A Glossary of Secure Certificates

 May 24th, 2011 By: THN News

Security Content Sponsored By: Trustwave

You might be wondering about some common terms that you often hear on the internet, all of which will be explained in this article. SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, which is often used for transmitting credit card, tax, banking or personal information to any business server in any part of the globe.

Some common examples of the practical use of an SSL would be when you want to purchase a laptop fromAmazon.com, when you file your taxes online or use your money from your bank accounts to pay for bills.

 SSL uses port 443 to connect your computer to a secure server in the internet. SSL can be used to encrypt the secured data transmitted between a browser and a web server or vice versa.

Browsers indicate the SSL secured session by changing the HTTP to HTTPS and are usually displayed by a small padlock.
SSH stands for Secure Shell and it commonly uses port 22 to connect your own computer to another computer on the internet.

These are used by network administrators to manage their business servers. Some examples would be an email administrator who reboots the company email server from the comforts of his/her own home.

Both of SSL and SSH are protected from regular hackers by the use of a sophisticated encryption technology except for some cases.

SSL and SSH locks out the connection by scrambling the transmitted data so that it appears meaningless to any eavesdropper who may care to tap in. For those who are transmitting any financial information or internal business documentation, these two are a must to be used.

Here Are More Secure Certificate Terms:

•           Certificate of Authority (CA):  CA is a trusted 3^rd party that issues digital certificates for the purpose of doing online business. The CA assures that the business is a legitimate one so people who transact online can exchange their personal information without the fear that their personal records will be handed over to someone else.

•           Certificate Authority Site Seal: This is either a logo or banner that will tell your online visitors that your website has an SSL certificate. These are important for Network Solutions SSL review.
•           Chain Certificates: This is the certificate that the CA used to sign a request that was signed by another CA.

•           Certification Practice Statement (CPS): CPS is a document published by the CA which outlines the practices and policies used by the organization in issuing, managing and revoking digital certificates.

•           Certification Revocation List (CRL): CRL is a digitally signed data file containing details of each digital certificate that has not been revoked. This can be downloaded and installed into the browser that the user will use, ensuring that the browser will not trust a revoked digital certificate.

•           Certificate Signing Request (CSR): This is needed when you apply for your SSL certificate. When you apply for an SSL certificate you need to create a CSR on your web server. You need to give the details of your site and organization to the web server so that it can be output into a CSR file.
•           Domain SSL Certificate: These are digital SSL certificates where the ownership of the domain is verified. This is considered to be the lowest level of SSL certification.

•           Extended Validation Certificate (EV): This is issued according to a specific set of identity verification criteria. The criteria mentioned here are verified by the requesting entity’s identity by the certificate authority (CA) before a certificate will be issued.

•           Private SSL: This is a SSL certificate that is issued exclusively for your website.

•           Public Key Infrastructure Certificate (PKI): PKI combines a digital signature with a public key to identify someone. It is simply a certificate that allows computer users to show that they do own the public keys they claim to. A digital signature is needed for the PKI certificate before this is issued for any particular person or company.
The signature can be made by an authority figure who assigns the certificate and the person whose identity is being confirmed.
PKI certificates are used to authenticate cryptographic public keys.
This certificate allows other people to verify that they are indeed communicating with the right person who is using the right public key.

•           Server Gate Cryptography:  This provides for additional bits more than the standard 40 bit encryption required. Having more of this means a longer key is used, which results to the prevention of a 3^rd party from breaking through.

•           Shared SSL: This is an SSL certificate for you and other people hosted on the same server.

For those who might have been confused before about certain secure certificates, terms or jargons that may be used, by this time they are hopefully enlightened about all of these things. Such knowledge is essential, especially for those involved in online business. While there are still many terms that you need to familiarize yourself with, we have essentially covered most of what you need to know about secure certificates.

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Keywords

Keywords, or search terms, are words and phrases that people type in search engines when searching for information, products, or services online. Webmasters need to know how keywords work and which keywords people use to find websites like theirs. Optimizing websites for specific keywords is called SEO, or search engine optimization.

Contents 1 Short tail and long tail keywords 2 How to research keywords 2.1 Free keyword research tools 2.2 Commercial keyword research tools

Short tail and long tail keywords

For example, someone looking for a web host might type in web host. When they see that the keyword has over a billion results, they may refine their search to ecommerce web host or dedicated server web hosting, for example. To narrow their search more, they might search for keyword phrases such as web hosting ecommerce merchant account or business hosting maryland site web hosting dedicated server.
The short keyword phrases are called short tail keywords. They're more common search terms, so they're more expensive keywords to use in PPC (pay-per-click) advertising.
The longer search terms are called long tail keywords. They're searched for less often, so they cost less with PPC advertising. But because the people using those keywords are more specific about what they want, they're more likely to become customers.

How to research keywords

Both free and commercial keyword research tools can be used to find out what search terms people are using and how frequently those search terms are used. Commercial keyword research tools provide more details.

Free keyword research tools

• Wordtracker free keyword suggestion tool
• Digital Point free keyword suggestion tool

Commercial keyword research tools

Numerous commercial keyword research tools are available on the market.


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White hat, black hat, and gray hat SEO

Various techniques are used for search engine optimization, or SEO. One way to group these techniques is with hat terminology: white hat SEO, black hat SEO, and gray hat SEO. White hat SEO is considered ethical SEO, while black hat SEO is considered unethical SEO. Gray hat SEO walks the line between the white and black hats of search engine optimization.

Contents 1 White hat SEO 2 Examples of white hat SEO techniques 2.1 Content 2.2 Coding 2.3 Linking 3 Black hat SEO 4 Examples of black hat SEO techniques 4.1 Content 4.2 Deceptive content 4.3 Linking 5 Gray hat SEO 6 Examples of gray hat SEO techniques 6.1 Content 6.2 Links

White hat SEO

White hat SEO is ethical SEO. It's SEO techniques that search engines accept. White hat SEO techniques are beneficial for site visitors as well as for search engines. The goal of white hat SEO is to improve search engine result positions via methods that won't cause search engines to penalize the site.
Successful white hat SEO is slower than black hat SEO and is an ongoing process.

Examples of white hat SEO techniques

Content

• Researching relevant keywords, both short ail and long tail keywords
• Including keywords naturally in page titles, headings, link anchor text, other page content, and alt tags
• Studying analytics reports and fine-tuning the content to further optimize it for targeted keywords and to help direct traffic to relevant pages
• Adding fresh content regularly

Coding

• Using correct HTML markup (for example, heading tags) so that search engines can identify headings and other types of content correctly
• Making sure that all the code is valid (or at least won't stop search engine bots)
• Creating site maps so that every page is linked to and search engine bots can crawl every page
• Using CSS to separate content from markup and thus increase keyword density by having less markup to crawl

Linking

• Creating quality content that other people will want to link to
• Asking to have directories and other relevant websites link to the site
• Optimizing pages for social media in the hopes of attracting social media links
• Arranging for link exchanges with relevant sites (considered by some to be gray hat SEO)

Black hat SEO

Black hat SEO is the use of techniques that are unacceptable to search engines to boost a page's position in search results. These techniques are intended to trick search engines into giving pages higher positions in search results, and they have no benefit to site visitors. The goal is to improve search engine result positions no matter what it takes to do it.
Black hat SEO techniques are used for two reasons:

• They work — until search engines find out about them and they don't work.
• Some people don't understand that black hat SEO techniques can get their sites penalized by or banned from search engines.

Even if search engines can't detect the black hat SEO techniques, competitors of sites that employ black hat SEO techniques can spot them and do report them to search engines.

Examples of black hat SEO techniques

Content

• Keyword stuffing
  • Overusing keywords in comment tags, alt tags, and meta tags
  • Placing keywords in hidden text (hidden from people, that is) by making their font color the same color as the page background
  • Overusing keywords in visible text, to the point where their repetition is apparent to readers

Deceptive content

• Doorway or gateway pages: pages that are stuffed with keywords but that only search engines see because people are redirected to the page with the real content
• Cloaking: displaying different content to search engines than to people by identifying visitors via IP or via other methods

Linking

• Link farms: pages with unrelated links solely for the purpose of creating more links to target pages
• Spamming forums, blogs, and other social media sites with links (search engines might not penalize sites for this, but it's considered unethical)

Gray hat SEO

Gray hat SEO is SEO techniques that take more risks than white hat SEO techniques but aren't likely to get your site banned from search engines (although a search engine penality could result). They're questionable SEO techniques but not in the same category as black hat SEO techniques. However, what's considered gray hat SEO today might be black hat SEO next year.

Examples of gray hat SEO techniques

Content

• Having a keyword density that's high enough to sound unnatural but not at the level of black hat keyword stuffing
• Publishing duplicate content at different sites

Links 

• Link building where relevance is less important
• Planned three-way linking
• Using paid links

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SEO

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the practice of optimizing web pages for search engines so that the pages will place high in search results for target keywords.

Contents 1 Overview of SEO 2 SEO terminology 3 On-page SEO: optimizing your web pages 4 Off-page SEO: inbound links 5 SEO and statistics monitoring 6 Other SEO tips

Overview of SEO

The goal of SEO is increased web traffic. These are the main areas of SEO:

• On-page optimization
• Off-page optimization
• Statistics monitoring and more of the above

SEO terminology

• Black hat SEO: SEO techniques that may work well at first but may get your site banned from search engines. Black hat SEO techniques are done for bots only, provide no benefit to site visitors, and often hinder their experience. Examples:
  • Doorway pages: Also called gateway pages, portal pages, bridge pages, and a few other names. They're pages created just to do well for a particular keyword or keywords, and they have a "Click here" link or automatic redirect that takes visitors to the page with the real content.
  • Keyword stuffing: Using lists of keywords or greatly overusing keywords instead of using them naturally in context.
• Bot: In the context of SEO, bots are search engine robots, also called spiders, that crawl websites to index their content.
• Keywords: Words and phrases that people use to search for information online.
• Keyword density: The ratio of keywords on a page to other words.
• Meta tags: Information that goes in the page header section that's for bots only, for example: <meta name="description" content="Page description here.">
• Organic search results: Search engine search results, in contrast to paid advertising that appears next to search results.
• PageRank: A rank that Google assigns to web pages. Also called PR.
• Reciprocal links: Links between two sites. Site A links to Site B, and Site B links to Site A.
• Satelite: The website that is created only for posting ads and different kinds of links. Such a site is often a part of a link farm.
• SERP: Search engine results page.
• Snippet: The compressed information on the site page presented by search system in delivery page.
• Spider: see Bot.
• White hat SEO: SEO techniques that are acceptable. It's the opposite of black hat SEO. This page discusses white hat SEO.

On-page SEO: optimizing your web pages

For on-page SEO, it helps to know basic HTML. Optimal keyword placement depends on knowing where within the HTML to place keywords.
To optimize each web page for search engines, follow these steps:

• Give each page a specific topic. If you want to optimize a page for "dedicated server web host," give that topic its own page, and give the other services or products you offer their own pages too. Each page can then have a higher keyword density for the topic.
• Research and choose keywords to use for each page.
• Use keywords in page names, for example: example.com/green_widgets.html and example.com/widgets/green_widgets.html.
• Use those keywords in context in the following places:
  • The page title
  • The heading tags, especially <h1> and <h2> tags
  • The page content, especially higher on the page and in bulleted lists
  • Anchor text, for example: "We explain how to assemble widgets on our green widgets page.” (Underlined text would be hyperlinked.)
• Use keywords (but avoid keyword stuffing) in these places:
  • Alt text for images
  • Image file names
  • The meta description tag
  • The meta keyword tag

Good SEO works for site visitors as well as for search engines. If the keywords sound forced into place, you're trying too hard. The text should read naturally, and the keywords should help site visitors find the content they want on the page.

Off-page SEO: inbound links

Bots view links from other sites as "votes" for your web pages. The higher the PR and the more relevant the page is, the more the vote counts.
Reciprocal links still count, but they're less valuable than one-way links.
For this part of SEO, you need to work on getting inbound links from quality sites:

• Relevant directories
• Related web sites
• Social media sites

The number one tip to acquiring inbound links to create content that other people will want to link to. From there, it's a matter of them finding it and you helping them find it. Some ways to get inbound links:

• Request links from webmasters of related sites (after showing them why your content is valuable to their audience)
• Suggest reciprocal links
• Get your site listed in free and paid directories
• Publish press releases with a link to your site at sites that accept press releases
• Write informative articles with a link to your site at article sites
• Take part in forum discussions where your signature appears with your post (and be sure to actually contribute when you post or you'll earn your company a bad reputation)

SEO and statistics monitoring

Your website traffic statistics tell what keywords are bringing site visitors and what other pages they're coming from. You can use this information to continually optimize your site for search engines and provide your audience with the information they're looking for.
Your site stats can also tell you if all the pages at your site are getting traffic. If no one is visiting a particular page, find out why. Are bots indexing that page? If some pages are viewed but aren't getting the traffic you'd like, work on optimizing those pages more, and link to them more from other pages.
SEO isn't a one-time job. Your competitors are working to get ahead of you in search engine results, and you need to keep working on SEO just to hold your position.

Other SEO tips

• Use CSS with external style sheets. Bots will be able to find your content more easily.
• Study what your competition is doing and use some of their ideas.
• Update your content when you can.
• Keep adding new content. Bots like fresh food.

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Web Hosting Sales and Promos Roundup - May 20, 2011

By Nicole Henderson, May 20, 2011

An screenshot from Hosting Controller's website

(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- In the week ending May 20, 2011, there were discounts as deep as 90 percent off. Hosting Controller is offering a discount of up to 90 percent off its control panel software licenses, A2 Hosting is offering 40 percent off dedicated hosting, Demowolf has renewed its Partnership Promotion for half off hosting tutorials, inmotion Hosting is offering discounted business class web hosting and Just Host is offering half off its professional web hosting plans.

Hosting Controller Offers Control Panel Software Discounts

Hosting software developer Hosting Controller (www.hostingcontroller.com) has removed the cap of 1000 licenses until May 31, 2011, offering discounts of up to 90 percent. With this promotion web hosts can purchase Hosting Controller Automation Control Panel license for $99 instead of $500 and can purchase Click & Install Apps for $19 instead of $199. Hosts can also buy its automated backup and recovery for $19 instead of $199 and VPS hosting provisioning for $19 per server instead of $690. This promotion is for web hosts looking to build or expand on Windows and Linux servers in a cluster environment.

DemoWolf Renews Partnership Promotion

Hosting tutorial developer DemoWolf (www.demowolf.com) is offering a 50 percent off the pre-payment for its partners. By pre-paying the partner balance, DemoWolf partners can access tutorials for clients and pay with the partner balance. To access the discount go to the DemoWolf website and enter the coupon code PARTN50 at checkout.

A2 Hosting Offers 40 Percent Off Dedicated Hosting

Web host A2 Hosting (www.a2hosting.com) is offering its dedicated hosting plans for 40 percent off the first billing cycle. To access the discount, use the coupon code GODEDICATED. The offer expires May 25, 2011.

Inmotion Hosting Offers Discounted Business Web Hosting

Web host Inmotion Hosting (www.inmotionhosting.com) is offering $1 off per month on its business class web hosting plans. The plans start at $5.95 per month for small business starter. Its power plan is $7.95 per month and its pro version is $13.95 per month.

Just Host Offers 50 Percent Off Professional Web Hosting

Web host Just Host (www.justhost.com) is offering half off its professional web hosting for $3.95 a month. The plan includes unlimited GB of space, transfer and unlimited domain hosting. The plan also includes unlimited email accounts and MySQL databases.

Article Source http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/052011_Web_Hosting_Sales_and_Promos_Roundup_May_20_2011 permits  to repubish here

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Hosting control panels

Contents
1 What is a web hosting control panel?
2 What a web hosting control panel is used for
2.1 Control panels for shared hosting accounts
2.2 Control panels for reseller hosting accounts

What is a web hosting control panel?
A web hosting control panel is pre-installed software provided by hosting providers for their clients to manage their hosting accounts and administer their websites. This web interface enables users to easily set up, modify, and monitor their sites.

Some web hosts have invested in their own control panels, while others offer off-the-shelf control panel solutions. There are many different control panels available on the market today, both commercial and free. Each type of control panel works with one platform (Linux/Unix or Windows), but some control panels have different versions for each platform.

What a web hosting control panel is used for

Each type of control panel offers a different combination of features. Some are better suited for people with limited webmaster skills, others are built for e-commerce, and all have different advantages and disadvantages.

The following are common tasks that can be done with control panels: 

Control panels for shared hosting accounts

Set up and manage email, FTP accounts, and databases
Add and remove subdomains
Upload and manage files
View site traffic statistics
Monitor disk space and bandwidth usage
Perform site backups
Configure pre-installed scripts
Manage domains (for multiple-domain accounts)

Control panels for reseller hosting accounts

Web hosting control panels for reseller accounts provide a higher level of access than website control panels do. Users can create and manage account packages and accounts, view all the accounts and bandwidth usage, modify and terminate accounts, and do other tasks that allow them to be web hosts themselves. They can also access each sub-account from the reseller control panel interface. Some users have reseller accounts for websites that are all theirs because of the ease of managing all their sites through one control panel. 

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