iPhone user? Download the new “Grunge Pinup” wallpaper, optimized for iPhone from Dark Rising Grafx.

File Names are Important

Aside from the actual domain name itself, the first item search engines see, when crawling the pages of your website, are your file names. Whether HTML, PHP, ASP etc. keep search engines in mind when naming these pages. It will play a key role in having your page found as a relevant page in a search. Your page name should be directly related and relevant to the content displayed on the page as well. If you have created a page that contains your portfolio, naming the page “page1.html” does not tell ANYONE what the page is about at first glance, especially a search engine. A more relevant name would be, simply, “portfolio.html”

You will see that using this practice will also help keep your files more organized both locally and on your server. Now when you are looking to edit your portfolio page, there are no guesses as to which file you need to open, because it is named with 100% relevance. This tip also serves as an important one when we speak of images, PDF files, downloads etc. If a user is looking for “Used Apple computers” using Google.com or any other search engine, a page named “used-apple-computers.html” or an image named “used-computer.jpg” has a greater chance of being found. Although this one practice does not guarantee a higher ranking for your website in search engine directories, it certainly makes it easier for users and search engines alike to crawl your site for relevant information.

Research Shows That IE Still Holds The Majority of The Browser Marketshare

If you are a web designer, programmer or both, you are well aware that Internet Explorer is the least favorable browser to build websites for. Pages render differently from one version to the next. Functions work in IE7 that may not work in IE8 and IE6 is an overall nightmare. Firefox has gained in popularity over the years and it seems to handle most functions across websites very well. It renders graphics very similar to that of Safari’s browsers. Keeping all of this in mind, ALL BROWSERS have their own set of bugs and the fact remains that some folks (a lot) do not keep current with browser updates. This means that you must cross check all of your builds across several browsers to ensure that all users get the most from the browsing experience you intend them to have. Anything less may result in lack of revenue or loss of a potential sale/client.

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Last year, the buzz surrounding social networking concerned “data portability” — giving Facebook and MySpace users, for example, an easy way to connect to one another without the need to create new profiles. That once-deafening buzz has now fallen silent, and the social networks are back working to corner more of the Web in exclusion of others.

“Facebook and MySpace are having trouble monetizing their database,” said Tony Roth, chief executive officer of Celect.org, part of the VComm Network. Celect.org provides Web-based network services, including integrating a variety of different social networking tools, for its various membership organizations.

Facebook friends, for instance, are valued at 5-to-10 US cents each, Roth estimated.

“Social networks are indeed becoming more antisocial,” he told TechNewsWorld. “If they start to commingle, they will find their member values decreasing even further.” Read the rest of this entry »

While reading the book on SEO by Kristopher Jones, I came across a great tip. The advice given was to maintain fresh content on your website so that users and search engines alike, crawl your site more often. Enter www.freshcontent.net The site offers tons of FREE feeds from a vast selection of categories including arts and entertainment, business, marketing, shopping, travel and many many more. These feeds appear as your own content on your site and there’s never any need to update as freshcontent.net pushes “fresh content” to the feed on a regular basis.

The script is easy to install. Simply click on the category in which you want to feature on your site, and copy the javascript source code. Once you’ve copied the code to your clipboard, open your web pages source code in your favorite editor and paste to your websites source code. If you find difficulty in doing so, freshcontent.net provides support and instructions to install as well.

I strongly encourage those who have a website and/or build websites to pick up this book. The topics are easy to understand and 100% relevant and helpful. After applying the techniques discussed within the pages, our website has received a significant increase in traffic. A Dark Rising Grafx “Best Buy”

Dark Rising Grafx brings you their first “Pack” of wallpapers for the Apple iPhone entitled the “Animal Kingdom Pack”. When downloading from your computer simply unzip the file, browse the images in the package and choose those you wish to use. Email or sync these images to your iPhone, open photos and set your new Animal Kingdom picture as a beautiful wallpaper, optimized for the Apple iPhone.

Browsing from your iPhone right now? Great!, Simply click on the images you like and save them to your iPhone directly. Couldn’t be easier.

This is a pack of over 100 icons that can be used to fully customize any website with a similar theme already in place or perhaps you will take a look at the set and be inspired to build your site around them. Either way, we hope they are useful and most of all… enjoy!

Click Here For Free Download

Icon set comes to us courtesy of Web Treats Etc. Be sure to visit the site and follow them on Twitter for updates.

Dark Rising Grafx is in the process of creating it’s first pack of wallpapers for the Apple iPhone. It is set to include 10-15 great wallpapers depicting different animals of the world. Depending upon how the feedback is for these papers, Dark Ri

sing is considering launching a whole new page/site dedicated to custom wallpapers. It is a thought that we may offer custom wallpapers upon request as well as user submitted wallpapers that are subject to review before post. Anywho, this is the first prototype in our “Animal Kingdom Pack” feel free to download and use on your iPhone or any other suitable mobile device where screen resolution is 320×480. Hope you like.

What are the best ways to boost your position in search engines? What keywords should you use on your web-pages? And which tools should you use to improve the quality of backlinks, link popularity and Google Pagerank? We deliver answers. Here is the list of the most useful SEO-tools you might be willing to use, developing and optimizing your next web-site. Our personal choice: 156 Seo Tools – one of the most comprehesive lists with essential SEO-references and tools. For even more resources check out the SEO section of The Web-Developer’s Handbook. Links checked: May/11 2008 Read the rest of this entry »