Singapore Web Hosting Blog

now listen, you will read the best, most powerful, most valuable SEO tip you can ever find anywhere in the world. it has been working for millions of web sites for years. and it will continue working forever, as long as web sites and search engines are still with us.

come closer, closer, it’s priceless.

do NOT try to fool search engines. do NOT even think of it.

take it seriously. it’s truly the best SEO technique you can have.

the reason that i have to share this point with my visitors right now is that, it might be too late when you realised how important it is.

for years, i’ve been following the “never fool search engines” rule, and will do the same in future. it’s not because i’m a good guy, although i really am :-). it’s because fooling search engines will get you into trouble, sooner or later.

there’re tons of web sites using blackhat SEO techniques or dirty tricks, many of them have been doing well in rankings. and that’s exactly why many new web marketers would want to try these blackhat tricks. hidden text, cloaking, doorway pages, keyword stuffing, etc.

but, do NOT do these blackhat SEO tricks just because some web sites escape from the radar. you will be better off using whitehat techniques, or no special SEO techniques at all.

search engines are tightening up their algos to identify and kick out spammy web sites. from what i can see in last few updates of both Goolgle and Yahoo in the past year, one thing in common of sites dropped in ranking, or completely booted out, is many of them use techniques in doubts.

some webmasters may not realize they’re using techniques that search engines do not like, some may not agree with me that the techniques they use can be a problem.

for example, looks like Google started booting out many directory web sites from 28 July. some are scrapping sites with no real content, some are good, human edited directories. think about it, what’s wrong with building a human reviewed and edited industry directory? nothing, if you do not consider search engines.

if you do want traffic from Google, you have to be very careful while building directories: manually built static pages or script generated page? what sites to be listed? require a linking back? paid listing or free for everyone? any other contents besides the listings? use ODP feeds? use re-direct script to count outgoing traffic? etc.

count all these factors, and most probably more factors, if your directory looks spammy to Google, your gone.

conclusion: keep away from any blackhat SEO techniques, keep away from even SEO techniques in grey area, whenever in doubt, do not use it.

best way is, do not think of SEO at all.

to set up a web site, you need to have both domain name and web hosting account.

now you need to link the domain name to the hosting account on a web server, or say it more technically, change/point domain DNS to correct nameservers.

as mentioned in this post, domain name is just ownership by itself, you need to host web pages on a server and link/connect domain name and hosting account together. this is where DNS comes in.

DNS stands for Domain Name Server. the value in DNS is where/how all ISPs look for server location that’s hosting this domain name. in other words, when a visitor hits “http:www.yourdomain.com”, how his ISP (his Internet service provider, such as Singtel, StarHub, tec.) knows where to get the correct web pages? the ISP checks what’s in domain DNS.

the nameservers look like this:

Primary Name Server:
NS3.SINGAPOREWEBHOSTING.COM

Secondary Name Server:
NS4.SINGAPOREWEBHOSTING.COM

each of the nameservers are pointing to a unique IP address, which in turn is connected with certain server, in the case above, our Platinum server. this nameserver-IP-webserver relationship has been in all ISP’s database once we set up the server, so as end user clients do not have to worry about this part.

when ISP sees our nameservers as DNS under yourdomain.com, visitors’s browser will be directed to correct place - our Platinum server, and get the right web pages.

now, where to change this DNS stuff? answer is, with domain registrar. note, not with the hosting provider.

when you buy the domain name, the registrar (the one whom you buy domain name from) should give you a control panel to manage the domain. login to that control panel, you may see many options typically, such as “change registrant contact”, “change technical contact”, etc. look for “manage DNS”, or “change DNS”, or “change nameservers”, or something similar, then enter our nameservers there. don’t forget to “save changes” if there’s such button.

different registrars have totally different domain management interface, so nothing more i can describe the control panel.

if the registrar does not provide domain control panel (very rare though), ask them how to change DNS. not us, we have no further idea.

if you buy domain name from us, things are easier, we would have set it up for you already.

(our hosting plan does not include domain registration by default.)

quite a lot of people, including some of our clients, are rather confused by the difference between a domain name and a hosting account (be it web hosting or email hosting account).

it’s understandable, although words such as domain name, web site, hosting, DNS… are everywhere to see nowadays, every business, every boy next door, seems have a web site. however, they are still very new. most people did not learn the proper definition of them in school. i for one did not know anything about domain name or web site when i was in university.

many times, i have been asked by client: why i still can’t access my web site now, 3 days after i ordered hosting plan from you? when i check, i find the client has yet registered the domain name. so i reply saying so and point them to difinition of domain name and hosting account. some times, some clients reply: so? i still cannot see my web site?

so let me explain a bit here, in layman’s words. forgive me if the explanation here sounds not so accurate to tech savvy people, this is not technical guide.

domain name is an address on the web. for example, “yahoo.com” , “singaporewebhosting.com” . when you add “http://www.” before the domain name, it becomes a URL that you may visit via browser - the web site, for example “http://www.singaporewebhosting.com“.

however, please note, domain name is just ownership, it does NOT do anything by itself. after you buy a domain name for, say, 5 years, you own it for 5 year, nobody can get the same domain name in this 5 years, unless you sell it.

you can buy domain name from any domain registrar, including us.

to have a web site at ” http://www.yourdomainname.com” you need to have a web hosting account as well. the web hosting account is a user’s account on a web server (just a computer that’s suitable to serve web pages with high speed Internet connection) where you store all web pages and emails.

hosting account itself does NOT do much by itself either without a domain name pointing to it. you can store web pages or files in the account, that’s about it, without domain name pointing to it, the hosting account is not accessable by visitors.

although domain name and hosting account are associated most of the time, but they ARE two different things. you may buy domain name and hosting account from different service poviders.

you can buy domain name only without hosting account, in this case, you will see “page not found” error or something similar when you go to “http:www.yourdomain.com”.

you can also buy a hosting account without registering domain name, in this case, the hosting account exists on a server, nobody can visit it though.

our hosting plans do not include domain name registration, unless you choose the “register the domain name for me” option, what you order from us is hosting account only. you have to own the domain already (this is very common) or register the domain seperately, from us or from any registrar.

now, next step is to link the domain with the hosting account, or say it more technically, change domain DNS to proper (our) nameservers.