Month: April 2010

Charts and More Data Available: WebMaster Tool

If you havn’t logged into your webmaster tool account recently, then you do it now: there are some very useful features added to it recently.

Log into your webmaster tool account and click on the “Top search queries” link.

webmasters-tool-charts

New Features:
1. Addition of Charts to visualize your Top search queries, click throughs, impressions etc. You can filter the results by date, location and the medium used to access your website.
2. You can now see the keywords to which your pages ranked and also the position of your website in the search result pages.
3. You can see and analyze more data: Now webmasters tool shows more than 100 keywords, to which your website ranked in the search result page.
4. In the “labs”, Sidewiki has been added. It is a service offered by Google that lets users contribute helpful entries about the current webpage.
5. Now you can also configure Google Services at your hosting panel.

Using all these useful data you can clearly analyze what topics you are ranking high and what you need to do to retain the position. One of the trick is to write more of what people want and to which you are already ranking high in the search engine. This way, you can increase your organic traffic.

The Pros and Cons of a Cloud Anti-Spam Service

This is a guest post by Jesmond Darmanin. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

In an era where even the most routine technology purchases are coming under heavy scrutiny, it’s no surprise that cost saving services like cloud computing are dominating the headlines.

The lure of the cloud is two-fold: software acquisition and system administration cost reduction. While some organizations are still hesitant to store sensitive data on the cloud, one area in which many have taken the plunge, is email services.

You have the option of outsourcing the entire service, or using the cloud for specific product type applications like inbound anti-virus and anti-spam filtering.

Recent estimates suggest that spam accounts for over 90% of all email. And the trend doesn’t seem to be reversing. Managing the required scanning, remediation and updating are resource intensive activities, often warranting dedicated servers and staff.

Transferring this activity to the cloud, frees enterprises to focus more on tasks that are critical to their business. But as with all solutions, there are advantages and disadvantages to this approach.


cloud-computing

Pros

Cost Savings – Having your hosting provider do anti-spam service means one less piece of software that you’ll need to purchase, support and administer.
Network Traffic – Imagine a network free of millions of pieces of unwanted email. Increased bandwidth means your internal systems can more quickly respond to customer requests.
Increased Security – Off-site spam and virus filtering reduces the chance of virus tainted email reaching and infecting enterprise networks. The result? Minimized potential for data loss and downtime.

Cons

Performance – Some users might note a performance degradation when using cloud based solutions due to any internet connection slowdowns. This is a minor annoyance for some, but could be an issue.
Software Conflicts – As the anti-spam solution will just solve one area of your network security concerns, most companies will still need to run other software like firewalls that may conflict with the cloud service.

Conclusion

Even considering the challenges, for many organizations, outsourcing email anti-spam services warrants further investigation. However, enterprise level change should of course be undertaken with caution. Solid research, testing and trials go a long way toward ensuring a successful implementation.

There are hosted email security solutions like GFI MAX MailProtection that gives you a free 30-day trial so you can try the product completely risk free. Setting up is a breeze and with very low running costs. Click here for your free trial.