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How to Avoid Website Downtime That Can Affect Your Search Engine Listings, Cost You Money, and Damage Your ReputationIf your web pages are down — even momentarily — it can hurt you several ways. Learn why, and what to do to make sure your pages are visible the maximum amount of time.The Internet has changed the way we access information, and the way we buy and sell products and services. When it works, which, fortunately, is most of the time, ideas and cash flow from person to person, company to company, and country to country. But when the inevitable happens and your pages go down, your business, your bank account and your reputation can suffer, especially if you are unaware of the down status of your e-business operations for more than a few minutes. One way this can hurt you is with the search engines. Whether you operate a corporate website, a mom-and-pop or something in between, there's no question about it. If you want to get traffic via the search engines, you have to work at getting and maintaining placement on the first page of the current “big four” — Google, Yahoo, MSN and AskJeeves. Depending on the keywords you're trying to get high results for, this can be a time-and-resource intensive process. Everyone who uses search engine marketing knows that getting and keeping high placement is an ongoing process filled with many unknowns. The rules of the game seem to change without notice, causing frustration, disappointment and even desperation among beginners and veterans alike. Methods that work today may not work tomorrow. Tactics that may be “legal” today may cause problems tomorrow. It's as if, despite all the research, experimentation and best intentions, there really is no exact formula that can be applied to guarantee results. There is, however, one aspect of search engine marketing that is a known quantity. If your pages are down — even briefly — when the spiders visit, you run the risk of losing your place. And unless they come back up immediately, they may be dropped altogether. For example, Google's “Information for Webmasters” area says that if your pages cannot be crawled after several attempts due to network or hosting problems, they won't be listed — meaning they'll be dropped — and it may take “a few weeks” to for them to show up again. MSN's guidelines state that if your server is offline or there is another access problem when their spider tries to crawl your site, it may not return “until a later time.” Neither Yahoo nor AskJeeves seems to have guidelines on this issue, but it's reasonable to assume that they and other search engine spiders operate like Google and MSN. Another pitfall of web page downtime is wasted pay-per-click advertising dollars. When PPC landing pages go down, your clicks go nowhere and your money is needlessly depleted. And the PPC medium may suspend your ad if your landing page goes down for too long. It's a fact that web surfers have limited, if any, patience for “page not found” errors. Building credibility and trust on the Internet is a challenging task. When surfers click to your page, and it's not there, they may conclude that you are out of business. At first exposure to you, if your page is not available they are likely to find a competitor and forget all about you. Yes, you can create a custom 404-error page, but if your entire site is down, that won't help you much. Suppose you sell advertising on your site and it goes down. What will your advertisers think if they visit your site and don't' see their ads? Maybe you have a paid membership site. What will your members think when they try to access your site and it's not there? Suppose a reporter visits your site and it's down. That could kill a budding story about you, or it could inadvertently cause them to write something negative about you. Why risk all these problems when the solution is so simple and cost-effective? The answer is remote website monitoring. For under $20 per month, you can get basic monitoring that will inform you if your site is down so you can take immediate action to fix the problem. Depending on the complexity of your e-business operation, you can get more sophisticated service features that can monitor not only your pages, but also your database, servers, transactions and can even check for content changes on your pages. If someone hacked into your site and changed the content on your home page, wouldn't it be nice to know about it before the rest of the world does? To check out companies that offer these services, do a search for “remote website monitoring.” Most companies have free trials. The key is to find a company that has flexible service options. Depending on the scope of your e-business, you may or may not need certain features that are bundled together. Why pay for what you don't want? Also, bigger may not be better. Look for an established company that is not too big to give you excellent customer service. During your free trial, send a question or two to their tech support and see how fast they respond. This will give you an idea of what you'll get after you pay. Whatever you do, do it today. You can't afford to not know if your web pages are down. About the author: Nick Nichols directs marketing activities at WebSitePulse.com, a leading provider of website uptime and performance monitoring services. Visit http://www.WebSitePulse.comfor a free trial and know how your site is doing 24/7. Circulated by Article Emporium 8 Tips for Successful Link Blitz Management Copyright 2004 John Gergye Lots of people loudly proclaim the importance of inbound links. In fact depending on your niche up to 80% of your rank in Google may depend on your ability to conduct an ongoing link blitz. Not to mention all the traffic well placed links can del... 7 Reasons to Switch to FireFox Copyright 2005 John Gergye The Firefox browser has exploded on the scene. At the time of this writing there have been 23 million downloads of this innovative competitor to Internet Explorer. Minor drawbacks aside, most who use it love it – myself included. One st... MILK YOUR WINNERS, DROP YOUR LOSERS Copyright 2005 Nick James In my previous article How To Be 100% Sure That Your New Product Is A Winner We have discussed dropping losers. I hope I have given you the message strongly enough. But the same principle applies to milking winners. When you get a winner in-d... The Secret to Making More Money in Your Online Business: Lessons From Monopoly Thousands and thousands of people are striving to make more money in their online businesses each day. If you are one of the thousands of people, have you ever played the game of monopoly? Have you ever been exposed to the hidden secret in the game that will help you earn more mone... How To Run A Profitable Website Copyright 2005 Ronald Gibson All Internet business owners want their websites to be profitable.Here are a few tips that could help you make your website a profitable one. 1. Address your targeted audience on your business site. Example: "Welcome Internet Marketers" or... Affiliate's Guide For Success. Affiliate work is a rewarding work at home profession. There are hundreds of companies and small businesses that will pay you a commission for selling their top selling products. There are 2 main ingredients for success. Successful affiliates learn networking te... Create Viral Traffic With Brandable eBooks Copyright 2004 Ed Zivkovic Viral Traffic Building When I started my website, one of the first things I did was place a few free eBooks up for download in order to have something for free. Now, a couple of years down the track, 60% of my traffic is untrackab... Kids and Online Marketers Kids and Online Marketing I'm sure many online marketers have kids and they often come over to the desk when you are busy working online to ask questions like “what are you doing dad/mom” etc. How many of us actually tell them what we are doing or better... There is no such a thing as free money Copyright 2004 Arun Pal Singh Have you come to internet in search for goldmine? Do you believe that you will find one and you would fill your sacks till you can! Have you come riding high on the hype that internet can make you rich overnight. Do you wish to be enlisted among... How to Avoid Website Downtime That Can Affect Your Search Engine Listings, Cost You Money, and Damage Your Reputation If your web pages are down — even momentarily — it can hurt you several ways. Learn why, and what to do to make sure your pages are visible the maximum amount of time. The Internet has changed the way we access information, and the way we buy and sell products and service... To People Who Want To Make Money At Home, Make Money Online - But Can't Get Funding Starting a business? Need adequate funding? To make money on the Internet, you need the funding to start your business. The first place to look for financing is right there at home. You plan to make money at home, so why not sort out some useable ... There is no such a thing as free money Copyright 2004 Arun Pal Singh Have you come to internet in search for goldmine? Do you believe that you will find one and you would fill your sacks till you can! Have you come riding high on the hype that internet can make you rich overnight. Do you wish to be enlisted among... 20 Easy Ways To Get People To Link To Your Web Site 20 Easy Ways To Get People To Link To Your Web Site By Jeff Schuman http://www.team-schuman.com First off all let's define what is a link exchange? A link exchange Internet marketing campaign is the process of exchanging hyperlinks with a quality site tha... Keywords, How to find them Effectively To be a successful affiliate marketer takes a ton of work. You probably know this by now. Really! I hear some of you say. You thought it was a piece of cake, mostly because you don't have to worry about having your own product. Ok, so no product costs, no shipping... Succeed With Your Own Internet Business An internet business is by far the best way to support yourself if you just cannot stand working for others for less money than you need to survive. It's also the best way to get out of a good paying job that just takes up too much of your precious short life working...
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