Singapore Web Hosting Blog

recently we received two spam complaints against our client’s domain.

we suspended the accounts immediately and informed the clients. further, the accounts were removed completely three days later, without refund.

please take note, we have ZERO tolerance to spamming. no discussion, no second chance. one spam complaint with proof, spammer’s account is gone. no refund. and we reserve the rights to claim from spammer the cost/damage that might be caused to us and our other clients. we take it seriously.

so what’s spamming? email that is not requested and of commercial nature.

a few points i would like to address regarding spam, spammer, spamming.

some may think one time mailing is not spamming. yes, it is spamming as long as the recipient did not request it.

some may argue, according to singapore law, it’s ok to send emails to people as long as you give them unsubscribe option. i’m not lawer, no comment on it. maybe it’s legal to send mass mailing this way in singapore, BUT it does not mean you can do it on any serious hosting providers’ server. we do not allow it, unless the recipient requested to receive email from you.

some may buy email addresses from somewhere and say, hi it’s not our fault. maybe it’s not your fault, but it’s still your responsibility. you have to make sure people on the list actually requested to receive emails from you. the fact is, most of the email address list that someone can sell to you are not opt-in subscribers. chances are, the seller harvest the email addresses from web sites, forums, etc. if you use their list, sure it’s very standard spamming.

script that’s written with no security in mind might be exploited and used to send out spams by script kiddies, spammers, hackers, whoever. both scripts you code yourself or you download from somewhere may have serious security holes. it is your (i mean, the account owner) resposibility to secure your srcripts and applications.

the only way that we can unsuspend such account is that you can prove that the recipients subscribed to your mailing list themselves. you have to provide where is your subscription form, date of subscription, IP address logged, subscriber’s name.

we are very strict on this issue, for good reason. in fact, all hosting providers are. if we do not take action fast and seriously, our IPs and servers might be blacklisted by ISPs and spamcop.

google PR, or PageRank, updated a few hours ago.

for those who’s wondering what is PR, it stands for PageRank. it’s the way that google measures how popular or important a web site is. it’s determined by how many other web sites linking to the site in question and how important the incoming link is.

note, PageRank is not the rank of a page, the name came from founder of Google.

all my sites increased one notch in this PR update. got 3 PR6. sweet.

unfortunately PR gain does not translate to higher search engine ranking directly. of course, PR has always been one of the most important factors to rank web pages, however the weight given to PR seems dropped a lot recently.

the original logic was, the more sites linking to you, your site must be more important and useful, otherwise, why those sites link to you? the problem is, if you have a large network of web sites, PR can be increased easily by linking to your own sites, it does not mean you have a useful informational web site at all. and if you have a PR8 web site, you can get a few PR7 without any effort, just link to the new site from PR8 page, but it does not mean you have a relevant web site.

PR worked perfectly as most important element in Google’s algorithm for a few years. now with more and more spamers trying to fool Google, they have put in much more things to consider. therefore Google PR is becoming less and less important.

having said that, it’s great to see longer green bar in Google toolbar, it indicates hardworks i’ve done.

some clients implement SEO techniques i talked about in Google optimization tips and general SEO techniques article. after a few months, some clients are extremely happy with their improved search engine ranking, some question me “do your techniques really work?”, some even doubt “did you put fake stuffs in the articles? is it what pushed your site to the top? why it does not work for me?”

well, i have to say, all the techniques i wrote in the articles are really simple (however don’t misunderstand me, it requires lots of hard work), and most importantly they still work, and will continue to work in the near future.

but, the SEO techniques i wrote about is just starting point. if yours is competitive market, there’re much more to read, much more to do. sorry that i don’t have the time to write about latest SEO trends and tips. i spend at least two hours every day to read SEO forums, courses, articles, ebooks etc. to keep myself updated.

don’t expext great ranking after 1 hour’s reading.

a few latest tips Google SEO tips here.

now google has become a domain registrar, which means they have access to all domain name information. combined with other channels, google now knows tons of information about web site owners. why is it important? they can use the information in many ways. for example, if the domain name has been registered for 5 or 10 years, is it an indicator that the site owner is serious in his business therefore more possibility to build quality web site, therefore deserves higher ranking?

another example, google may think it’s not fair that one person/company has more than one high ranking for same industry. proof: our other site offering web hosting service in Singapore was also ranked at top for a few years. around 1 month ago, its ranking dropped like stone, now it’s on page 4.

no complaint here as it makes perfect sense. if one person is allowed to do so, i can occupy entire first page after a few years. just give me enough time. but that wouldn’t benefit visitors and users.