Let's say that we have just finished setting up and outsourcing a campaign with a third party optimization company. They did their thing, emailed you what they did and claimed your website is now ranking higher for a set of keywords that are highly relevant and sufficiently enough searched for.

You have the data, you've double checked it and everything seems fine. Euphoria sets in and now you have that unreal feeling for a couple of days. Traffic has increased, revenue is better than ever and your website is simply doing great.

Then one day after a couple of weeks, you routinely login into your analytics account and find out that your traffic has dropped by ONLY 90%, as well as revenue. This is also an unreal feeling, but this time it's the unpleasant one. You know your project is probably crippled for life unless you radically change something.

Google is now sending you a fraction of traffic that it used to. And it's all because you've tried to game the system just like everyone else who's complaining about the big bad new algorithm update.

Well, "we" had it coming. No point of bashing our heads against the wall now. All of us who got hit real bad need to realize that if we expect Google to make our lives easier, we need to make Google even more richer and powerful by paying for every single visitor that it sends to us.

Search engine optimization, or better yet, Google optimization just got real. It's time for all of us small players to grow up and understand where we belong.

I would say that SEO is as reliable as it can be and none of us should concentrate on that alone. As a bonus traffic generation method, sure, but as the only one? Not a chance!

Hi guys

We were approached by a small business advisers website the other day and they asked us to share some of our original accountancy articles with them to publish on their site. This is content already on our website.

We are very happy for them to broadcast our accountancy articles across a wider reader base so said that would be ok. They said they were happy to put link backs to the original content.

However, despite the links back, I am concerned that we are going to be hit by a duplicate content penalty and by increasing their sites content and keywords this will actually take search engine traffic away from us. We only get about 200 readers per day but this is doubling every couple of months and I don't want to jeopardize that organic growth.

So I wanted to ask you guys:

1) If there is a way such as using canonical tags on the remote site so that nobody gets penalized?
2) What do the likes of Technorati and other blog lenses do?
3) Is this really a problem (post Panda and all)? And would the extra exposure typically be worth the google hit?

This must be a common thing - so what do you guys do?

Many thanks,

Alex

Recently while giving advice to someone who is thinking of starting a small web hosting company I suggested he lease or buy dedicated server, he said he was going for cloud hosting for its versatility etc etc he was also of the opinion that cloud hosting guarantee that the sites are always available. Well, unless I do not understand what cloud hosting is, my understanding is that it just a way of managing server resources, it something like the way you pay for your electricity, you may for what you use were as having a dedicated server is paying for fix hardware and bandwidth, whether you use the server or not you still have to pay for it.

Did I get the analogy write or wrong? if you use a cloud hosting platform for reselling web hosting services to small companies, I will like to hear from you.

Hi :)
In this article I will adress white balance, and colour temperature. Many people do not understand, or use white balance, so I want to introduce you to it, and explain why it is useful.

We adjust white balance to make the colours in the image as accurate as possible. Different lighting conditions have different colour temperatures (measured in kelvin) but our eyes adjust naturally, so wee dont notice. On the other hand, cameras need to be adjusted manually (there is an auto white balance (AWB) option, but this can be unreliable), so I will explain how different presets work.
Colour temperature is measured in degrees of blue and red. The more red, the ''warmer'' the scene, and the more blue, the ''cooler'' the scene.
Shade is cool and quite blue, so the ''shade'' preset adds red light to make the shade seem ''neutral'', the same applies to tungsten light, only vice versa. Tungsten i very warm, so the camera adds lots of blue light in this preset.




AWB (Auto White Balance) is the default, and may seem like the easy way out, but it not particularly accurate. Difficult lighting conitions can easily fool it, as can highly saturated colours, because it may ''see'' a colour cast, and try to remove it.
It is also not very good when photographing sunsets, because it ''sees'' a ''colour cast'', and neutralizes it, leaving a washed out, pale sky. This is why it is best to use shade or cloudy WB when photographing a sunset, because the camera adds red light, and enhances the sunset.

Below are the most common presets:

AWB:It needs no introduction: Its automatic!!

Shade: Adds red light. Good for sunsets, and shade.

Cloudy: Warm. Good for adding a warm tint to images, and cloudy conditions

Tungsten/Incandescent: Very cool. Ued to ''neutralize'' tungsten cnditions

Flourescent: Adds a hint of warmth to the cool flourescent lights.

There has been a lot of discussions abut penguin update (just like any google update) personally I don't think there is anything specially about it (unless you have not been using strictly white hat technique to promote your site. A list of some of the stuff Penguin frown upon are:



There are 8 “specific guidelines”. They are (verbatim):

1. Avoid hidden text or hidden links.

2. Don’t use cloaking or sneaky redirects.

3. Don’t send automated queries to Google.

4. Don’t load pages with irrelevant keywords.

5. Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.

6. Don’t create pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans, or other badware.

7. Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

8. If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.

You can read this brilliant informative blog about Google Penguin update here.

Hi :) Today I have written my review of the Sony SLT-A77VQ. I hope this is helpful and interesting, please comment below :) Thanks.

Introduction



After the (DSLR) A700 failed to take off, Sony decided to try something new. The A700's successor, the SLT- A77V uses SLT (Single LensTranslucent) mirror technology, giving faster continuous shooting and autofocus.

Specification wise, the A77 is certainly impressive. It features a 24.3 mega pixel APS-C HD Exmor CMOS 23.5 x 15.2mm (1.5x crop factor) sensor, 12 frames per second continuous shooting, 2.4 million dot electronic XGA OLED TruFinder viewfinder, 19 point AF system, 11 cross type points. It feautures the latest BIONZ processor, and it boasts brilliant image processing, to create high quality files.

It also has other impressive abilities, such as customizable seletion of the upper and lower limits for auto ISO, GPS, stereo sound with a external microphone socket, and (for video) wind noise reduction, and has a maximum shutter speed of 1/8000 of a second. Its shutter has been rated to 150,000 cycles, enough for all but the most demanding users.
Its LCD is articulating, and has hinge, tilt and swivel capabilities, as opposed to its younger brother's (SLT-A65) tilt and swivel. It has a top passive LCD panel, and its body is weather sealed. It has auto sensor cleaning and steady shot inside image stabilization, and an array of image effects and more.

Sounds great! But, for £1,149, is it worth the investment?



I shoot with the A77, so I have had a lot of time to come up close and personal with this camera, and here I will share my views.


Handling and Design


Upon handling the camera, the first thing you notice is that it feels solid, well built, yet fairly heavy, without being bulky. The camera is loaded with external buttons, including WB, ISO, Exposure Compensation, function, menu, playback, AEL , AF/MF , movie, display, fullscreen to name a few. There is also a joystick/multi-selector. The camera seems to have been designed with right-handed people in mind, because most of the buttons are on the right.

The first thing you will notice upon turning the camera on is that it has a relatively slow start-up. The icons are set up all along the right and left side, and can be accessed via the function button.

The camera has a rear dial, a front dial and a mode dial. The modes available by the mode dial are Program, Shutter priority, Aperture priority, Manual, Auto, Auto+, Sweep panorama, 3D Sweep panorama, 12fps, Movie, Memory Recall and SCN (Landscape, Sports Action, Portrait, Sunset, Macro, Handheld Twighlight, Night Portrait and Night View).

The SLT-A77V comes with a good quality kit lens (2.8/16-50mm DT SSM). It also features lens compensation, where the camera attempts to compensate for lens distortions (chromatic abberation, distortion and shading). This feature is fairly successful.

Performance

One of the biggest uncertainties is the EVF. While Sony boasts a good EVF, this remained to be seen. But, this EVF did not dissapoint, it has high quality, and, unlike many other EVF's, it does not feel tunnel like, and responds amazingly fast and is crystal clear.

The ISO range (100-16,000, extendable down to 50 and up to 25,600 (in multi-frame noise reduction, (JPEG only))) is good, but noise can be quite prominent at higher ISOs. ISO 1600 is fine in most shooting situations, but careful inspection on computer screen reveales some colour noise or grain. After an image is taken, the A77 applies noise reduction for the same amount of time as the exposure was long (JPEG only). If you expose for 59 seconds, you will get noise reduction for 59 seconds. This feature is useful, but can be turned off in the menu. It is only available for 1'+ exposures.

Going much higher is not advised, ISO 12,800 is riddled with noise, and ISO 16,000 is simply a last resort.

For general use, the a77's noise reduction at low ISO is good, but performance is not as spectacular at high ISOs as competitors such as the Nikon D7000.


The A77's autofocus is continuous, thanks to the fixed mirror, even during continous shots and video. The autofocus that the A77 adopts is phase-detection, which is faster, and more reliable than contrast-detection AF.

RAW quality is significantly better, as when shooting JPEG, you have little control over the noise reduction, and several other factors.


With a UHS-I memory card, the A77 can shoot extreme continous shots. The 12 frames per second is only used when full optimum lighting conditions are available, to avoid underexposure, but in optimum lighting, with a fast memory card, this camera can capture split second action in a chain of crisp images, but due to high resolution, the files are large, and so the buffer (temporary in-camera storage) can easily be overloaded after a burst of shots.


Sony promises a battery life of about 530 shots, and this is fairly accurate, it takes a vigorous day out shooting, and about 500 images to exhaust its battery life.


The video is HD (1920x1080p) (ACVHD), and unlike some other cameras, the video mode gives you control. You can film in program auto, where you can set the ISO, white balance, etc, or in shutter priority where you control the shutterspeed of each frame, and aperture priority, where you have depth of field control. Of course, there is also a manual mode! Video autofocus is silent, and fast, and does not dissapoint.



The still shooting modes also have the usual array of Sony-ishness, such as HDR (the combination of several images to create high dynamic range), and image effects such as toy camera, pop, posterization, rich B&W, Partial Color , High contrast Monochrome, Soft High-key , soft focus, minature and more.


Conclusion

So, we can conclude by saying that the SLT-A77VQ is a enthusiast/ semi-pro DSLT, and is successful in most shooting situations, but is not particularly suited to low light photography.
As we have seen, it has impressive features, a great viewfinder, but noise levels are quite high. Its tone and contrast is good though, it may even excel over that of the Canon EOS 7D and the Nikon D7000. As we have seen, the EVF is incredibly high quality, it is one of the best around, therefore I recommend trying it, rather than blacklisting it.

Hi :) ,

As a keen photographer, my main aim when joining this forum was to help other people improve their photography. I have a website of my own, where I will begin to sell images in 2013 at txstockphotos.com . You can also visit my blog here at txstockphotos.com/blog/. I have many tips there, all aimed at helping YOU get to grips with photography.


Today I would like to bring to your attention, tips on how to photograph in tricky lighting conditions, in this case addressing shooting against the sky. In this tutorial, I will assume that you need to photograph something in a tree, or a flying bird, or similar, against a bright sky.

While, for many, it is a tempting prospect to shoot in auto mode all this time, to crack shots in tricky lighting conditions, you need to venture away from this mode. Change to PROGRAM mode. This will allow you to make necessary adjustments, but the camera will sort out shutter speed, and aperture.



When you point a camera at a scene, it exposes for the brightest part, in this case the sky, meaning that the subject will be underexposed. To avoid this, we need to change the METERING MODE. Accessing this varies, and you may have to consult your cameras manual.
Your cameras default is likely to be evaluative, or matrix metering. This divides the scene into sections, and meters seperately for each one. You need to change the mode to spot metering, which only meters for the central 2-5%, and is therefore potentially the most accurate. You can then point your camera at the subject, ensuring the spot is over the subject. The first image was taken on default mode, and the lemur is a silhouette. The other picture shows a lemur taken with spot metering, with the sky over-exposed, and the lemur correctly exposed.



The sky will be overexposed, but your subject will be perfectly exposed to create that image that you are after.


Lookout for my next article, on HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT DIGITAL CAMERA, addressing all you need to know .

DNS means Domain Name System which allows computers to find other computers on the Internet , most organizations have at least two DNS servers, when Primary DNS server is having problems, you can use an alternate. DNS problems may stop you from being able to visit some Web sites which are actually online.

If the problem you are having may be related to your DNS cache, you need to flush it out. When your computer fails and says ("Unable to resolve" - DNS requests). By cleaning out your DNS cache, you can fix this problem.

Flush your DNS cache

To Flush DNS cache in Windows 7 and Vista

- Click the start button or Windows key and type in cmd (do not hit enter).
- On the results that come up, right click “cmd” and choose "Run as Administrator". The screen flashes will ask for permission, so accept it.
- In the command prompt, Type in the command "ipconfig /flushdns" (or right click and paste it to the command prompt) and hit return.
- You should see the confirmation as shown below:


Flush DNS cache in Windows XP

- Click Start button or Hit Windows+R to bring up the Run dialog box.
- Type cmd and press enter
- In the command prompt that comes up, C:WINDOWS>ipconfig /flushdns
Windows IP Configuration
Successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache.