Types of Internet Bots and How They Are Used

Internet bots are software applications that are used on the Internet for both legitimate and malicious purposes. Because of the increasing number of applications becoming available online, there are many different types of Internet bots that assist with running applications such as instant messenger and online gaming applications as well as analysis and gathering of data files.

Bots and Botnets are commonly associated with cybercriminals stealing data, identities, credit card numbers and worse. But bots can also serve good purposes. Separating good bots from bad can also make a big difference in how you protect your company’s website and ensure that that your site gets the Internet traffic it deserves.

The Most Good Bots are essentially crawlers sent out from the world’s biggest web sites to index content for their search engines and social media platforms. You WANT those bots to visit you. They bring you more business! Shutting them down as part of strategy to block bad bots is a losing strategy.

Googlebot – Googlebot is Google’s web crawling bot (sometimes also called a “spider”). Googlebot uses an algorithmic process: computer programs determine which sites to crawl, how often, and how many pages to fetch from each site. Googlebot’s crawl process begins with a list of webpage URLs, generated from previous crawl processes and augmented with Sitemap data provided by webmasters. As Googlebot visits each of these websites it detects links (SRC and HREF) on each page and adds them to its list of pages to crawl. New sites, changes to existing sites, and dead links are noted and used to update the Google index.

Baiduspider – Baiduspider is a robot of Baidu Chinese search engine. Baidu (Chinese: 百度; pinyin: Bǎidù) is the leading Chinese search engine for websites, audio files, and images.

MSN Bot/Bingbot – Retired October 2010 and rebranded as Bingbot, this is a web-crawling robot (type of Internet bot), deployed by Microsoft to supply Bing (search engine). It collects documents from the web to build a searchable index for the Bing (search engine).

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What is a sitemap and Why Use a Sitemap for website?

What is a sitemap?

 A sitemap is a file where you can list the web pages of your site to tell Google and other search engines about the organization of your site content. Search engine web crawlers like Googlebot read this file to more intelligently crawl your site.

Also, your sitemap can provide valuable metadata associated with the pages you list in that sitemap: Metadata is information about a webpage, such as when the page was last updated, how often the page is changed, and the importance of the page relative to other URLs in the site.

If your site’s pages are properly linked, our web crawlers can usually discover most of your site. Even so, a sitemap can improve the crawling of your site, particularly if your site meets one of the following criteria:

Your site is really large. As a result, it’s more likely Google web crawlers might overlook crawling some of your new or recently updated pages.

Your site has a large archive of content pages that are isolated or well not linked to each other. If you site pages do not naturally reference each other, you can list them in a sitemap to ensure that Google does not overlook some of your pages.

Your site is new and has few external links to it. Googlebot and other web crawlers crawl the web by following links from one page to another. As a result, Google might not discover your pages if no other sites link to them.

Your site uses rich media content, is shown in Google News, or uses other sitemaps-compatible annotations. Google can take additional information from sitemaps into account for search, where appropriate.

Why Use a Sitemap

Using sitemaps has many benefits, not only easier navigation and better visibility by search engines. Sitemaps offer the opportunity to inform search engines immediately about any changes on your site. Of course, you cannot expect that search engines will rush right away to index your changed pages but certainly the changes will be indexed faster, compared to when you don't have a sitemap.

Also, when you have a sitemap and submit it to the search engines, you rely less on external links that will bring search engines to your site. Sitemaps can even help with messy internal links - for instance if you by accident have broken internal links or orphaned pages that cannot be reached in other way (though there is no doubt that it is much better to fix your errors than rely on a sitemap).

If your site is new, or if you have a significant number of new (or recently updated pages), then using a sitemap can be vital to your success. Although you can still go without a sitemap, it is likely that soon sitemaps will become the standard way of submitting a site to search engines. Though it is certain that spiders will continue to index the Web and sitemaps will not make the standard crawling procedures obsolete, it is logical to say that the importance of sitemaps will continue to increase.

Sitemaps also help in classifying your site content, though search engines are by no means obliged to classify a page as belonging to a particular category or as matching a particular keyword only because you have told them so.

Having in mind that the sitemap programs of major search engines (and especially Google) are still in beta, using a sitemap might not generate huge advantages right away but as search engines improve their sitemap indexing algorithms, it is expected that more and more sites will be indexed fast via sitemaps.

Generating and Submitting the Sitemap

The steps you need to perform in order to have a sitemap for your site are simple. First, you need to generate it, then you upload it to your site, and finally you notify Google about it.

Depending on your technical skills, there are two ways to generate a sitemap - to download and install a sitemap generator or to use an online sitemap generation tool. The first is more difficult but you have more control over the output. You can download the Google sitemap generator from here. After you download the package, follow the installation and configuration instructions in it. This generator is a Python script, so your Web server must have Python 2.2 or later installed, in order to run it.

The second way to generate a sitemap is easier. There are many free online tools that can do the job for you. For instance, have a look at this collection of Third-party Sitemap tools. Although Google says explicitly that it has neither tested, nor verified them, this list will be useful because it includes links to online generators, downloadable sitemap generators, sitemap plugins for popular content-management systems, etc., so you will be able to find exactly what you need.

After you have created the sitemap, you need to upload it to your site (if it is not already there) and notify Google about its existence. Notifying Google includes adding the site to your Google Sitemaps account, so if you do not have an account with Google, it is high time to open one. Another detail that is useful to know in advance is that in order to add the sitemap to your account, you need to verify that you are the legitimate owner of the site.

Currently Yahoo! and MSN do not support sitemaps, or at least not in the XML format, used by Google. Yahoo!allows webmasters to submit “a text file with a list of URLs” (which can actually be a stripped-down version of a site map), while MSN does not offer even that but there are rumors that it is indexing sitemaps when they are available onsite. Most likely this situation will change in the near future and both Yahoo! and MSN will catch with Google because user-submitted site maps are just a too powerful SEO tool and cannot be ignored.

You can learn how to create indices and more about sitemaps at sitemaps.org.

After you’ve created your sitemaps (and potentially sitemap indices), you’ll need to register them with the various search engines. Both Google and Bing encourage webmasters to register sitemaps and RSS feeds through Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools.

Taking this step helps the search engines identify where your sitemap is — meaning that as soon as the sitemap is updated, the search engines can react faster to index the new content. Also, content curators or syndicators may be using your RSS feeds to automatically pull your content into their sites.

Registering your sitemap (or RSS feed) with Google and Bing gives the search engines a signal that your content has been created or updated before they find it on the other sites. It’s really a very simple process with both engines. 

To submit a sitemap to Google:

1. Ensure that the XML Sitemap is on your web server and accessible via its URL.
2. Log in to Google Webmaster Tools.
3. Under “Crawl,” choose “Sitemaps.”
4. Click on the red button in the upper right marked “Add/Test Sitemap.” Enter the URL of the sitemap and click “Submit Sitemap.”

To register a sitemap with Bing:

1. Ensure that the XML Sitemap is on your web server and accessible via its URL.
2. Log in to Bing Webmaster Tools.
3. Click on “Configure My Site” and “Sitemaps.”
4. Enter the full URL of the sitemap in the “Submit a Sitemap” text box.
5. Click “Submit.”

Another great reason to register sitemaps with Google specifically is to catch Sitemap errors. Google Webmaster Tools provides great information about the status of each Sitemap and any errors it finds:

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What’s A Domain Name and Web Hosting ?

What’s A Domain Name
When you register a domain, it gives you sole ownership and rights to the name of your site. No one else in the market has the access to the actual name of that particular domain besides you.
However, just because you have a domain does not mean that you are ready to serve your website to the world. To put up and operate a website, you will need a domain name, and a proper-configured web server (hosting).  (1) a domain name is like your house address; and, (2) a domain name can be registered only with a domain registrar.

For Example:
We like to use the "Car / Garage / DMV" analogy.
Your domain is like the license plate for your car. With it, you can be identified and located on the world wide web.
You can't get a license plate for your car until you register it, nor can you have a domain until you register it, either.

A domain registrar is like the DMV of the internet. You use a registrar to register your domain for a period of time - 1, 2, 5 or more years.
Once you have registered your domain, you need a place to park it - a "garage". A web host is where you do that.
Now that you have registered your domain, and have a place to host it, you need to set up your website - your "car" - for all the world to see.

Website - Car
Registrar - DMV
Domain Registration - Registration
Domain - License Plate
Web Host - Garage

What’s A Web Hosting
A web hosting normally refers to the web server (big computer) that stores lots of data files).

A web hosting providers normally rent out web servers and network connection to the end-users or the resellers. For most cases, the hosting providers will be the parties handling most server maintenance work (such as backup, root configuration, maintenance, disaster recoveries, etc); but for certain cases, the end users will need to get everything cover by themselves.

Types of hosting"

Smaller hosting services

The most basic is web page and small-scale file hosting, where files can be uploaded via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or a Web interface. The files are usually delivered to the Web "as is" or with minimal processing. Many Internet service providers (ISPs) offer this service free to subscribers. Individuals and organizations may also obtain Web page hosting from alternative service providers.

Free web hosting service is offered by different companies with limited services, sometimes supported by advertisements, and often limited when compared to paid hosting.

Single page hosting is generally sufficient for personal web pages. Personal web site hosting is typically free, advertisement-sponsored, or inexpensive. Business web site hosting often has a higher expense depending upon the size and type of the site.

Larger hosting services

Many large companies that are not Internet service providers need to be permanently connected to the web to send email, files, etc. to other sites. The company may use the computer as a website host to provide details of their goods and services and facilities for online orders.

A complex site calls for a more comprehensive package that provides database support and application development platforms (e.g. ASP.NET, ColdFusion, Java EE, Perl/Plack, PHP or Ruby on Rails). These facilities allow customers to write or install scripts for applications like forums and content management. Also, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is typically used for websites that wish to keep the data transmitted more secure.

• Shared web hosting service: one's website is placed on the same server as many other sites, ranging from a few sites to hundreds of websites. Typically, all domains may share a common pool of server resources, such as RAM and the CPU. The features available with this type of service can be quite basic and not flexible in terms of software and updates. Resellers often sell shared web hosting and web companies often have reseller accounts to provide hosting for clients.
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• Reseller web hosting: allows clients to become web hosts themselves. Resellers could function, for individual domains, under any combination of these listed types of hosting, depending on who they are affiliated with as a reseller. Resellers' accounts may vary tremendously in size: they may have their own virtual dedicated server to a colocated server. Many resellers provide a nearly identical service to their provider's shared hosting plan and provide the technical support themselves.
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• Virtual Dedicated Server: also known as a Virtual Private Server (VPS), divides server resources into virtual servers, where resources can be allocated in a way that does not directly reflect the underlying hardware. VPS will often be allocated resources based on a one server to many VPSs relationship, however virtualisation may be done for a number of reasons, including the ability to move a VPS container between servers. The users may have root access to their own virtual space. Customers are sometimes responsible for patching and maintaining the server (unmanaged server) or the VPS provider may provide server admin tasks for the customer (managed server).
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• Dedicated hosting service: the user gets his or her own Web server and gains full control over it (user has root access for Linux/administrator access for Windows); however, the user typically does not own the server. One type of dedicated hosting is self-managed or unmanaged. This is usually the least expensive for dedicated plans. The user has full administrative access to the server, which means the client is responsible for the security and maintenance of his own dedicated server.
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• Managed hosting service: the user gets his or her own Web server but is not allowed full control over it (user is denied root access for Linux/administrator access for Windows); however, they are allowed to manage their data via FTP or other remote management tools. The user is disallowed full control so that the provider can guarantee quality of service by not allowing the user to modify the server or potentially create configuration problems. The user typically does not own the server. The server is leased to the client.
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• Colocation web hosting service: similar to the dedicated web hosting service, but the user owns the colo server; the hosting company provides physical space that the server takes up and takes care of the server. This is the most powerful and expensive type of web hosting service. In most cases, the colocation provider may provide little to no support directly for their client's machine, providing only the electrical, Internet access, and storage facilities for the server. 
• In most cases for colo, the client would have his own administrator visit the data center on site to do any hardware upgrades or changes. Formerly, many colocation providers would accept any system configuration for hosting, even ones housed in desktop-style minitower cases, but most hosts now require rack mount enclosures and standard system configurations.
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• Cloud hosting: is a new type of hosting platform that allows customers powerful, scalable and reliable hosting based on clustered load-balanced servers and utility billing. A cloud hosted website may be more reliable than alternatives since other computers in the cloud can compensate when a single piece of hardware goes down. Also, local power disruptions or even natural disasters are less problematic for cloud hosted sites, as cloud hosting is decentralized. 
• Cloud hosting also allows providers to charge users only for resources consumed by the user, rather than a flat fee for the amount the user expects they will use, or a fixed cost upfront hardware investment. Alternatively, the lack of centralization may give users less control on where their data is located which could be a problem for users with data security or privacy concerns.
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• Clustered hosting: having multiple servers hosting the same content for better resource utilization. Clustered servers are a perfect solution for high-availability dedicated hosting, or creating a scalable web hosting solution. A cluster may separate web serving from database hosting capability. (Usually web hosts use clustered hosting for their shared hosting plans, as there are multiple benefits to the mass managing of clients).
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• Grid hosting: this form of distributed hosting is when a server cluster acts like a grid and is composed of multiple nodes.
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• Home server: usually a single machine placed in a private residence can be used to host one or more web sites from a usually consumer-grade broadband connection. These can be purpose-built machines or more commonly old PCs. Some ISPs actively attempt to block home servers by disallowing incoming requests to TCP port 80 of the user's connection and by refusing to provide static IP addresses. 
• A common way to attain a reliable DNS host name is by creating an account with a dynamic DNS service. A dynamic DNS service will automatically change the IP address that a URL points to when the IP address changes.^[2]

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What is Spyware and Methods of Prevention.?

What is Spyware?

Strictly speaking, the term “spyware” could be used to describe all of the tools and technology with which espionage is conducted – including the poison-tipped umbrella. But in the context of digital/information technology, spyware is any software that obtains information about a person or organization – usually without their knowledge or consent.

At the more legitimate end of the spectrum, this definition would include cookies deposited in your web browser cache when you visit a website, or software used to gather data on you and your habits for marketing and targeting advertising purposes – so long as these operate without your knowing about them.

Spybots or tracking software are terms often used to describe the class of spyware which is installed without a user’s consent – typically through deception (an infected website, pop-up window, or other malware trap) or camouflage (with a spyware program bundled as part of an otherwise legitimate download). Once installed, these programs gather information on the infected target and transmit it to third parties, who may use it for any number of purposes.

A Brief History of Spyware

Back in October 1995, the term “spyware” first appeared in a public forum called Usenet – which was a distributed internet discussion where users could post messages in an email-like format. It featured in an article analyzing the business model then adopted by Microsoft, in a largely conceptual context.

Spyware made its first significant public impact in 1999, when the popular freeware game Elf Bowling was discovered to be laced with tracking software. Also in that year, Steve Gibson of Gibson Research uncovered a form of spyware which, under the pretext of advertising, was actually pilfering confidential information – the first significant intrusion of adware. In response, Gibson went on to develop OptOut, the first anti-spyware program.

A press release for a personal firewall package which appeared in the year 2000 contained specific reference to spyware, and marked its official entry in the modern language of computing.

The Current State of Spyware

As with other forms of malicious application, spyware has enjoyed a rapid evolution since its humble beginnings. In no small part, this may be attributed to the proliferation of websites, portals, file-sharing resources and torrents that enable users to exchange files and bypass officially sanctioned software distributors and app stores to download free software, or cracked and pirated versions of commercial packages.

Authors of spyware have been known to pay the developers of shareware (limited or zero functionality after a certain period, unless you choose to buy) to bundle their tracking software with legitimate packages. They may also re-engineer freeware applications to include their own spyware code.

Beyond the booby-trapped email attachment or infected pop-up window, internet spies may lure unfortunate victims to tainted websites, where spyware is undetectably and automatically downloaded onto a visitor’s machine – the so-called “drive-by download”. This points to the principal weapon that cyber-criminals use in getting their targets to install spyware: stealth.

Spyware works best when the target is unaware of its presence or activities. So today’s spyware practitioners take great pains to ensure that victims have no idea that the software package they’re installing comes bundled with spybots, or that the website they’ve just visited left them with more than what they’ve just seen.

Once established on a host system, spyware may then go on to observe a user’s activities and provide a steady stream of information to its controllers. This could include personal data, contact lists, financial information, account and user credentials, intellectual property, or operational data crucial to businesses. In some cases, the tracking software may also make changes to a system or network to make its own work easier, or as a form of sabotage.

Types of Spyware

There are several forms of tracking software in current circulation, including:

• Adware: The paid advertising which appears on program windows and makes such software notionally free may also mask underlying code which observes a user’s system or activities and relays information to third parties for semi-legitimate marketing or more nefarious purposes. Pornware and riskware may also be used as avenues for tracking software installations.
• Cell Phone or Mobile Spyware: A range of applications, including device-resident software installed by manufacturers to track a user’s position, internet use and activity for targeted advertising and other purposes, and spyware installed manually (by a user, or a malicious outsider gaining access to their phone) or from an infected file download or website.
• Cookies: For the most part, tracer cookies are placed for legitimate purposes – and websites specifically display their cookie and consent policies to the user in their browser window. But they may also be placed surreptitiously, and employed to track users without their knowledge.
• System Monitors: Installed secretly, or slipped in as hidden features of otherwise legitimate-looking security software, spyware system monitors may capture keyboard activity (keyloggers), track and record emails, observe browsing and websites visited, etc.
• Trojans: Seemingly innocent or legitimate software installations and document files that contain spyware in various forms.

Effects of Spyware

The pilfering of confidential personal or corporate data and intellectual property can lead to identity theft, fraud, financial losses, and damage to individual or organizational reputations once the breaches come to light. That’s why spyware is a lucrative option for cyber-criminals, who can sell information on to third parties, or hold people and organizations to ransom over the return of their data or the threat of exposure.

Spyware can also cause real damage to infected systems. There’s often a performance dip associated with a spyware installation, which may manifest as a device or system running slowly, crashes and freezing, increased stress on the processor, higher operating temperatures, battery drains, and so on.

The tracking software may also make changes to system configurations, change port and browser settings, spoof or redirect homepage settings, alter a user’s search engine results, or cause a user’s web browsers to automatically visit infected or fraudulent sites.

Methods of Prevention

New software should be downloaded from approved app stores and manufacturer websites, whenever possible. File-sharing (unless within a secure network environment) and torrent downloads are generally not a good idea. Neither is haphazard clicking on unsolicited email attachments or pop-up windows and advertising.

Security and anti-virus software is always a recommended option – as long as it originates from a reputable manufacturer, and has dedicated anti-spyware facilities. Look for anti-spam filters, cloud-based detection, and virtual encrypted keyboard tools for entering financial information and transactions. Some internet security solutions also offer spyware removal capabilities, in the event of an existing infection.

Device security should also be maintained. So keep a close eye and hand on cell phones and tablets, use password protection and lock screens, and secure all hardware against physical theft or tampering.

Origian from: https://blog.finjan.com/the-past-and-present-state-of-spyware/

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What is Affiliate Marketing?

A common way to make money online is through affiliate marketing.Affiliate marketing is internet advertising that allows any online business to affiliate themselves with web site owners (known as affiliates or publishers) using affiliate programs. Affiliates make money by generating sales, leads and traffic for the Merchants business. Merchants who sell goods and services online or seek other affiliate business activity typically use one of the affiliate program commission payment models below:

Cost Per Sale (CPA) 

A visitor referred by the Affiliate purchases goods and services from the Merchant. This payment structure is referred to as - cost per sale or cost per acquisition (CPA). 

Cost Per Lead (CPL) 

A visitor referred by the Affiliate completes a form on the Merchants web site. This payment structure is referred to as - cost per lead (CPL). 

Cost Per Click (CPC)

A visitor to the Affiliates web site clicks on a Merchant's banner and visits the Merchant's web site. This payment structure is referred to as - cost per click (CPC).

Merchants - Affiliate marketing is a excellent way to build your own large online sales team and drive customers to your affiliate business web site on a 'pay for performance' basis. As a Merchant you can build your own pay per sale, pay per lead or pay per click Affiliate program and use graphic, text and custom HTML/Flash advertisements to promote and drive customers to your web site. Affiliates will join your program and display your advertisements on their web sites, sending customers and traffic back to your site. All the Affiliate programs you build are free and provide you with comprehensive online management and sale reporting tools, so that you can track your sales, impressions and the customer traffic reaching your web site. 

You have full control over your Affiliate program, what country your traffic comes from and which Affiliates promote your program. You also have complete control over the rate paid for each sale(cpa), lead(cpl), click(cpc) or the display of one thousand of your banners(cpm). You may also choose to use our additional promotional service ensuring that your program reaches a very wide and large US, European, Asian or Australian based customer audience. 

Affiliates - Affiliate marketing allows you to earn high income from your web site while providing related services to your visitors.You can start earning money today with your web site by joining one of the thousands of Affiliate programs located on this site. Many online businesses offer Affiliate programs as a way of generating sales and traffic for their online businesses. These companies will pay you high commissions based on the traffic they receive from advertisements you place on your site. You can choose from pay-per-sale, pay-per-lead, pay-per-click or pay-per-display Affiliate programs. 

All the listed programs are free to join and provide you with online statistics so that you can track your commissions. Once you have joined an Affiliate program, you will be paid according to the programs pay type. (i.e.) a pay-per-sale program pays you each time a sale is made by a customer sent from your web site; a pay-per-lead programs pays you each time you forward a lead to the Merchant; a pay-per-click program pays each time an advertisement is clicked and pay-per-display of 1000 of a merchants banners(cpm).

Following are some of the common terms associated with affiliate marketing:

Affiliates: Publishers like you and me who are using affiliate program links to promote and make sales.

Affiliate marketplace: There are many marketplaces like Shareasale, CJ and Clickbank, which work as central databases for affiliate programs in different niches.

Affiliate software: Software used by companies to create an affiliate program for their product, for example: iDevaffiliate.

Affiliate link: Special tracking link offered by your affiliate program to track the progress of your affiliate promotion.

Affiliate ID: Similar to the affiliate link, but many affiliate programs offer a unique ID which you can add to any page of the product site.

Payment mode: Different affiliate programs offer different methods of payment. For example: check, wire transfer, Paypal and many more.

Affiliate Manager/OPM: Many companies have dedicated affiliate managers to help publishers to earn more by giving them optimization tips.

Commission percentage/amount: The amount or percentage you will be receiving in affiliate income from every sale.

2-tier affiliate marketing: This is a great way of making money from an affiliate program. With this method you recommend that others join affiliate programs, and you receive a commission when a sub-affiliate makes a sale, (similar to MLM or multi-level marketing.) This income is popularly known as sub-affiliate commission.

Landing pages: A unique product sales or demo page used for the purpose of increasing sales. Most of the programs that you will be promoting have many landing pages, and you can run A/B testing to see which pages convert best for you.

Custom affiliate income/ account: Unlike a generic affiliate account, many companies offer custom affiliate income to people making the most affiliate sales for them.

Link clocking: Most of the affiliate tracking links are ugly. Using a link clocking technique like URL shorteners, Thirsty Affiliates, etc., you can turn ugly links into links that can be read and understood by your readers.

Custom coupons: Many programs allow affiliates to create custom coupons which are also used to track sales. Custom discount coupons help you to increase affiliate sales as well.

Who can be an affiliate?

Any person or company who owns a website from which they can send traffic via links (banners or text links) to the advertiser’s website could be an affiliate. In addition to the above, an affiliate can also be anyone who sends users to the advertiser’s website via Pay per Click (PPC) campaigns the affiliate has created, on Google, Facebook and other search engines. The rise in popularity of social media websites like Facebook and Twitter has created another type of affiliate, who sends traffic to advertisers via their social media profiles and pages.

Affiliates send traffic to advertisers in order to receive a pre-agreed sum of money or level of commission, if the users they have sent perform the agreed action (usually a sale). The simplicity of the affiliate model means that anyone can become an affiliate, from a price comparison website, to a content site, a forum or even a blog.

Who can be an advertiser?

Any company owning a website where users can perform some sort of transaction could be an advertiser. Most of the times, this transaction refers to an order/sale, in which case the advertiser has an e-commerce website (e-shop), but it can also refer to other actions like the completion of an order form, sign up to the newsletter, catalogue request etc.

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What is Bitcoin and How does Bitcoin work?

Bitcoin is a form of digital currency, created and held electronically. No one controls it. Bitcoins aren’t printed, like dollars or euros – they’re produced by people, and increasingly businesses, running computers all around the world, using software that solves mathematical problems.

Bitcoin is a type of digital asset, most commonly defined as a virtual, digital or crypto- currency.

Bitcoin was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto, who published the payment system in a whitepaper in 2008. Released as open-source software in 2009, the bitcoin system is peer-to-peer which means that transactions take place without the need for a third-party. These transactions or payments are then recorded in a public distributed ledger called the blockchain, which uses bitcoin as its unit of account.

The blockchain is the backbone of bitcoin, serving as a financial ledger without any trusted central authority - this means that it is decentralized and no single person or institution owns the currency.With every new transaction, recordings are added as 'blocks', which each block added in a linear, chronological order. Described in simple traditional banking terms - the blockchain is the full history of banking transactions, while the blocks are like individual bank statements. Bitcoins do not physically exist, instead there are only these records of transactions and balances.

The unit of currency in the bitcoin system is, simply, bitcoin. There are three symbols used to express bitcoin - BTC, XBT and ?. Bitcoins can be split down into alternative units such as millibitcoin (mBTC), microbitcoin (µBTC) and satoshi. Satoshi, named in honour of the bitcoin founder, is one hundred millionth of a bitcoin - the smallest amount possible.

You can acquire bitcoins as payment for a service or goods or through purchase at bitcoin exchanges.

Bitcoins, however, can be created by anyone - all you have to do is help process payments into the distributed ledger. By offering your own compute power to verify and record payments, bitcoins are created as a reward or payment for your services. This activity is widely known as bitcoin mining.

Bitcoin is an anonymous digital currency.Bitcoin is not real money. It's an online "currency"—virtual tokens that can be exchanged for goods and services at places that accept it, the same way you'd give someone a dollar for a cookie. But unlike a dollar, a Bitcoin has no serial number or any possible mechanism that could be used to trace it back to a buyer or seller. This makes it attractive to drug dealers and/or privacy advocates.

itcoin is a digital currency (also called crypto-currency) that is not backed by any country's central bank or government. Bitcoins can be traded for goods or services with vendors who accept Bitcoins as payment.

Bitcoin-to-Bitcoin transactions are made by digitally exchanging anonymous, heavily encrypted hash codes across a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. The P2P network monitors and verifies the transfer of Bitcoins 

The basics for a new user
As a new user, you can get started with Bitcoin without understanding the technical details. Once you have installed a Bitcoin wallet on your computer or mobile phone, it will generate your first Bitcoin address and you can create more whenever you need one. You can disclose your addresses to your friends so that they can pay you or vice versa. In fact, this is pretty similar to how email works, except that Bitcoin addresses should only be used once.

Balances - block chain

The block chain is a shared public ledger on which the entire Bitcoin network relies. All confirmed transactions are included in the block chain. This way, Bitcoin wallets can calculate their spendable balance and new transactions can be verified to be spending bitcoins that are actually owned by the spender. The integrity and the chronological order of the block chain are enforced with cryptography.

Transactions - private keys

A transaction is a transfer of value between Bitcoin wallets that gets included in the block chain. Bitcoin wallets keep a secret piece of data called a private key or seed, which is used to sign transactions, providing a mathematical proof that they have come from the owner of the wallet. The signature also prevents the transaction from being altered by anybody once it has been issued. All transactions are broadcast between users and usually begin to be confirmed by the network in the following 10 minutes, through a process called mining.

Processing - mining

Mining is a distributed consensus system that is used to confirm waiting transactions by including them in the block chain. It enforces a chronological order in the block chain, protects the neutrality of the network, and allows different computers to agree on the state of the system. To be confirmed, transactions must be packed in a block that fits very strict cryptographic rules that will be verified by the network. These rules prevent previous blocks from being modified because doing so would invalidate all following blocks. Mining also creates the equivalent of a competitive lottery that prevents any individual from easily adding new blocks consecutively in the block chain. This way, no individuals can control what is included in the block chain or replace parts of the block chain to roll back their own spends.

Going down the rabbit hole

This is only a very short and concise summary of the system. If you want to get into the details, you can read the original paper that describes the system's design, read the developer documentation, and explore the Bitcoin wiki.

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Sites To Watch Movies Online.

There are plenty of websites that offer free movies, but they also cause you a lot of problems. In particular, if you are watching a video on a "peer to peer" web site, your Internet provider could cut off your service. In order to avoid these kinds of the hurdles, you can simply log on to a free movie web site and watch them there without the legal hassle. It can be frustrating trying to find the best website to watch free movies on. That's why there is collection of top  websites where you can watch free movies on-line without downloading which is given below.
VumooVumoo is by the far the most cleaned and wonderful “Watch Movies Online site” some even call it the poor keeps an eye on Netflix and its anything but difficult to see why from the minute you look at it. With a scope of more than 60,000 films which is always developing daily, it packs a wide mixed bag for such another site. It’s great looks are not all that situated it separated from the swarm, with gimmicks like (incremental pursuit) which permits film separating the minute you begin writing in the inquiry field & (vast parchment) which permits you to unendingly span, with more motion pictures continually stacking. 
JustMoviezJustMoviez is a gateway where you can stream most recent and popular TV shows and Watch Movies Online free of charge without downloading and with no enrollment. Even The website gives itemized portrayal about every latest release and provides you the high qualified area where you can watch the films/ movies online free of charge.Watch Movies Online With JustMoviez Now
Wolow TubeWolow Tube is one of fresher website on the web to watch movies online. It is a search engine for movies, have gathering of all the more then 15000+ titles and every one of them are in great quality. Design is straightforward and fundamental however in the meantime pleasant and utilitarian. It is new sort of site and we profoundly prescribe to attempt it. Advertisements for the present are not issue in light of the fact that there are none.Watch Movies Online With Wolow Tube Free

Streaming-MoviesStreaming-Movies is the most agreeable spot to watch movies online with streaming. It’s expanding its film database quick, including 50 motion pictures daily. You can search films by classifications or by year of creation. The site is good with any gadget that backings Flash Player. You needn’t bother with any enlistment, all films begin with a single click.Watch Movies Online With Streaming-Movies Here

IMDBInternet Movie DataBase (IMDB) is another world’s most famous platform to watch movies online without even downloading on your gadget. It has more than 2 millions of videos which includes – songs, trailers, wiki, plot, star cast and much more. With the paid account you can also watch latest movies online.Watch Movies Online With IMDB

OnlineMovieWatchsOnline Movie Watchs is another great website to watch movies online. It includes categories like – Hollywood, Bollywood, Dubbed, Pollywood, etc. There are few pop up ads on the site but those are not so much irritating. Also the player buffering speed in fast and you don’t have to wait for a long time. Give it a try Watch Movies Online With OnlineMovieWatchs

IGLO MoviesThis site is awesome to Watch Movies Online and doesn’t have any ads put on any of its pages giving the client a fantastic scanning background. The library is not as expansive as a portion of the other film sites however certainly merits a visit and has tremendous potential for the years to come.

MerDBIf you like he sites like Primewire and Solarmovie, then this is one of the destinations you ought to attempt. They don’t embed movies specifically on the site, rather than that there are several gushing connections every movie to 3rd-party facilitating site where you can watch movies online. These sorts of gushing destinations are useful for more reasons: They have streams with diverse feature quality, satisfactory streams for all web speeds and for all stages and there are constantly a few streams actually for a few movies that are not famous. They have additionally pop up advertisements yet in the event that you like you can make account and incapacitate them. They likewise have gathering where you can examine about spilling, movies, or on the off chance that you have any sort of issue with the site.

WatchOnline-MoviesIt is so far the best site to watch movies online for nothing. The site is so natural to utilize, that a 7 years of age could see how to watch a movie. On WatchOnline-movies.com you can undoubtedly select the sort of movies you wanna watch by selecting one of 15 movies classification. WatchOnline-Movies is always becoming daily to give the best scope of movies and television programs on the web. They have more than 6600 movies and broadcast events and it continues developing. Likewise to watch a movie or a television program and their site you don’t have to be enlist or to include your credit data. S o we very prescribe you to try it out on the off chance that you don’t wanna seek where to watch your movies without fail.Watch Movies Online With WatchOnline-Movies Now

Yify.tvYifi is fascinating streaming site – it is not one of the greatest “watch movies online” destinations, however is constantly great to have in your short rundown. Movie quality is their strongest side, they are not the best in this class yet one of better site, measure of titles is likewise on sufficient level, regularly is overhauled yet it isn’t best place in the event that you are scanning for some little or less business film. Configuration of the site is darker, fascinating and remarkable, site is likewise extremely easy to utilize and practical. Exactly when you seek movies click on spreads, there are likewise some fake play catches (stream in hd, play in hd, moment play, download) attempt to overlook them and you will have more laborer time on this site.Watch Movies Online With YIFY.tv Free

VKFLIXVKFLIX is additionally best site to watch Movies online in High Quality – for nothing!From first ventures on this movie site you have for your mien a tremendous database with just about 80% of movies in HD quality and,of course, an interface (extremely basic for working) that helps you to search movies effectively.Watch Movies Online With VKFLIX Now

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