The Net’s Most Wanteds

Anybody that has a web site wants more traffic, and specifically
targeted traffic. Without targeted traffic (visitors that are
truly looking for what you are selling) a very low percentage of
visitors will buy from your site.

Although it is much tougher to get targeted traffic to your site
the odds that someone will buy your products will be much
higher. On the other hand, if you can get enough non-targeted
traffic to your site, even with a low percentage of sales, you
can still increase your income by a similar amount.

Think about it. If you could get 100 highly-targeted visitors a
day to your site and sell to 10% of those potential buyers, you
would be making money. However, by attracting 1000 non-targeted
visitors to your site each day and selling to only 1% of those
viewers you would make the same number of sales. So the question
becomes “which is easier to attract, targeted or non-targeted
traffic?”

I don’t think anyone would disagree with me when I say
non-targeted traffic is much easier to get. One of the best and
fastest ways to attract new visitors to your site is with paid autosurf
programs. You can sign up with several paid autosurf sites and
then almost immediately have hundreds of viewers looking at your
site daily. And it is free to join many of these. No matter what
you are selling a certain percentage of those viewers will in
all likelihood be interested. You could be selling dog biscuits
and at least a few of the 1000 visitors to your site will be
interested.

Ideally you should attract targeted visitors to your site, and
there are several good ways to do that. But while you are
working hard to get good traffic to your site you may want to
get others to visit too. After all, a few sales from low-quality
visitors is better than no sales. While you are building up your
targeted traffic you could also be getting non-targeted traffic
for some extra sales. Why limit yourself to just one group of
potential buyers?

If you are interested in quality traffic there are several
methods that you might want to try. One of the best ways is with
testimonials. There are two ways to benefit with testimonials.
One, whenever you buy a product from someone else you can send
them a testimonial that they can publish on their site. Internet
marketers know that “testimonials sell products” and will many
times love to add your testimonial to their site. A testimonial
adds credibility and potential buyers are more likely to buy a
product from someone that has lots of great testimonials. The
trick here is to make sure you include a link to your site in
your testimonial. When someone visits the other site and sees
your testimonial they can click on the link to your site. Only
people interested in what you are selling will come to your site
…targeted traffic.

The second way to benefit from testimonials is to put some of
them on your site. If you can get email addresses for the people
buying from you it is a simple matter of mailing a request for a
testimonial to them. You can put these testimonials on your site
which will increase your credibility with shoppers, even with
the non-targeted shoppers.

Writing articles is another way to promote your site and get
targeted visitors at the same time. There are many popular free
article directories on the web that you can submit your articles
to. Other web masters often get articles from these directories
and then add them to their own sites. All you have to do is
write an interesting article (like this one) and then submit it
to several article directories. Not only will these article
sites publish your article on their site (with links to your
site), but others will grab your article and put it on their own
sites (with links to your site). Some of the more popular
article directories are ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com,
articledashboard.com, isnare.com and many others. Just type in
“free article directories” in a search engine and you will be
amazed how many there are.

These are two great methods for attracting high quality traffic.
But what about the easier low quality traffic? The best way to
get traffic quickly is to sign up with online autosurf programs.
It seems like most of them are scams, but there are actually a
few very good ones. Not only will you get your site viewed by
many, but you can also make some very good money with these auto
surf programs. Autosurfing has become an extremely popular way
to not only make money online, but to get lots of traffic to
your site.

Companies like you, that have web sites, can get lots of traffic
from autosurf programs. When you join an auto surf program you
have the option to list your web site in their “autosurf”
rotation. Some paid auto surf programs even allow you to join
for free. And you can usually join the others for just a few
dollars. Thousands of other people that belong to those autosurf
programs will end up viewing your web site every day.

But in addition to attracting others to your web store you can
also make money autosurfing. For many, auto surfing is big home
business. Some people are making thousands of dollars every
month. You might actually end up making more from paid autosurf
programs than you will selling your products online. Although
there are plenty of autosurf scams out there you can also find
some very honest auto
surf programs where you can make a good return on your
investment. You just need to do your homework before joining any
of the hundreds of autosurf programs on the net.

So there you have it. We have discussed three successful ways to
get visitors to your site. And remember, if you limit your
attention to only targeted traffic you will be missing a lot of
non-targeted traffic and potential sales. Keep an open mind
about the type of traffic you want to attract and you can be
successful with your online business.

In any single month, more than 10,000 people search for the “Chinese alphabet” on the internet.

Question is:

Does the Chinese language have an alphabet?

If so, where is it?

Why don’t I “see” it?

To answer the above questions, let’s look at how Chinese writing evolved over the ages.

At the beginning, societies created symbols to refer to simple things. Symbols are signs and pictures that refer to actual objects. The earliest symbols looked like the things they represented.

For instance, the symbol for “bird” looked like a bird. Same for “mountain”, “tree”, “rain”, “child”, “knife”, “boat”. As time went by, societies grew bigger and became complex.

Naturally, the meanings of visual symbols changed as well. Symbols not only stood for physical things, but for more abstract things as well. Like “sunrise”, “friend”, “pray”, “play”, “safe”, “year” etc.

As a culture took shape, a written language made up of letters (i.e. the alphabet) was invented. A sound was attached to each letter so a string of letters could be pronounced. Symbols were thus replaced by words and phrases as the primary means of communication. Usually, that’s what happened with written languages. But not so with the Chinese language.

A Chinese alphabet was never invented. Rather, the evolution of the Chinese language took a special turn: Instead of visual symbols being replaced by a written language of letters, the symbols themselves became the written language. That’s why there’s no Chinese alphabet.

One of the reasons for this is that the Chinese language is tonal. This means there are several tones and each tone means a different thing. For instance, in Mandarin there are four tones. Cantonese has six tones.

In addition, words with the same tones often have different meanings. And their meanings can only be made clear by the context of the sentence. This unique feature of the Chinese language gives rise to “visual puns”.

The interplay of phonetics (i.e. sounds) and puns often reveal the hidden meanings of Chinese symbols or characters. Phonetics and puns give clues to the hidden meaning of images. Hence a picture of a fish is an expression of “abundance” because the Chinese word for “fish” yu2 鱼 has the same sound as “abundance” yu2 余 This is an example of a “visual pun” and there are lots of them in the Chinese language.

It’s easy to see why there is no such thing as a “full Chinese alphabet” or “Chinese alphabet letters”. Or why the Chinese alphabet is “missing”. An alphabet consists of a small number of letters (e.g. 26 in English) which make up all the words in the spoken language.

There are no letters in Chinese writing. Only thousands of individual symbols or characters each with their specific sound(s) and meanings. Since there are no letters in Chinese it naturally follows there is no Chinese alphabet.

Want to learn Chinese for pleasure and profit in less time? Like to creatively enhance your life with Chinese characters and symbols? Liow Kah Joon is your guide. Sign up for his free Chinese Symbols ezine at Living Chinese Symbols

What Are Search Engines?

A search engine is a database system designed to index and categorize internet addresses, otherwise known as URLs (for example, http://www.submittoday.com).

There are four basic types of search engines:

Automatic: These search engines are based on information that is collected, sorted and analyzed by software programs, commonly referred to as “robots”, “spiders”, or “crawlers”. These spiders crawl through web pages collecting information which is then analyzed and categorized into an “index”. When you conduct a search using one of these search engines, you are really searching the index. The results of the search will depend on the contents of that index and its relevancy to your query.

Directories: A directory is a searchable subject guide of Web sites that have been reviewed and compiled by human editors. These editors decide which sites to list, and, in which categories.

Meta: Meta search engines use automated technology to gather information from a spider and then deliver a summary of that information as the results of a search to the end user.

Pay-per-click (PPC): A search engine that determines ranking according to the dollar amount you pay for each click from that search engine to your site. Examples of PPC search engines are Overture.com and FindWhat.com. The highest ranking goes to the highest bidder.

There are a few downfalls you should know about using PPCs:

1. The use of PPC search engines as part of your search engine optimization process will not improve your search engine positioning in the regular editorial search results. Instead, they will most always appear in a “Sponsored” or “Featured” area located at the top or side of the regular search page results. Even though your paid listing will appear at the top of the search page, many users will not click on paid listings because they look at it as an advertisement. In the past, people used to always click on banner ads, but now they are seen more of as a nuisance. Similarly, the same thing is happening with PPC listings. Also, PPC listings are not always as relevant to a query as the editorial search results.

2. If your site is not effectively search engine optimized before you begin to submit it to a PPC, it will still be poorly advertised afterwards. The optimization of your Web site is critical to the success of your rankings.

3. When you stop paying for a PPC submission, your listing disappears and so does the traffic.

PPCs can be an effective short-term solution for gaining exposure and driving immediate traffic to your Web site while you wait for full indexing, but it can become expensive if you use it as a long-term solution.

How Do Search Engines Work?:

Search engines compile their databases with the aid of spiders (a.k.a. robots). These search engine spiders crawl the Internet from link to link, identifying Web pages. Once search engine spiders find a Web site, they index the content on those pages, making the URLs available to Internet users. In turn, owners of Web sites submit their URLs to search engines for crawling and, ultimately, inclusion in their databases. This is known as search engine submission.

When you use search engines to find something on the Internet, you’re basically asking the search engine to scan its database and match your keywords and phrases with the content of the URLs they have on file at that time. Spiders regularly return to the URLs they index to look for changes. When changes occur, the index is updated to reflect the new information.

What Are The Pros And Cons Of Search Engines?

Pro: With the vast wealth of information available on the Internet, search engines are the most effective and efficient way to find information based on your specific search requests.

Con: Because search engines index mass quantities of data, you are likely to get irrelevant responses to your search requests.

Are Search Engines All The Same?

Search results vary from search engine to search engine in terms of size, speed and content. The results will also vary based on the ranking criteria the search engines use. If you aren’t getting the results you need, try a different search engine. While the results may not be wildly different, you may get a few search results from one search engine that you didn’t from another.

How Do Search Engines Rank Web Pages?

When ranking Web pages, search engines follow specific criteria, which may vary from one search engine to another. Naturally, they want to generate the most popular (or relevant) pages at the top of their list. Search engines will look at keywords and phrases, content, HTML meta tags and link popularity — just to name a few — to determine the value of the Web page.

About The Author

As Submit Today’s copywriter and editor, Kristy Meghreblian has written online content for many successful companies, including Monster.com. She has successfully combined her excellence in journalism with the delicate art of keyword density as it relates to search engine optimization. As a result, she has helped many Submit Today clients achieve top ranking. Submit Today is a leading search engine optimization, submission and ranking company located in Naples, Florida.

kristy@submittoday.com

The Panasonic TH-42PX50U is a 42″ plasma TV and one of Panasonics newest additions to its plasma range. The realism of a TV pictures has never been better with the technology of plasma TVs getting better and this plasma TV is one that is leading the way. It has a contrast ratio of 3000:1 which means whites are whiter and blacks are blacker and a display of 8.58 billion colors, giving you better quality of viewing.

Aesthetics

Let’s start with the border of the screen. Around the outside of the plasma screen Panasonic have made the border color a sleek black, along with the excellent contrast ratio the black border enhances the picture quality making the picture more defined and legit. The plasma sits on a simple silver stand with the speakers of the plasma mounted at the bottom under the screen. This plasma is of a smooth elegant design that would go well in any room.

Picture Quality

Before we talk about how good the Panasonic TH-42PX50U’s picture quality is, there are a few settings that need to be changed before watching something on it. First off the contrast needs to be set a -10, the sharpness at -5, the brightness at +5 and the tint and colors at 0. These setting will give you a natural cinema like picture which really is the optimal setting for viewing. Now let’s talk about how good the picture quality is.

Mostly all plasma TVs of today have great bright and dark colors; however the ultimate test to see if a plasma TV has great picture quality is to how bright colors show up when there is a dark background in the background. To see how good the Panasonic TH-42PX50U performed we tested out The Matrix and Aerosmith live in concert DVDs. Both these DVDs contain lots of scenes where there is a dark or black background and blight sharp colors in the foreground. An average plasma would have trouble displaying these picture where by a glow on the screen would be visible around the edges of the bright objects. In the Panasonic’s TH-42PX50U case it has no trouble dealing with dark backgrounds and blight foregrounds, I was amazed at how well it performed – the picture was nice and crisp with a great natural look.

Sound Quality

The sound quality of this plasma was also very impressive. The 16 watt speakers mounted at the bottom drive out a clean full sound with no anomalies or static. You will find that even when you turn the volume right up the quality and cleanliness of the sound still remains the same. Adding more bass will give you a fuller sound and in contrast adding more treble will give you a crisper sound, again without taking away sound quality.

Overall this is a great plasma TV that not only has great picture and sound quality but great features too, like a tuner that gracefully degrades – meaning when a signal is weak or interfered with the tuner can still display the picture and not just drop out like some other plasmas do. This plasma also features a simple user friendly menu which is easy to navigate through and the ability to have 6 inputs connected to it.

Set backs

- Inputs only on the back, no inputs on front or side for easy access

- Does not support picture in picture display

- No computer input or camera card reader

Specs

- 31 inches tall
- About 42 inches wide
- 4 inches deep
- 76 lbs
- Stand 13 inches deep
– Power consumption listed at 399 watts

To find out more about Pioneer plasma televisions and 50” plasma television visit our website http://www.plasmatvarena.com/ OR our articles page

This article may be reproduced for use on other websites and webpages as long as this resource box and links stay intact and functional.

©2005 Millennium Online Marteting Pty Ltd

For those men that have never experienced a safari in Africa might often find it hard to imagine the tremendous wildlife you will probably see. The people who come to a walking safari are regular holiday makers like you and me, some are into photography, some are into African animals but all of them are interested in a new phenomenal experience. Fast and reliable information on holidays such as Safari Holidays.

The marvellous thing about a safari is the fact it is so different from a normal holiday to France, there are very little families. Each walking safari company will provide an English speaking tourist guide to take you through the tremendous areas of Africa. The most popular wildlife you can often see are wolves. These magnificent animals are not tame and of course don?t feed them. If you are interested in taking photos of the wolves you should make sure you turn off the flash as you do not want to scare the animals. The astonishing animals in Southern Africa might put a smile on your face.

If you would love to ascertain more about astonishing safaris in Africa you might well use the search engine like Google to behold a company that offers safari holidays from the UK, the costs could range from 300 pounds to six hundred pounds.

Compact digital cameras are improving all the time, making snapshots and photos easier and better all the time. And certainly the march toward digital cameras and away from film cameras is in full swing. So what features can be expected to be found on the best compact digital cameras that most people like to use?

* The megapixel rating is important to understand because it determines how much information is stored about every photo taken. In essence, it has to do with the resolution of the photo, and so higher megapixel cameras can store more information and produce larger high quality enlargements. However, most people don’t use their camera for anything more than 4×6 photos, and if that is the case a 3 megapixel camera will often work just fine, and a 4-6 megapixel camera will be good for just about anything you will usually need.

* Battery usage varies considerably between compact digital camera models, with some sipping power consumption and others being relative power hogs. Even the worst cameras will provide about 50 shots from a set of batteries, but when you consider that the best cameras will take between 400-500 shots per battery set, it’s a huge difference. And it’s also a good idea to get a camera that uses AA batteries to save money on power in the long run as you can then use rechargeable batteries instead of throwaways each time.

* The best compact digital cameras also are fast. Each digital camera has to take some time to process an image when the shutter is pressed. Some do this very quickly, others don’t. In fact, some can take up to 4-5 seconds to process a shot, during which time you have to just wait until it’s done to be able to take the next shot. This can be very frustrating in rapid action sequences. Another problem with speed can be what is called the shutter lag, or time it takes for the autofocus mechanism to finish and then trip the shutter to begin with. Some do this in under a half second, others take a full second or more. When you add up the extra time taken for the shutter lag and processing the digital image afterward, you can see why getting the fastest camera you can is an important feature of the best compact digital cameras.

* The best cameras also have a flexible optical zoom rate of 5X – 10X or more which allows you more ability to zoom in and get great close-up shots when needed.

Of course, all of these top quality features do come at a cost, so you can expect to pay more for some of them as opposed to just the standard camera. But if price is not as much of a consideration in the search, and you want to find the best compact digital cameras for sale, look for the kind of features mentioned above when you shop.

Thad Pickering writes on many consumer related topics including audio and video. You can find out more about digital camera best buys and cannon digital cameras by visiting our Home Theater website.

After the latest PR update at Google and MSN’s beta search going live, there is one
thing for certain in 2005: the world of search is in for some major changes. There
has been growing speculation around the SEO world that reciprocal linking is a thing
of the past. Rumors are abound that PR means less and less, if anything. Bill Gates
came out of his cave to say that “Today’s search is nothing” and that it won’t be that
way for long. There are quiet rumblings in the SEO back alleys of a new, state-of-
the-art search engine currently indexing the internet. Websites are dropping off the
face of the planet. And we’re all left to sit here and put together the pieces. So what
is in store for 2005?

1) Reciprocal links, while not becoming totally dead, are decreasing in value, and
there will most likely be an algorithm update to lessen their importance. The
original thought process behind the importance of a link was that it was seen as a
“vote” for the linked-to site. Now that reciprocal links are everywhere, it is hardly a
great way to count “votes” for a website. Reciprocal linking will continue around the
internet, although the amount of people who try to get away with one-way links (by
never getting back to you once you’ve added their link) will increase significantly.
This will, of course, be an attempt to acquire one-way links, which brings us to our
next subject….

2) One-way links and triangle linking, though already quite popular, should explode
over the course of 2005. Both are much harder to control and acquire, which makes
Google happy. The triangle link “ploy” makes links look like one-way links even
though “Site A” is returning the favor to “Site B” through “Site C”. There will be
attempts to sell triangle linking programs and systems by SEO companies, however,
the complexity, difficulty and time involved in this scheme will produce ridiculous
prices.

3) What this about a new search engine that is going to index every site on the
internet, EVERY 10 seconds? Become.com has turned a few heads with it’s claims.
Site owners have reported Become Bots spidering “like crazy”. It’s all quite hush,
hush, however and you need to have an invite in order to test it out. It should be
interesting to see what they’re capable of if and when they decide to go live. I’ll go
out on a limb and say that it’s a household name by this time next year.

4) MSN will scrap the “beta” tag on February 1st from it’s sparkling new search
engine, which is currently live at search.msn.com and Bill Gates thinks it will rival
Google. There is a lot of debate over this issue, but there is no denying that it is far
better than the old chugger they were using before. Love him or hate him, Gates has
most likely given a hard right to the chin of Yahoo!, which seems to be suffering
from a magnitude of quality problems. MSN will be second to Google in total
searches in 2005.

5) PR still has importance. However, it is also decreasing in value. PR is only based
on the quantity and quality of links (both inbound and outbound) from the given
web page. The most obvious reasoning for the declining importance theory is due to
the fact that on any given search on Google, the PR of each page seems to have
barely any correlation with it’s place in the rankings. For all you PR lovers out there,
hold on to your toolbar’s tight, because this could be a bumpy ride.

Bobby Heard (bheard@abalone.ca) is the Vice-President of Abalone Designs
(http://www.abalone.ca), which offers great SEO results at affordable prices.

Giancarlo & Myriam are happy to introduce you their enchating villa located in Rome, near St.Peter’s (2 miles-direct bus) and Vatican Museums.
Villa Myriam is the First B&B in Rome located in Via dei Gonzaga, 159
We have accomodations finely furnished, gardens and sun terrace all around and a park (1500 sqm) for your enjoyment, in a very quiet and green place, well connected to the center.

Double Room with ensuite bathroom: double bedroom with queensize bed, bathroom, TV, A/C

Free parking inside, very good for children and families.
In fact our villa is like a little Rome hotel, there is no curfew and you have your own keys to go directly to the guests’ floor; daily cleaning, Air Conditioning.

Our Guest from Canada said:
very nice home and rooms, very friendly hosts, huge, clean bathroom fridge availabe outside the room use of gorgeous patios around house

The reservation can be made from Reserver.it: in order to secure your reservation in Rome, you’ll be asked to pay in advance only for the first night through Paypal.com in order to ensure privacy and security: in fact we neither collect or have access to your credit card data and your personal information will stay strictly confidential

Many people who are just beginning to learn Texas Holdem poker think every player reveals his or her hand at the end of the game. This is a common misconception. A player is actually only bound to reveal the contents of the hand if they have been equally matched by another player. If every player in the game folds but one player, they automatically win the pot. If this is the situation, they are under no obligation to reveal their hand. By choosing not to reveal their hand, players keep the element of mystery alive about whether they were bluffing.

Even in poker games where there is not a default winner, there is a system of rules that regulate how players reveal their hands. The first person to reveal their cards is always the person who raised the bet. In the case that no one raised the original bet, it falls to the player who placed their bet first to reveal their cards. There are extremely rare poker games where no players have placed bets at all. In this unusual situation, the player sitting to the left of the dealer must show their hand first.

After the first person has revealed their cards to the table, all of the successive players also do so in a clockwise manner. If a player knows that they have lost the hand, they can choose not to reveal their cards. If they do not want to show their poor hand, they can simply place the cards face down on the table.

Is there a power cut in your home? Did you fridge break overnight? Are you concerned about the food that was in your freezer being okay?

Not to worry – there are some simple guidelines to food safety in such a situation.

If the food has been completely thawed or even warmed to room temperature, throw it away. If it has been kept at room temperature for more than two hours, throw it away.

If the food is mostly thawed, but still cold, cook it immediately. Once cooked, food can be refrigerated for later or eaten right away.

You may notice ice crystals on your food and if so, it’s okay to freeze it again. You can put it in a cooler with some dry ice if there is no freezer available to you. These items will need to be cooked, because your freezer will not offer the same longevity that a normal freezer would offer.

If you notice any food with even a little freezer burn, you need to throw it away.

Storms and accidents will always cause power outages; however, you can use preparation to be ready for whatever happens.
If your existing fridge or freezer has seen better days, the best advice that anyone can give you is you invest in a new one. Definitely consider a large refrigerator/freezer as used in America is if there is space for it. This can make a dramatic change to any kitchen. A broad selection of American refrigerators and freezers is available for viewing at this site.