Archive for May, 2010

Keep your post secure

Monday, May 31st, 2010

One of the disadvantages to some home mailboxes available on the market is that they can be easy to break into. These days identity theft is a big business in the criminal world and everyday the postman leaves post in your postbox so there is the potential for thieves to try and steal your personal details.

The first step is to ensure that you choose a mailbox that has a secure locking system. There are many available on the market that are made from hardwearing materials and can offer maximum security against tampering and vandalism. By selecting a high quality postbox you can deter thieves.

When looking at security systems there are few homeowners that think about their letterbox. However credit card fraud and ID theft is widespread. Here are some ways you can protect yourself once you have your lockable mailbox installed: Never let post sit in your mailbox. Pick it up straight away.

If you can’t empty the mailbox regularly for a period of time then make alternative arrangements. This may involve renting a postbox at the post office until you return for example. This does not cost much and will give you peace of mind whilst you are away. Things like newspapers stacked up in the letterbox and piles of uncollected post signal to thieves that you are away. If you are away for a few days, stop newspapers being delivered and get someone you trust to pick up your mail.

Always choose a strongly constructed and sturdy postbox. Solid steel is a great choice and find one with an electronic or combination lock. Keep your postbox well maintained. If you think someone has tampered with it repair it immediately. At Mailbox Mania we have a range of high security mailboxes to ensure your post is protected.
(more…)

What is Black Hat SEO, And Why You Need to Avoid It?

Monday, May 31st, 2010

Search Engine Optimization is primarily focused on increasing a certain websites ranking and visibility on the major engines. This is needed to effectively increase and generate more traffic to the website. Typically, Search Engine Optimization follows certain guidelines to ensure that it is using the right practices to ensure success in increasing website ranking.

For major search engines like Google, it naturally would want to present its searchers are the relevant searches based on the user’s search criteria, or the use of keywords and phrases. Unfortunately, there are some individuals who tries to beat the system so to speak, and use underhanded methods for search engine optimization, this is known as the Black Hat SEO. To gain better understanding of Black Hat SEO and what it entails, here are the most common tricks of the trade:

Use of Hidden Texts. These are texts that are not seen by the visitor o user, but can be crawled by search engine spiders.  One of the most common way of doing this is hiding the texts by making the font color similar with the background. Search engines are now able to spot this, and one can be penalized for using such underhanded method.

Cloaking. Another black hat search engine optimization technique, this involves  delivering a unique set of content for search engine, which is entirely different from what visitors would read.

Keyword Stuffing. As the name suggests, this type of search engine optimization practice involves jamming the content with keywords, thereby faking the search engines as to the relevance of the content. (more…)