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restricting internet access in WinXP?
I have a client who just asked me for a simple way to stop some of the computers
on his network from accessing the internet with IE?
server problems
We are having problems with our hosts, they keep cocking up all sorts of things,
MAX Trojan Marketing! - Please Help!
As a webmaster I probe all depths of Internet Technology. Unfortunately that research
includes Porn Sites. True to human nature there is a great deal of money in that
venue, so they stay on top of more advanced Internet technologies.
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This article is not a complete quide to Apache's mod_rewtite neither to .htaccess.
Its purpose is to help you - the webmaster - to create "mod_rewriten"
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7
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You may not bother with html validation or writing simple and clean code when
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07.20.05
Google SiteMaps And You
 By Trevor Bauknight
Last week, we looked (http://www.cafeid.com/art-rss.shtml) at the recent news
that Microsoft had decided to embrace RSS in a big way in its upcoming releases
of Internet Explorer and Windows "Longhorn" and determined that this was a Good
Thing.
This week, we're taking a look at implementing Google Sitemaps, a similar technology
developed by Google in order to help you define your site more effectively to
the search-engine behemoth. This is not a ticket to a higher Google ranking (at
least not that we know about); but it is a useful tool that lets you apply RSS-like
control to your website's interactions with the Googlebot.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is the current heavyweight of so-called "disruptive
technologies" (loosely defined as those that have the effect, if not developed
with the intention, of changing the way we use technology in general) and its
use is skyrocketing among content providers looking for a way to get their content
in front of more eyes and ears. But RSS originally stood for Rich Site Summary,
a standard way of cataloging your site's content for third-party aggregators.
Google Sitemaps have a similar function, in that they are an XML-based way to
describe website content in a standard, predictable way; but they differ in that
Sitemaps are intended for the Googlebot's eyes only, rather than for any third-party.
Think of them as an automated way to make sure Google knows about your site's
content (please note, however, that Google does not guarantee inclusion of your
content based solely on the presence of a Sitemap file).
This sounds like a very specific undertaking, but the importance of Google to
getting your site's content noticed can simply not be overstated. And with Google's
expanding reach into more and more areas of Web content presentation, chances
are that you can be assured that the information your Sitemap provides will eventually
find some use you haven't yet thought about. That's what disruptive technology
is all about, and Google has become one of the more innovative champions of such
technological advances.
Where To Start
The first thing you should do as a website developer is create a Google Account
for yourself or your company. This will allow you to do other things besides access
the Sitemaps infrastructure; but we'll leave that for another day. Create the
account here (https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount)
and then proceed to the Sitemaps area at (https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login).
Once you've logged in, you'll see the sparse Sitemaps interface. Don't be fooled,
however, because like the simple interface to its search engine, this one hides
quite a bit of information regarding the creation and use of Sitemaps, presenting
it in digestible bites as you walk through the process.
There's probably more there than you need to know at this point, provided you
don't have a huge site with a need for multiple Sitemaps and so on. But if you
do have such a site, the information is there for creating truly complex Sitemaps
and Sitemap Indices referencing many Sitemaps and you can familiarize yourself
with that as needed. For now, we'll concentrate on what's required to establish
a Sitemap for our site at Cafe ID (http://www.cafeid.com).
Like creating RSS feeds, creating a Google Sitemap is as simple as putting together
an XML file at the root level of your site that describes the site according to
the instructions that Google has laid out. You can use any text editor for this
purpose, but some editors do a better job of helping you create properly formatted
XML files. We heartily recommend two that cost money, BBEdit on Mac OS X (http://www.barebones.com)
and Macromedia's Homesite on Windows (http://www.macromedia.com/software/homesite/),
but there are excellent free alternatives out there and when it comes to text
editors, personal preferences take on an almost religious importance, so we won't
proselytize about that here.
The Googlebot recognizes several Sitemap formats, ranging from a simple list of
URLs to Sitemaps already created using something called the "Open Archive Initiative
protocol for metadata harvesting", a format apparently popular with library collections.
The OAI protocol is an advanced XML specification that you don't need to worry
about if you don't already understand. An intermediate XML format is what we recommend,
over the simple URL list, because of the additional information you can associate
with each constituent URL of your site.
If you do want to just get started quickly, simply create a text file that looks
like this:
http://www.example.com/catalog?item=1
http://www.example.com/catalog?item=11
... making sure that the file in question does not include embedded newline characters
and uses the UTF-8 text encoding (check your text editor settings). Also, your
sitemap may not contain more than 50,000 URLs and all URLs must me fully-formed
since they will be used directly during the Googlebot's crawl.
Read
the Rest of the Article
About the Author:
Trevor Bauknight is a web designer and writer with over 15 years of experience
on the Internet. He specializes in the creation and maintenance of business and
personal identity online and can be reached at trevor@tryid.com.
Stop by http://www.cafeid.com for a free tryout
of the revolutionary SiteBuildingSystem and check out our Flash-based website
and IMAP e-mail hosting solutions, complete with live support. |
