SEO (Its All About Online Marketing)

What is Search Engine Optimization?
Search Engine Optimization or SEO for short is modification done in the web site design, coding, content and/or structure of a web site

in an effort to achieve the higher ranking within search engines. Search Engine Optimization are done to attend the highest ranking in the search engine results for some targeted keywords or key phrases.

Search engine optimization can be enforced on the website while designing it or can be performed after a website is designed. It is a technique that can be used to develop a website, which is search engine friendly. Most of the search engine uses a software called "crawlers" or "spider". The main motive of these software are to check the website create their index (search engine index).

The method of getting search result is different for each search engines. Search engine applies many techniques to index the web pages and include into its directory. So the next time if your web page ranking high within one search engine and not in another then do not bother, it's because of different method used by these search engines. To rank higher in all the search engine you can do the things which is used by all search engines. You have to track all the changes happened in the search engine operation or method of spider software for getting search results and accordingly modify your web sites.

The process of search engine optimization includes the optimization of the following items:

• Analyzing Site
• Site Designing
• Promotion of website and
• Maintenance of website.

Important things to be remembered while Optimizing Your Web Site

A better optimized site rank high. Optimizing a website is not about tricking with the search engine, instead you should design your site both search engine friendly and human friendly. Many people spends lot's of money and uses latest technology to achieve the target business by their website, but unluckily sometimes they fail in achieving. So it's essential to optimize your site in right way, in order to get successful online business by standing ranking-high in major search engines and able to attract lot's of clients. For optimizing a website always plan a good strategy.

Search Engine Optimization Strategy:

• Research your keywords
• Check rankings with search engines
• URL Submission
• The Title tag
• Meta Description and Meta Keyword Tags
• ALT Tags
• Content of the page.
• Link building

Search Engine Optimization Strategy

It is vital for every website that wants to stand rank-high in major search engines, to plan a strategy before developing or while optimizing an existing website. A well planed strategy can help in achieving the targets easily. A well optimized site attract targeted traffic by attaining very high positions in the search results.

Search Engine Optimization Strategy can including;

:: Give relevancy Title
A title is nothing but a focal point of the content written in your page. It gives the main idea of whatever written in the page. Whenever search engine searches for any topic it always checks the title and subtitle of the page first. So it becomes important to give an appropriate title and subtitle, sometimes a relevancy keyword can be useful in Title. But remember it should not be too long, at most it could be 80 character long. A short and relevancy title can help to rank higher in search engines.
Title can be defined as:

Title always follows closing tag and written in Head tag.

:: Meta Tag Operation
Meta tags are used between and in the html document. Meta tags are also know as hidden tag, which provide the information about the page to the search engines. Although not all the search engines use these tags but many do. Meta tags are of different types namely Description, Keyword, Robots, Revisit After, Author, copyright, Distribution, Language and ranking meta tag that can be used to provides information of the page. But if the main motive of using meta tag is to improve the standing in search engines, one should focus on keyword and description Meta Tag.
Note: Meta Tag does not have closing Tag.

Description Meta Tag :: By using the Description tag we can give the details about our services in short. Most of the search engine use meta tags to display the description in search result, and others use it to decide the ranking of the page. The length of description tag should in between 150 to 200 characters or can be less depending on search engine requirement. The Description tag can be written as fellow:


Keyword Meta Tag :: Sometime keyword's are used to determine the ranking by search engines. These Keywords are defined using Keyword Meta tag. In this tag we can define our all keywords relevancy to our page content. The limitation of this tag is 200 character or less. This Tag can be defined as:

Note: The Description and Keyword Meta tag should be defined only once.


:: Content writing
You should write good contents for your site. The content should be readable by humans and it should also contains your targeted keywords. But keep in mind that keyword spamming is also detected by search engines. Also write the news and some tutorials and submit it to content directory.

Keyword: A Particular word or often phrase which helps you to search relevant information by typing in search engines or finding from database. These special word named as keywords, which could be related of any information or websites on the web. For example a job related site targets the keyword such as job, IT job, etc...
These significant words can be used in Title or heading of the page so that they can be searched easily without putting much efforts.

Research keyword: is a process of searching good, effective, common and popular keywords, which is relevant to the information provided on your website and mostly used for search query.

Some people usually tries to find these keyword or phrase by searching in search engines with different keywords. So, think of what people is looking for and adjust your page content accordingly. But nowadays you can easily get keyword research software available with many companies at low price or free to download. These type of software not only saves your time but also gives you some popular and effective keywords to stands rank-high in search engines.

what is Google Page Rank(GPR) or PR :-

PageRank is one of the methods Google uses to determine a page’s relevance or importance. It is only one part of the story when it comes to the Google listing, but the other aspects are discussed elsewhere (and are ever changing) and PageRank is interesting enough to deserve a paper of its own.

PageRank is also displayed on the toolbar of your browser if you’ve installed the Google toolbar. But the Toolbar PageRank only goes from 0 - 10 and seems to be something like a logarithmic scale:

Toolbar PageRank (log base 10) Real PageRank 0 0 - 10 1 100 - 1,000 2 1,000 - 10,000 3 10,000 - 100,000 4 and so on…

We can’t know the exact details of the scale because, as we’ll see later, the maximum PR of all pages on the web changes every month when Google does its re-indexing! If we presume the scale is logarithmic (although there is only anecdotal evidence for this at the time of writing) then Google could simply give the highest actual PR page a toolbar PR of 10 and scale the rest appropriately.

Also the toolbar sometimes guesses! The toolbar often shows me a Toolbar PR for pages I’ve only just uploaded and cannot possibly be in the index yet!

What seems to be happening is that the toolbar looks at the URL of the page the browser is displaying and strips off everything down the last “/” (i.e. it goes to the “parent” page in URL terms). If Google has a Toolbar PR for that parent then it subtracts 1 and shows that as the Toolbar PR for this page. If there’s no PR for the parent it goes to the parent’s parent’s page, but subtracting 2, and so on all the way up to the root of your site. If it can’t find a Toolbar PR to display in this way, that is if it doesn’t find a page with a real calculated PR, then the bar is greyed out.

Note that if the Toolbar is guessing in this way, the Actual PR of the page is 0 - though its PR will be calculated shortly after the Google spider first sees it.

PageRank says nothing about the content or size of a page, the language it’s written in, or the text used in the anchor of a link!

Definitions

I’ve started to use some technical terms and shorthand in this paper. Now’s as good a time as any to define all the terms I’ll use:

PR: Shorthand for PageRank: the actual, real, page rank for each page as calculated by Google. As we’ll see later this can range from 0.15 to billions. Toolbar PR: The PageRank displayed in the Google toolbar in your browser. This ranges from 0 to 10. Backlink: If page A links out to page B, then page B is said to have a “backlink” from page A.

So what is PageRank?

In short PageRank is a “vote”, by all the other pages on the Web, about how important a page is. A link to a page counts as a vote of support. If there’s no link there’s no support (but it’s an abstention from voting rather than a vote against the page).

Quoting from the original Google paper, PageRank is defined like this:

We assume page A has pages T1…Tn which point to it (i.e., are citations). The parameter d is a damping factor which can be set between 0 and 1. We usually set d to 0.85. There are more details about d in the next section. Also C(A) is defined as the number of links going out of page A. The PageRank of a page A is given as follows:

PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + … + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))

Note that the PageRanks form a probability distribution over web pages, so the sum of all web pages’ PageRanks will be one.

PageRank or PR(A) can be calculated using a simple iterative algorithm, and corresponds to the principal eigenvector of the normalized link matrix of the web.

but that’s not too helpful so let’s break it down into sections.

1. PR(Tn) - Each page has a notion of its own self-importance. That’s “PR(T1)” for the first page in the web all the way up to “PR(Tn)” for the last page
2. C(Tn) - Each page spreads its vote out evenly amongst all of it’s outgoing links. The count, or number, of outgoing links for page 1 is “C(T1)”, “C(Tn)” for page n, and so on for all pages.
3. PR(Tn)/C(Tn) - so if our page (page A) has a backlink from page “n” the share of the vote page A will get is “PR(Tn)/C(Tn)”
4. d(… - All these fractions of votes are added together but, to stop the other pages having too much influence, this total vote is “damped down” by multiplying it by 0.85 (the factor “d”)
5. (1 - d) - The (1 - d) bit at the beginning is a bit of probability math magic so the “sum of all web pages’ PageRanks will be one“: it adds in the bit lost by the d(…. It also means that if a page has no links to it (no backlinks) even then it will still get a small PR of 0.15 (i.e. 1 - 0.85). (Aside: the Google paper says “the sum of all pages” but they mean the “the normalised sum” - otherwise known as “the average” to you and me.

How is PageRank Calculated?

This is where it gets tricky. The PR of each page depends on the PR of the pages pointing to it. But we won’t know what PR those pages have until the pages pointing to them have their PR calculated and so on. And when you consider that page links can form circles it seems impossible to do this calculation!

But actually it’s not that bad. Remember this bit of the Google paper:

PageRank or PR(A) can be calculated using a simple iterative algorithm, and corresponds to the principal eigenvector of the normalized link matrix of the web.

Finally

PageRank is, in fact, very simple (apart from one scary looking formula). But when a simple calculation is applied hundreds (or billions) of times over the results can seem complicated.

PageRank is also only part of the story about what results get displayed high up in a Google listing. For example there’s some evidence to suggest that Google is paying a lot of attention these days to the text in a link’s anchor when deciding the relevance of a target page - perhaps more so than the page’s PR.

PageRank is still part of the listings story though, so it’s worth your while as a good designer to make sure you understand it correctly. A really great website is designed with Page Rank and other factors in mind from the start in order to make it truly Competitive in the search engines.

Different type of SEO:

1.On Page

On-page SEO concentrates on page content and the structure of the website (navigation for instance),On page SEO may include title tag and meta tags and good content plenty of keywords,.On-page optimization techniques include (but are not limited to) content writing/optimization, the title-tag, several META-Tags, headlines & text decoration, alt- and title-attributes and sitemaps.

2.Off Page

off-page optimization focuses more on your site's relationship with other sites,Off page SEO items always incorporate link building to increase your link popularity. This process involves getting more websites that will link to yours.

The focus of off-page optimization is link building (whether through direct exchanges with other sitse, directory submissions, article writing, press releases, etc.)

10 Future Web Technology Trends

We're well into the current era of the Web, commonly referred to as 0Web 2.0. Features of this phase of the Web include search, social networks, online media (music, video, etc), content aggregation and syndication (RSS), mashups (APIs), and much more. Currently the Web is still mostly accessed via a PC, but we're starting to see more Web excitement from mobile devices (e.g. iPhone) and television sets (e.g. XBox Live 360).
What then can we expect from the next 10 or so years on the Web? As NatC commented in this week's poll, the biggest impact of the Web in 10 years time won't necessarily be via a computer screen - "your online activity will be mixed with your presence, travels, objects you buy or act with." Also a lot of crossover will occur among the 10 trends below (and more) and there will be Web technologies that become enormously popular that we can't predict now.
Bearing all that in mind, here are 20 Web trends to look out for over the next 10 years...
1. Semantic Web
Sir Tim Berners-Lee's vision for a Semantic Web has been The Next Big Thing for a long time now. Indeed it's become almost mythical, like Moby Dick. In a nutshell, the Semantic Web is about machines talking to machines. It's about making the Web more 'intelligent', or as Berners-Lee himself described it: computers "analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers." At other times, Berners-Lee has described it as "the application of weblike design to data" - for example designing for re-use of information.
As Alex Iskold wrote in The Road to the Semantic Web, the core idea of the Semantic Web is to create the meta data describing data, which will enable computers to process the meaning of things. Once computers are equipped with semantics, they will be capable of solving complex semantical optimization problems.
So when will the Semantic Web arrive? The building blocks are here already: RDF, OWL, microformats are a few of them. But as Alex noted in his post, it will take some time to annotate the world's information and then to capture personal information in the right way. Some companies, such as Hakia and Powerset and Alex's own Adaptive Blue, are actively trying to implement the Semantic Web. So we are getting close, but we are probably a few years off still before the big promise of the Semantic Web is fulfilled.

2. Artificial Intelligence
Possibly the ultimate Next Big Thing in the history of computing, AI has been the dream of computer scientists since 1950 - when Alan Turing introduced the Turing test to test a machine's capability to participate in human-like conversation. In the context of the Web, AI means making intelligent machines. In that sense, it has some things in common with the Semantic Web vision.
We've only begun to scratch the surface of AI on the Web. Amazon.com has attempted to introduce aspects of AI with Mechanical Turk, their task management service. It enables computer programs to co-ordinate the use of human intelligence to perform tasks which computers are unable to do. Since its launch on 2 November 2005, Mechanical Turk has gradually built up a following - there is a forum for "Turkers" called Turker Nation, which appears to have light-to-medium level patronage. However we reported in January that Mturk isn't being used as much as the initial hype period in Nov-Dec 05.
Nevertheless, AI has a lot of promise on the Web. AI techniques are being used in "search 2.0" companies like Hakia and Powerset. Numenta is an exciting new company by tech legend Jeff Hawkins, which is attempting to build a new, brain-like computing paradigm - with neural networks and cellular automata. In english this means that Numenta is trying to enable computers to tackle problems that come easy to us humans, like recognizing faces or seeing patterns in music. But since computers are much faster than humans when it comes to computation, we hope that new frontiers will be broken - enabling us to solve the problems that were unreachable before.

3. Virtual Worlds
Second Life gets a lot of mainstream media attention as a future Web system. But at a recent Supernova panel that Sean Ammirati attended, the discussion touched on many other virtual world opportunities. The following graphic summarizes it well:
Looking at Korea as an example, as the 'young generation' grows up and infrastructure is built out, virtual worlds will become a vibrant market all over the world over the next 10 years.
It's not just about digital life, but also making our real life more digital. As Alex Iskold explained, on one hand we have the rapid rise of Second Life and other virtual worlds. On the other we are beginning to annotate our planet with digital information, via technologies like Google Earth.

4. Mobile
Mobile Web is another Next Big Thing on slow boil. It's already big in parts of Asia and Europe, and it received a kick in the US market this year with the release of Apple's iPhone. This is just the beginning. In 10 years time there will be many more location-aware services available via mobile devices; such as getting personalized shopping offers as you walk through your local mall, or getting map directions while driving your car, or hooking up with your friends on a Friday night. Look for the big Internet companies like Yahoo and Google to become key mobile portals, alongside the mobile operators.
Companies like Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, Palm, Blackberry and Microsoft have been active in the Mobile Web for years now, but one of the main issues with Mobile Web has always been usability. The iPhone has a revolutionary UI that makes it easier for users to browse the Web, using zooming, pinching and other methods. Also, as Alex Iskold noted, the iPhone is a strategy that may expand Apple's sphere of influence, from web browsing to social networking and even possibly search.
So even despite the iPhone hype, in the US at least (and probably other countries when it arrives) the iPhone will probably be seen in 10 years time as the breakthrough Mobile Web device.
5. Attention Economy
The Attention Economy is a marketplace where consumers agree to receive services in exchange for their attention. Examples include personalized news, personalized search, alerts and recommendations to buy. The Attention Economy is about the consumer having choice - they get to choose where their attention is 'spent'. Another key ingredient in the attention game is relevancy. As long as the consumer sees relevant content, he/she is going to stick around - and that creates more opportunities to sell.
Expect to see this concept become more important to the Web's economy over the next decade. We're already seeing it with the likes of Amazon and Netflix, but there is a lot more opportunity yet to explore from startups.

6. Web Sites as Web Services
Alex Iskold wrote in March that as more and more of the Web is becoming remixable, the entire system is turning into both a platform and the database. Major web sites are going to be transformed into web services - and will effectively expose their information to the world. Such transformations are never smooth - e.g. scalability is a big issue and legal aspects are never simple. But, said Alex, it is not a question of if web sites become web services, but when and how.
The transformation will happen in one of two ways. Some web sites will follow the example of Amazon, del.icio.us and Flickr and will offer their information via a REST API. Others will try to keep their information proprietary, but it will be opened via mashups created using services like Dapper, Teqlo and Yahoo! Pipes. The net effect will be that unstructured information will give way to structured information - paving the road to more intelligent computing.
Note that we can also see this trend play out currently with widgets and especially Facebook in 2007. Perhaps in 10 years time the web services landscape will be much more open, because the 'walled garden' problem is still with us in 2008.
7. Online Video / Internet TV
This is a trend that has already exploded on the Web - but you still get the sense there's a lot more to come yet. In October 2006 Google acquired the hottest online video property on the planet, YouTube. Later on that same month, news came out that the founders of Kazaa and Skype were building an Internet TV service, nicknamed The Venice Project (later named Joost). In 2007, YouTube continues to dominate. Meanwhile Internet TV services are slowly getting off the ground.
Our network blog last100 has an excellent overview of the current Internet TV landscape, with reviews of 8 Internet TV apps. Read/WriteWeb's Josh Catone also reviewed 3 of them - Joost, Babelgum, Zattoo.
It's fair to say that in 10 years time, Internet TV will be totally different to what it is today. Higher quality pictures, more powerful streaming, personalization, sharing, and much more - it's all coming over the next decade. Perhaps the big question is: how will the current mainstream TV networks (NBC, CNN,IBN etc) adapt?

8. Rich Internet Apps
As the current trend of hybrid web/desktop apps continues, expect to see RIA (rich internet apps) continue to increase in use and functionality. Adobe's AIR platform (Adobe Integrated Runtime) is one of the leaders, along with Microsoft with its Windows Presentation Foundation. Also in the mix is Laszlo with its open source OpenLaszlo platform and there are several other startups offering RIA platforms. Let's not forget also that Ajax is generally considered to be an RIA - it remains to be seen though how long Ajax lasts, or whether there will be a '2.0'.
As Ryan Stewart wrote for Read/WriteWeb back in April 2006 (well before he joined Adobe), "Rich Internet Apps allow sophisticated effects and transitions that are important in keeping the user engaged. This means developers will be able to take the amazing changes in the Web for granted and start focusing on a flawless experience for the users. It is going to be an exciting time for anyone involved in building the new Web, because the interfaces are finally catching up with the content."
The past year has proven Ryan right, with Adobe and Microsoft duking it out with RIA technologies. And there's a lot more innovation to happen yet, so in 10 years time I can't wait to see what the lay of the RIA land is!
9. International Web
As of 2007, the US is still the major market in the Web. But in 10 years time, things might be very different. China is often touted as a growth market, but other countries with big populations will also grow - India and African nations for example.
For most web 2.0 apps and websites (R/WW included), the US market makes up over 50% of their users. Indeed, comScore reported in November 2006 that 3/4 of traffic to top websites is international. comScore said that 14 of the top 25 US Web properties now attract more visitors from outside the US than from within. That includes the top 5 US properties - Yahoo! Sites, Time Warner Network, Microsoft, Google Sites, and eBay.
However, it is still early days and the revenues are not big in international markets at this point. In 10 years time, revenue will probably be flowing from the International Web.
10. Personalization
Personalization has been a strong theme in 2007, particularly with Google. Indeed Read/WriteWeb did a feature week on Personalizing Google. But you can see this trend play out among a lot of web 2.0 startups and companies - from last.fm to My Strands to Yahoo homepage and more.
What can we expect over the next decade? Recently we asked Sep Kamvar, Lead Software Engineer for Personalization at Google, whether there will be a 'Personal PageRank' system in the future. He replied:
"We have various levels of personalization. For those who are signed up for Web History, we have the deepest personalization, but even for those who are not signed up for Web History, we personalize your results based on what country you are searching from. As we move forward, personalization will continue to be a gradient; the more you share with Google, the more tailored your results will be."
If nothing else, it'll be fascinating to track how Google uses personalization over the coming years - and how it deals with the privacy issues.

Website Lifecycle

The process by which a successful website Born(Developed) and live looks something like this Cycle:




The cycle consists of analysis(designing), Development and promotion. If any one of component if missing, your website will not achieve all Specific goal that it could.Website promotion is the key for your successful business(website) it give the born identity to your site in Search Engine Society and Maintenance and Updating are never ending process ,the keys to keeping the cycle moving and your business grow with cycle moving .

Introduction of web Desining And Technology Used for Desiging

Web page design is a process of conceptualization, planning, modeling, and execution of electronic media content delivery via Internet in the form of technologies (such as markup languages) suitable for interpretation and display by a web browser or other web-based graphical user interfaces (GUIs).

The intent of web design is to create a web site (a collection of electronic files residing on one or more web servers) that presents content (including interactive features or interfaces) to the end user in the form of web pages once requested. Such elements as text, forms, and bit-mapped images (GIFs, JPEGs, PNGs) can be placed on the page using HTML, XHTML, or XML tags. Displaying more complex media (vector graphics, animations, videos, sounds) usually requires plug-ins such as Flash, QuickTime, Java run-time environment, etc. Plug-ins are also embedded into web pages by using HTML or XHTML tags.

Improvements in the various browsers' compliance with W3C standards prompted a widespread acceptance of XHTML and XML in conjunction with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to position and manipulate web page elements. The latest standards and proposals aim at leading to the various browsers' ability to deliver a wide variety of media and accessibility options to the client possibly without employing plug-ins.

Typically web pages are classified as static or dynamic.

* Static pages don’t change content and layout with every request unless a human (web master or programmer) manually updates the page.

* Dynamic pages adapt their content and/or appearance depending on the end-user’s input or interaction or changes in the computing environment (user, time, database modifications, etc.) Content can be changed on the client side (end-user's computer) by using client-side scripting languages (JavaScript, JScript, Actionscript, media players and PDF reader plug-ins, etc.) to alter DOM elements (DHTML). Dynamic content is often compiled on the server utilizing server-side scripting languages (PHP, ASP, Perl, Coldfusion, JSP, Python, etc.). Both approaches are usually used in complex applications.

With growing specialization within communication design and information technology fields, there is a strong tendency to draw a clear line between web design specifically for web pages and web development for the overall logistics of all web-based services.

Introduction Of Web Mraketing (SEO)

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it "ranks," the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.

The acronym "SEO" can also refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems and shopping carts that are easy to optimize.

Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or Spamdexing, use methods such as link farms and keyword stuffing that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.

Introduction of Web Development and Technology Used For Development

web development has been one of the fastest growing industries in the world. In 1995 there were fewer than 1,000 web development companies in the United States alone, but by 2005 there were over 30,000 such companies. The web development industry is expected to grow over 20% by 2010. The growth of this industry is being pushed by large businesses wishing to sell products and services to their customers and to automate business work flow, as well as the growth of many small web design and development companies.

In addition, cost of Web site development and hosting has dropped dramatically during this time. Instead of costing tens of thousands of dollars, as was the case for early websites, one can now develop a simple web site for less than a thousand dollars, depending on the complexity and amount of content. Smaller Web site development companies are now able to make web design accessible to both smaller companies and individuals further fueling the growth of the web development industry. As far as web development tools and platforms are concerned, there are many systems available to the public free of charge to aid in development. A popular example is the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), which is usually distributed free of charge. This fact alone has manifested into many people around the globe setting up new Web sites daily and thus contributing to increase in web development popularity. Another contributing factor has been the rise of easy to use WYSIWYG web development software, most prominently Adobe Dreamweaver or Microsoft Expression Studio (formerly Microsoft Frontpage) . Using such software, virtually anyone can develop a Web page in a matter of minutes. Knowledge of HyperText Markup Language (HTML), or other programming languages is not required, but recommended for professional results.

The next generation of web development tools uses the strong growth in LAMP and Microsoft .NET technologies to provide the Web as a way to run applications online. Web developers now help to deliver applications as Web services which were traditionally only available as applications on a desk based computer.

Instead of running executable code on a local computer, users are interacting with online applications to create new content. This has created new methods in communication and allowed for many opportunities to decentralize information and media distribution. Users are now able to interact with applications from many locations, instead of being tied to a specific workstation for their application environment.

Examples of dramatic transformation in communication and commerce led by web development include e-commerce. Online auction sites such as eBay have changed the way consumers consume and purchase goods and services. Online resellers such as Amazon.com and Buy.com (among many, many others) have transformed the shopping and bargain hunting experience for many consumers. Another good example of transformative communication led by web development is the blog. Web applications such as Word Press and b2evolution have created easily implemented blog environments for individual Web sites. Open source content systems such as Typo3, Xoops, Joombula, and Drupal have extended web development into new modes of interaction and communication.

Typical Areas

Web Development can be split into many areas and a typical and basic web development hierarchy might consist of;

Client Side Coding

• AJAX (New methods of using Javascript, PHP and other languages to improve the user experience)
• CSS
• Flash (Adobe Flash Player is a ubiquitous client-side platform ready for RILs. Flex 2 is also deployed to the Flash Player (version 9+))
• JavaScript
• Microsoft SilverLight But doesn't seem to support older win9x versions
• XHTML (in accordance to modern web design standards, XHTML's use is replacing the older HTML4. This may change when HTML 5 is adopted by the browser development community.)

Server Side Coding

• ASP (Microsoft proprietary)
• Cold Fusion (Adobe proprietary, formerly Macromedia)
• CGI and/or Perl (open source)
• Java, e.g. J2EE or WebObjects
• Lotus Domino
• PHP (open source)
• Python, e.g. Django (web framework) (open source)
• Ruby, e.g. Ruby on Rails (open source)
• Smalltalk e.g. Seaside
• SSJS Server-Side JavaScript, e.g. Apatana Jaxer, Mozilla Rhino
• Web sphere (IBM proprietary)
• .NET (Microsoft proprietary)

LAMP servers are the most popular setup used by the web development community. However lesser known languages like Ruby and Python are often paired with database servers other than MySQL (the M in LAMP). Below are example of other databases currently in wide use on the web. For instance some developers prefer a LAPR(Linux/Apache/PostrgeSQL/Ruby on Rails) setup for development.

Database Technology

• Apache Derby
• DB2 (IBM proprietary)
• Firebird
• Microsoft SQL Server
• MySQL
• Oracle

In practice, many web developers will also have interdisciplinary skills / roles, including:

• Graphic design / web design
• Information architecture and copywriting/copyediting with web usability, accessibility and search engine optimization in mind
• Project management, QA and other aspects common to IT development in general

The above list is a simple website development hierarchy and can be extended to include all client side and server side aspects. It is still important to remember that web development is generally split up into client side coding covering aspects such as the layout and design, then server side coding, which covers the website's functionality and back end systems.

Looking at these items from an "umbrella approach", client side coding such as XHTML is executed and stored on a local client (in a web browser) whereas server side code is not available to a client and is executed on a web server which generates the appropriate XHTML which is then sent to the client. As the nature of client side coding allows you to alter the HTML on a local client and refresh the pages with updated content (locally), web designers must bear in mind the importance and relevance to security with their server side scripts. If a server side script accepts content from a locally modified client side script, the web development of that page shows poor sanitization with relation to security.

Security Considerations

Web development takes into account many things, such as data entry error checking through forms, as well as sanitization of the data that is entered in those fields. Malicious practices such as SQL injection can be executed through users with ill intent yet only primitive knowledge of web development as a whole. Not only this, but scripts can be exploited to grant unauthorized access to the hacker to gain information such as email addresses, passwords and protected content like credit card numbers.

Some of this is dependent on the server environment (most commonly Apache or Microsoft IIS) on which the scripting language, such as PHP, Ruby, Python, Perl or ASP is running, and therefore is not necessarily down to the web developer themselves to maintain. However, stringent testing of web applications before public release is encouraged to prevent such exploits from occurring.

Keeping a web server safe from intrusion is often called Server Port Hardening. Many technologies come into play when keeping information on the internet safe when it is transmitted from one location to another. For instance Secure Socket Layer Encryption (SSL) Certificates are issued by certificate authorities to help prevent internet fraud. Many developers often employ different forms of encryption when transmitting and storing sensitive information. A basic understanding of information technology security concerns is often part of a web developers knowledge.

Because new security holes are found in web applications even after testing and launch, security patch updates are frequent for widely used applications. It is often the job of web developers to keep applications up to date as security patches are released and new security concerns are discovered.

Recent trends in the sector

Given the rapid growth of this sector, several companies have started to use offshore development in China, India and other countries with a lower cost per developer model. Several new Web 2.0 , the time difference when working with India and China for the Western world allows work to be done round the clock adding a competitive advantage.