What is Ecommerce - an overview ?

In its simplest form ecommerce is the buying and selling of products and services by businesses or consumers over the World Wide Web.

Often referred to as simply ecommerce (or e-commerce) the phrase is used to describe business that is conducted over the Internet using any of the applications that rely on the Internet, such as e-mail, instant messaging, shopping carts, Web services, UDDI, FTP, and EDI, among others. Electronic commerce can be between two businesses transmitting funds, goods, services and/or data or between a business and a customer.

People use the term "ecommerce" or "online shopping" to describe the process of searching for and selecting products in online catalogues and then "checking out" using a credit card and encrypted payment processing. Internet sales are increasing rapidly as consumers take advantage of

lower prices offered by vendors operating with less margin than a bricks and mortar store

greater convenience of having a product delivered rather than the cost of time and transport and parking of going to a store

sourcing product more cheaply from overseas vendors

great variety and inventory offered by online stores

comparison engines that compare and recommend product

auction sites, where they did for goods

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Important SEO Tips For Your Website

Search Engine Optimization, SEO is a process that looks after improving any website ranking on the SERPs in order to get traffic naturally or organically. Google search engine has become smart and intelligent these days. It has started penalizing sites for using unfair means to increase their website ranking in the search engine.

SEO, on the other hand, uses simple process and helps such kind of people develop and expand their business genuinely in a proper way. We are here with the 5 best SEO tips that would surely improve your website ranking in the search engine.

Writing quality Content

Content forms the base of your website ranking. Whenever any searcher looks for any kind of information, he or she will type keywords in the search column and the search engine will display the results matching those keywords. Your content should not only be good but presented in a way that easily attracts the audience. SEO guide you in this direction.

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Free Google SEO Tools Everyone Should Use

Whether you are a beginner or any professional of any online business, you must have come across a need for Google SEO tools to keep running your website smoothly in order to get a higher ranking. If yes, we are here with the list of Top 10 tools that are free to use and definitely brings the desired results:

Google Search Console

If you only make use of one tool from this list, Google Search Console (formally known as Webmaster Tools) is the plum choice. Just as the logo demonstrates it’s intent with a spanner, using Search Console is akin to giving your site a regular service; use it to keep everything running smoothly, and spot bigger issues quickly.

Find out if your site has a manual penalty, identify crawling issues and broken links, see how many pages are indexed, download links, test your robots.txt file or structured data, and plenty more, all for free. It’s a peek into how Google regards elements of your site.

Oh, and while you’re at it, check out Bing Webmaster Tools; as Sam points out, there’s lots to be gained from this free tool as well!

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What is Alexa Traffic Rank and Its important in Websites Ranking

In simple terms, Alexa Traffic Rank is a rough measure of a website's popularity, compared with all of the other sites on the internet, taking into account both the number of visitors and the number of pages viewed on each visit.

Graph of Alexa Traffic Rank

Alexa collects traffic data on a daily basis from millions of users who have installed the Alexa Tool bar and other sources, and then uses a complex mathematical formula on three months' worth of data to arrive at the ranking for each site.

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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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