Some people may be scratching their heads asking, “what's SEO?” "SEO" stands for "Search Engine Optimization" and the term refers to building or altering your website so that search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Ask.com, et cetera) find them, know what's in them, and place them high in their listings for appropriate search terms.

Changing the IP Address for My Site will Negatively Impact My SE Ranking

No it won't.

We have fielded questions from people who worry that changing an IP address will damage their search engine ranking. Damaging your search engine ranking is obviously a serious concern; however changing an IP address simply will not impact search engine rankings. Period.

For all but the largest and busiest sites on the Internet, the only relevance an IP address has in relation to search engines is that IP addresses help them find your site. You will not be penalized because you change your IP address.

It would be silly of Google to do so. IP addresses related to websites change all the time behind the scenes. Hosting companies regularly switch which machines serve up pages, meaning the IP addresses associated with websites likely change each time that happens.

Moreover, there are many websites that are associated with not one, but many, IP addresses. For example, all customer websites on Islandnet are served up from eight IP addresses. If someone requests a web page, it could come from one IP address one time and another IP address another time.

The illustration to the left shows a simplified diagram of what happens when someone asks Google to spider their website. You can see that an IP address is necessary for Google to find the website but that is the only relevant thing the IP address is used for. The diagram also shows the process is almost exactly the same if you ask a person to go visit a website.

Having PHP Pages will Negatively Impact My SE Ranking (or Changing from Static Pages to “Dynamic” Pages will Negatively Impact SE Rankings)

Again, no it won't.

From the perspective of a site visitor or a search engine “spider,” visiting a PHP page is no different from having an HTML page. For a website visitor, they click on a link to load a PHP page, the web server processes the PHP, and HTML gets sent to the browser, which the browser then renders. For a search engine spider, it follows a link to a PHP page, the web server processes the PHP, and the HTML gets sent to the search engine spider. Moreover, it doesn't matter whether the PHP page contains no scripting or lots of complicated scripting. In either case, the resulting HTML gets sent to a site visitor's browser or a search engine spider.

The only circumstance where there may be problems is when links to other pages are generated dynamically and those links contain a number of variables and variable values. For example, where the following URL is generated on-the-fly it might mean a search engine spider can't follow the link:

http://example.com/?xirl124=4k3z4&mak4194=v4cJ48W5RA4W626pp1

The vast majority of websites aren't going to have such incomprehensible links and, therefore, won't cause any problems for search engine spiders.

If I Build a Website, It will get “Spidered” and Ranked

People just putting their business on the Internet sometimes get the idea that simply having a site will mean their site is listed on various search engines. They view search engines as a kind of Internet directory. While it's true that you no longer have to submit your site to get it listed, there's no guarantee search engines will find a site just because it's there.

Seeing as there are quite literally tens of billions of web pages (the number of computers connected to the Internet will soon reach a billion), finding all the new ones isn't a small task.

Getting your website looked at by search engines takes some effort, though it's not a huge task. You simply go to the search engines you want to look at your site and you submit the URL for your site. Don't worry too much about submitting to every search engine out there. The top few search engines account for somewhere between 80 and 95% of the searches being done.

The top search engines include the following ones (links provided are to their “submit” pages):

• Google
• Yahoo
• MSN
• AOL (powered by Google)
• Ask.com

Islandnet.com offers a site submission gadget at the following URL:

https://helpdesk.islandnet.com/submit.php

Please note that the Islandnet site submission gadget works only for those search engines that still allow automatic submissions. Submissions to other search engines will require “manual” submission.

At the time, it also made sense to separate dialup services from our hosting services. And, so, Islandhosting was born.

More than six years later, things have again dramatically changed. Hosting costs have dropped dramatically as they did back in 2000 - 2001 when Islandhosting was launched. However, there is no need to keep our hosting services separate from other services. Customers can purchase any one of our services from under the Islandnet umbrella.

Moreover, Islandnet can support practically any (open source) website scripting challenge our customers may have. Consequently, there is no need for an Islandhosting server and it has been (drum roll please) decommissioned.

For those of you with a tear in your eye, the Islandhosting server lives on. We've reconfigured it and it still serves customers but performing other services.

Also, as is the case with “highspeedplus.com”, “islandhosting.com” resolves to “islandnet.com”. Both the High Speed Plus and Islandhosing domain names will remain in place and point at Islandnet for the foreseeable future.

But we'd like everyone to change over to InMail when they can.

Also, everyone who has a MailIt gadget should know that we've made a minor change to it. You now need a ".mailit" file in the root directory of your account in order for the gadget to continue working.

We've added the file for everyone we could find who uses the gadget; however, there may be some people who have PHP-generated pages that contain the MailIt gadget. We probably did not catch such pages and, as a result, they may not function. You can add the file yourself (it's an empty file entitled ".mailit") or you can let us know and we'll do it for you.

If you have any questions about the MailIt or InMail gadgets, you can always e-mail support@islandnet.com.

Islandnet Picks

I Can Has Cheeseburger?	Neat Sites	Tech Do	Solar System Simulator
LOL Cats—it's an Internet phenomenon! Take photos of aw-inspiringly cute cats, then anthromorphise them (make them human-like) by adding child-like captions. We know, we know, it's enough already. These cutesy images have been around for a while and “ihascheeseburger.com” is another node of the omnipresent Internet cuteness. We can't resist though. We know you probably can't either, which is why we've posted this.	Remember the pre-Google, pre-Yahoo days when directories pointed you in all sorts of interesting directions. There was very little (compared to now) searching going on. You may not have much reason to use a directory these days. However, it's interesting when you do stumble across interesting sites, ones you maybe wouldn't have come across if you weren't just “surfin' the 'Net.” This is one of those sites that can provide that kind of experience. Just have a look and click on a few of the links to see where they lead. There are lots of well-known favourites here but probably lots of interesting sites you've not visited before.	Tech dos and don'ts: there are lots on this site. We found some of the tips and articles interesting, informative, and—often—useful. We hope you do too.	Just visiting NASA sites makes you feel smarter. So, we visit them often. It may not help with actual smartness but it feels good anyway. This NASA site lets you see what the many bodies in our solar system look like, right now, weeks from now, years from now, or years in the past. Of course, NASA doesn't have a camera on Mars aimed at Earth. However, they can simulate such a view. Moreover, they can simulate cameras installed on any one of the planets, moons, or even asteroids flying around the solar system and you can point them at any other body in the solar system. COOL!

Islandnet.com Hosted Sites

Authentic Indian Cooking	Roy Henry Vickers	First Choice Books	S.A.L.T.S. - Sail and Life Training Society
Mmm—food. Next to “FREE” food is one of our favourite words. If you like spicy foods, have we got a site for you. Authentic Indian Cooking is owned by Madhuri Anand, who teaches cooking at Malispina College on Vancouver Island. Visit the site to get her “Recipe of the Month” if you want some FREE stuff. Or, if you want an entire repertoire of authentic Indian recipes, buy Madhuri's book. Mmm—we're happy to say Madhuri has her website hosted with Islandnet.com.	If you've ever taken a stroll down Government Street in Victoria, you may have walked past the gallery by Roy Henry Vickers, a popular and respected native artist. We're happy to say Mr. Vicker's website is hosted by Islandnet.com and that you can visit an online version of the gallery. So, go and have a look now. Then, later when you're strolling down Government Street, walk into the gallery and have a look in person.	Almost everyone has it in them—the need to pour their heart out onto a page, the penchant to solve the world's problems in a book, the desire to elegantly explain the most complicated concepts to others. So, why not? Why not write that book and get it published? Why not publish it yourself? Publishing is much different than it used to be. Publishing on demand has become a booming business for good reason. It's so much more inexpensive than it ever was. We're happy to have First Choice Books host their website with us. Go on now, visit the site and see how little you need to spend to pour your heart out in a book.	Wow, we were very pleased to find that the world-famous SALTS program has their website hosted with us. SALTS is a program that teaches young people life skills they can use as they grow throughout their lives. The following is an excerpt from the SALTS website: “Each year approximately two thousand young people participate in an experience which combines all aspects of shipboard life, from helmsmanship to galley chores, with formal instruction in navigation, pilotage, seamanship and small boat handling. Training under sail provides the human spirit with a real chance to grow and mature. Each individual is given the opportunity to develop physically, mentally and spiritually in a community setting within the unique atmosphere of shipboard life.”

We Love Websites!

Websites are our business—hosting them and building them. If you need a website—blog, retail, business-to-business, personal, database-driven, or something else—Islandnet has plenty of website development and programming experience. Call or e-mail us if you'd like anything from graphics to nit-picky programming.

What it Means for Your Monthly Payment

Shaw Cable Systems has changed its billing policy. As a result, we will need to follow suit.

Payment for high speed services is now being applied in advance of the services supplied. In the past, payment has followed provision of the service. This will end at the next billing cycle.

As a result, customers will see a total of two months of payment on their next bill—one for the month completed as of the billing (payment for service completed) date and another for the month following the billing date (payment in advance for service). For example, if a customer normally pays $29.95 / month, the charge on the next bill will be $59.90, plus applicable taxes. This “two-months-in-one” payment is a one-time occurance to reflect the changed billing policy.

So, after this one time, monthly bills will return to their regular amount.

Pay All at Once or a Bit at a Time

Realizing the double payment may be a bit of a stretch for some, we will accommodate customers who ask by spreading the second payment over a period of time. So, instead of making the full payment all at once, customers can make the second payment over two or three months.

In the example above, we've assumed a monthly payment of $29.95. As outlined above, paying all-at-once will mean a payment of $59.90. However, if customers split the second payment in two, they can make two payments of $44.93. After making two $44.93 payments, the monthly payment will resume at $29.95.

If a customer pays over three months, there would be three payments of $39.93, after which the monthly payment of $29.95 will resume.

It should be noted that interest will accrue on the amount outstanding. As a result, the payment examples above would have a small interest charge applied to them.

Attention EFT & Automatic Debit Credit Card Customers

All customers who have arranged for Electronic Funds Transfers or for automatic debits from their credit cards will have the full amount deducted from their accounts or debited against their credit cards. If you do not want the full charge to go through in the next billing cycle, please contact us now. Otherwise the full charge amount will be processed.

To let us know you do not want the full amount to be charged all-at-once, e-mail us now.

Price Increase

Prices for high speed service have increased as follows:

The price increases exactly reflect increases in our costs.

As always, if you have any questions about your high speed or other services, you can e-mail us at “support@islandnet.com” or you can call us at 383-0096.

You probably won't be affected, though, unless you're a real night owl. The outage is planned for July 22 (Sunday) between 12:05 am and 6:00 am.

So, unless you're an insomniac inveterate Internet surfer, sleep tight.

This change has absolutely no impact on hosting customers. Unless, that is, they are trying to upload images using their high speed connection during the outage.

Look at the background image to this page. Whenever we need a cool image, it's off to one of those trusty stock photo CDs. That is, that's what usually happens.

This month we decided to use something “handmade”—something that someone we know had done. Rhonda, who is one of our friendly front office people, took the background photo of a CD with the light glancing off it just right.

Cool!

The remainder of the information available through WebStatz is relatively straightforward; however, if you have any questions you can get them answered in the Helpdesk Forums or by emailing “support@islandnet.com”.

Shoot your photos in RAW format

This isn't an Internet pro tip but it is a pro computer user tip nonetheless.

If you've been shooting digital photos for any length of time, you've probably seen a “RAW” setting on some cameras. Many consumer digital cameras don't offer the RAW format but a few do. Pretty much all digital SLR cameras offer a RAW setting.

Despite the negative connotations the word RAW may hold, RAW is a good thing. RAW is a format that preserves the maximum amount of information a camera can capture.

The most common format used in digital cameras is the 8-bit JPEG. Each red, blue, and green sensor on a digital camera's sensor captures 8 bits of information or 255 shades. When the red, blue, and green information is combined, the resulting image uses the product of those 255 shades to create colours. So, when you shoot a digital photo, images are stored using the JPEG image format using a colour depth of 16.7 million colours (255 x 255 x 255). That's plenty of information.

However, the 8-bit format doesn't cover all that many colour possibilities compared to 16-bit images, of which the RAW format is an example. 16-bit images allow each sensor to capture up to 65,536 possible values. That results in 281 trillion colour possibilities (65,536 x 65,536 x 65,536).

In and of itself, having more colours isn't all that interesting since the human eye can't tell there are 281 trillion colour possibilities in an image. All those extra colours are useful for when you edit your images.

Image editing causes data loss. So, each time you make an image brighter or lighter, more or less saturated, or change the hues to make up for artificial lighting less data comes out of the operation than goes in. By starting with an image that has more data to begin with, you ensure final image quality is higher when you're done.

Whenever there's a choice, all pros shoot their photos in RAW format.

The Downside

RAW images are *much* bigger than images shot in 8-bit mode. As a result, you'll use up your camera's memory chip much more quickly. Also, because they are larger, RAW images will take longer to load on your computer or transfer from your camera.

Legal Stuff

The information displayed in this newsletter and any previous or subsequent newsletters is for information purposes only. Islandnet.com, AMT Solutions Group, Inc. and related companies are not responsible for any losses or damages resulting from the use of information in the newsletter. While the information contained in this newsletter is believed accurate, readers must verify information for themselves. Sites we link to do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of AMT Solutions Group, Inc.