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When it comes to search engine optimization, or SEO, you may have heard the criticism that any Web site could be number one if you pick a keyword that is obscure enough. There are also a lot of criticisms that say that SEO is not effective in putting your Web site in a higher search engine ranking and in bringing in sales and customers to your site; that everything is just based on pure luck.

What adds to the confusion are companies and services that claim to be able to put your site on the first page or top spot of any search engine for any keyword you specify and then they use black hat techniques composed of deceitful and underhanded tactics to put you on top only as long as you keep paying them. Once you have stopped paying, your rankings fall, sometimes it becomes worse off than when you started. What is more, these black hat techniques can prove to be a bane to your ranking because search engines are very dynamic and are constantly updated and be able to detect these sooner or later. There is always the possibility that your site would be banned for using these techniques.

Over the years, people have come out with pronouncements that SEO is dead. They claim that you cannot influence how your sites would be ranked by search engines with its algorithms being constantly updated. Additionally, they say that SEO companies are just guessing at how search engines rank sites because these algorithms are closely guarded secrets in the first place.

The truth of the matter is that SEO works. It is not dead. It is not an art, but a science. SEO companies and experts have made educated guesses and made changes to Web sites that have seen better rankings than when left alone. The process is very much like how scientists and academics have their own theories and they do experiments to test it out. SEO experts and scientists strive to prove causality between one process and its results.

Done right, SEO can help your site get good rankings on keywords that are used by your customers and potential buyers. What this entails is that, like other marketing initiatives, you should know who your customers are in order to find the keywords that would give you the most benefits. More than this, you should also know the various techniques of SEO and how to execute them. This includes learning how to implement white hat techniques like on page optimization, off-page SEO, link building, creating better content that is both SEO-friendly and natural sounding. Over and again, companies that implement these techniques have reaped rewards after rewards.

Critics could easily dismiss it as fluff and nothing but putting in a good word for a dying man. A look at how real world companies approach their SEO, however, proves another point. In June 2009, Forbes Magazine released its study of Ad Effectiveness. The Magazine found that:

• SEO, along with e-mail and newsletter marketing remains to be the most popular form of e-marketing among senior marketing executives.
• 48% of these executives said that SEO was most effective in generating sales and conversions.
• 92% of marketing executives will keep their existing SEO budgets or increase it within the succeeding six months.

What these marketers are saying is that SEO is effecting at not only putting your site where your customers are, but it works so well that they are willing to bet their money and keep on spending for it.

Your brand can be a strong factor in whether you succeed online or not. One search at your company name or brand and a potential customer can make a decision whether to push through with buying from you or look at some other company.

Your brand is your identity. Your brand tells your customers why they should buy from you. It is what your brand connotes that makes you successful. Take a look at the world’s most successful brands and you will get an idea of why branding and protecting your brand is very important.

Brands are not just about the company logo, it is the emotional connection between your products and your customers. It is what your products are associated with. For example, Coke has been working hard to associate its beverages with fun and refreshment, while others like Louis Vuitton likes to make you think of luxury when thinking of their brands. McDonald’s, on the other hand, goes for inexpensive yet pleasant experience, while Nintendo goes for family friendly and can be suitable for the home.

The best brands are associated with great value and durability, value for money and reliability, great customer service along with a superior product.

Yet, with the advent of the Internet, your brand’s image can easily be tarnished. It could be a customer warning other people not to buy your products, or some wrong move by your company. Mattel’s Barbie has long been known to be a safe toy for children, and its image was severely tarnished when it was found that its Chinese partner used toxic chemicals, causing it to issue a toy recall involving more than 9.5 million dolls. More than this, parents all over the world avoided buying Barbie dolls until the issue died down and only after Mattel assured the public of more stringent processes to avoid the same incident in the future.

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The year 2009 underscored an enormous economic meltdown that brought many United States businesses to their knees. But for some of America’s most famous moneymakers, the year brought enormous luck and vast gains. America’s top 25 stock gainers — composed of large stakeholders in publicly traded companies — made a combined $81.5 billion in 2009, Forbes.com reports.

Check out Forbes’ esteemed list of the ten biggest gainers in 2009:

1. The founder of Google, Inc., Larry Page raked in a whooping $8.4 billion between January and mid-December 2009. At 36, Mr. Page is ranked as the 26th billionaire in the world and the 11th wealthiest person in the United States. Technology stocks are enjoying broad boost with the economic rebooting, according to Forbes. As such, Google made a rise of 90% since January 2009.

2. Sergey Brin, the Russian-born American co-founder of Google, Inc. gained $8.2 billion in 2009. The 36-year old Internet titan gets a rebound after losing $11.7 billion in 2008 amid the collapse of Internet companies’ shares.

3. Oracle Corporation and NetSuite gave 65-year-old founder Larry Ellison a $7.9 billion gain in 2009. He made it to fourth spot of Forbes’ list of richest persons as of September 30, 2009.

4. Microsoft magnate Bill Gates generated $7.6 billion in 2009. The computer software company he founded with Paul Allen consistently places him on the list of the world’s richest. Over half of Mr. Gates’ fortune, however, is held outside of Microsoft. At 54, Mr. Gates grabbed the top spot overall as the wealthiest person in 2009.

5. At barely 46 years old, Jeffrey Bezos has made Amazon a household name. The online retail company gained $7.3 billion in 2009 amid a 175% surge during the past 12 months. Amazon’s shares hit an all-time high in early December 2009.

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There was a bit of hubbub within the Internet community when Google started giving out exclusive invites for users to preview their newest baby – Google Wave.

Friends’ shout outs were variations of “I finally got a Wave invite!” and comments like “Nominate me!” and “Please send me an invite!” started going around social networking circles.

Google has done it once again, creating the same hype as when Gmail first came out. This “by invite only” feature works rather successfully, but will Google Wave live up to the hype and expectations of hundreds of intrigued users?

What is Google Wave? That is undoubtedly the first question to address.

Well, according to Google, it is an “online tool for real-time communication and collaboration.” Obviously, the key word here is “real-time.” Look at it as the evolution of email and IM thrown together – you can chat, post and reply to messages at once, share media – all in real-time.

Posts within the Google Wave interface are called waves. A wave can be:

• A conversation, email or IM style, wherein you can reply to messages as they are posted.

• Edited – any participant can edit the content posted and share ideas, comments, or suggestions with everyone included in that particular wave.

• Media-rich. That is, you can post photos, videos, and other media within a wave for all participants to view.

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The online dating scene is very much alive, proof positive that the Internet is really mirroring real life.

If you are trying to find love online, you are certainly not alone. According to statistics published by Jupiter Research, around three million people used and paid online dating sites and services in 2003, spending more than $200 million in the first half of that year alone. Meanwhile, Online Dating Magazine says that 120,000 couples who met online are married each year. That is how the online dating scene improved the way people connect.

Online dating may be an exciting forum to meet new people for both friendship and love. It takes the traditional personals to the Web, making it a lot easier for one person to find someone. What is more, you do not have to go through a lot of useless ads to find the one you are looking for. Using the site’s search function, one can easily look for a mate by filtering out various choices on the basis of their gender, age, educational attainment, the color of their eyes, and even their income among other factors.

There are also some specialized dating services now that cater to people belonging in similar groups. People of the same religion, homosexuals, singles, teens, among other groups have their own specialized dating sites, while there are also a site that explicitly advertises meeting up for sex.

Once a searcher gets his or her shortlist of matches, the communication begins. Depending on the dating site, this usually means an exchange of messages, or if both are online, an online chat. From there, it is up to both parties how long they want to correspond and if they want to meet up.

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A lot has been said about your privacy online. More and more people are getting victims of phishers, scammers and identity thieves in a range of privacy violations from getting embarrassing status updates put up on their social networking sites, to downright criminal acts like unauthorized use of credit cards and money getting stolen from the victims’ Paypal accounts or online bank accounts.

Here are the top 5 ways to protect your privacy online.

1. It is not limited to social media networks.
When talking about online privacy, social media sites like Facebook and MySpace immediately come to mind. While they are the most prevalent sites that identity thefts and other cyber criminals use to carry out their crimes, they are not the ONLY sites. You could get in trouble using e-mail, backing up your files online, or even through searching.

This is not to say that you should go lax with your privacy on social media sites, it is just the opposite: you should safeguard the personal information you have on your social media sites because they could be used for other sites as well.

To do this, you should use the site’s privacy option, which effectively makes your profiles invisible to people who are outside your contacts list. You be careful on adding people to your contacts list as well. If a stranger asks you to add him or her to your contacts list, think very carefully before you click that approve button.

Further, you should not post private information online, or information that would tell people where you would be at a particular day and time. Nor should you post pictures, blogs, and other content that may be deemed offensive, racist or reveals too much about you or your life that it could be used against you at some later time.

Lastly, do not share personal information online. This includes that of your friends. There may be sites that ask you to refer a page to a friend, and if you like their page, chances are you will input not only your name and contact details, but your friends’ as well. When asked to sign up with your e-mail address, you might want to create a new one for use on these sites, protecting your primary e-mail address.

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Perpetrators of phishing, scamming and identity theft have found a veritable gold mine in social networking sites. All too often, users of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter inadvertently make themselves easy targets for these kinds of activities.

Here are four ways to protect yourself and your information online.

1. Always check your privacy settings.
While Facebook sets your privacy setting to your contacts by default, other social networking sites do not. In fact, some display your profile to the general public. Make sure that you make use of a site’s privacy settings to allow only your friends, family, loved ones and contacts to view your profile.

In line with this, do not add just anybody as your contact. If you are keeping a personal profile, then make sure that you only have people you personally know in your contact list. If you are on social networking sites to play online games, or to market your brand, it might help to create a separate account for this purpose. You can limit the amount of personal information you have on these accounts.

2. Think twice before you post something.
For one, do not post your hometown if this has been set as your secret password question. Make sure that your post does not have personal information in it, or other identifiers like a landmark near where you work.

In no circumstances should you announce where you would be at a particular time. This way, lurkers would not be able to pinpoint where you are at any time.

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Most of us are under the impression that social networking sites are safe havens for our thoughts, feelings and just about anything that we want to share with our friends, family and contacts. However, one must not forget that whatever you put online is up for the whole world to see, not just your close friends, family or coworker.

As such, we have seen “scandal” photos taken off people’s MySpace, Facebook and other social networking accounts circulating in the Internet.

Your best bet, of course, would be to be prudent about what information you make available online. Before you post photographs or blog posts, make sure that it is something that you are comfortable having your mother, spiritual adviser or boss read through your blog post or seeing these photos. If you do not think they will approve, better not post them.

This goes for relatively tame personal information. If you are planning a party, you might think that posting the details on MySpace is the easiest way to get the word out. You might indicate the time of the party and your home address in the invites.

On the day of your party, people you do not know show up at your doorstep or someone might obtain that address for other reasons. Make sure that you do not post personal information, such as your home address, mobile number, where you work, where you are going to be, online. This would only help strangers find you.

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With the global economy in recession, more and more people are finding themselves unemployed as companies find themselves hard put to operate. Some business have gone bankrupt, while others have downsized their operations to avoid being in the same scenario.

Having a business nowadays is no longer a luxury as it used to be. It is no longer an option for those who want more control of their time and resources. For some, it has become a difficult reality, and it spells the difference between having food on the table or seeing your whole family hungry.

But what are the best home businesses that right now? Here are our top 5 picks for the best businesses you can run from home.

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Writing, they say, is an art. But whether you are just starting to learn how to write, or is making a living out of it, there are some sites that you should not do without. Here are the top 5 Web sites that every writer should know.

5. Blogspot.com or WordPress.com
If you are a new writer looking for work, your best advertisement is your own words. This is where Blogspot.com and WordPress.com come in handy. There are other blogging platforms available on the Web, but these two are by far the easiest to use, promote and maintain. Both are one-click publishing solutions: so whether you just want to rant about the latest issues, or adding the next installment to a series you have started, all you need to do is to compose and submit.

Remember, however, that you should present your best work on your blog. Think of it as a writing portfolio that you can show to potential customers.

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Since ancient man first discovered the therapeutic (or otherwise) use of plants, drugs have evolved from simple leaf concoctions to complex synthetic chemicals that modern man uses to treat ailments. The following are some of the greatest drugs that man has come up with.

1. Penicillin.
This most common of drugs is probably the most underrated. Its discovery is generally credited to Alexander Fleming of Scotland, who in 1928 demonstrated that by letting penicillium notatum grow in the proper substrate, it gives off material that has antibiotic properties. He called it penicillin. His discovery won him a Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1945.
The Australian Howard Walter Florey, however, is the one who gets credit for developing penicillin as an antibiotic. Florey shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine along with his colleague Ernest Chain the same year Fleming did.

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Most people find themselves in situations wherein twenty four hours is no longer enough to finish daily tasks. To accomplish your to-do list, you need an efficient organizing strategy. But what is organization, and how do we do it especially with today’s technological advancements? Here are suggested ways to lighten the load with the help of your digital buddies.

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The competition for quality and high paying jobs has heightened with the global economic recession. This has resulted in freeze hiring and company retrenchments. Companies have become even more demanding in admitting only the best candidates. Put your best foot forward and land on that dream job with an outstanding resume that will capture the attention of any employer. Check out these updated techniques to beef up your resume and win that desired post.

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Plurk is one of the more intriguing lifestreaming sites out on the World Wide Web right now. Launched in May of 2008, it takes the basics of Twitter and dresses them up in a snazzy interface, throwing some pretty interesting features into the mix.

Why “plurk”? The name alone sparks curiosity. According to Plurk’s creators, there are four ideas behind this catchy name. One is People + Lurk – yes, people do lurk online. Second, it is an amalgam of Play and Work, touching on the fun side of plurking. Third, it is an acronym for Peace, Love, Unity, Respect, Karma. Lastly, there is the potential for becoming a coined verb, just like “google”.
Now, Plurk users call themselves “plurkers”, the act of posting is called “plurking”, and the post itself is called a “plurk”. Very, very catchy indeed.

So what makes Plurk so much different from Twitter and why do plurkers love it? Here are the top 5 reasons:

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