool. I also like to write down the number of searches
so I know which phrases are the most popular since this will be helpful
later.
Finally, the third way is by using Wordtracker.
It's not a free service, (limited service is free) but it can be a huge
time saver. Again, enter a word or phrase and it returns a list of searches
utilizing that word or phrase and the frequency of those searches. It will
also show you similar terms that may give you other ideas. Write these down
on your list along with the number of times they were searched for.
The next thing I would suggest doing is taking your list and rearranging
them in order of importance with the most searched for phrases at the top
and working your way down. Depending on your market and your site, this
could be a list of only 10 or 15 keyphrases, or it could be MUCH larger.
Now that we have a good, solid list of keywords and phrases, let's move
on to number 2.
2. Make all Your Pages 'Doorway' Pages.
No, I don't mean the old style 'click here' doorway pages we all know and
hate. What I mean is that you should begin to look at each and every
page of your site as a potential entry point or 'doorway' to your
site. Many people believe the homepage is the only page they should focus
on. This couldn't be farther from the truth. Don't make the mistake of
trying to make your homepage target each and every keyword and keyphrase
on your list. You will be sorely disappointed. Look at your list of keywords
and determine your 2 or 3 most important keywords or keyphrases. These
are the words/phrases that you need to target on your homepage. Don't
dilute the focus of your homepage by trying to target 75 different phrases.
Keep it focused. What about the rest of the words and phrases on your
list? Well, that is what the rest of the internal pages on your site
are for. Take each page of your site and focus it on another 2 or 3 phrases
on your list, continually working your way down your list as you work
deeper and deeper into your site. In this way, each page stays tightly
focused on a particular 'theme' and has the best chance of ranking well
for those phrases, while at the same time, you have lots of pages all
focusing on different phrases, giving you that many more chances of achieving
a top ranking for numerous phrases.
3. Title Tags..Your Best Friend
Staying with the same theme as section 2, let's talk title tags. Your title
tag is truly the single most important on-the-page factor in determining
the ranking of a page. Numerous webmasters completely waste the potential
of the title tag, often by placing their company name in the title tag
instead of their target keywords. In section 2 I had you pick a set of
2 or 3 phrases to focus each page of your site on. Those same 2 or 3
phrases should be incorporated into the title tag of that page. Leave
the company name out of the title tag as well as the 'About Us'
or 'Contact Us' titles. Focus each page and make the best possible
use of the title tag by placing your target keywords and phrases in them.
Also, don't make the mistake of using the same title tag on each page.
Remember, each page should be focused on 2 or 3 keyphrases that are different
from the other pages and the title tags of each of the pages should reflect
this.
4. Meta Tags
Wow are these STILL the most over-hyped tags in SEO. A few years ago these
were fairly important, but today, they are of almost no use whatsoever.
Google basically ignores both the Meta Description and Meta Keywords
tags. Inktomi does read the keyword and description tag, but doesn't
place anymore importance on them than anything else on the page. In fact,
Inktomi doesn't even make use of the description tag unless you use it's
PFI program. To be honest, I rarely even use either of these tags on
the sites I design or optimise anymore. If I do, I add a brief description
tag and that's it. I certainly don't waste any time on crafting a killer
description and stuffing in as many different keywords as possible. Just
a simple description. after all, almost no one will ever see it anyway.
:)
5. Links...The Name of the Game
While linking isn't exactly new, its importance cannot be stressed enough.
Google calls it PageRank, while Inktomi and other engines simply call
it link popularity. Regardless of what you call it, if you don't have
it, your site will never be found in the search engines. Unfortunately,
getting other sites to link to you can be a long and tedious process,
although the rewards are worth the time spent. The easiest way to begin
your link campaign is to pick one of your competitors' websites, then
visit a search engine (Google for instance). Next, run a search to find
out what sites link to your competitor's website (you can generally find
out how to do this on the Advanced Search Page). The sites returned in
the search results are your first targets. Examine them carefully. Some
may be owned by your competitor (fairly common these days) while others
will be similar, but non-competing, sites that may be willing to link
to you as well. Approach all of these sites and invite them to trade
links. You will almost certainly have to set up a links page since it
is almost impossible to find a site that will link to you without expecting
a link back. Repeat this process for other competing sites in your field.
With time and patience, you should be able to acquire a high number of
inbound links. Aside from contacting sites about exchanging links, you
should also submit your site to directories. Easily the most important
is the ODP - https://www.dmoz.org. However, there are numerous niche directories
that you should submit your site to as well. This can be a time-consuming
undertaking but is necessary in today's search engine arena.
6. Link Text - Not all Links are Created Equal
In the previous section I covered the importance of persuading other sites
to link to you. Equally important is HOW these sites link to you.
Google, which is arguably the most important search engine, puts a great
deal of emphasis on the anchor text of the inbound links to your site. 'Anchor
Text' is the text that is associated with the hyperlink to your site
(the text people will click on to be taken to your site). Google sees
this 'anchor text' as a description of the target page. Thus,
if your site is about 'widgets' and all of the inbound links use
'widgets' as the anchor text that is great, but if all of the inbound
links use 'flimflam' as the anchor text, then you are only getting
a fraction of the benefit that you could be getting from your inbound
links. What you need to do is decide on your most important two or three
keyword phrases and then use the phrase that best describes what your
site is about. If your site sells golf equipment, that phrase could be
'golf clubs' or 'golf equipment'. If your site is travel
related, that phrase could be 'airline tickets' or simply 'travel'
etc. Regardless of your market, decide on the phrase you most want to
target and, when contacting webmasters about exchanging links, be sure
to tell them exactly what you want for your anchor text. In general,
most webmasters are receptive to this since most understand the importance
behind it. If not, simply explain why you want that specific anchor text
and tell them you would be happy to reciprocate for them. This really
is an important adjunct to building link popularity. I have seen many
sites beat out other sites with a better link popularity simply because
the site on top ensured the anchor text for their inbound links included
their target search terms.
7. Keep your Site Design Simple
For those with an artistic flare, this guideline is hard to follow, but
it is very important. Avoid using too much Javascript and Flash when
designing your pages. Search engines like simple coding and text. If
ranking well in the engines is important to you, keep your website coding
as uncomplicated as possible. Search Engines don't understand Javascript
and are only touching the surface of understanding Flash. Using elementary
HTML coding makes it easier for the search engine spiders to index your
page and offers less chance that some type of error will hinder the indexing
of your site. If you must use Javascript, place it in an external file
and call it from your page. The same goes for tables, frames, etc. Keep
your page as simple as possible. It's a balance you have to find for
your particular site. The more complex the layout and coding of the page,
the less likely the engines are to fully understand what the page is
about.
8. Use CSS to Further Simplify Your Coding
Staying with the same theme of page simplicity, one of the easiest things
you can do to streamline the coding of your page is to replace as many of
your font tags as possible by using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Many of
the WYSIWYG HTML editors generate a large number of unnecessary font tags
which can bloat overall web page size considerably. By replacing these tags
with CSS coding you can shrink the overall size of a page significantly.
You can even go one step further and place the CSS font control properties
in an external file and thereby shrink page size even more. If you are unfamiliar
with CSS, there are a great many tutorials available on the net that can
teach you all you need to know. By using CSS, you will not only shrink the
size of your pages, causing them to load faster, but you will also give
the search engines less coding to digest when indexing your site.
John Buchanan
Not everything that you have been told about search engines is true. If you would like to increase the amount of traffic flowing to your website, without spending a dime, I urge you to read this article with an open mind. Many do-it-yourself webmasters and online entrepreneurs have been led to believe that search engine optimisation is a black art, and that no mere amateur can hope to compete with the 'experts.' If you are among them, you're missing out on a great opportunity to drive free, targeted traffic to your website. There are only three steps you need to take, if you want to quickly increase your site's visibility in the search engines. The three steps are: positioning, optimisation, and link building. In this short tutorial, I'll explain what's involved in each one, and show you just how easy it can be.
Step 1: Positioning (a.k.a. search term selection)
Let's start with a quick definition: 'Search terms' are the words
and phrases that people type into search engines. For example, if I go
to https://www.Google.com and type in 'pokemon cards', that's a search
term. To get traffic from search engines, you need to know what people
are searching for, and who you're competing against. This sounds very basic,
but it's important. Search term selection really boils down to finding
a balance between popularity, targeting, and competition. Realtors, for
example, might be tempted when they discover how many people search for
'real estate,' to believe that this is a perfect set of keywords...
but they would be mistaken. That's a very popular search term, but unless
you sell real estate all over the world, it's not specific enough to reach
your target audience. Some folks can come up with good, targeted search
terms with nothing more than common sense, but I prefer to do my homework.
The best way to do this on your own is with the Wordtracker service , which
allows you to find popular search terms, and investigate the competition.
If you aren't interested in doing it yourself, you can hire someone to
do the research for you, and get a report back that tells you which search
terms are the most popular, and which will be the easiest to compete for.
I offer keyword reports through one of my websites SEOresearchlabs.com,
and you can find any number of competing services by looking up 'keyword
research' on your favourite search engine.
Step 2: Optimisation
'Optimising' simply means putting the keywords you've selected onto
your web pages in the right places, with the right formatting. That's all
it means. There's a great deal of misinformation about this subject, so
let me set the record straight: Optimising is the easiest part of this process.
How easy is it? Well, I can tell you 90% of what you need to know in just
a few lines, and there's a good chance that you'll never need to learn the
rest. Once you see what you can accomplish, though, you'll probably want
to learn more. The first thing to understand is that you should only use
1-2 search terms to optimise each page. Once you've selected a page to optimise,
and the search terms you're going to use, all you have to do is put those
words in the right places, and you're done. Where the search terms go:
1. Your page's <TITLE>
2. Your 'keywords' and 'description' META tags
3. In a heading tag (H1, H2, or H3) near the top of the page
4. In the first paragraph of body text, and repeated 1-2 more times
on the page
5. In the text of any links that point to the page That's 90% of
optimisation right there. The most important of these are #1, #3, and #4.
Just try it, it works. I've got an entire website InsideOutMarketing.com
that uses no META tags at all, and it gets traffic for hundreds of search
terms.
Step 3: Link Building
'Link building' simply means getting other websites to link to yours.
If you aren't already working on this, you need to start. Even if you don't
care about search engines, those links will bring in traffic on their own,
and help you establish a credible reputation for your website. Link building
is important because search engines look at these links as a 'vote'
for your website, and they will boost your rankings accordingly when other
sites link to you. There are three simple ways to improve your site's 'link
popularity,' and drive traffic at the same time:
1. Submit your site to the major directories. Yahoo charges $299 a year
for commercial sites, but there are several popular directories, including
dmoz.org, goguides.org, and joeant.com, that will list your site for free.
2. Trade links with related websites. You can help each other, and your
visitors, by linking to other good websites.
3. Look for other sites that have resource directories, and ask them
to link to you. I like to look in the Open Directory to find related sites.
If you'd like to learn more about link building, check out LinkingMatters.com
and Linking101.com That's it! If you do these three simple things, your
search engine rankings are sure to improve. Just remember that there are
no shortcuts, and it's never a good idea to try to 'trick' the search
engines. The honest approach is easier, and much better for you and your
visitors. I wish you success.
Dan Thies is the author of 'Search Engine optimisation Fast Start,' a concise,
step-by-step guide to search engine positioning for beginners. Info: CannedBooks.com.
For more tutorials, visit InsideOutMarketing.com
MSN Up to 2 months
Google Up to 4 weeks
AltaVista Up to 1 week
Fast Up to 2 weeks
Excite Up to 6 weeks
Northern Light Up to 4 weeks
AOL Up to 2 months
HotBot Up to 2 months
iWon Up to 2 months
https://www.robotstxt.org/wc/faq.html - Article / FAQ on Robots & Spiders
This Website Page has been HTML Validated
The following software is all freely available on the Internet. It is our selection of the best Search Engine Optimisation and Web Design Tools that we have collected over the past three years. Please us if you have any further suggestions of good websites or free software.
This Page has moved to: https://www.spaceandmotion.com/Free-Website-Submission-Design.htm
Do you remember when a website needed to be submitted every day in order
to get listed on the search engines? Or the time when we all needed to submit
our sites to over 50,000 search engines in order to achieve traffic? Well,
actually we never needed to do any of the above, but in a rush to achieve
top search engine positioning, many businesses were convinced that submitting
often and to thousands of search engines would bring that pot of search engine
gold they so desperately wanted.
Fast-forward to today and the concepts behind submitting your website have
dramatically changed. While many people believed that the submission process
played a large part in the search engine ranking achieved, most businesses
now realize that the submission process is merely a means of delivering optimised
pages to the search engines. I often find analogies to be beneficial, so lets
try this one. If your optimised website was this summer's blockbuster movie,
then the movie theatre's projector would be the submission process. You want
to make sure that the movie is shown using the best projection methods possible,
but the actual projector does not make the movie a blockbuster. However, without
the projector, your movie would not be seen. With search engine optimisation,
it's the changes to the website that ensure top positioning, but without correct
submission to the search engines, no one will see them. Still with me?
So now that you've started to optimise your website, how do you make sure
that your 'blockbuster' reaches its target audience? No doubt, you can name
the most important search engines and I would hazard a guess that you could
name many of the smaller ones too. Which ones are important and how should
you submit to them? Let's take a look.
Google - 29.5% of searches: Google is everyone's favourite search engine,
but how do you get your website listed? First there is the submission form,
located on their website at https://www.google.com/addurl.html. The instructions
provided by Google are pretty straightforward: submit your top-level page
and Google will spider the rest of the website. However, submitting your website
this way does not guarantee that you'll be indexed. Google has always preferred
to find new websites by spidering existing sites in its index and following
new links from there. If you want to increase your chances of seeing your
website indexed, find some quality websites or directories to link to your
new site now. You don't need hundreds of links, but 3-5 quality links at this
stage will encourage Google to index your site. Google typically updates its
full index once a month, so do not panic if 4 weeks have gone by and there's
still no sign of being indexed. However, if after 6 weeks, you site is still
not indexed, concentrate on adding more quality links and work on getting
listed in the Open Directory. See below.
Yahoo - 28.9% of searches: Up until about 18 months ago, the best way to get
listed in Yahoo was by paying the annual $299 fee to be listed in their directory.
However, at this time, Yahoo gets its results from the Google index and a
directory listing is no longer vital (although many like having the directory
listing as well). So for the time being, I recommend concentrating on getting
your website listed in Google, and that will take care of Yahoo (although
with Yahoo acquiring Inktomi, this could soon change).
MSN - 27.6% of searches: There are two effective ways to get your website
listed in the MSN results (sponsored listings aside). You can submit your
website to Looksmart (see below) and find your site listed in the 'Web Directory
Sites' or you can favour Inktomi and have your website listed in the 'Web
Pages' section. The Looksmart results are shown ahead of the Inktomi results,
so if you choose just one option, make sure it is Looksmart. However, Inktomi
is a crawler and is very useful if you have lots of content or hundreds of
different products. If someone searches for a multiple-word search term or
a particular model number, it will be Inktomi that will likely have the answer,
not Looksmart. We'll cover submissions to Inktomi, below.
AOL - 18.4% of searches: The submission process for AOL, is well, non-existent.
AOL uses the results from Google, so obtaining a listing at Google is important
if you wish to be shown in AOL.
Note: These search results date back to 2003. I think it is more likely now that Google gets about 70% of all searches, followed by Yahoo 15% and MSN 10%.
KEY: GG=Google, YH=Yahoo, MSN=MSN, AOL=AOL, AJ=Ask Jeeves,
OVR=Overture (GoTo), IS=InfoSpace, NS=Netscape, AV=AltaVista,
LY=Lycos, ELINK=EarthLink.com, LS=LookSmart
Google ------ 250 million (Includes searches at both Google sites and its
partners)
Overture ---- 167 million (Includes searches at Overture's site and those
coming from its partners.)
Inktomi -------- 80 million
LookSmart -- 45 million (Includes searches with all LookSmart partners, such
as MSN)
FindWhat ---- 33 million (Includes searches at FindWhat and its partners)
Ask Jeeves - 20 million (Includes searches at Ask, Ask UK, Teoma and via partners)
AltaVista ----- 18 million
FAST ---------- 12 million
The Open Directory - https://www.dmoz.com is also referred to as ODP or DMOZ.
It is a vast directory updated and maintained by thousands of volunteer editors.
To get your website listed in the directory, simply find the most appropriate
category for your website and click the 'add url' link. Follow the instructions
carefully. Not only are there standard instructions for each category, but
also some editors have their own quirky set of guidelines. Do not be tempted
to write a description that is full of dozens of keywords. Pick 3-4 of your
most important keywords and write a 20-30-word description that includes these
terms. DMOZ editors are known for changing the descriptions submitted by website
owners, so make sure yours is well written so that you reduce the chance of
it being edited; it could be your keywords that are edited out. Remember,
editors are unpaid at DMOZ, so don't expect to see your website listed after
just a few days. It could take weeks or even months. You can read further
instructions at the DMOZ site https://www.dmoz.org/help/helpmain.html.
Looksmart - https://www.looksmart.com used to ask for a simple $299 fee to
have your site reviewed by editors and then listed in the directory. That
is long gone, and now they use their own unique combination of paid-inclusion
and editorial review. Pay the $29 to have your site reviewed and listed in
the Looksmart directory. Once listed, you will pay $0.15 per click for the
first 5,000 visitors that Looksmart generates to your website. After that,
your click-thru rate is adjusted depending on the type of business you operate
(rates range from $0.23 to $0.75 per click). The good news is that you can
set your monthly budget to ensure that you do not overspend (minimum spend
is $15 a month). You can submit your site via https://listings.looksmart.com/home/.
(Note that these are basic instructions for getting listed in Looksmart -
you can view further information on their website).
There are many other search engines that you should consider. So that we are not here all day, let's take a brief look at the best way to submit to each of them.
Inktomi - provides results to Looksmart, MSN, Hotbot and Overture - https://www.inktomi.com/
does not have its own search engine interface but provides crawler results
to many other search engines. The best way to get listed in Inktomi is to
use one of the many paid-inclusion services. The cost is typically $39 a year
for the first URL you submit and $25 for each URL thereafter. The subscription
is for one year and usually ensures your site is listed within 48 hours. Two
of the main providers of Inktomi paid-inclusion are: https://www.positiontech.com/directSubmit.htm
and https://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/business/inktomi.jhtml
Ask Jeeves - https://www.ask.com is a growing search engine with many loyal
users. The crawler results for Ask Jeeves are provided by https://www.teoma.com/
(which Ask owns). Unless Teoma happens to spider your website from another
already in its index, the best way to get listed is to use their paid-inclusion
service. Fees are in line with Inktomi and are $30 per year for the first
URL and $18 for each additional URL.
Fast - provides results to Lycos and AllTheWeb - https://www.fastsearch.com
is similar to Inktomi in that it is not a search interface. However the sites
indexed are displayed at both https://www.AllTheWeb.com and https://www.Lycos.com,
so submitting is definitely worthwhile. The fees are typically $34 per year
for the first URL and $16 for each additional URL. The main paid-inclusion
partners are; https://www.positiontech.com/directSubmit.htm and https://insite.lycos.com/searchservices/select/select_overview.asp.
AltaVista - https://www.AltaVista.com is no longer the search engine power
it once was and with Overture recently acquiring the company (and Yahoo acquiring
Overture), its future is unknown. That being said, should you wish to submit
your website you can use either its basic submit https://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new
service, which is free but very slow, or you can use the paid inclusion option
at https://www.infospider.com/av/app/signup which will cost you $39 for your
first URL (this is for 6 months only).
Netscape and iWon - Both https://www.Netscape.com and iWon receive their crawler
results from Google.
In Summary - Now for some caveats and clarification on the above. While some
search engines offer free submission services and others will index your
site eventually if you have inbound links, the advice above concentrates
on the quickest and most effective means of getting your website indexed.
In addition, I have not delved into the realms of 'Direct-Feeds' or Pay-Per-Click
which would need articles in their own right. However, for most small to
medium sized businesses looking to follow the best methods of submitting
a website, the above information should be enough to ensure that your site
is indexed. If you're ready for your website to be the next 'blockbuster',
then following the guidelines above will help ensure your success.
Google is a fully automated search engine, which employs robots known as
'spiders' to crawl the web on a monthly basis and find sites for inclusion
in the Google index. Since this process does not involve human editors, it
is NOT necessary to submit your site to Google in order to be included in
our index. In fact, the vast majority of sites listed are not manually submitted
for inclusion.
Google does not accept payment for inclusion of sites in our index, nor for
improving the rank of sites in our results. We do offer advertising opportunities
adjacent to our results, which are always clearly labeled 'Sponsored Links.'
The method by which we find pages and rank them as search results is determined
by the PageRank technology developed by our founders, Larry Page and Sergey
Brin.
Submitting your site - We add thousands of new sites to our index each time
we crawl the Web, but if you like, you may submit your URL as well. Submission
is not necessary and does not guarantee inclusion in our index. Given the
large number of sites submitting URLs, it's likely your pages will be found
in an automatic crawl before they make it into our index through the URL submission
form. We DO NOT add all submitted URLs to our index, and cannot predict when
or if they will appear.
Please visit our https://www.google.com/addurl.html page to input your URLs.
You can submit your site as often as you like, but multiple submissions will
not improve the likelihood of your site being added or accelerate the process.
We do not penalize sites for 'over-submitting'. If you choose to submit your
site, only the top-level domain is necessary, as the spiders will follow your
internal links to all the rest of the pages.
The best way to ensure Google finds your site is for your page to be linked
from lots of pages on other sites. Google's robots jump from page to page
on the Web via hyperlinks, so the more sites that link to you, the more likely
it is that we'll find you quickly.
For further information go to Google;
https://www.google.com/webmasters/
https://www.google.com/webmasters/faq.html
The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors.
The web continues to grow at staggering rates. Automated search engines are
increasingly unable to turn up useful results to search queries. The small
paid editorial staffs at commercial directory sites can't keep up with submissions,
and the quality and comprehensiveness of their directories has suffered. Link
rot is setting in and they can't keep pace with the growth of the Internet.
Instead of fighting the explosive growth of the Internet, the Open Directory
provides the means for the Internet to organize itself. As the Internet grows,
so do the number of net-citizens. These citizens can each organize a small
portion of the web and present it back to the rest of the population, culling
out the bad and useless and keeping only the best content.
The Open Directory follows in the footsteps of some of the most important
editor/contributor projects of the 20th century. Just as the Oxford English
Dictionary became the definitive word on words through the efforts of a volunteers,
the Open Directory follows in its footsteps to become the definitive catalog
of the Web.
The Open Directory was founded in the spirit of the Open Source movement,
and is the only major directory that is 100% free. There is not, nor will
there ever be, a cost to submit a site to the directory, and/or to use the
directory's data. The Open Directory data is made available for free to anyone
who agrees to comply with our free use license.
The Open Directory is the most widely distributed data base of Web content classified by humans. Its editorial standards body of net-citizens provide the collective brain behind resource discovery on the Web. The Open Directory powers the core directory services for the Web's largest and most popular search engines and portals, including Netscape Search, AOL Search, Google, Lycos, HotBot, DirectHit, and hundreds of others.
Like any community, you get what you give. The Open Directory provides the
opportunity for everyone to contribute.
Signing up is easy: choose a topic you know something about and join. Editing
categories is a snap. We have a comprehensive set of tools for adding, deleting,
and updating links in seconds. For just a few minutes of your time you can
help make the Web a better place, and be recognized as an expert on your
chosen topic.
Find a category that you would like to maintain.
Follow the Become an Editor link at the top of the category page.
Note that some categories do not have a Become an Editor link; you should
find a more specific category which interests you, and apply there. Once
you have joined, and gained some experience, you can apply for more general
categories.
General FAQ - https://dmoz.org/help/geninfo.html - Want more info? Check out
some general FAQs about us in our Help area.
Sites Using ODP Data - https://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/Open_Directory_Project/Sites_Using_ODP_Data/
- Category listing of all sites, search engines, portals, etc. using the ODP
RDF dump.
ODP in the Press - https://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/Open_Directory_Project/Press/
- News, articles and other reports about the ODP.
Linking to the ODP - https://dmoz.org/link.html - Show your support of the
ODP by linking to us from your site.
Downloading ODP Data - https://dmoz.org/rdf.html - Get the Definitive Directory
of the Web for your site. It's free and available to everyone.
Free Use License -https://dmoz.org/license.html - License governing use of
ODP data.
Social Contract -https://dmoz.org/socialcontract.html - Our commitment and
promise to all net-citizens to keep the ODP a free and open resource.
Awards - https://dmoz.org/awards/ - Our site has won a number of awards.
Professional search engine marketers know that every successful search engine marketing campaign starts with Inktomi Paid Inclusion. It's timely, it ensures deep, up-to-date content is included in the Inktomi index, and within days the marketer has some real data to assess their website's performance. A marketer should add all of the pages they want found to Inktomi Search Submit quickly so that an initial assessment of the website can be achieved. This is done even before making any changes that may be needed to enhance performance. Inktomi Search Submit scans the Title and Meta-Description tags from the HTML pages in its database every 48 hours. If edits are needed and performed on a website, the impact can be weighed within days rather than months.
Paid inclusion does not affect the ranking of search results, but instead
ensures content is presented only when relevant to users. As a result, paid
inclusion programs deliver higher conversion rates than other pay-for-performance
programs. To date, Inktomi's paid inclusion programs have generated more than
500 million highly qualified sales leads to subscribing content providers.
Paid inclusion allows a website to expose as much of its content to searchers
as they choose. Once a website has been added to Search Submit the Inktomi
spider only reads the pages that it’s given, it doesn’t crawl
any deeper than it’s told to. The keyword and click-through data created
from Search Submit can then be used to drive all other search engine marketing
efforts. Over time the keyword data will reveal the words and phrases that
are successful at generating highly relevant traffic to a website. By paying
to include your website, instead of being crawled, you are exercising control
over the exact listings that searchers will find. You also have the added
benefit of being re-crawled every 48 hours, instead of having to wait for
a once a month update of a free listing.
Those keywords and phrases can then be purchased through pay per click programs
through Google, Overture and LookSmart with the knowledge that the terms are
successful at creating conversions and therefore worth the investment. They
can also be incorporated into content throughout the website in a long-term
effort to build a website that attracts visitors and succeeds because it provides
relevant content to its market. Inktomi has recently shed the gloves and turned
squarely to face Google in the reign for Web search supremacy. In 2002, Inktomi
exited their content networking and enterprise search businesses in order
to focus exclusively on Web search. At the end of December Inktomi was purchased
by Yahoo, joining forces with the web’s original darling. With the purchase
by Yahoo, Inktomi stands to become the true player in the search engine world.
Inktomi and Yahoo’s new offering will combine the portal model that
Yahoo has pioneered with one of the web’s leading search technologies
built by Inktomi. Inktomi not only has a search engine that competes head
to head with Google for relevancy, they’ve also built a solid model
for marketers looking to control their listings and receive valuable data
about how searchers are finding them.
Before jumping into free submissions that can be difficult to change or update,
Inktomi Paid Inclusion begins driving traffic and delivering data quickly.
This invaluable intelligence is why all online marketers should sign up for
Inktomi Paid Inclusion and make it the first step for marketing their website
in the search engines.
Our Philosophy website https://www.spaceandmotion.com is listed in DMOZ / ODP (Open Directory Project) which is very important as it is human edited and is thus well respected by the search engines - it gets you a Google Page Ranking of about 5/10. Google recently formed their own directory and use results from DMOZ (so the website is also in Google Directory).
The DMOZ directory accepts commercial sites and we suggest you create about 5 - 10 different pages and submit them in different categories in DMOZ. Search DMOZ for further useful categories and then create pages that suit category (see wordtracker below). We have studied a very useful philosophy website https://www.friesian.com that comes up a lot in searches and they created about 60 different pages that are ALL in DMOZ and thus Google!
Our Philosophy website now has over 120 pages that target a wide variety of search terms. Use www.wordtracker.com to work out the best search terms (don't guess!). Using wordtracker to create pages that target keywords people are using can expose this work to about 300,000 search results a day, which equates to between 1% and 30% (3,000 to 30,000) of those as clickthroughs / hits to our various web pages.
LookSmart - Zeal Directory - https://www.Zeal.com - The directory for Looksmart / MSN is also useful and we have submitted our website there. We have also passed their tests to become an editor and can now add sites and new categories. It is only for non-commercial sites so we suggest that you create several different pages that are information rather than commercial. (The advertising can be subtle within these articles.)
https://www.inktomi.com/ - Paid Inclusion - We have also submitted our website to Inktomi - it is paid inclusion of $35 - $25 (for many) and is also well respected by search engine spiders.
This Website Page has been HTML Validated
Below are sample movies of an interview we filmed for the Mathematical Physicist Professor Milo Wolff. These clips will give you a good feel for how a quarter screen image appears at the very low data rate of 6- 10KBytes/s (which can be directly streamed at Broadband data rates - which begin at 30KBytes/s)
The following interview between Philosopher Geoff Haselhurst and Physicist Milo Wolff on the Wave Structure of Matter was filmed in 2000 on the grounds of Berkeley University in California. Milo Wolff is a fine theoretical physicist and one day he will no doubt receive a Nobel Prize for his pioneering work on the Wave Structure of Matter. I think you will find these video interviews to be interesting (at times amusing) and very informative about the problems of modern physics and how they can be solved by the Wave Structure of Matter.
The Windows Digital Video has been compressed to about 6 Kilo Bytes per second
(48kbits) using Premiere 6.5 and the latest (November 2003) Windows Media
9 codec (format .wmv, 12.5 frames/second, small screen size of 150 by 120).
While the images are a bit blurry at times, we have chosen small data size
over image quality to encourage people to download these videos, as they contain
important information (in a nice human friendly format!).
The interview is broken into ten video clips - from 60 seconds (360 KBytes)
to 180 seconds (1 MByte) so they download quickly (from 10 to 30 seconds
on DSL / cable, from 60 to 180 seconds on a 56 kbit modem). They should then
play automatically in Windows Media Player which is standard in Windows. NOTE:
If you press the play button before the video completes downloading (while
buffering) for some strange reason the download resets back to the beginning
and you loose what had already downloaded - so be patient, it will play automatically
once it has finished downloading / buffering the file!
We also have the video clips Online in Real Media (see REAL links below -
they average 1.6 times the size and data rate) and Quicktime format if required
(write to us). If you don't have the latest Media Players you can get the
latest movie player downloads from;
Microsoft - https://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/default.asp
(Windows Media Player 9)
Real.com - https://www.real.com (Real One Player)
Apple - https://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/qt (Quicktime).
Enjoy!
Geoff Haselhurst, January, 2005
1.
Milo Wolff (1,100K) 'I was curious!' - On his lifelong (slightly obsessive)
motivation to find the cause of the de Broglie wavelength of Quantum Theory.
His discovery (in 1986) that a Spherical Wave Structure of Matter deduced
Doppler shifts (due to relative motion of the Spherical In and Out-Waves and
the Wave-Center) that correctly corresponded to the de Broglie Wavelength
of matter. Of even more significance is the fact that within these same simple
wave equations were the correct terms for the Frequency-Mass-Energy increases
with Motion as deduced by Einstein' Special Relativity. Thus for the first
time finding a fundamental theoretical and mathematical unification of these
two famous theories. (REAL)
2.
Milo Wolff (720K) 'We're talking about the Wave Structure of Matter. For
three thousand years ... '
How does one particle emit and absorb another particle? It only makes sense
when we realise that spherical standing waves cause 'particle' effects. (REAL)
3.
Milo Wolff (950K) Explains the obvious fact that Spherical Waves necessarily
form a 'particle' effect at their Wave-Center, thus solving the 70 year old
paradox of the Particle-Wave Duality of Matter. Further discussion of Space
and it Properties as a Wave Medium for the Spherical Waves which form matter.
On the size of the Wave-Centers and how many exist in the matter of our bodies.
(REAL)
4.
Milo Wolff (900K) Cosmology - How Huygens' Principle explains where our
Spherical In-Waves come from and where our Spherical Out-Waves go to? Discusses
Mathematical analysis of the Waves. (REAL)
5.
Milo Wolff (1,100K) The Spherical Wave Structure of Matter is an obvious
solution to the particle wave duality of Matter, why wasn't it discovered
many years earlier? Milo Wolff's reply 'Humans are creatures of habit and
custom ... '.
What did Einstein think matter was? On Maxwell's Equations and the Electromagnetic
Force Field theory of Matter (which are not real, but merely mathematical
constructions which approximate reality). (REAL)
6.
Milo Wolff (620K) What are the similarities of the Wave Structure of Matter
and Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity? Einstein represents matter as
Spherical Force Fields which are caused by a change in velocity of the spherical
waves thus changing the location of the wave-Center. We 'see' this as a 'Force
accelerating a particle'.
Explaining Energy transfer - which is fundamental to all observation and thus
to all Physics (though it has been ignored). (REAL)
7.
Milo Wolff (740K) Explains the illusion of Light and the 'Photon Particle'
- On how discrete energy exchanges of light 'photons' are caused by Standing
Wave Interactions (Resonant Coupling). (REAL)
The last three videos are a brief biography and reminiscence on life as a Professor of Physics and some of the more interesting and different places and things Milo Wolff has done over the past 80 years.
8.
Milo Wolff (500K) On growing up wanting to understand how everything worked
and thus how to fix things! On becoming a Physicist so he could understand
the fundamental 'basic' things.
9.
Milo Wolff (680K) PhD in Nuclear Physics, Electrical Engineering, 1958.
Setting up a University Physics faculty in Indonesia. Working for MIT, landing
Spacecraft on the Moon.
10.
Milo Wolff (1,000K)- Working for the Aerospace Corporation, making new
discoveries.
Please
me if you have any problems with these videos - Thanks.
Geoff Haselhurst, January, 2005
We use the latest MPEG4 Codec that comes with QuickTime 6 Pro. This clip
will give you a good feel for how a quarter screen image appears at the reasonably
low data rate of 20KBytes/s (which can be directly streamed at Broadband data
rates - which begin at 30KBytes/s)
You will need the latest QuickTime6 Player - Download for free from https://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/qt
Milo Wolff (Sorry - We had to take this Video down due to lack of space on our server.)
Movie Format |
Real One Player
|
QuickTime 6 Player
|
Windows Media Player 9
|
Real Media (.rm) | Yes
|
No
|
No
|
QuickTime (.mov) | Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Windows Media Video (.wmv) | Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
Audio Video Interleave (.avi) | Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Moving Picture Experts Group (.mpeg4) | Yes (with EnvivioTV)
|
Yes (with EnvivioTV)
|
Yes (with EnvivioTV)
|
DVD | Yes
|
No
|
No
|
Real One Player is the best player (plays other formats, best compression
/ decompression using Real Video 9 codec).
The data rates and image quality for Quicktime and Windows Media Video
are similar (about twice the data size of Real)
Real.com: https://www.real.com (You need to buy RealOne Player
- Real Player8 is free but not as good)
Apple.com/quicktime/products/qt: https://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/qt/
(Free QuickTime 6 Player)
Microsoft.com: https://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/default.asp
(Free Windows Media Player 9)
Envivio.com/products/etv: https://www.envivio.com/products/etv/ (Free - Enables
playing of MPEG4 movies on all three Players)
Macromedia.com: https://www.macromedia.com/ (Free Flash Player 6 - Only takes
a few minutes to download on a slow connection)
Flashgrabber: Search google (Capture and download/save Flash Movies from
other websites)
It is obvious that the Internet (with over three billion pages)
is rapidly evolving, thus the ongoing challenge for businesses is to adapt
marketing strategies to maximise benefits and minimise costs, and thus ensure
business survival.
With broadband connections from 30 to 200 KBytes/s, direct streaming of
videos will begin to replace text and still picture based web sites. This
will undoubtedly make the Internet more enjoyable to use, and will necessarily
change how businesses wish to present themselves on the Internet. We offer
to bring this technology to your business - to bring your website alive
and visible on the internet.
Videos can also be copied onto CDs and sent in the mail, compressed and
streamed over the web, or played on Digital Projectors (which are fantastic
for corporate promotions and trade shows).
In the past three years Digital Video compression decompression (Codec) software has rapidly improved. Data rates for a quarter screen movie clip (320*240) have dropped from about 150 KBytes/s to about 10 KBytes/s for the same picture quality. Likewise full screen DVD quality has dropped from about 800 KBytes/s to 50 KBytes/s. At the same time Broadband has brought fast connection speeds (from 30 to 200 KBytes/s - whereas a 56 kbit/s Modem connects at about 5 KBytes/s) thus it is now possible to directly stream and play small movies over the internet (no more waiting for them to download).
As of June 2002 there were roughly 300,000 Broadband connections in Australia,
at a growth rate of 130% over the previous year. Businesses accounted for
about 65,000 of these connections, triple the number from a year earlier!
A survey last year showed that 500,000 individuals use Broadband from Australian
homes. Likewise, around the world Broadband has grown exponentially, most
major cities now offering Broadband at reasonable connection costs.
ACCC chairman Allan Fels (a very nice man doing an important job we think!)
writes;
'While Australia's overall figures are behind leading Broadband countries,
the latest figures tend to suggest the recent healthy increases in the March
2002 quarter were no flash in the pan and Broadband growth continues at a
rapid pace'
What does all this mean? That the Internet is rapidly embracing Digital Video
and Websites offering only text and still pictures are becoming obsolete.
That people prefer to watch movie clips rather than reading text and looking
at pictures, as it suits our natural evolution and more realistically represents
how we see the world and interact with other people. (Thus the enduring popularity
of movies/videos.)
Thus if you want to present the best image of your business to the world
(several billion people) then it is obvious that Digital Video is becoming
more important. Considering the relatively small costs of filming your business
and placing these compressed movie clips on your website (compared to the
high costs of TV advertising to a fraction of this market), this is one of
the most cost efficient ways of promoting your business to the world.
It seems that there is some confusion with respect to Internet Connection Speeds due to the fact that the Internet measures data-transfer rates as kilobits per second (kbps) whereas Web browsers show file download performance in KiloBytes per second (KBytes/s). This is not necessarily confusing as long as we remember that there are 8 bits to a Byte. The table below shows the most common connection speeds and conversion from kilobits to KiloBytes.
Most Common Internet Data Transfer Rates
|
Connection |
kilobits
per second (kbps) |
Kilobytes
per second (KBytes/s) |
Estimated Ideal Throughput |
'28K' Modem | 28
|
3.5
|
3.0
|
'56K' Modem | 56
|
7.0
|
6.0
|
One-channel ISDN | 64
|
8.0
|
6.2
|
Two-channel ISDN | 128
|
16
|
12.4
|
ADSL (Low Broadband) | 256
|
32
|
25
|
Satellite | 400
|
50
|
40
|
ADSL / Cable Modem | 512
|
64
|
50
|
1-Mbps / DSL / cable | 1,000
|
125
|
98
|
T-1 / DSL | 1,544
|
193
|
150
|
Below is an article from the Internet which explains in more detail the relationship between bits, Bytes, data rates, and file sizes.
Bits and bytes. That's where this starts. Bit is short for Binary Digit,
and it's the smallest unit of binary measure, usually either a 0 or a 1. A
byte consists of eight bits (in mainstream computing). Two of many common
areas where the terms bits and bytes are applied are data storage and network
data-transfer rates. It's that second one being described here, and the definitions
that follow don't in every case apply to the data storage definitions of the
same terms.
Data-transfer rate is the speed at which data transmits from one device to
another. Among the best known data-transfer rates is the one for conventional
analogue modems, whose top speed is currently '56K.' Actually, its fastest
download data-transfer rate is governed at 53.3-kbps. 53.3-kbps literally
means 53,300 bits per second. There are 1,000 bits in a kilobit. Measuring
bits per second is the traditional way to convey network data- transfer rates.
Although technically speaking, the term kilobit should have a lowercase initial
letter, most published reports capitalize it in abbreviation, resulting in
'56-Kbps,' or even the really confusing '56K.'
What complicates matters greatly is the fact that most Web surfers see data-transfer
rates measured on a different scale on their browser download dialog boxes.
The newer versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator both display
data-transfer rates measured in Kilobytes-per-second (KB/sec). A Kilobyte
is 1,024 bytes, and it is more properly used to measure data storage, not
network data-transfer rates.
A lot of my newsletter readers have written to me insistently that the numbers
in the table above are wrong. And in a way they're right, and in a way they're
wrong. There's a difference between a data-transfer rate and throughput. When
you're making a kilobit-per-second conversion to a Kilobyte-per-second conversion,
the question you have to ask is what bits and bytes are you counting.
Even though there are 8 bits in every byte, the nature of asynchronous transmission
(used by most connection methods for accessing the Internet) requires the
receiving of two 'dead' bits for every 8 bits of useful data transferred:
the start and stop bits. Bottom line, it takes 10 bits of transmission horsepower
to deliver 8 bits of useful information. The question this begs is, how much
data actually moves from one place to another in a given amount of time. And
that's the definition of throughput.
Other factors also have an effect on throughput, things like packet loss,
data compression, line quality, and server load. The very essence of asynchronous
data transfer is that it is very flexible, able to deal with variations in
performance. That's why throughput is an inexact science, and why the table
shows guesstimates only, which use the 'divide by 10' method. Some people
say it's more proper to divide by 9, but in my experience, something more
like 12 might come closer to approximating what people actually see on an
ideal basis. Still, I've chosen to divide by 10 because that's the number
most people consider the best one. In the end, you'll have to make your own
judgment.
When you're measuring data-transfer rates, however, that is precise. Whether
you're sending data as kilobits per second or as Kilobytes per second, many
of the throughput-affecting factors affect both rates equally. So, while a
received Kilobyte may not actually equally a full Kilobyte of useful information,
the same is true if you measure it as kilobits per second. What I don't know,
though, and have endeavoured in vain to find out, is just exactly how the
Web browsers are figuring their Kilobyte per second download rates. Are they
counting 10-bits to a byte, or are they counting 8-bits to a byte? Or are
they figuring it another way entirely?
The best way to test the ideal throughput of your Internet connection is to
download a large file from your ISP's server. Ask your ISP whether it offers
this kind of test. A few still do. While you can download large files from
other sources, such a download is much more subject to the vagaries of the
Internet because you are directly connected to you ISP, but not so other sites.
Even so, downloading a multiple-megabyte file from a variety of servers around
the Internet, and doing so repeatedly over several days, and then averaging
the times would give a very good approximation of real-world throughput. For
that kind of testing, start with TestMySpeed.com site, which links to performance
tests that work that way. Try to pick sites closest to your physical location.
Fred Langa's BrowserTune 2000 does an excellent job of measuring your Internet
throughput. It's another good source of information on this subject. I'm also
partial to Dave Methvin and Martin Heller's PCPitStop.com, which also offers
an excellent performance test.
Also see Speedguide.net - https://www.adobe.com/motion/primers.html - (Bits,
Bytes and Bandwidth Quick Reference)
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"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
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"When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence:
Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter. ... Physical objects are not in space, but these objects are spatially extended. In this way the concept 'empty space' loses its meaning. ... The particle can only appear as a limited region in space in which
the field strength or the energy density are particularly high. ...
The free, unhampered exchange of ideas and scientific conclusions is necessary for the sound development of science, as it is in all spheres
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a severe struggle; for the handful of those who are really determined to do something is minute in comparison with the mass of the lukewarm
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Humanity is going to need a substantially new way of thinking if it is to survive!" (Albert Einstein)
Our world is in great trouble due to human behaviour founded on myths and customs that are causing the destruction of Nature and climate change. We can now deduce the most simple science theory of reality - the wave structure of matter in space. By understanding how we and everything around us are interconnected
in Space we can then deduce solutions to the fundamental problems of human knowledge in physics, philosophy, metaphysics, theology, education, health, evolution and ecology, politics and society.
This is the profound new way of thinking that Einstein
realised, that we exist as spatially extended structures of the universe - the discrete and separate body an illusion. This simply confirms the
intuitions of the ancient philosophers and mystics.
Given the current censorship in physics / philosophy of science journals (based on the standard model of particle physics / big bang cosmology) the internet is the best hope for getting new knowledge
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