As a web designer and webmaster, internet security is a huge issue. Not only for myself and my company's site, but for all my clients. Part of my job is protecting my clients from my other clients. It's like this.....

For the last couple of months, I've had all manner of high power techs chasing a spamming bot that's very sophisticated and tenancious. As soon as we block one avenue, it morphs and starts using another. We were all convinced it was some sneaky piece of code buried deep in one client's site. But multiple scans and digging revealed nothing. In the end, we've concluded it's very much off-site and, in fact, on my client's computer (one or more of them).

Why didn't we go this route sooner, you may ask? The simple fact is, as a host and webmaster, internet security for my clients is my job, and it's counterproductive running round blaming others unless we're completely sure. At best, it makes one look stupid if you're wrong. So there was a good amount of due diligence.

These 5 simple rules could have saved everyone a lot of heartache, time and money if they'd been followed. Like most webmasters,

This is one question I'm asked from time to time, and it's a great question. Is phoenixwebsitedesign.com the same as phoenix-website-design.com or phoenix_website_design.com? To figure this out, let's look at how search engines interpret these 3 URLs.

Dashes, underscores or nothing?

Simply put, according to Google, they look at dashes as a space between 2 or more words, whereas they view underscores as joining 2 or more words. So, for Google, phoenixwebsitedesign.com and phoenix_website_design.com are the same.

Bing is slightly different. They look at dashes and underscores exactly the same - a space between 2 words.

So, to get the same result from both search engines, you'd be better to use dashes, But does it matter? Aren't search engines getting smart enough nowadays to figure it out?

Why it matters- the ongoing debate

The SEO community has debated for years, and continues to do so, over this topic. In Google's case, their algorithm uses over 200 benchmarks to determine a page's relevancy to a search query. Of course, there are more inportant items in that mix, and less important items. Max Cutts tells us not to get too hung up on keywords in URLs, however, a nice, easy to remember

With your bottom line getting squeezed every day, maximizing - and tweaking - your advertizing spend is vital. Here are 9 things you can do, or look at, to ensure your spend is getting results.

Track your results. One of the most important things you must do. If you're not tracking, you have no idea whether any marketing is achieving a result. So ask every customer this simple question, "How did you find us?" If you're using special campaigns, consider a "hidden" landing page for that so you can more easily track results.

Check your form results. Are you regularly checking online form responses? Or do emails from your forms sit in an unchecked email box, or only get check once a week?

Response followup. Assuming you're not wasting your responses by not checking, what's your follow-up strategy? Do you have one? How many times will you try to make contact - 1, 2, 3....? Don't give up - be persistent!

Wrong target market. Have you clearly identified your target market, and are you pitching to them on their level? There are so many demographics which come into play here; poor choice will result in poor campaign performance.

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