Concentric Announces A Flash® Animation Contest - Win $2500!
Calling all Flash Designers! Concentric is offering a $2500 first prize, $500 second prize, and 10 third-place prizes of a year of hosting to Flash designers who submit short, fun, and professional Flash designs that depict the Concentric clustered hosting message of “Don’t Compromise”. With Clustered Hosting, there is no need to compromise, customers receive the benefits of dedicated hosting and on-demand resources at shared hosting prices.
The Concentric hosting architecture provides “clustered” handling of security, load balancing, and necessary site resources. It is perfect for multimedia businesses, offering the reliability, performance and bandwidth to support large media files all at an affordable cost.
The contest is open to United States residents only. Deadline for entries is June 30, 2005.
Click here for more details
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NetDrive: A New Way to Manage Files
Concentric introduces Net Drive, a new tool to increase productivity, reduce email clutter, and better manage files internally and on your Web site. With Net Drive you can access files in your account without the File Manager or FTP, directly from your desktop as if they were on your own hard drive. You can enable Net Drive at the Control Panel menu under Manage Files.
What is Net Drive?
- Easily move, edit and collaborate on files.
- Access files with File Manager, FTP or Net Drive interchangeably.
- Net Drive relies on WebDAV (Web-Based Distributed Authoring and Versioning) to update content and quickly back up critical files. WebDAV is a file sharing protocol supported on most computer operating systems including Microsoft® Windows™, Linux® and Mac® OS X.
“Drag and Drop” functionality.
- Create a Web Folder on your desktop that links directly to your hosting file space.
- Start “dragging and dropping” files between your local hard drive and your hosting file space.
- Download the “Windows Net Drive Configuration Tool” to easily configure a web folder if your computer uses a recent Windows operating system.
- Manually configure a Web Folder or directory if you have a non-Windows operating system. See the Net Drive FAQs for tips on manually configuring a Web Folder on common operating systems.
Securely collaborate on documents.
- Use your favorite authoring software to open, edit and save files directly to the server. Many publishing tools like Adobe® GoLive®, Macromedia® and Microsoft® products support WebDAV for file publishing and editing and should work with Net Drive. See the FAQs for authoring software that supports the WebDAV protocol.
- Use Net Drive with SSL for better security.
- Files being edited by one individual will show up as locked/read-only for other users with most clients.
- Email document links to teammates (internally and externally) rather than the full document.
- Use your account’s native directory permissions and password protections to secure access.
You can enable Net Drive at the Control Panel menu under Manage Files.
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Business Connections
It pays to know someone.
Concentric parent company, XO®, offers a simple program to make money--called Business Connections. Send new business referrals to XO in exchange for a one-time reward payment if the referral becomes an XO customer.
You don not need to do anything other than sign up and submit prospective customer information. We will take it from there. We will close the sale, ensure smooth installation, and provide ongoing maintenance and support. There are no monthly commitments, so you can submit as infrequently – or frequently – as you like.
This program is a strong fit for:
- ASPs and ISPs
- Telecommunications consultants
- Hardware and software suppliers
- Technology consultants
Once the sale is closed, you will receive a check for 50% of the new customer’s first monthly recurring charges: it really is that simple. Fees for equipment, installation, usage charges or any other non-recurring charges are not included.
Just see http://www.xo.com/connections to sign up online. Go to http://www.xo.com/products/index.html for a complete list of products.
Note that XO reserves the right to change or terminate this program at any time.
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Search Engine Optimization Tips
Your web site needs traffic – hits from visitors who want to see your content – to be successful. Visitors can find your site in many ways – from links on your business cards, links from other sites, ad banners, word of mouth, blogs, etc – but a large percentage of first-time visitors will find your site from queries in search engines. Getting a good ranking in search engine lookups for your content, and ensuring that your site is found when people search for what you have to offer, is key to success. Accomplishing this can be difficult and confusing for many. This article provides some tips on the process, and covers the basics of optimizing your web pages for search engines quickly and easily.
Potential Design/Set Up Problems
If your site does not use frames, Macromedia® Flash®, JavaScript™, imagemaps, or dynamic URLs you can skip to the “Optimizing for the Correct Keywords” section.
Some site design/set up issues can make it very difficult for the search engines to list your web pages, no matter how well you optimize and submit them. We have listed them here, before the optimization tips, to hopefully save you from trying to submit a site that may be very difficult to get listed. These issues can all be addressed before you submit.
The most common problems are:
- Sites that use frames
- Sites that use dynamic URLs
- Sites that use Flash®
- Sites that use imagemaps for navigation
- Sites that use JavaScript for navigation
For details on these common problems, please reference the Microsoft® Submit It! Search Engine Optimization Tips.
Optimizing for the Correct Keywords
To be listed correctly in the search engines, each page of your site that you want listed must be optimized. Since the keywords that you decide to target will be used throughout the optimization process, choosing the right keywords is essential. If you choose the wrong keywords, your site won’t be found by people looking for your content, and being found with the wrong keywords won’t bring you interested visitors.
- Think “specific keyword phrases” not “keywords”. Why? The competition for generic terms is extremely high. If your keyword phrases are too general, it is very unlikely that your site will rank well. You stand a far better chance to rank higher using specific phrases where there is less competition. The resulting traffic, since it is more highly targeted, should also be much higher quality.
Here’s an example for a site selling shoes:
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Much Too General
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Much Better!
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shoes
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imported italian shoes
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men’s shoes
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men’s leather penny loafers
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women’s shoes
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women’s aerobic sneakers
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- Try to think like your target audience. What would they search for when looking for the page you are optimizing? It is very easy to fall into the trap of coming up with a short list of what you would search for, but what about everyone else? They will not necessarily use the same keywords as you. You should try to come up with as many keyword phrases as you can think of that relate to the page you are optimizing. Try asking a few friends and family what they would search for when searching for a site like yours.
- Check out your competition for ideas. Do a search using keywords that you already know you want to target and click through on the top sites that come up. Once on a site, view the source HTML code and view the keywords they have in their meta tags - this should give you many more ideas! Make sure to only use keywords that relate to your site or page. To view the HTML code simply click the ‘View’ at the top of your web browser then select “Source”, or “Page Source”.
- You should develop a list of keyword phrases, following the tips on this page, for each page that you optimize for the search engines. The resulting diversity of keyword phrases will yield a larger pattern of hits on your site.
Optimizing Your Title Tag
Without question the title tag (the text you provide that is shown in the top border of the browser) of your page is the single most important factor to consider when optimizing your web page for the search engines. This is because most engines and directories place a high level of importance on keywords that are found in your title tag. Also, search engines usually use the title tag for the title of your listing in the search results.
What it looks like:
Here’s a sample title tag: <TITLE>Your Title Tag - learn to optimize your title tag</TITLE>
Where it belongs:
The correct placement for the title tag is between the <HEAD> and </HEAD> tags within the HTML the makes up your page.
Tag limits:
We recommend that your title tag be between 50-80 characters long - including spaces! The various search engines accept various length title tags, but as long as you keep within this limit you should be OK.
Tag tips:
- We recommend that you include 1-2 of your most important keyword phrases in the title tag, but be careful not to just list keywords. If you just list keywords you risk being viewed as spamming the engines which can ultimately lead to you being blacklisted by the search engines. Your title tag should include your keyword phrases while remaining as close to a readable sentence as possible to avoid any problems.
- Make your title enticing! Don’t forget that even if you receive the #1 listing in the search engines, your listing still needs to say something that makes the surfer want to clickthrough and visit your site.
- Since the length of your title tag could be a bit long for some engines, we suggest placing the keywords at the beginning of the tag when possible so that you do not risk having them cut off.
- Each page of your site should have its own title tag with its own keywords that relate to that specific page.
Optimizing Your Page Text
The content of each page is also used by search engines, and the total text of the page is nearly as important as the title tag. Words and phrases on each page will lead to hits in the engine, so important keywords and phrases should occur within the page content as well as the tags.
Page text tips:
- For best results, we recommend that each page you submit contain at least 200 words of text. Of course, there are cases where this much text can be difficult to include on one page, but it does positively impact your search engine ranking.
- This text should include your most important keyword phrases, but should remain logical and readable.
- Be sure to use those phrases that you have used in your other tags (i.e. meta, alt, headings, title, etc.) during the optimization process.
- Add additional text-filled pages to your site. For example, how-to articles, tips or tutorials (even newsletters!) fill that need. These types of content pages not only help your with search engine rankings, but many other sites will link to them also, further enhancing your ranking. Make sure these pages link to other parts of your site so that hits on this content draws a visitor further along.
Optimizing Meta Tags
Meta tags are very important for improving your listings in the search engines. Meta tag tips can be found at the Microsoft® Submit It! Search Engine Optimization Tips.
To help you with all of your search engine optimization and submission tasks, please see the accompanying article in this newsletter on the tools we offer to help you submit your site to search engines.
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Tools to Help You Submit Your Site
As noted in an accompanying article, optimizing one’s site is critical to achieving the best possible ranking in search engines. We have various tools to help you with this important task.
Microsoft® Submit It! – available to selected hosting plans as either an add-on service or included in the base hosting package – provides tools to help web site owners:
- optimize their sites for search engines
- submit their site to multiple engines at one time
- track their submissions and rankings
Here are some screenshots showing some of the many available Submit It! tools:
Submit It! will perform search engine readiness checks for every URL provided and will provide recommendations on fixing items on the web page that don’t meet the minimum criteria for submission.
An extremely helpful Keyword Research Tool helps web site owners select the best keywords for their site, based on input criteria and how many other sites are using the same keywords.
Submit It! allows web site owners to submit up to 10 separate URLs for $49/year. To add this service to your account, master or domain administrators can simply click on the “bCentralTM Services” section on the Gateway/Center home page. If your plan does not qualify to add Submit It!, please contact Customer Care (using the Contact Customer Care form) regarding the available service plans to you for adding Submit It!
Also, most service plans include a free tool to list one’s site with Google, although it does not include any of the optimization, tracking and keyword tools that Submit It! has. To access this tool, master or domain administrators should go to Control Panel / Manage Site / Search Engine Controls / Submit My Site.
Lastly, having others link to your site will ensure that it is found by search engine spiders that walk the Web looking for new content. Many search engines also look at the content of the links that point to your site, so if you can exchange links with other sites in the same content area, and have the links to you include some of your keywords as well, this will further improve your site’s search engine presence.
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Please, Flatter Us!
Are you a happy customer? Do you think we have the coolest hosting features? Is our clustered hosting service meeting your needs? Did our support staff or service help you solve a problem?
If you’ve had a good experience with our clustered hosting service that you’d like to share, we’d like to hear from you. We are seeking customer quotes and reference accounts to post on our web site. A few short comments will do!
If we post your quote, we’ll use your first name and the name of your business (unless you don’t want us to, just let us know.) This will provide your site with free publicity!
Please go to our website http://concentric.com/feedback.php and send us your comments.
Please include your site URL in the email. We look forward to hearing from you!
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Did you know: Domain Aliases
Did you know: A Domain Alias Can Map to Separate Directories or Re-direct to Your Primary Domain Name.
Sometimes referred to as “domain pointers”, “domain forwarding” or “domain stacking”, domain aliasing is where multiple domain names point to one primary domain. When you set up a web hosting account, it is set up for one domain name. You can register a second domain name and point it to the primary domain name. Your secondary domain is now an “alias”. This is helpful if you are changing company names, want to protect against common spelling errors for your domain name or have a product name that you want to route to your main company site.
For example, if your Web site domain name is “mycompany.com”, you can register another domain name, like “mycompany.net” and have it point to the location of “mycompany.com”. This means, every Internet user who goes to “mycompany.net” will land at “mycompany.com”.
Once your Web site account is active, you can add domain aliases quickly and easily through the Concentric Center by yourself, and may even register a new domain name and add it as an alias at the same time. Other providers require a request to support and charge a 1-time setup fee (in addition to domain registration fees), but not with Concentric.
After you add your domain aliases, any Web site hits to those aliases will be automatically re-directed to your primary domain. Also, any e-mail messages sent to e-mailboxes under one of your domain aliases will also be automatically re-directed to the e-mailbox under your primary domain.
Domain aliases can also include creating 3rd-level domain aliases for any custom domain name you own, such as creating “products.mycompany.com” or “support.mycompany.com” under your domain “mycompany.com”. You have the option of mapping Web site hits to directories other than your root Web directory on Concentric Standard plans, so in this example “products.mycompany.com” could automatically re-direct to your products page. For e-mailboxes, you even have the option of re-directing messages sent to an e-mailbox under one alias to a different e-mailbox under your primary domain.
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