WEBMASTER CENTRAL

WEBMASTER CENTRAL on Twitter

2010-02-22T02:02:00.000-08:00

Twitter is a microblogging and social networking website. Tweets are limited to 140 characters and may include links to other sites. Twitter was originally developed by the podcasting company Odeo as a web-based SMS service for internal communications, first used in March 2006. It was launched as a public service in July 2006, and became its own company in April 2007. Rapid growth saw users post hundreds of thousands of tweets in 2007, hundreds of millions of tweets in 2008, and billions in 2009. This month, Twitter users are currently posting 50 million tweets per day...

About Twitter * Twitter Basics * Search Twitter * Twitter 101 for Businesses

Keep up-to-date with all the latest web design, search engine, social media and internet marketing news via WEBMASTER CENTRAL's profile page on Twitter. Follow @webmaster_uk for details of updates to our website, the latest software releases, search engine marketing developments, web technology news, and various internet marketing resources...

Web Hosting with Unlimited Traffic

2009-09-02T18:50:00.000-07:00

1&1 Web Hosting's Microsoft and Linux packages now include unlimited traffic to your website/s. From today, as part of 1&1 Web Hosting's Performance Boost, data transfer limits have been removed, allowing for unlimited webpage impressions, downloads and uploads on all shared hosting packages. 1&1 Web Hosting have also significantly increased webspace allowances for both new and existing web hosting customers – by up to 5 times the previous amount. And, this month, 1&1 Web Hosting have also reduced the prices of domains, web hosting packages, dedicated and virtual servers, e-mail solutions and eShops...

BBC Click previews Windows 7

2009-05-23T19:04:00.000-07:00

This week, the BBC News channel's technology programme, Click, features presenter Spencer Kelly trying out the pre-release "candidate" version of Microsoft's latest operating system: Windows 7. Spencer and Computeractive's Tom Royal look at the new operating system's interface, including the redesigned taskbar - now called the Superbar, new methods for controlling on-screen windows, and the multi-touch functions for touch-sensitive screens. The final retail version of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system is due for general worldwide release on the 22nd of October...

Video: BBC Click previews Microsoft Windows 7

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8

2009-03-19T00:36:00.000-07:00

Microsoft's web browser Windows Internet Explorer 8 is now out of BETA, with the finished version available to download today. Internet Explorer 8 will also be the default browser included with Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system, due to be released later this year. IE8 offers improved compatibility in the handling of HTML, CSS, RSS, Ajax, etc. New IE8 features include: a redesigned Favorites Bar with additional functions, InPrivate mode (a stealth mode that retains no data of your browsing), and tab isolation (if a tab crashes, the browser itself and other tabs remain stable). For developers, IE8 includes tools for HTML, CSS and JavaScript debugging...

Xara's New Web Designer Software

2009-03-04T19:04:00.000-08:00

Xara released a replacement for its WebStyle software today: the new Xara Web Designer. Designed to be easy-to-use for the novice website designer, it includes professionally designed site templates and web graphics: with headings, navigation buttons, logos, etc. that can be dragged and dropped anywhere on the page. Any aspect of the design can be customized. Users can re-arrange page elements, adding their own text, inserting graphics / photos, adding videos, etc. The interface is WYSIWYG: what you see in Xara Web Designer is exactly what you get on your web page, and no knowledge of web coding is required. Experienced web designers should be impressed with the new, unique automatic 'flow-around' text that will even follow the edges of irregular shapes. Including innovative web design tools to create your own graphics, edit photos and make Flash animations, Xara Web Designer is a comprehensive web design solution, and available to download now...

Also see: FREE Online Design Tool: XARA 3D HEADING MAKER at our main site

PC Pro Magazine: 3 issues for ONLY £1

2008-12-08T22:36:00.000-08:00

To introduce new readers to PC Pro Magazine, Dennis Publishing have launched a trial subscription offer of 3 issues for ONLY £1 with FREE delivery to your door. For 13+ years, PC Pro Magazine's team of expert journalists have delivered in-depth tutorials, product tests, exclusive previews, analysis, advice and reviews, keeping readers up-to-date with all the latest computer hardware and software news. Each issue of PC Pro Magazine includes a FREE DVD with software, applications, games and utilities...

FREE Google SEO Starter Guide

2008-11-12T22:12:00.000-08:00

Google today announced their own Search Engine Optimization Guide at the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog. Aimed at helping webmasters with their website's performance in Google, the Guide provides "a wealth of search engine optimization information" based on "best practices... that could improve... crawlability and indexing." The Guide covers many SEO topics, including: title and description META tags, URL structure, site navigation, content and image optimization, linking anchor text, robots.txt and much more, along with many links to other helpful resources and further information. Essential reading for anyone who designs websites or out-sources their SEO...

Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide .pdf

Dreamweaver: Web Design Software

2008-10-25T16:37:00.000-07:00

The first version of Dreamweaver was developed by Macromedia and available for Windows and Mac in 1998. Macromedia were acquired by Adobe Systems in 2005. Dreamweaver has since replaced Adobe GoLive as Adobe's main web site design application. Adobe Dreamweaver offers a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) design interface that requires no knowledge of coding to use, along with the ability to directly edit code: supporting HTML, XHTML, CSS, XML, JavaScript, Ajax, PHP, ASP, etc.

The latest version, Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 is released today for Windows and Mac, as a standalone product and also included with Adobe Creative Suite CS4

Google Chrome Web Browser

2008-09-02T23:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Google released details of its web browser project: Google Chrome. Rather than the usual press release, Google sent out a Comic Book by artist Scott McCloud, featuring Google staff explaining the features and development of the web browser. Google Chrome is an open source project: built using Apple's WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox rendering engines, and includes a brand new Javascript engine and Google Gears. Further details were published at the Official Google Blog, revealing the BETA version of the browser would be available today. First impressions: Google Chrome's default homepage neatly presents you with thumbnails of your most visited / bookmarked web pages, along with a list of your most recently closed pages. The interface is minimalistic and the handling of tabs for browsing multiple sites is very slick. It is fast, even when simultaneously loading multiple pages. We're surprised it does not display image ALT text. And, you should note that the browser collects usage data and sends it back to Google, but it is easy to turn this off: go to Options > Under The Bonnet and untick the box. It's going to be interesting to see how Chrome develops and how much of an impact Google's browser will have on the usage statistics of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc... (See FREE Google Software for more downloads)

Video: The story behind Google Chrome * Google Chrome announcement

Google Insights for Search

2008-08-05T00:12:00.000-07:00

Today, Google has launched a new search statistics service: providing "more flexibility and functionality for advertisers and marketers to understand search behavior". Similar to Google Trends, the new service: Google Insights for Search delivers data on search volume over a period of time, allows you to compare several search terms, and provides regional search statistics. Both services present search volume graphs, but Google Insights for Search also provides regional search volume data in a world "heat map", and gives information on the top related and rising searches for the search terms entered. Not sure why these new features were not just added to Google Trends, but both services offer a lot of valuable data useful for research, targeting and optimization. See Insights for Search Help for more information, videos and other resources...

D6: All Things Digital conference

2008-07-08T21:29:00.000-07:00

Highlights from this year's Wall Street Journal D6: All Things Digital conference are now online. Microsoft's founder and Chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer shared the stage for the opening session, discussing Bill relinquishing his daily role at the company (CES 2008 video: Bill Gates' Last Day at Microsoft), the recent failed acquisition bid for Yahoo!, competing with Google, negativity towards Windows Vista, and the next generation Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 (video: Windows 7 demo)... Bill Gates & Steve Ballmer D6 interview videos: Part One & Part Two

Other D6 highlights include: Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang gave further insight into Microsoft's takeover bid, Amazon Chairman and CEO Jeff Bezos talked about the launch of Kindle, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg covered the rapid growth of the social networking site, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick discussed recent developments in video gaming, and Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher also interviewed News Corporation's Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch...

AffiliateFuture: Cookie-less Tracking

2008-03-14T00:23:00.000-07:00

AffiliateFuture, one of the UK's top affiliate networks, has today launched VeraciTag: a patent-pending cookie-less tracking technology. With some web browsers and anti-spyware software now blocking cookies, this new technology provides a more secure, privacy-protecting alternative for tracking affiliate sales. VeraciTag works by storing anonymous information in the web browser and can not be blocked, as cookies can. For merchants, VeraciTag offers a more accurate and reliable method of tracking affiliate transactions, while affiliates benefit from an increased number of tracked sales and therefore higher earnings. VeraciTag is exclusive to AffiliateFuture...

Yahoo! Search Webmaster Resources

2008-01-23T20:14:00.000-08:00

In the past, we have covered the launch of Google's Webmaster Central and Microsoft Live Search's Webmaster Tools. Today, we explore Yahoo! Search's Resources for Webmasters...

Your site might already be in the Yahoo! Search index if it has been crawled by the Yahoo! Search spider following links to your web pages. If your site is not already indexed, you can Submit a Website / Feed to be included for free. To ensure your website gets listed in the index, read the Yahoo! Search Content Quality Guidelines. You can also Submit Your Mobile Phone Site and Submit Media RSS Content for free inclusion in Yahoo! Search. If you are having problems getting listed, you can use the Yahoo! Search URL Status Review Form to find out why or contact the Yahoo! Search Support Team (or you may want to consider paying for Guaranteed Inclusion)

Yahoo!'s free analytical tool for websites listed in the Search index is the Yahoo! Site Explorer: displaying details of your site's pages indexed, a cache of the last time it was crawled, and a list of incoming links from other web pages in the index. Log-in and authenticate your website for even more data and control over how your site is indexed. Learn more About Site Explorer. If you are proud of the number of backlinks to your site, you can display the current count with a Yahoo! Site Explorer Badge. Keep up-to-date with the latest developments at the Yahoo! Search Team's Blog. To get the best results for your site in Yahoo! Search, we also recommend researching Yahoo! Search Indexing, Search Ranking and Yahoo!'s Web Crawler

Microsoft Office 2008 for Apple Mac

2008-01-16T06:42:00.000-08:00

Microsoft's Office 2007 for Windows PCs was released almost a year ago... Today sees the launch of Office 2008 for Apple Macintosh computers. Developed by Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit, Office 2008 for Mac OS X is available in three editions. Office 2008 Home and Student Edition includes the core applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and the e-mail client and personal organizer Entourage. Office 2008 Standard Edition also has Microsoft Server Exchange support, and the Office 2008 Special Media Edition has Exchange support and the digital media manager Expression Media...

SpaceTime 3D Web Browser

2008-01-07T13:43:00.000-08:00

SpaceTime today announced the public release of its free 3D Web Browser at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The SpaceTime application allows users to search and browse the web, with 3D browser windows floating in an unlimited virtual space which you can navigate through (you really need to see it in action). With several bugs eliminated during BETA testing last year, the latest version of SpaceTime is an impressive web interface, though still noticeably slower than a standard "2D" browser due to all the extra graphics rendering required. SpaceTime may not be your first choice for everyday use, but it is a very innovative and slickly presented web browser, and also perfect for displaying web pages during a presentation...

Web Hosting Powered by "Green" Energy

2007-12-05T18:07:00.000-08:00

The world's largest Web Hosting company, 1&1, today announced it will supply all European data centres with electrical power from renewable resources like wind, water, or solar energy. Switching to "Green" energy will save 30,000 tons of CO2 emissions each year. Achim Weiss, CTO of 1&1: "In our European data centres, we currently run some 40,000 servers which consume between 50 and 60 GWh per year. Hence, by switching to environmentally friendly energy we can significantly contribute to environmental protection". Two large office buildings in Karlsruhe, Germany, with 1300 employees will also soon be supplied with renewable energy. Next year, 1&1 plans to switch its USA-based data centres to "Green" energy...

Microsoft Live Search Webmaster Tools

2007-11-15T09:12:00.000-08:00

Back in March, the "link:" operator function was removed from MSN Search, due to "mass automated usage for data mining". The MSN Search team then set about creating dedicated resources for webmasters (requiring users to sign-up & log-in), with the Private Beta of the MSN Search "Webmaster Portal" announced in August as "a single, friendly place to find all tools and information relating to Live Search SEO". Recently rebranded as the Live Search Webmaster Center, the webmaster / SEO tools are now open for a Public Beta from today...

Microsoft's Live Search Webmaster Center helps you make sure that their spider, the MSNBot, is effectively crawling your site: displaying when it was last crawled & how many pages are currently in the search engine's index. (If your site is blocked, you can identify & address the issue, then submit a re-inclusion request.) To ensure all your pages are being indexed, you can enter the location of your website's XML sitemap. Live Search Webmaster Center provides other statistics, including: Backlinks to your pages and the most popular Outbound Links from your site. And, you will also discover your site / pages Ranking, based on "the number and quality of websites that link to your pages, and the relevance of your website's content to keywords". You can follow the development of Live's webmaster tools at the new Webmaster Center Team's Blog, discuss the tools & inclusion in the search engine at the Webmaster Center forum, offer Feedback, and troubleshoot / learn more about how Live Search generates listings for your website with Site Owner Help

Facebook Pages for Business

2007-11-06T05:36:00.000-08:00

Facebook now has over 50 million members worldwide. Today sees the launch of Facebook Advertising and a new free social marketing service: Facebook Pages for Business, where you can create a public Profile (example: Webmaster Central) and share your business and product news with Facebook users. You can upload an unlimited number of photos and videos, display detailed information about your business, add links, create and syndicate content, and interact with users via the Wall, Discussion Board, etc. Fans of your Facebook Page will get updates of any new content you add via their News Feed, which can also be shared with all their Facebook friends...

Create a Facebook Business Page

Competing with Webmaster Central

2007-08-03T12:59:00.000-07:00

We never planned to compete with Google for the search term: Webmaster Central. For years, we could tell anyone: "Search for Webmaster Central on any major search engine... We're always the top ranking result!" Then, last August, Google launched their own "Webmaster Central", when they re-branded their tools and resources for webmasters. A year later, with all the online coverage of Google's Webmaster Central, you might expect that www.WebmasterCentral.co.uk may have fallen from the first page of results... At the moment, on Google, Ask, Lycos Search and Yahoo! Search we are currently ranked 3rd (under Google Webmaster Central and the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog). And, we are still the top ranking result on Microsoft's Live Search...

FeedBurner acquired by Google

2007-06-01T18:43:00.000-07:00

Launched in 2004, FeedBurner provides a range of feed management & marketing tools. (See Really Simple Syndication to learn more about content distribution via RSS feeds.) Enabling web publishers to customize & monetize their feeds, FeedBurner also offers detailed traffic statistics & extends the reach of feed content. Firstly, FeedBurner optimizes your feed by converting any feed format into a browser friendly HTML page that provides visitors with various options for subscribing (example: Webmaster Central). Smartfeed technology also provides multi-format feed delivery from the same URL, making your feed compatible with all known feed readers. The optional FeedFlare can add links in your feed or on your site allowing subscribers and visitors to share your content. Other promotional tools include: PingShot notifies aggregators, search engines & directories when you publish new content, BuzzBoost can display your customized feed content on any website, and the dynamic Headline Animator creates an automatically updated feed banner (see example below)

Having become the world's largest manager of syndicated feeds, it's no wonder major players on the web have been impressed by FeedBurner's constant growth & innovation. Google's successful bid to acquire FeedBurner (rumoured to have been around $100 million) was confirmed today

D5: All Things Digital conference

2007-05-30T04:50:00.000-07:00

Microsoft and Apple founders Bill Gates and Steve Jobs took centre stage at tonight's Wall Street Journal's D5: All Things Digital conference. Amongst much friendly banter, Gates & Jobs discussed the relationship between the two companies since the mid-80's. "We've kept our marriage a secret for over a decade now," Steve Jobs joked. "It's been fun to work together," Gates added. The conversation covered developments in computing, the Internet, mobile devices, etc. plus a few predictions for the future... Bill Gates & Steve Jobs videos at AllThingsD.com

Other D5 Highlights included: details of Microsoft's gesture & multi-touch interface: Surface with a demo of Surface by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs discussed the iPhone & other Apple products, George Lucas revealed Lucasfilm's latest advancements in computer animation, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen were interviewed about the success & future of YouTube, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman talked about the recent legal action against YouTube & investment in Virtual Worlds, and Charles Simonyi gave details of his journey to the International Space Station...

Google Labs Experimental Search

2007-05-16T22:51:00.000-07:00

Google Labs wants feedback from you... Google Experimental Search lets you try out some of the new Search features in development. Current Experiments include: searching results along a Timeline or filtered by Date, search with Maps, Keyboard Shortcuts for navigating results and search with Keyword Suggestions...

Zimbio Announces "Wikizines"

2007-04-19T20:28:00.000-07:00

Zimbio is an excellent way to get your blog content to a wider audience. The Zimbo Team have taken elements from social bookmarking & wikis, mixing them up to produce a feature-rich site that feels almost instantly familiar. For bloggers, Zimbio is extremely easy to use: you simply add your blog & create a profile (example profile: Webmaster Central). Your blog is then automatically broken down into individual posts ("articles") which can be republished on Zimbio (example article: Really Simple Syndication) & categorized with other articles on the same subject in "Wikizines". You can also create new articles directly at the site

1&1's New RSS & Blogging Tools

2007-04-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

1&1 Web Hosting have recently added even more new features to their Shared Hosting packages. The RSS Creator enables you to keep subscribers up-to-date on your own news, or merge third-party feeds, and also is perfect for Podcasting. The new 1&1 Blog tool provides another platform for communicating the latest information about your business to your website visitors. Accompanying these new services: webspace, monthly traffic and e-mail allowances have also been boosted across the entire Shared Hosting range...

Google AdSense & AdWords

2007-04-04T17:44:00.000-07:00

The appearance of thousands of websites will change slightly over the next few days, as the design of Google AdSense units is updated. Not only do the new units look smarter, they have also been optimized to "perform even better for publishers and advertisers"...

One of the most popular ways of monetizing a website, Google AdSense is an easy to set-up income-stream: automatically delivering text, image & video ads that are relevant to your webpage's theme, sharing revenue from each click-thro' to advertisers' sites with you. The "other end" of Google AdSense is AdWords, which enables highly-targeted advertising on the network of sites displaying AdSense & at Google itself. Google AdWords allows you to reach your target market by presenting your adverts next to search results relating to keywords you choose. You can even target Google AdWords so your adverts are only displayed to people living within a defined distance from your business' physical location. Check out our feature on Google Advertising to learn more

Internet Audience Growth Continues

2007-03-06T06:47:00.000-08:00

Worldwide, during the last year, the total number of Internet users has risen 10% to reach 747 million, according to comScore. China, Russia & India have had the biggest increase in Internet users - India rose 33% to 21.1 million, Russia is up 21% to 12.7 million & China has had a 20% increase to 86.8 million users. China now has the 2nd largest online population in the world after the United States. The number of Internet users in the U.S. was up 2% to 153.4 million users. The United Kingdom saw only a 1% increase, but currently has the 5th largest online population, with over 30 million Internet users...

(comScore's figures excludes Internet users under 15 years old, public computers, Internet cafes, mobile phones & PDAs)

1&1 voted "Best Web Host" again!

2007-02-22T06:19:00.000-08:00

1&1 Web Hosting has been voted the "Best Web Host" in Computer Act!ve's Readers Choice Awards for the 3rd year running... During the past year, 1&1 have added many new features to their hosting packages, such as free Dynamic Content, Blog & RSS Feed creators, SMS Manager and 1&1 Search Marketing...

Google Webmaster Central out of BETA

2007-02-14T00:37:00.000-08:00

Google's Webmaster Central is out of BETA today, so we thought now would be a good time to offer a quick guide to making the most of their Webmaster Tools: 1) Firstly, check out Google's Webmaster Help, featuring tonnes of invaluable information about how Google crawls and ranks your site - pay special attention to the Webmaster Guidelines & PageRank Explained. 2) Google Webmaster Tools provides basic information about your site: details of the last time Googlebot successfully accessed your home page, which pages from your site are included in Google's Index and information on sites linking to your site. You can also submit details of your site's XML sitemap - see How do I submit a sitemap? - and analyze your site's robots.txt - see robotstxt.org for more information on robots.txt. 3) You need to verify your site to gain full access to all the Tools - either by adding a meta tag or uploading a blank .html file to your site with a unique code. 4) Now you can discover if Google is having any problems indexing your site via Diagnostics, find out the Top Search Queries that return your site in the results, see current PageRank details, see Linking information, manage how your site is index, and much more...

British Telecom launches BT Tradespace

2007-02-07T00:31:00.000-08:00

British Telecom released its public BETA of BT Tradespace today. BT Tradespace is a new free service to help businesses increase their online presence, promote products and services, and use social networking to reach potential customers and develop new business relationships. With your Tradespace, you can set-up a free profile with details regarding your company and services, join or create communities, communicate using blogs and podcasts, and upload video and photos...

Webmaster Central's BT Tradespace

Microsoft Office 2007

2007-01-30T19:09:00.000-08:00

Known as "Office 12" in the initial stages of development & testing, Microsoft Office 2007 was released to business customers on November 30th 2006. From today, Microsoft's Office 2007 suite of applications is now available on general release worldwide...

See our Office 2007 feature for full details of the new User Interface, new applications & online collaboration tools; plus screenshots, videos, links to official Microsoft sites, and a guide to the various editions

Microsoft Windows Vista

2007-01-30T07:53:00.000-08:00

Announced on 22nd of July 2005, Microsoft Windows Vista operating system was originally codenamed: "Longhorn". On November 8th 2006, Vista development was completed & some editions were released to volume license customers, plus MSDN & TechNet subscribers. Today, more than five years since the release of Windows XP (the longest time span between major releases of the Windows operating system), Microsoft's Windows Vista is now available on general release worldwide...

See our Windows Vista feature for full details of the new User Interface & applications, screenshots, videos, a Behind the Scenes look at the launch, links to official sites, and a guide to the various editions

"Link Building Strategies For Google"

2006-10-26T19:28:00.000-07:00

It's the last day of this year's eComXpo. Thousands of people have attended - establishing new business relationships and watching hours of educational presentations covering cutting-edge Internet marketing strategies... . The rules that determine a web page's ranking in Google's results have changed a lot over the last couple of years. Below is a Sample Presentation from the current eComXpo by Moshe Morris, President of SEM Basics. With "Link Building Strategies For Google", Moshe explains the reasons for change at "The New Google" & shows you how to get high-quality, relevant links to your site that will boost your Google rankings. Click the link below for free access

Microsoft Internet Explorer 7

2006-10-18T00:31:00.000-07:00

Microsoft's Windows Internet Explorer 7 is the first major revision of the IE browser since 2001. Now out of BETA, the finished version is released today and can be download for free online. Internet Explorer 7 will also be the default browser included with Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system, due early in 2007. IE7's rendering engine and security framework have been upgraded, and new features include: multi-page tabbed browsing, page zooming, a new search interface, an integrated RSS feed reader, a phishing filter, and improved encryption for Vista

Add WEBMASTER CENTRAL to Your Site

2006-09-12T09:41:00.000-07:00

Enhance your site with a dynamic display of the WEBMASTER CENTRAL blog's content... Click Here for a Preview

The Grazr Widget is a powerful & slick feed browser which allows you to add WEBMASTER CENTRAL's news, reviews & resources to your site. If you want to, you can resize & customize the Grazr to suit your own site

Click Here for WEBMASTER CENTRAL Grazr code

Copy the code, then Paste it into your site's HTML where you want the WEBMASTER CENTRAL Grazr to appear - it's that easy!

Grazr - Feed Browser Widget

2006-09-12T09:04:00.000-07:00

Grazr Corp. only started-up as a company back in June, and are already nearing the end of the BETA development stage of their online feed browser creator. The Grazr Widget allows you to add customized feeds to startpage services, blogs & web pages. It's also a great way to distribute your own feed/s by promoting them presented inside a Grazr feed browser...

Learn More About Grazr . Grazr Features . Create a Grazr Widget

1&1 Web Hosting's Traffic Booster

2006-09-06T00:35:00.000-07:00

1&1 Hosting have today launched a couple of new services, including up to £400 worth of FREE advertising. 1&1 Search Marketing (powered by Yahoo! Search Marketing) provides an integrated solution for pay-per-click advertising, with placement in sponsored listings on many major Search Engines. 1&1 Banner Advertising offers targeted marketing campaigns and a design tool to create animated banners. Hosting customers now also receive free Google Sitemaps management & Search Engine Submission. eShop customers also benefit from having their products automatically submitted to Froogle & Pangora...

Google launches Webmaster Central

2006-08-04T18:39:00.000-07:00

Google are reorganizing & renaming their tools & resources for webmasters. Today's final post by Vanessa Fox on the Google Sitemaps blog explains: "To better reflect our goal to provide tools and information to keep you, the webmasters, informed and help you increase your crawl coverage and visibility on Google, we're renaming Google Sitemaps to Google webmaster tools... You can find handy links to all the tools... from our newly launched Google webmaster central." (Webmaster tools and information, collected in one place called Webmaster Central...?!)

Google's Webmaster Central is a "one-stop shop for comprehensive info about how Google crawls and indexes websites". The Status Wizard tells you if pages from your site are included in Google's index and the last time Googlebot successfully crawled your home page. Google's Webmaster Tools is the new home for Sitemaps: allows you to provide Google with information about your website's pages (especially useful if Googlebot isn't finding all your pages from following links). You can also find out about any errors Googlebot has encountered, discover the top search enquires that return your site in the results (very helpful for optimizing your site's code and content), report spam sites in Google's results and resubmit your site for inclusion in the Google index if it has been banned in the past but now conforms to Google's guidelines. Submit your content to Google provides links to Add your URL (for new sites that Googlebot hasn't discovered yet), Google Base (which allows you to submit information about a wide range of content - see About Google Base for details), & Google Book Search (where you can submit book content with links to related websites). There's also the new Google Webmaster Central Blog with the latest news on how Google crawls and indexes, the official Google Group for Webmasters and the Google Webmaster Help Center

Xara's 25th Anniversary

2006-08-01T01:31:00.000-07:00

One of the longest established independent software houses, Xara started back in 1981, writing software for the Acorn Atom & BBC Micro... Today they create some of the most cutting-edge web graphic design applications for Windows, Mac & Linux platforms

They are not the biggest, or the most well-known software developer, but compare their graphic design applications to the best of the rest & you'll find Xara's software is easier to use & produces better results quicker than the big brand applications, & at a lower price!

You can try the FREE Xara 3D Heading Maker at our main site

FREE Access to October's eComXpo

2006-08-01T01:02:00.000-07:00

In an attendee survey carried out after April's eComXpo, 99% replied they plan on attending the next event on October 24th, 25th & 26th. Last year, there was a fee structure for levels of access... This year, you can have full access to the entire virtual tradeshow, including all the live educational sessions & panel discussions, completely FREE of charge!

Prince's Trust Business Start-Up

2006-05-20T23:24:00.000-07:00

The Prince's Trust celebrates it's 30th Anniversary today with the Prince of Wales and Princes William & Harry attending a fundraising concert at the Tower of London, featuring a diverse line-up including: Pink, Bee Gees, Annie Lennox, Lionel Richie & Ozzy Ozbourne...

If you live in the UK, are aged 18-30, unemployed or working part-time, and are unable to gain funding from other sources, you may be eligible to gain financial help & business start-up support from The Prince's Trust. Business funding includes grants up to £1,500 & low interest loans.The support services offer free legal advice & one-on-one business mentoring...

The Prince's Trust Business Start-Up Support

Google Search Trends

2006-05-10T22:42:00.000-07:00

Google Labs latest project: Google Trends lets you compare search statistics for up to 5 keywords or phrases over the past years. Google Trends also displays how frequently your targeted keywords have been mentioned in news articles via Google News, & provides geographic search volume data (with the top countries, cities & languages in which people searched for your keywords). For anyone involved in Internet Marketing, the graphs Google Trends produces offer an instant overview of vast amounts of valuable data - which could be used for Market & Keyword Research, Competition Analysis, Geographic Targetting, Search Engine Optimization, etc.

Income from Price Comparison

2006-05-09T20:09:00.000-07:00

Online Media Group have just launched a new revenue-share opportunity in partnership with Kelkoo, the UK's leading shopping comparison site. Now you can gain additional income from your website by offering your visitors the best prices online for thousands of products. It's easy to integrate the full product and price comparison functionality into your site: simply copy & paste a few lines of code. You then earn from every valid click your visitors make through to Kelkoo advertisers. Online Media Group also offer affiliates many more income opportunities via partnerships with online retailers, financial services & other major advertisers (including Yahoo! Search Marketing). FREE to join for website owners targeting countries in Europe. Visit Online Media Group for full details...

Apply for The Apprentice

2006-05-08T02:42:00.000-07:00

It may not be quite as glamorous as NBC's The Apprentice with Donald Trump (now down to the last 5 in season 5), but BBC 2's UK version of The Apprentice is delivering just as much compelling drama. The candidates are equally as determined (& sometimes deranged) as their overseas counterparts, yet there's an added edge to the UK version, provided by Sir Alan Sugar's no-nonsense approach & the show's enhanced production style

Both the US & UK shows are currently taking applications for the next season

NBC's The Apprentice

Apply for NBC's The Apprentice

Download .pdf Application Form

BBC 2's The Apprentice UK

Apply for BBC 2's The Apprentice UK

The Apprentice UK Application Form

Yahoo! Search Marketing

2006-03-31T16:35:00.000-08:00

Yahoo! Search Marketing gets your website listed above the top ranking search results on Yahoo! and other leading web portals & search engines (including: MSN, AltaVista, Lycos, etc.) Get the best possible position for your website's listing & ensure you are on the pages where potential customers are already actively seeking the products / services you are selling...

Google Page Creator

2006-02-23T22:40:00.000-08:00

Google Labs launched a new project today, allowing anyone to set-up their own web pages for free... Google Page Creator is an online service, perfect for beginners wanting to learn the basics of web publishing. No software downloads or knowledge of web coding is required, as the Google Page Creator provides easy-to-use tools for page design & publishing via your web browser. Adding text, images & links is simple, plus there's options for including Google Gadgets & editing the HTML. Web pages are hosted for free at a sub-domain of googlepages.com

About Google Page Creator . Google Page Creator Help Center

PageFlakes - Public BETA

2006-02-07T23:34:00.000-08:00

PageFlakes has just launched it's public BETA... A free personalized startpage service, the Pageflakes AJAX-coded "drag-and-drop desktop" screams WEB 2.0! - allowing users to read blogs & news feeds, check e-mail accounts, search the web (using Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.), make notes, manage your Address Book, keep a To-Do-List, access content from numerous other sites (Flickr, Alexa, del.icio.us, etc.) & get the latest stock quotes / movie reviews / weather reports... With the individual applications, feeds & website content (each in it's own module, called a "Flake") all presented on a single web page...

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FREE Access to April's eComXpo

2006-01-07T17:37:00.000-08:00

eComXpo is a Virtual Tradeshow for the online search & affiliate industries, visited by thousands of eCommerce marketers...

Previous shows have had various attendee passes, with different prices & levels of access. For the first time, access to the entire show is free!

1&1 voted "Best Web Host" again!

2005-12-05T12:20:00.000-08:00

1&1 Web Hosting have been voted "Best Web Host" in Computer Act!ve's Readers Choice Awards for the 2nd year... & "Best Business Host" in Future Publishing's .NET Awards for the 5th year running...

Both the above awards are based entirely on votes from their magazines readers

Microsoft's XBOX 360

2005-12-02T22:40:00.000-08:00

Launched many months in advance of Sony's PlayStation 3 & Nintendo's Revolution game consoles, Microsoft's next-generation home console hits the shops today - but you'd better be quick if you want to own one before Xmas, as the XBOX 360 has already sold out via pre-orders at most online retailers. And it's easy to see why: XBOX 360's state-of-the-art hardware offers impressively detailed high-definition game experiences, online communication & download services, plus access to a wide range of digital media devices (including PCs with Windows XP, digital cameras, MP3 players & even Sony's PSP!)

Skype's FREE VoIP Software

2005-12-01T16:34:00.000-08:00

The latest addition to our FREE SOFTWARE section is Skype's FREE VoIP Software. Skype celebrated 150+ million downloads of their Voice over Internet Protocol application, and their 2nd anniversary, in August by enabling Skype users to integrate voice communication availability and instant messaging services into websites. In October, eBay acquired all of the outstanding shares of the privately-held Skype company for an estimated $2.5 billion. Skype's FREE VoIP Software allows anyone worldwide to make free, unlimited, voice calls via its award-winning software for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Pocket PC platforms. Today sees the release of the beta version of Skype 2.0, with Skype Video: a new, free, high-quality video calling service...

FREE Revenue Magazine Subscription

2005-11-04T10:36:00.000-08:00

Grab your free subscription to Revenue Magazine! Get the latest industry news, product reviews and case studies. Read about real-life affiliate success stories. Learn how to attract new merchants and potential affiliates...

All TrafficSwarm members are eligible to receive a one-year subscription to Revenue magazine. There's no credit card required and no obligation of any kind. It's just another benefit of being a TrafficSwarm member!

To get your subscription, look for the Revenue Magazine Subscription link in the Bonus section of your TrafficSwarm Member Page, or join now...

FREE Office Applications Software

2005-10-20T23:15:00.000-07:00

OpenOffice 2.0 is now out of BETA & has been officially released today. Compatible with every other major office application, OpenOffice.org software is completely FREE, runs on multiple platforms (including: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, etc.) and is available in over 60 languages

An open source project, OpenOffice.org software is developed by a large international community of volunteers & sponsors, lead by Sun Microsystems, including other well-known contributors (Novell, Red Hat, Intel, Compaq, etc.) as well as hundreds of independent programmers, translators and writers

OpenOffice offers a comprehensive office application suite, with a word processor / desktop publisher: WRITER, spreadsheet application: CALC, graphic design software: DRAW, and multimedia presentation software that lives up to it's name: IMPRESS. Highlights of the Version 2.0 upgrade include: a redesigned & enhanced user interface, a powerful new database module: BASE, and improved .pdf export functions for WRITER

Google RSS Reader

2005-10-07T19:52:00.000-07:00

The latest project from Google Labs... Google Reader is an excellent online RSS reader & feed search engine, with slick presentation and features that allow you to share & blog about the interesting items you find. (You need a Google Account to save your subscription settings)

Explore Google Reader . Google Reader Help . Google Reader Blog

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ClustrMaps - Geographic Stats

2005-09-13T21:01:00.000-07:00

ClustrMaps (BETA) launches today as a service for webmasters & bloggers, displaying the location of site visitors via a Map of the World. Regularly updated, the ClustrMaps graphic highlights the global position of website visitors, simply by adding a red dot to the Map. The service is free for sites with up to 2,500 visitors a day. We are looking forward to charting the rise of WEBMASTER CENTRAL with our own Map (see the right-hand side of this blog)

Xara Graphic Studio

2005-07-21T20:16:00.000-07:00

Xara's Graphic Studio brings together three bestselling design
applications in a great value package - with a wide range of
tools to create static & animated 2D & 3D web graphics

Click on the logos below for full details of each application
& Download Free Trial versions / Demo Movies

Mozilla Suite now "SeaMonkey"

2005-07-02T17:50:00.000-07:00

Back in 2003, Mozilla.org declared their intention to shift focus from the Mozilla Application Suite to a new generation of standalone applications: including the Firefox web browser & Thunderbird e-mail & newsgroup client. Development of the Application Suite's source code (known as "SeaMonkey" by developers) has now been passed on to a newly founded independent group, announced today: The SeaMonkey Project. The "all-in-one internet application suite" includes a web browser with tabbed browsing & popup blocking, an e-mail client with Junk mail filter, an IRC chat application, an easy-to-use HTML editor & web development tools. SeaMonkey can also be extended with numerous Add-Ons that provide additional functionality...

FREE Website Design Software

2005-06-29T21:32:00.000-07:00

The latest version of Nvu [1.0] has just been released... Nvu (stands for "New View") is an open source project, developed from Mozilla's Composer. With a "WYSIWYG" (What You See Is What You Get) interface, you can design web pages quickly while Nvu does the coding for you

Perfect for beginners - if you can position text & pictures within an e-mail, you've already got the skills needed to get started with Nvu. It's also an excellent tool for learning how to code for the web - you can switch between the WYSIWYG & code modes, and see how your editing translates into HTML. More advanced webmasters can access the code & modify with XML, CSS, Javascript, etc. Includes file management via FTP for easy publishing to the web

Originally developed for Linux, also available for Windows & Mac OSX

LookSmart relaunches Furl

2005-05-16T23:55:00.000-07:00

Started early 2003 & acquired by LookSmart last September, Furl is a free online service that allows users to save their favourite web pages. More than just a bookmarking site, Furl will store a full-text copy of any page on the web, providing 5GB of storage for each user's archive. So, even if a web page changes or is deleted, you still have a saved copy of the original page to refer to. Furl also provides options for blog integration, to search your stored web pages, share & discover new information via email subscriptions, RSS feeds & personalized recommendations...

BOOKMARK / SAVE the WEBMASTER CENTRAL blog

NewsGator buys FeedDemon

2005-05-16T22:20:00.000-07:00

NewsGator was launched in February 2003, as a news feed aggregator for Microsoft's Outlook: retrieving updates from multiple sources - blogs & news sites offering RSS - then organizing the news items within Outlook. NewsGator's Online Services were released January last year, offering further capabilities such as subscription synchronization, a web-based reader, and access to RSS content via any POP3 email client or HTML-capable mobile device. NewsGator's FREE Online Edition, launched October 2004, added even more features & functionality to the web-based aggregator with an enhanced user interface

NewsGator announced today that it has acquired Bradbury Software, including the services of developer Nick Bradbury, whose primary products are the popular Windows desktop news aggregator: FeedDemon, and TopStyle: a CSS / HTML / xHTML editor for Windows

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The End of Overture

2005-04-29T10:57:00.000-07:00

Started as GoTo in 1997, Overture pioneered Pay-Per-Click search advertising. In 2001, Yahoo! chose Overture to provide results for it's new "Sponsored Matches", displayed above organic search results. In 2003, Overture purchased another pioneer of search: AltaVista, and then was famously acquired by Yahoo! Inc. for $1.7 billion. This month, rebranding has taken place and Overture's PPC advertising service has become Yahoo! Search Marketing

XARA 3D Heading Maker

2005-04-28T23:08:00.000-07:00

Like the 3D Headings we use at our site? They were created using this Free Online Design Tool. There are 12 Fonts & six 3D Styles you can use to design your Headings. Your 3D text can be presented in eight different Sizes & there's a large selection of colors to choose from. Spend a short time experimenting with the variety of Fonts & Styles, & you'll soon find yourself creating stunning 3D text within seconds...

FREE Online Stores

2005-04-28T21:26:00.000-07:00

No financial investment needed. No stock to buy. Just Profit for You! Sell a wide range of products featuring your own logos & designs - T-shirts, Stickers, Baseball Caps, Posters, Mugs, Clocks, Mousepads & much more. You can also publish & sell audio / data CDs & books. Totally Free service. No knowledge of HTML or site design needed. Complete control over pricing of your products...

Domain & Web Hosting

2005-03-26T03:25:00.000-08:00

We have received many e-mails recently asking us to
recommend a reliable & affordable hosting company

That's easy...

There is one hosting company that offers outstanding
hosting & e-commerce solutions at amazingly competitive
prices. They also provide some of the best site creation,
promotion & Search Engine Optimization software

available, at an unbeatable price: FREE!

FREE SOFTWARE

2005-03-26T01:03:00.000-08:00

NetObjects Fusion 8 Website Creator,

Hello Engines 4.0 Search Engine Submitter,

Ranking Toolbox 4.0 with Optimization Module,

Wise-FTP 3.0, Photo Impact XL SE & much more...

FREE Flash Website Creator

2005-03-26T01:02:00.000-08:00

The World's No.1 Web Host now offers you even more Web Design & Site Management Tools... Earlier this month, 1&1 Web Hosting launched several new applications in their collection of online webmaster tools, provided FREE with all hosting packages. Exclusive to 1&1 Web Hosting, the Dynamic Site Creator allows you to build professional Flash websites within minutes, with high-quality animated graphics & interactive menus, without any programming skills required...

eComXpo: On the Third Day

2005-02-19T18:43:00.000-08:00

Wow... eComXpo - the first Virtual Trade Show for eCommerce Marketers is an almost overwhelming event. Not quite the interactive 3D Virtual Reality experience I first imagined, but a well-presented & structured web site, with a "tradeshow floor" page giving access to the "booths" that have been hired by some of the most familiar names in Internet Marketing. Three days isn't long enough to make the most of everything on offer - apart from the 90+ booths containing more information about their exhibitors & the business partnerships they're promoting, there's also hundreds of other people in attendance, all of them ready to "chat" via eComXpo's integrated, text Instant Messaging system.

Oh, and there's the MacroMedia Breeze presentations... Over a hundred of them! Top industry names discussing an extremely diverse range of Internet Marketing-related topics. Some are so good, have so much valuable information crammed into them, they demand to be heard & seen again.

Amazing... A major event in the History of Internet Marketing

& definitely a glimpse into the future of business networking...

eComXpo has started...

2005-02-17T01:35:00.000-08:00

"Over 90 booths showcasing some of the Internet's Top Affiliate

programs. Meet & talk to the executives & affiliate marketing teams

behind some of the world's largest companies. Network with hundreds

of fellow entrepreneurs. Listen to & question Internet Marketing Experts

(including Shawn Collins, Declan Dunn, Linda Woods, Rosalind Gardner ...)
Win amazing prizes (iPods, wide-screen TVs, Caribbean cruises...)
...without leaving your home or office!"

Lucky us! We've been invited to attend this premier Virtual eCommerce

Trade Show for free. Thanks to Dell & Tradedoubler for inviting us along...

How Can We Help You?

2005-02-12T23:27:00.000-08:00

What resource, tool or knowledge do you need that would

make a major difference to YOUR Internet enterprises?

Leave a comment or e-mail:

blog@webmastercentral.co.uk

How The Internet Began...

2005-02-09T00:01:00.000-08:00

It really got started in the early 60's... ARPA, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (part of the US Department of Defense) was given the brief to develop a decentralized network of military computers. The Agency sponsored research projects in the private sector and at top universities across the United States... Taking part in the project, MIT and the System Development Corporation set-up telecommunication between two "time-sharing" computers in 1965... Originally developed by the RAND Corporation, "packet-switching" technology was introduced to the project in the late 60's... In 1969, ARPANET was online, linking computers at UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, Utah University and the University of California (map of 1969 network)... By the end of 1971, several universities and research facilities had computers connected via ARPANET, including: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, RAND and NASA's Ames Research Center... The first e-mail program and FTP (File Transfer Protocol) were developed soon after. And for a long time, e-mail was the "killer application" of The Internet

The World Wide Web was still a couple of decades away...

Beginner's Guide to the Internet

2005-02-08T01:36:00.000-08:00

If you are new to "The Net" and still getting to grips with the basics of life online, a good place to begin is the BBC's website, where they offer a free course explaining everything you need to know to get started using e-mail and searching the World Wide Web...

Ask Jeeves buys Bloglines

2005-02-08T01:04:00.000-08:00

Ask Jeeves just announced they have bought Trustic Inc, the owner & operater of Bloglines. Launched July 2003, Bloglines was the first (free) web-based service for bookmarking blogs & reading news feeds. Today, they are the world's most popular website for searching, subscribing, publishing and sharing blogs & RSS feeds. Bloglines will continue to operate as an independent brand... "Financial terms were not disclosed."

Press Release: Ask Jeeves Acquires Bloglines

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RSS = Really Simple Syndication

2005-02-05T23:32:00.000-08:00

RSS is a group of computer languages designed to provide information about updated web content. RSS data, commonly known as a "feed", can be used for content distribution directly to end users & also for syndication: republishing content, or hyper-linked Headlines to it, on other sites

Originally developed by Dan Libby at Netscape in 1999 (first as RDF Site Summary with RSS 0.90, then as Rich Site Summary with 0.91), RSS has been further revised by the open RSS-DEV group with RSS 1.0. It's also been independently reworked by Dave Winer leading to RSS 2.0 (not an update of RSS-DEV's 1.0, but developed directly from Netscape's 0.91), which has popularized the term "Really Simple Syndication"

Apart from the different versions of RSS, there is another widely-used format for publishing feeds, called Atom... The Atom format was inspired by & offered as a solution to the various incompatable versions of RSS. Originally proposed by Sam Ruby, the principles behind the Atom project quickly gained a lot of support. Atom 0.3, released in December 2003, was implemented on several Google services, including Google News & Blogger

With the continued rapid growth of blogging, awareness of the benefits of providing a feed has lead to RSS feeds now being offered by major News sites & many other websites with regularly updated content are starting to provide subscription to updates & syndication of content via feeds

For the end user wanting the latest content from their favourite sites, feeds can be viewed via a News Reader / Aggregator - which could be a desktop application (example: FeedReader) or an online service (example: Bloglines). Most Readers support both the popular RSS & Atom feed formats

You can keep up-to-date with all the latest posts published on this blog via our Atom XML feed, published at: http://webmaster-central.blogspot.com/atom.xml

WEBMASTER CENTRAL Newsletter

2005-02-05T20:47:00.000-08:00

Webmaster advice, tips, tricks and secrets...
+ FREE Software Downloads, Online Tools, Ebooks, etc.
+ Guides to Site Design & Optimization, Search Engines & Directories, Affiliate Marketing, Site Promotion & much more...

To subscribe to our newsletter, e-mail:
newsletter@webmastercentral.co.uk

All The Best Webmaster Resources

2005-02-05T02:13:00.000-08:00

Our team delivers highly-researched, thoroughly-tested, totally
up-to-date information on all aspects of Internet Marketing,
specializing in finding and providing the best Webmaster
Tools & Resources

www.WebmasterCentral.co.uk

Don't miss the FREE Downloads & Updates on this blog...

http://webmaster-central.blogspot.com/