How to use a CIDR netmask to block an IP address range using .htaccess

This article explains why you must sometimes use CIDR netmask notation to ban an IP address range using Apache .htaccess, and how to do it. It is intended to supplement the basic Apache information about mod_access in the documentation at http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/mod/mod_access.html.

An IP address is a 32-bit binary number that uniquely identifies a computer on the internet

32-bit binary is hard to remember : 11000000010000000000000000000000

Decimal notation isn't much easier: 3225419776

So it is usually written like this     : 192.64.0.0

You get this "dotted-quad notation" by breaking the 32 bits into 4 groups of 8 and then converting each group to decimal:

11000000	01000000	00000000	00000000
192	64	0	0

192.64.0.0

That makes it easier to remember, but it creates problems if you try to use it for calculations.

An IP address contains two pieces of information:

1. The leftmost binary digits are the unique ID of the network (usually your Internet Service Provider, ISP) through which you are connected to the internet.


2. The remaining binary digits are your unique ID as an individual user on that network.

The number of leftmost digits used for network ID is not the same for every network. In CIDR notation, the /nn part says how many of the leftmost bits indicate the network.

If the network uses exactly the leftmost 8, 16, or 24 bits for its ID, then the dividing line between network and user falls on one of the period boundaries of the dotted-quad notation, and one of the partial IP notations will work:

.htaccess partial IP address	Equivalent CIDR
deny from 192	deny from 192.0.0.0/8
deny from 192.64	deny from 192.64.0.0/16
deny from 192.64.0	deny from 192.64.0.0/24

Each quad that you don't specify is treated as a wildcard that can take any value from 0 to 255. So the first example bans any IP address that starts with 192., followed by anything.

When to use CIDR notation

If the network doesn't use exactly 8, 16, or 24 bits for the network part of the IP address, the dividing line between network and user does not fall on a period boundary of dotted-quad notation, and you need to use a CIDR netmask.

Example CIDR/netmask:

192.64.0.0/10

This says the base address of the network is 192.64.0.0 and the first 10 bits are the network:

192 64 0 0 = 11000000 01000000 00000000 00000000

192 is the first 8 bits, but two more bits are part of the network ID, too. The 9th bit is 0 and the 10th is 1, and that is where the 64 comes from.

The full range of this network in quad notation is 192.64.0.0 - 192.127.255.255. Note that the 64 in the second position doesn't remain constant. The first 2 bits are always the same, but the righthand 6 will be different for different users.

The simple notations for an .htaccess ban won't work. Why not?

• deny from 192 would ban the range 192.0.0.0 - 192.255.255.255, which will ban some users that are not coming from this network.


• deny from 192.64 would ban the range 192.64.0.0 - 192.64.255.255, which is insufficient to ban all the users that are coming from this network.

So the answer is CIDR notation and an .htaccess line that says:

deny from 192.64.0.0/10

This says the base address is 192.64.0.0, and the first 10 bits identify the network (those are always the same for all users who are on that network).

To ban a specific IP range in htaccess

1. Figure out, from your website access logs or elsewhere, the IP addresses you want to ban. Look them up in a WhoIs database such as http://whois.domaintools.com/.
   
   


2. Determine whether you need to use a CIDR netmask. If the IP address range in the report looks like one of these, with each quad after the leading one(s) showing a rull range of 0-255, then you can use one of the simpler methods:
   
   
   
   192.0.0.0 - 192.255.255.255   -- Use deny from 192
   
   192.64.0.0 - 192.64.255.255   -- Use deny from 192.64
   
   192.64.128.0 - 192.64.128.255 -- Use deny from 192.64.128
   
   


3. For anything else, you need CIDR. At Domain Tools, the CIDR netmask is sometimes shown in the report for that IP address, several lines down in the report. If it is, that's all you need. You're ready to create the line in your .htaccess file. Go to Step 5.
   
   


4. If the CIDR wasn't given, you can calculate it yourself with a netmask calculator such as http://jodies.de/ipcalc.
   
   
   
   a) Enter the base (lowest) address. 
   
   
   
   b) You can simply determine the netmask (the /nn part) by trial and error, or you can calculate the minimum size to start with: take the rightmost nonzero quad of the base address and convert it to binary in your head or in Windows Calculator. Find the rightmost "1". The netmask will have to be sufficient to include all of the previous quads (at 8 bits each), plus all the digits in this quad up to its rightmost "1". That's the minimum. But it might include some of the trailing zeroes, too.
   
   
   
   c) Keep using trial and error for the netmask until HostMin and HostMax match the IP address range you saw in the Domain Tools report.

Note that final quads of 0 and 255 are reserved, so:



The calculated HostMin will be nnn.nnn.nnn.1,  not nnn.nnn.nnn.0

The calculated HostMax will be nnn.nnn.nnn.254 not nnn.nnn.nnn.255



The Hosts/Net line tells you how many users this network might have, which can help decide whether you really want to ban the entire range.

5. Edit your public_html/.htaccess file to add the "deny from" line:

1. Go to cPanel > File Manager.


2. Navigate to the file public_html/.htaccess.


3. Click on its file name (not the icon next to it).


4. In the upper right corner of the screen, click Edit File.


5. Make a backup copy: Copy all the text in the file, and save it into a file on your local computer so you can put it back into .htaccess if something goes wrong.


6. Backup made? Ok, now you can edit the file. On a blank line in a part of the file that is not between HTML-style tags like <tag></tag>, type the line:
   
   
   
   deny from nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn/nn
   
   
   
   Replace the nnn's with the IP/netmask you calculated for this range.
   
   
   
   Further explanation: some lines of your .htaccess file might be contained between tags that look like HTML tags where the opening tag looks like <tag> and the closing tag looks like </tag>. Insert this new line in a part of the file that is not between any of these pairs of tags.
   
   
   
   Depending on what is in your .htaccess, you might need to use your judgment whether to use the order and allow directives that are also provided by mod_access. See the link to Apache at the top of this article for more information. That is beyond the scope of this article, and it will require your judgment. I'd suggest adding only the "deny from" line at first and seeing if it works as expected. What is expected: you can access your website; most other people can, too; when the denied party tries, your logs will show a result code of 403 Forbidden.
   
   

Understanding mod_rewrite Directives Convertion

Converting mod_rewrite directives

Overview

The URL Rewriting engine in Abyss Web Server is comparable to the mod_rewrite module in Apache. Both offer similar features but they are not fully equivalent.

This article explains how to convert mod_rewrite directives to URL Rewriting parameters in Abyss Web Server. In most cases, the conversion straightforward. But in some rare cases, and for some of the most obscure features of mod_rewrite, conversion is possible provided that you change or rewrite the rules.

mod_rewrite directives syntax

mod_rewrite directives are put in .htaccess files (in subdirectories) or in the main configuration file httpd.conf.

The following directives are related to mod_rewrite and will be used for conversions:

RewriteBase

RewriteCond

RewriteRule

A typical configuration of mod_rewrite looks as follows:

# Some comments

RewriteBase PATH



RewriteCond %{VARIABLE1} CONDITION1

RewriteCond %{VARIABLE2} CONDITION2

RewriteRule REGEX REPLACEMENT [FLAGS]

RewriteBase is optional. By default, the base path is the current location of the directory where the .htaccess file is. Each time a RewriteRule is found, the base path is updated with the parameter following the directive. The base path is useful when processing RewriteRule parameters.

RewriteCond is also optional. 0 or more RewriteCond directives can precede a given RewriteRule declaration.

RewriteRule is mandatory and ends the declaration of a rule. More sequences of RewriteBase/RewriteCond/RewriteRule could follow to define other rules.

Lines which start with # are comments and should be ignored. Lines referencing other directives are also to be ignored during the conversion as they are not related to mod_rewrite.

Starting the conversion

For each RewriteRule directive, you should create a URL Rewriting rule.

• Locate the RewriteRule you'll convert.


• Locate all the RewriteCond directives that precede it directly (there are 0 or more of them).


• Locate the last RewriteBase directive preceding the RewriteRule you'll convert. You may not find a RewriteBase in some cases.


• If you've found a RewriteBase directive, the base path of the current rule will be the path that is referenced in that directive. Otherwise, the base path is the virtual path of the directory where the .htaccess file you're converting is located. For example, if there is no RewriteBase, if the .htaccess file you're converting is inside C:\sites\firstsite\forum, and if your Documents Path is C:\sites\firstsite\, then the base path is /forum.


• Now open Abyss Web Server console, press the Configure associated with the host you'll add the URL rewriting rules to, and select URL Rewriting.


• Press Add in URL Rewriting rules table to create a new rule.

Conversion of the RewriteRule directive

• The RewriteRule directive has the following syntax:
  

  RewriteRule REGEX REPLACEMENT [FLAGS]

  
  [FLAGS] is optional an may not be always present.
  
  REGEX is a regular expression. If it starts with ^ but the next character is not /, the regular expression is referencing a relative path. In such a case, you must prepend it with the base path of the rule before using it in Abyss Web Server.
  
  For example, if the base path is /forum and the RewriteRule directive is:
  

  RewriteRule ^test/(.*)$ index.php?testId=$1

  
  then the regular expression we'll use will be:
  

  ^/forum/test/(.*)$

  
  If REPLACEMENT does not start with / and is not full URL (starting with http:// or similar), the base path should be prepended too. In the above example, the REPLACEMENT that must be taken into account is:
  

  /forum/index.php?testId=$1

  
  


• In the Abyss Web Server console, enter in Virtual Path Regular Expression the regular expression used in RewriteRule (after prepending it with the base path if it starts with ^ but the next character is not /).


• Enter in Redirect to the replacement string used in RewriteRule (after prepending it with the base path if it does not start / and is not full URL).


• If the RewriteRule directive has flags, convert each one of them as explained below:
  

  
  

  chain/C (chained with next rule)

  
  

  From Apache manual: "This flag chains the current rule with the next rule (which itself can be chained with the following rule, and so on). This has the following effect: if a rule matches, then processing continues as usual - the flag has no effect. If the rule does not match, then all following chained rules are skipped." No direct conversion is possible unless you reorder your URL Rewriting rules and correctly set the Next Action in Abyss Web Server for each rule.

  
  

  cookie/CO=NAME:VAL:domain[:lifetime[:path]] (set cookie)

  
  

  No equivalent in Abyss Web Server.

  
  

  env/E=VAR:VAL (set environment variable)

  
  

  No equivalent in Abyss Web Server.

  
  

  forbidden/F (force URL to be forbidden)

  
  

  Set If this rule matches to Report an error to the client and set Status Code to 403 - Forbidden.

  
  

  gone/G (force URL to be gone)

  
  

  Set If this rule matches to Report an error to the client and set Status Code to 410 - Gone.

  
  

  last/L (last rule)

  
  

  Set Next Action to Stop matching

  
  

  next/N (next round)

  
  

  Set Next Action to Stop matching.

  
  

  nocase/NC (no case)

  
  

  Uncheck Case Sensitive

  
  

  noescape/NE (no URI escaping of output)

  
  

  Uncheck Escape Redirection Location.

  
  

  nosubreq/NS (not for internal sub-requests)

  
  

  Uncheck Apply to subrequests too.

  
  

  proxy/P (force proxy)

  
  

  No equivalent in Abyss Web Server.

  
  

  passthrough/PT (pass through to next handler)

  
  

  No equivalent in Abyss Web Server.

  
  

  qsappend/QSA (query string append)

  
  

  Check Append Query String.

  
  

  redirect/R[=code] (force redirect)

  
  

  Set If this rule matches to Perform an external redirection and set Status Code to the value of code if available or to 302.

  
  

  skip/S=num (skip next rule(s))

  
  

  From Apache manual: "This flag forces the rewriting engine to skip the next num rules in sequence, if the current rule matches." No direct conversion is possible unless you reorder your URL Rewriting rules and correctly set the Next Action in Abyss Web Server for each rule.

  
  

  type/T=MIME-type (force MIME type)

  
  

  No equivalent in Abyss Web Server.

  
  

  
  

Conversion of the RewriteCond directives

Now it's time to convert the RewriteCond directives associated with the RewriteRule we're working on. Remember that only the RewriteCond immediately preceding the RewriteRule are to be taken into account. If there are no RewriteCond directives, conversion is over.

• A RewriteCond directive has the form:
  

  RewriteCond %{VARIABLE} COND [FLAGS]

  
  If the first argument of the RewriteCond you're converting contains a string which is not conforming to the syntax %{VARIABLE}, it will be impossible to convert the mod_rewrite rule to an Abyss Web Server URL Rewriting rule.
  
  [FLAGS] are optional and may not be always present.
  
  For each RewriteCond, press Add in the Conditions table and enter the value of VARIABLE in the Variable field.


• If COND is a regular expression preceded by !, select Does not match with in Operator. If it is a regular expression not preceded by !, set Operator to Matches with. Next enter the regular expression in Regular Expression field.


• Otherwise, COND is one of the following tests:
  

  
  

  <VALUE (lexicographically precedes)

  
  

  Set Operator to < and enter VALUE in the field Value.

  
  

  !<VALUE

  
  

  Set Operator to >= and enter VALUE in the field Value.

  
  

  >VALUE (lexicographically follows)

  
  

  Set Operator to > and enter VALUE in the field Value.

  
  

  !>VALUE

  
  

  Set Operator to <= and enter VALUE in the field Value.

  
  

  =VALUE (lexicographically equal)

  
  

  Set Operator to = and enter VALUE in the field Value.

  
  

  !=VALUE

  
  

  Set Operator to Is different from and enter VALUE in the field Value.

  
  

  -d (is directory)

  
  

  Set Operator to Is a directory.

  
  

  !-d

  
  

  Set Operator to Is not a directory.

  
  

  -f (is regular file)

  
  

  Set Operator to Is a file.

  
  

  !-f

  
  

  Set Operator to Is not a file.

  
  

  -s (is regular file, with size)

  
  

  Set Operator to Exists and is not an empty file.

  
  

  !-s

  
  

  Set Operator to Does not exist and is an empty file.

  
  

  -l/!-l (is/isn't symbolic link)

  
  

  No equivalent in Abyss Web Server.

  
  

  -F/!-F (is/isn't existing file, via subrequest)

  
  

  No equivalent in Abyss Web Server.

  
  

  -U/!-U (is/isn't existing URL, via subrequest)

  
  

  No equivalent in Abyss Web Server.

  
  

  
  


• If FLAGS are present, their conversion should be done as follows:
  

  
  

  nocase/NC (no case)

  
  

  Uncheck Case Sensitive.

  
  

  ornext/OR (or next condition)

  
  

  The only case where a direct conversion is possible is when you have two or more consecutive RewriteCond operating on the same variable. In such a case, the regular expressions of each condition have to be concatenated with a | sign. For example:
  

  RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Mozilla [OR]
  
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Opera [OR]
  
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Lynx

  
  could be combined in a single RewriteCond:
  

  RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Mozilla|Opera|Lynx

  
  and thus it suffices to have a single condition on variable HTTP_USER_AGENT which checks if its value matches with Mozilla|Opera|Lynx.

  
  

  
  

Mod-Rewrite Tricks and Tips - .Htaccess rewrites rules

If you really want to take a look, check out the mod_rewrite.c and mod_rewrite.h files.

Be aware that mod_rewrite (RewriteRule, RewriteBase, and RewriteCond) code is executed for each and every HTTP request that accesses a file in or below the directory where the code resides, so it’s always good to limit the code to certain circumstances if readily identifiable.

For example, to limit the next 5 RewriteRules to only be applied to .html and .php files, you can use the following code, which tests if the url does not end in .html or .php and if it doesn’t, it will skip the next 5 RewriteRules.

---

RewriteRule !\.(html|php)$ - [S=5]  
RewriteRule ^.*-(vf12|vf13|vf5|vf35|vf1|vf10|vf33|vf8).+$ - [S=1]  

.htaccess rewrite examples should begin with:

Options +FollowSymLinks     
RewriteEngine On  RewriteBase /  

Require the www

Options +FollowSymLinks 
RewriteEngine On  
RewriteBase /  
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.yourdomain\.com$ [NC]  
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]  

Loop Stopping Code

Sometimes your rewrites cause infinite loops, stop it with one of these rewrite code snippets.

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/(stats/|missing\.html|failed_auth\.html|error/).* [NC]  
RewriteRule .* - [L]     
RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} 200  
RewriteRule .* - [L]  

Cache-Friendly File Names

This is probably my favorite, and I use it on every site I work on. It allows me to update my javascript and css files in my visitors cache’s simply by naming them differently in the html, on the server they stay the same name. This rewrites all files for /zap/j/anything-anynumber.js to /zap/j/anything.js and /zap/c/anything-anynumber.css to /zap/c/anything.css

RewriteRule ^zap/(j|c)/([a-z]+)-([0-9]+)\.(js|css)$ /zap/$1/$2.$4 [L]  

SEO friendly link for non-flash browsers

When you use flash on your site and you properly supply a link to download flash that shows up for non-flash aware browsers, it is nice to use a shortcut to keep your code clean and your external links to a minimum. This code allows me to link to site.com/getflash/ for non-flash aware browsers.

RewriteRule ^getflash/?$ http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash [NC,L,R=307]  

Removing the Query_String

On many sites, the page will be displayed for both page.html and page.html?anything=anything, which hurts your SEO with duplicate content. An easy way to fix this issue is to redirect external requests containing a query string to the same uri without the query_string.

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^GET\ /.*\;.*\ HTTP/  
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !^$  
RewriteRule .* http://www.askapache.com%{REQUEST_URI}? [R=301,L]  

Sending requests to a php script

This .htaccess rewrite example invisibly rewrites requests for all Adobe pdf files to be handled by /cgi-bin/pdf-script.php

RewriteRule ^(.+)\.pdf$  /cgi-bin/pdf-script.php?file=$1.pdf [L,NC,QSA]  

Setting the language variable based on Client

For sites using multiviews or with multiple language capabilities, it is nice to be able to send the correct language automatically based on the clients preferred language.

RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-Language} ^.*(de|es|fr|it|ja|ru|en).*$ [NC]  
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ - [env=prefer-language:%1]  

Deny Access To Everyone Except PHP fopen

This allows access to all files by php fopen, but denies anyone else.

RewriteEngine On  
RewriteBase /  
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^.+$ [NC]  
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]  

If you are looking for ways to block or deny specific requests/visitors, then you should definately read Blacklist with mod_rewrite. I give it a 10/10

Deny access to anything in a subfolder except php fopen

This can be very handy if you want to serve media files or special downloads but only through a php proxy script.

RewriteEngine On  
RewriteBase /  
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /([^/]+)/.*\ HTTP [NC]  
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]  

Require no www

Options +FollowSymLinks  
RewriteEngine On  
RewriteBase /  
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^yourdomain\.com$ [NC]  
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]  

Check for a key in QUERY_STRING

Uses a RewriteCond Directive to check QUERY_STRING for passkey, if it doesn’t find it it redirects all requests for anything in the /logged-in/ directory to the /login.php script.

RewriteEngine On  RewriteBase /  
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !passkey  
RewriteRule ^/logged-in/(.*)$ /login.php [L]  

Removes the QUERY_STRING from the URL

If the QUERY_STRING has any value at all besides blank than the?at the end of /login.php? tells mod_rewrite to remove the QUERY_STRING from login.php and redirect.

RewriteEngine On  RewriteBase /  
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} .  
RewriteRule ^login.php /login.php? [L]  

Fix for infinite loops

An error message related to this isRequest exceeded the limit of 10 internal redirects due to probable configuration error. Use 'LimitInternalRecursion' to increase the limit if necessary. Use 'LogLevel debug' to get a backtrace.or you may seeRequest exceeded the limit,probable configuration error,Use 'LogLevel debug' to get a backtrace, orUse 'LimitInternalRecursion' to increase the limit if necessary

RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} 200  
RewriteRule .* - [L]  

External Redirect .php files to .html files (SEO friendly)

RewriteRule ^(.*)\.php$ /$1.html [R=301,L]  

Internal Redirect .php files to .html files (SEO friendly)

Redirects all files that end in .html to be served from filename.php so it looks like all your pages are .html but really they are .php

RewriteRule ^(.*)\.html$ $1.php [R=301,L]  

block access to files during certain hours of the day

Options +FollowSymLinks  
RewriteEngine On  
RewriteBase /  
# If the hour is 16 (4 PM) Then deny all access  
RewriteCond %{TIME_HOUR} ^16$  
RewriteRule ^.*$ - [F,L]  

Rewrite underscores to hyphens for SEO URL

Options +FollowSymLinks  
RewriteEngine On  
RewriteBase /     
RewriteRule !\.(html|php)$ - [S=4]  
RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_(.*)$ $1-$2-$3-$4-$5 [E=uscor:Yes]  
RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_(.*)$ $1-$2-$3-$4 [E=uscor:Yes]  
RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_([^_]*)_(.*)$ $1-$2-$3 [E=uscor:Yes]  
RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_(.*)$ $1-$2 [E=uscor:Yes]     
RewriteCond %{ENV:uscor} ^Yes$  
RewriteRule (.*) http://d.com/$1 [R=301,L]  

Require the www without hardcoding

Options +FollowSymLinks  
RewriteEngine On  RewriteBase /  
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.[a-z-]+\.[a-z]{2,6} [NC]  
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ([a-z-]+\.[a-z]{2,6})$     [NC]  
RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]  

Require no subdomain

RewriteEngine On  
RewriteBase /  
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} \.([a-z-]+\.[a-z]{2,6})$ [NC]  
RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]  

Require no subdomain

RewriteEngine On  
RewriteBase /  
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} \.([^\.]+\.[^\.0-9]+)$  
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]

Redirecting Wordpress Feeds to Feedburner

RewriteEngine On  
RewriteBase /  
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/feed\.gif$  
RewriteRule .* - [L]     
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(FeedBurner|FeedValidator) [NC]  
RewriteRule ^feed/?.*$ http://feeds.feedburner.com/apache/htaccess [L,R=302]     
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f  
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d  
RewriteRule . /index.php [L] 

Only allow GET and PUT Request Methods

RewriteEngine On  
RewriteBase /  
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} !^(GET|PUT)  
RewriteRule .* - [F]  

Prevent Files image/file hotlinking and bandwidth stealing

RewriteEngine On  
RewriteBase /  
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$  
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?askapache.com/.*$ [NC]  
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg|swf|flv|png)$ /feed/ [R=302,L]  

Stop browser prefetching

RewriteEngine On  
SetEnvIfNoCase X-Forwarded-For .+ proxy=yes  
SetEnvIfNoCase X-moz prefetch no_access=yes     
# block pre-fetch requests with X-moz headers  
RewriteCond %{ENV:no_access} yes  
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]  

27 Apache Request Methods for rewritecond in htaccess

Introduction

The Request Method, as supplied in the REQUEST_METHOD meta-variable, identifies the processing method to be applied by the script in producing a response.

The script author can choose to implement the methods most appropriate for the particular application.

If the script receives a request with a method it does not support it SHOULD reject it with an error.

List of the 27 Request Methods Recognized by Apache

1. GET


2. PUT


3. POST


4. DELETE


5. CONNECT


6. OPTIONS


7. TRACE


8. PATCH


9. PROPFIND


10. PROPPATCH


11. MKCOL


12. COPY


13. MOVE


14. LOCK


15. UNLOCK


16. VERSION_CONTROL


17. CHECKOUT


18. UNCHECKOUT


19. CHECKIN


20. UPDATE


21. LABEL


22. REPORT


23. MKWORKSPACE


24. MKACTIVITY


25. BASELINE_CONTROL


26. MERGE


27. INVALID

GET

The GET method indicates that the script should produce a document based on the meta-variable values. By convention, the GET method is ’safe’ and ‘idempotent’ and SHOULD NOT have the significance of taking an action other than producing a document.

The meaning of the GET method may be modified and refined by protocol-specific meta-variables.

POST

The POST method is used to request the script perform processing and produce a document based on the data in the request message-body, in addition to meta-variable values. A common use is form submission in HTML [18], intended to initiate processing by the script that has a permanent affect, such a change in a database.

The script MUST check the value of the CONTENT_LENGTH variable before reading the attached message-body, and SHOULD check the CONTENT_TYPE value before processing it.

HEAD

The HEAD method requests the script to do sufficient processing to return the response header fields, without providing a response message-body. The script MUST NOT provide a response message-body for a HEAD request. If it does, then the server MUST discard the message-body when reading the response from the script.

OPTIONS

The OPTIONS method represents a request for information about the communication options available on the request/response chain identified by the Request-URI. This method allows the client to determine the options and/or requirements associated with a resource, or the capabilities of a server, without implying a resource action or initiating a resource retrieval.

Responses to this method are not cacheable.

If the OPTIONS request includes an entity-body (as indicated by the presence of Content-Length or Transfer-Encoding), then the media type MUST be indicated by a Content-Type field. Although this specification does not define any use for such a body, future extensions to HTTP might use the OPTIONS body to make more detailed queries on the server. A server that does not support such an extension MAY discard the request body.

If the Request-URI is an asterisk (“*”), the OPTIONS request is intended to apply to the server in general rather than to a specific resource. Since a server’s communication options typically depend on the resource, the “*” request is only useful as a “ping” or “no-op” type of method; it does nothing beyond allowing the client to test the capabilities of the server. For example, this can be used to test a proxy for HTTP/1.1 compliance (or lack thereof). If the Request-URI is not an asterisk, the OPTIONS request applies only to the options that are available when communicating with that resource.

A 200 response SHOULD include any header fields that indicate optional features implemented by the server and applicable to that resource (e.g., Allow), possibly including extensions not defined by this specification. The response body, if any, SHOULD also include information about the communication options. The format for such a body is not defined by this specification, but might be defined by future extensions to HTTP. Content negotiation MAY be used to select the appropriate response format. If no response body is included, the response MUST include a Content-Length field with a field-value of “0″.

The Max-Forwards request-header field MAY be used to target a specific proxy in the request chain. When a proxy receives an OPTIONS request on an absoluteURI for which request forwarding is permitted, the proxy MUST check for a Max-Forwards field. If the Max-Forwards field-value is zero (“0″), the proxy MUST NOT forward the message; instead, the proxy SHOULD respond with its own communication options. If the Max-Forwards field-value is an integer greater than zero, the proxy MUST decrement the field-value when it forwards the request. If no Max-Forwards field is present in the request, then the forwarded request MUST NOT include a Max-Forwards field.

PUT

The PUT method requests that the enclosed entity be stored under the supplied Request-URI. If the Request-URI refers to an already existing resource, the enclosed entity SHOULD be considered as a modified version of the one residing on the origin server. If the Request-URI does not point to an existing resource, and that URI is capable of being defined as a new resource by the requesting user agent, the origin server can create the resource with that URI. If a new resource is created, the origin server MUST inform the user agent via the 201 (Created) response. If an existing resource is modified, either the 200 (OK) or 204 (No Content) response codes SHOULD be sent to indicate successful completion of the request. If the resource could not be created or modified with the Request-URI, an appropriate error response SHOULD be given that reflects the nature of the problem. The recipient of the entity MUST NOT ignore any Content-* (e.g. Content-Range) headers that it does not understand or implement and MUST return a 501 (Not Implemented) response in such cases.

If the request passes through a cache and the Request-URI identifies one or more currently cached entities, those entries SHOULD be treated as stale. Responses to this method are not cacheable.

The fundamental difference between the POST and PUT requests is reflected in the different meaning of the Request-URI. The URI in a POST request identifies the resource that will handle the enclosed entity. That resource might be a data-accepting process, a gateway to some other protocol, or a separate entity that accepts annotations. In contrast, the URI in a PUT request identifies the entity enclosed with the request — the user agent knows what URI is intended and the server MUST NOT attempt to apply the request to some other resource. If the server desires that the request be applied to a different URI, it MUST send a 301 (Moved Permanently) response; the user agent MAY then make its own decision regarding whether or not to redirect the request.

A single resource MAY be identified by many different URIs. For example, an article might have a URI for identifying “the current version” which is separate from the URI identifying each particular version. In this case, a PUT request on a general URI might result in several other URIs being defined by the origin server.

HTTP/1.1 does not define how a PUT method affects the state of an origin server.

PUT requests MUST obey the message transmission requirements.

Unless otherwise specified for a particular entity-header, the entity-headers in the PUT request SHOULD be applied to the resource created or modified by the PUT.

DELETE

The DELETE method requests that the origin server delete the resource identified by the Request-URI. This method MAY be overridden by human intervention (or other means) on the origin server. The client cannot be guaranteed that the operation has been carried out, even if the status code returned from the origin server indicates that the action has been completed successfully. However, the server SHOULD NOT indicate success unless, at the time the response is given, it intends to delete the resource or move it to an inaccessible location.

A successful response SHOULD be 200 (OK) if the response includes an entity describing the status, 202 (Accepted) if the action has not yet been enacted, or 204 (No Content) if the action has been enacted but the response does not include an entity.

If the request passes through a cache and the Request-URI identifies one or more currently cached entities, those entries SHOULD be treated as stale. Responses to this method are not cacheable.

TRACE

The TRACE method is used to invoke a remote, application-layer loop- back of the request message. The final recipient of the request SHOULD reflect the message received back to the client as the entity-body of a 200 (OK) response. The final recipient is either the origin server or the first proxy or gateway to receive a Max-Forwards value of zero (0) in the request (see section 14.31). A TRACE request MUST NOT include an entity.

TRACE allows the client to see what is being received at the other end of the request chain and use that data for testing or diagnostic information. The value of the Via header field (section 14.45) is of particular interest, since it acts as a trace of the request chain. Use of the Max-Forwards header field allows the client to limit the length of the request chain, which is useful for testing a chain of proxies forwarding messages in an infinite loop.

If the request is valid, the response SHOULD contain the entire request message in the entity-body, with a Content-Type of “message/http”. Responses to this method MUST NOT be cached.

CONNECT

This specification reserves the method name CONNECT for use with a proxy that can dynamically switch to being a tunnel e.g. SSL tunneling.

PHP Fatal error : Out of memory Problem

PHP Fatal error: Out of memoryProblem. Let see how to solve this problem using various techniques.

The first thing I could think of was to restart the Apache httpd service. This immediately solved the issue. but I knew this is not a permanent fix for the issue. When I researched further, I got to know that the
error comes when certain PHP scripts require more memory than PHP was allowed by default.

So the solution is to increase the memory allocated for

PHP. How to do that? There are 4 possible ways -

1. Try looking for the php.ini file. You might find some redundant php.ini files, so make sure you have got the one which is actually being read by PHP. o be sure, create a new php file in your root folder, say “check.php” and have phpInfo(); within the php open and close tags. Execute this file to get the information on where the php.ini is residing. Normally it will be in /usr/local/lib/php.ini

Open the php.ini file in a text editor like TextPad (not in Notepad) and change the values for memory_limit. By default you should see memory_limit = 8M. Try changing it to 12M. If it doesn’t work, increase it to 16M or even 24M and so on.

2. In case you can’t find the php.ini file or do not have access to it, then open up the file which was throwing the error (test.php in my case) and add a line below just after ini_set(’memory_limit’, lsquo;12M’);

3. You can even consider adding a line in .htaccess file which will resolve the issue.
php_value memory_limit 32M

4. Or else, Try adding this line to your wp-config.php file:

Increasing memory allocated to PHP
define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '32M');

If none of the above things solve your issue, then talk to you host.


Note: I am now worrying on which PHP script required an increase in memory allocation. The analysis won’t be so easy though.

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Glossary

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Glossary

Definitions to the terms used to describe actions and event in the world of Search Engine Marketing. Search Terms
The words or phrases used by people when performing searches in search engines. Also called keywords, query terms or query.

Ad Pimp
A website that has too many ads on it in an obvious attempt to monetize the site.

Ad Rank
Google AdWords multiplies Quality Score (QS) and the maximum CPC (Max CPC) to reach an Ad Rank for each ad.

Added Value Affiliates
Provide a value-added service to visitors in addition to affiliate links and affiliate content.






AdSense Arbitrage
The process of buying traffic with pay-per-click programs, sending traffic to highly optimized Adsense pages and collecting the difference.

AdSense Link Clicking Bots
Automated programs that try to spoof random IP addresses to click through AdWords displayed on a site.

Adwords
Google’s - Cost Per Click (CPC) based advertising system.

Affiliate Sniper
People who save money on purchases by switching your affiliate ID with their own.

Agent Name
An agent name is the name of the software accessing a web page.

Aggregator
Software that lets you automatically download content to your computer

AIDA
Attention, Interest, Desire, Action: A term used to describe a formula to increase conversions.

Algorithm
A mathematical formula used to determine the value of a page when compared against others.

AlltheWeb
Second Tier search engine.

ALT Text
The text that appears when you put your mouse on top of an image or a picture.

AltaVista
Used to be the #1 search engine until Google came along.

Anchor Text
Also known as Link Text, the clickable text of a hyperlink.

AOL
America On-Line - Great for novice users, uses Google as part of it's search results.

API
Application Programming Interface.

ASCII
American Standard Code for Information Interchange

Ask
Trying to be considered as one of the "Top Dogs" along with Yahoo and MSN, following Google.

ASP
Dual meanings: Microsoft Active Server Pages (filename.asp) or Application Service Provider (e.g. a provider of web based applications)

Astroturfing
The practice of faking, pushing or help to mold a “grass roots” movement.

ATF (Above the Fold)
This is the part of the user's screen that is always displayed.

Audioblog
An audio web log in MP3 format and available for download to an MP3 player or a computer.

Authority Site
A site that has many In-Bound links coming to it, and very little outbound links.

Back link
A text link to your website from another website.

Banned
A term that means a site has been removed from a search engine's index.

Banner Blindness
The act of web visitors to ignoring advertisements on the site whether it is a graphic or text ad.

BAP (Blog and Ping)
A method (ab)used to get the search engines to quickly index your blog's content.

Black Hat SEO
A term referring to the practice of “unethical” SEO. These techniques are used to gain an advantage over your competition.

Blind Traffic
This is traffic that is extremely low quality often by low relevance pages.

Blog
A "Web Log" that is updated frequently and is usually the opinion of one person. Also joking stands for Better Listing on Google.

Blogged
Term referring to have bookmarked a blog in your browser.






Blogola
The emerging practice of giving free stuff (from tote bags to travel junkets) to bloggers, in return for a sympathetic review.

Blook
A book that is serialized on a blog site. Chapters are published one by one as blog posts.

Bot
Short for robot. Often used to refer to a search engine spider.

Browser
Software application used to browse the internet - Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer are the 2 most popular browsers.

BTF (Below the Fold)
This is the part of the user's screen that is hidden unless the user scrolls down on the page.

C Class IP
This is the third block of numbers found in an IP Address.

Cache
A copy of web pages stored within a search engine's database.

CAPTCHA
Stands for : Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart

Catablog
A blog that describes products for sale.

Click Arbitrage
Purchasing PPC ads and hoping that traffic leaves with a click on your ads.

Click Distance
The minimum number of clicks it takes a visitor to get from one page to another.

Click Flipping
The process of identifying and maximizing, multiple profit pathways, using PPC traffic and converting that traffic with Cost Per Action offers.

Click Pirates
Peuple who click on ads, knowingly and proudly, stealing from advertisers, as they encourage others to join with them in this quest.

Click Poison
The process of using blatant phrases such as "Cool New Idea" and "Click here for Travel Tips" to get a site buried on sites such as digg and netscape.

Click Through
The process of clicking through an online advertisement to the advertiser's destination.






Clickprint
Derived from the amount of time a user spends on a Web site and the number of pages viewed, a clickprint is a unique online fingerprint that can help a vendor identify return visitors, curb fraud, and collect personal information for "customer service." aka invasive marketing

Cloaking
A technique that shows keyword stuffed apges to a search engine, but a real page to a human user.

Clustering
In search engine search results pages, clustering is limiting each represented website to one or two listings.

Collabulary
A collaborative vocabulary for tagging Web content. Like the folksonomies used on social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, collabularies are generated by a community. But unlike folksonomies, they're automatically vetted for consistency, extracting the wisdom of the crowds from the cacophony.

Content Networks
A nicer way to say Link Farm.

Content Repurposing
A nicer way to say scraping a site for content.

Contextual Link Inventory (CLI)
Text links that are shown depending on the content that appears around them.

Conversion Optimization
Transforms your site into a selling tool - your site logically leads visitors through the sales cycle and closes sale.

Conversion Rate
The number of visitors to a website that end up performing a specific action that leads to a conversion. This could be a product purchase, newsletter sign up or anything where information is submitted.

Converting Search Phrase
A phrase that converts traffic into money.

Cookie
Information stored on a user's computer by a website.

Copy
Text found on a web page.

Cost per Thousand
The cost for each thousand impressions of your ad.

CPA - (Cost Per Action)
The price paid for each visitor's actions from a paid search.

CPC (Cost Per Click)
The amount it will cost each time a user selects your phrase or keyword.

Crawler
A bot from a search engine that reads the text found on a website in order to determine what the website is about.






Cross Linking
Having multiple websites linking to each other.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
Used to define the look and navigation of a website.

CTR (Click Through Rate)
The value associated to the amount of times a paid ad is viewed.

Cybrarian
A person who finds, collects, and manages information available on the Internet.

Dangling Link
This term is applied to a web page with no links to any other pages. Also known as an Orphan Page.

Dead Link
A hyperlink pointing to a non-existent URL.

Deep Crawl
Once a month, Googlebot will crawl all of the links it has listed in it's database on your site. This is known as the Deep Crawl.

Deep Link
A link on a website that is not reachable from the home page.

Delisting
When a site gets removed from the search index of a search engine.

Deliverable
In a contract, these are the expected results of the services provided.

diggbait
Purposely creating content to get traffic from digg.com

Directory
Usually human edited, a directory contains sites that are sorted by categories.

DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act)
A declaration that protects digital works found online.

DMOZ
Also known as the Open Directory Project.

DNO
Domain Network Optimizers

DNS (Domain Name System)
A protocol that lets computers recognize each other through an IP Address, whereas the human sees a website URL.

Dooced
Fired for negative blogging about the company you work for.

Doorway Page
A web page designed to draw in Internet traffic from search engines, and then direct this traffic to another website.

Dynamic Site
A site that uses a database to store it's content and is delivered based on the variable passed to the page.

EPC (Earnings Per Click)
How much profit is made from each click from a paid ad.

EPV (Earnings Per Visitor)
The cost it takes to make profit from a site's total number of visitors.

Error 404
When a hyperlink is pointing to a location on the web that doesn't exist, it is called a 404 error.

Everflux
A term associated with the constant updating of Google's algorithm between the major updates.

External Link
A link that points to another website.

FAQ (Frequently Asked Question)
Commonly found on websites, FAQs answer questions that many users generally have about a product or service.

FFA (Free For All)
A site where anyone can list their link. Don't waste any time submitting your site to these places.

Filter Words
Words such as is, am, were, was, the, for, do, ETC, that search engines deem irrelevant for indexing purposes. Also known as Stop words.

Flog
A fake blog, a website pretending to be a blog but actually the creation of public relations firms, the mainstream media, or professional political operatives.

Folksonomy
The construction of open-ended organization systems that allow multiple internet users to sort web sites and their elements.

Frankenbuild
Pirated software cobbled together from beta versions and early releases.

Fresh Crawl
Utilizes FreshBot to review already indexed pages and any pages where the content has been updated.






FreshBot
A sister to GoogleBot, this spider crawls highly ranked sites on a very frequent basis.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
Technology that allows file transfers from a local machine to a remote host.

Geo Targeting
A very tactful way to employ cloaking.

GFNR
Google First Name Rank.

Google
Currently, the world's #1 search engine.

Google AdWords
Google's PPC program.

Google Bombing
A technique where using the same text anchor links, many people link to a certain page, usually of irrelevant content.

GoogleBot
The spider that performs a deep crawl of your site.

Googlebowling
To nudge a competitor from the serps.

Googlephobia
The fear of Google taking over everything.

Googlewashing
When your content is copied and inserted into someone else's site without permission or credit.

GOOGOL
This is the term that inspired the creators of Google to use this name - it means: 10100 = 1 followed by 100 zeros





Heading Tag
Tag that designates headlines in the text of a site.

Hidden Text
Text that can't be seen normally in a browser.

Hit
A single access request made to the server.

Hoax Marketing
The creation of false stories to drive traffic to a site.

htaccess
.htaccess is an Apache file that allows server configuration instructions.

HTML
HyperText Markup Language - the basics for all web coding.

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)
It is a generic, stateless, protocol which can be used for many tasks.

HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure)
It is a generic, stateless, protocol which can be used for many tasks, but has security features enabled to protect sensitive data.

Hub
A site that has many outbound links, and few sites linking back.

IBL (In-Bound Link)
A link residing on another site that points to your site.

ICRA (Internet Content Rating Association)
The Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) is an international, non-profit organization of internet leaders working to make the internet safer for children, while respecting the rights of content providers.

IM (Instant Messaging)
As the name implies, this protocol allows for extremely fast communication over the Internet

Index
A term used to describe the database that holds all the web pages crawled by the search engine for each website.

Indexing Assistance
An even more advanced form of cloaking.

Information Architecture
The gathering, organizing, and presenting information to serve a purpose.

Informational Query
A query about a topic where the user expects to be provided with information on the topic.

Internal Link
A link that points to another page within the same site. Most commonly used for navigation.






Internet
An interconnected system of networks that connects computers around the world via the TCP/IP protocol.

Internet Traffic Optimizer (ITO)
A broader term for a person who optimizes not only for search engines but to get traffic from other sources such as blogs, RSS feeds and articles.

Interstitials
Loads a commercial in the background of a Web page. When the user exits the page, the user gets served a full-page, between-page advertisement in Flash, an animated gif or other rich media.

Invisible Web
Web Pages that are not reachable by search engines.

IP (Internet Protocol)
This protocol allows for machines to communicate to each other via the Internet.

IP Address (Internet Protocol Address)
how data finds its way back and forth from your computer to the internet.

IP Spoofing
A method of reporting an IP address other than your own when connecting to the internet.

js (JavaScript)
A scripting language that provides browser functionality.

Keyword Density
A ratio of the number of occurrences of a keyword or "keyword phrase" to the total number of words on a page.

Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI)
The KEI compares the number of searches for a keyword with the number of search results to pinpoint which keywords should be the most effective for your campaign.

Keyword Phrase
A group of words that form a search query.

Keyword Stuffing
Using a keyword or "keyword phrase" excessively in a web page, perhaps in the text content or meta tags.

Klog
The term used when weblogs are used in knowledge management use cases.

KW (Key Words)
Used to define the terms a user might enter into a search engine to find information on their query.

Landing Page
Usually used in conjunction with a PPC campaign, they are call-to-action pages that prompt the user to engage the site.

Link
Also known as a hyperlink, it is the "clickable" area of text or image that allows for navigation on the Internet. Also the name of the main character og the Legend of Zelda video games.

Link Bait (Linkbaiting)
The process of getting users to link to your site.

Link Farm
A site that features links in no particular order which are totally unrelated to each other.

Link Maximization
The method of getting popular sites in your industry to link to your website.

Link Partner
A website who is willing to put a link to your site from their website. Quite often link partners engage in reciprocal linking.

Link Popularity
How many sites link to your website.

Link Text
The clickable part of a hyperlink. Also known as Anchor Text or Anchor Link.

Linkerati
People who are the target of linkbait - bloggers, forum users, social taggers, etc.

Listings
The results that a search engine returns for a particular search term.






Mashups
Commonly thought of as a way of merging two different items, or scraping more than one source.

Meta Description Tag
Hold the description of the content found on the page.

Meta Keywords Tag
Holds the keywords that are found on the page.

Meta Search Engine
A search engine that relies on the meta data found in meta tags to determine relevancy.

Meta Tag Masking
An old trick that uses CGI codes to hide the Meta tags from browsers while allowing search engines to actually see the Meta tags.

Meta Tags
Header tags that provide information about the content of a site.

Metadata
META Tags or what are officially referred to as Metadata Elements, are found within the section of your web pages.

Metajacking
The use of copyrighted names and slogans in META tags.

MFA (Made For AdSense)
A term that describes websites that are created entirely for the purpose of gaming Google Adsense to make money.

MFD
Made For Digg - Similar to MFA (Made for AdSense) sites, these sites try to get traffic from digg by having entire sites full of funny images or postings.

Microchunk
To split up a product or service sold traditionally as a package, offering each piece to buyers a la carte.

MicroFormats
Designed for humans first and machines second, microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards. Instead of throwing away what works today, microformats intend to solve simpler problems first by adapting to current behaviors and usage patterns (e.g. XHTML, blogging). - taken from (http://microformats.org/about/)

Mirror Sites
A mirror site is a site that exacltly duplicates another site.

Mobisode
TV shows shot exclusively for mobile phones.

MoBlog
Short for "My Mobile Blog", a service from Blogger that when you send an email to go@blogger.com from your cellphone, it automatically creates a new blog.

Mociology
The study of how people adapt and use wireless technologies.

Most Wanted Response (MWR)
This is what you want your customer to do on your site.

Mowser
Short for Mobile Browser.

MP3
Stands for “MPEG Third Layer.” A standard for storing and transmitting music in digital format across the Internet.

MSN (MicroSoft Network)
Microsoft's search engine.

Narrowcasting
Creating a program aimed at a small and specific niche or group of people.

Natural Listing
A listing that appears below the sponsored ads, also known as Organic Listings.

Navigational Query
A query that normally has only one satisfactory result.

NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement)
Usually required as part of a contract to protect the company engaging in services.

Necroing
The act of posting to old threads to bring them back up. Also known as "bumping".

Niche
A specialized segment of a market that is usually geared towards one specific purpose.

Niche Aggregators
Another way of saying Spam site.

NOFOLLOW
An attribute used in a hyperlink to instruct search engines not to follow the link. (And pass PageRank)

Off-Page Factors
Factors that alter search engine positions that occur externally from other website's. By having many links from other sites pointing to yours is an example of Off-Page Factors.

On-Page Factors
Factors that determine search engine positions that occur internally within a page of a website. This can include site copy, page titles, and navigational structure of the site.






OOP (Over Optimization Penalty)
A theory that applies if one targets only 1 keyword or phrase, and the search engines view the linking efforts to be spam.

OpenRank (Open Source PageRank)
A suggestion to make a web-wide ranking system as opposed to Google's Pagerank.

Opt-In
When a user willing joins a subscription to a newsletter or some other service.

Organic Listing
The natural results returned by a search engine.

Orphan Page
A page that has a link to it, but has no links to any other sites.

Outbound Link
A link from your site to any other site.

Page View
Anytime a user looks at any page on a website through their browser.

PageMatch
A cost-per-click advertising program that serves your site's ad on a page that contains related content.

PageRank Drain
When a page has no outbound links, it causes pagerank drain because it cannot pass any value to another web page.

Paid Inclusion
A submission service where you pay a fee to a search engine and the search engine guarantees that your website will be included in its index. Paid inclusion programs will also ensure that your website is indexed very fast and crawled on regular basis. It can also be used as a term to include fee based directory submission.

Pay-Per-Click Management
Strategy, Planning and Placement of targeted keywords in the paid search results.

PFI (Pay For Inclusion)
A system in which a site pays to get a guaranteed listing.

PFP (Pay For Performance)
A system in which payment for services is only made when a conversion takes place.

Podcasting
A Podcast is just an audio file that is syndicated via an RSS feed, that is downloaded and listened to with a computer or a portable device such as an iPod.

Podcatching
The process of subscribing to podcasts.

PPC (Pay Per Click)
A technique where placements are determined by how much id bid on a particular keyword or phrase. Can become very expensive.

PR (Google's PageRank)
Google's unique system of how it tries to predict the value of a pages rank.

Pro Blogging
A person who makes a living by blogging.

Query
An inquiry that is entered into a search engine in order to get results.

Rank - Ranking
The actual position of a website on a search engine results page for a certain search term or phrase.

Reciprocal Link
When two sites link to each other.

Redirects
Either server side or scripting language that tells the search engine to go to another URL automatically.

Referral Spam
Sending multiple requests to a website spoofing the header to make it look like real traffic is being sent to another site.

Referrer
A referrer is the URL of the page that the visitor came from when he entered a website.






Relevance Rank (RR)
A system in which the search engine tries to determine the theme of a site that a link is coming from

Relevancy
Term used to describe how close the content of a page is in relation to the keyword phrase used to search.

Results Page
When a user conducts a search, the page that is displayed, is called the results page. Sometimes it may be called SERPs, which stands for "search engine results page."

RFP (Request for Proposal)
Used to send out to multiple companies in order to get a list of services to be delivered and at what cost.

Rich Internet Applications (RIA)
Applications such as Ajax and Flash that provide a better user experience by delivering content in an on-demand web environment.

Robot
Often used to refer to a search engine spider.

ROC (Return on Customer)
The value each customer brings.

ROI (Return on Investment)
The cost it takes to in order to see success on your marketing investment.

RSS Feed (Rich Site Summary or Rich Site Syndication)
RSS feeds use an XML document to publish information.

Scope Creep
When the contracted amount of work to be completed changes because of client changes or technology advances.

SE (Search Engine)
A web based information retrieval program.

Search Engine
Best described as a database of websites users can search using search terms. Every search engine has its own algorithm which defines how the results are displayed.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
The practice of getting a website found on the internet

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The act of altering code to a website to have optimum relevance to a search engine spider.

Search Friendly Optimization (SFO)
As the term implies, this is the process of making a website search engine friendly.

Search Query
The text entered into the search box on a search engine.

SEOlebirty
Famous people in the world of search.

SERP (Search Engine Results Page)
The results that are displayed after making a query into a search box.

SFO
Search Friendly Optimization.

Sitemap (Site Map)
A page that lists all of the critical navigation points of a website.

Slurp
The name of Yahoo's Search Engine Spider.

Smishing
Phishing via text message. Smishers bombard cell phones with SMS versions of standard phishing solicitations, directing victims to Web sites that install spyware on their computers.

Snippet
The text displayed from a search query.

Social Media Poisoning
A technique where unscrupulous marketers will try to sabotage a competitor's web site by engaging in social media communications and link seeding/spamming tactics that they hope will spark a rash of bad publicity, and maybe even trigger some sort of rankings and/or reputational search penalty against their competitor.

SPAM
Unwanted email or irrelevant content delivered. (or as some say, Site Placed Above Mine)

Spam Cannon
A term used in conjunction with sites that use email sign-ups for spamming purposes - the latimes.com is an example.

Spamming
The act of delivering unwanted messages to the masses.

Spamouflage
The method or result of concealing or disguising search engine spam to make it appear to be legitimate.






Spider
The software that crawls your site to try and determine the content it finds.

Spiderbaiting
A technique that makes a search engine spider find your site.

Splash Page
A page displayed for viewing before reaching the main page.

Stemming
The main part of a word to which affixes are added.

Stickiness
How influential your site is in keeping a visitor on your page.

Stop Word
A stop word is a "common word" which is ignored in a query because the word makes no contribution to the relevancy of the query.

Stop Word
Stop words are very common words such as ‘a, the, and & that’ and are filtered out of your search query. Search engines do this in order to try to serve the best results for a user query.

Strategic Linking
A thought out approach to getting websites to link to your site.

Submission
The process of submitting URL(s) to search engines or directories.

SWOT
A methodic way of identifying your Strengths and Weaknesses, and of examining the Opportunities and Threats you face.

Syntax
The proper use of language when coding a website.

Tag Soup
Tag soup is HTML code written without regard for the rules of HTML structure and semantics.

The Deep Web
The content in databases that rarely shows up in Web searches. It is estimated that there are 500 billion Web pages that could potentially be hidden.

Theme
What the site's main topic is about.

Thin Affiliates
Doorways that send visitors to affiliate programs, earning a commission for doing so, while providing little or no value-added content or service to the user.

Title Tag
It should be used to describe the web page using targeted keywords using no more that 60 characters, including spaces.

TLD (Top Level Domain)
Most commonly thought of as a ".com", also includes ".org" and ".edu"

TOM (Tactical Online Marketing)
The process of informing the customer of your services from various sources.

TOS (Terms of Service)
Usually found in a contract, also known as the contracts "deliverables".

Tracking URL
Usually used in PPC campaigns, it is a URL that has special code added to it so that results can be monitored.

Traffic
The number of visitors a website receives over a given period. Usually reported on a monthly basis.

Transactional Query
A query where the user expects to conduct a transaction.

Trusted Feed
A form of paid inclusion which uses bulk a XML feed to directly send website content to search engines for indexing. The feed can be optimized so that your website can take advantage better rankings and therefore more traffic

TrustRank
A method of using a combination of limited human site review in conjunction with a search engines algorithm.

Typosquatting
Relies on typographical errors by users to serve up websites that look like Google to launch viruses and trojans to unsuspecting users.

Unique Visitor
When a user visits a website, his/her IP address is logged so if he/she returns later on that day, the visit won’t be counted as a unique visit but as a page impression.

Universal Search
Launched on May 16, 2007, this is Google's attempt to deliver the best result from the web. This can include video, images, news, podcasts or any other form of digital content.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
Commonly referred to as the domain name, this is how humans navigate through the Internet, whereas computers use IP addresses.

User Agent
A User agent name is the name of the software accessing a web page. (Another term for Agent Name)

USP (Unique Selling Proposition)
Sometimes mistakenly defined as Unique Selling Point. The Unique Selling Proposition concept was first developed by Rosser Reeves of the Ted Bates Agency. Basically, it's what sets you apart from your competition.

VEO
Visitor Enhanced Optimization






VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol)
VoIP converts the voice signal from your telephone into a digital signal that travels over the internet then converts it back at the other end so you can speak to anyone with a regular phone number.

Web Saturation
How many pages of your site are indexed by the search engines collectively.

Webneck
Slang term for a person who spends most of their time on the internet, most of their friends are netpals, and they are uncomfortable if they can't get online.

White Hat SEO
A term that refers to ethical practice of SEO methodologies that adhere to search engine Terms of Service.

White Paper
A White Paper is your statement about how a problem should be solved.

Whois Data
Registration data such as the company name, address and telephone number when registering a domain name.

Whore Trains
A list of people on MySpace that you add yourself to and keep reposting the list so that you can get a lot of people requesting to be your friends.

Wi-Fi (certification mark)
Used to certify the interoperability of wireless computer networking devices.

WikiSoldiers
Users who enjoy the process of building and defending wikipedia.

Wilf
What was I looking for?

WWW (World Wide Web)
Another term to describe the Internet.

XML (Extensible Markup Language (filename.xml))
A scripting language that allows the programmer to define the properties of the document.

Yahoo!
The #2 Search Engine in the world.

Zeitgeist (Google Zeitgesit)
A service provided that shows snippets of the emerging and declining trends of what people are searching for through the Google search engine.

Search Engine Optimization - SEO Workout

What is Search Engine Optimization? (SEO)

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Search Engine Optimization is the process of making changes to the coding of a website in order to rank better in the search engine results page. There are many steps involved in the process, many of which include the following: W3C Validation Proper naming structure of files for search engines Proper phrasing of the page title Inclusion of a robots.txt file Creation of a sitemap 404 error handling page Meta tags Relevant site copy to page title Site navigational structure While this is a short list, there are many considerations that have to accounted for when optimizing your website. A knowledgeable Search Marketer should be able to determine what would be the best process to get your site coded in a search engine friendly fashion.

What is Search Engine Marketing? (SEM)

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Search Engine Marketing is the process of getting targeted traffic to your site by getting exposure of your site through various channels. Here are some examples of getting exposure for your site: Press Releases Article Writing Blogs Engaging in a link campaign Directory Submission Purchasing Text Links PPC Campaigns Banner Advertising RSS/XML Feeds A knowledgeable Search Marketer should be able to determine what would be the best process to market your site and get the most of your marketing budget.

 

Google Tricks

Enter just the word http for your search to find the top 1000 PageRanked sites. Enter only www in your search to see how Google ranks the top 1,000 sites. Manually type the following prefixes and note their utility: link:url Shows other pages with links to that url. related:url same as "what's related" on serps. site:domain restricts search results to the given domain. allinurl: shows only pages with all terms in the url. inurl: like allinurl, but only for the next query word. allintitle: shows only results with terms in title. intitle: similar to allintitle, but only for the next word. "intitle:seoforgoogle google" finds only pages with seoforgoogle in the title, and google anywhere on the page. cache:url will show the Google version of the passed url. info:url will show a page containing links to related searches, backlinks, and pages containing the url. This is the same as typing the url into the search box. spell: will spell check your query and search for it. stocks: will lookup the search query in a stock index. filetype: will restrict searches to that filetype. "-filetype:pdf" to remove Adobe PDF files. daterange: is supported in Julian date format only. 2452384 is an example of a Julian date. maps: If you enter a street address, a link to Yahoo Maps and to MapBlast will be presented. phone: enter anything that looks like a phone number to have a name and address displayed. Same is true for something that looks like an address (include a name and zip code) site:www.somesite.net "+www.somesite.+net" - (tells you how many pages of your site are indexed by google) allintext: searches only within text of pages, but not in the links or page title allinlinks: searches only within links, not text or title

 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Resources
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A free listing of SEO Resources that will help you get your site ranked in the search engines. As always, if you know of a resource that you think should be on this page, drop me a line, and if it's up to snuff, it will get listed.
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