No one likes to be lost and with this application you may never be lost again. You can even print out the directions and keep them in your glove box if you choose to do so. Another option that Yahoo Map Quest allows you to do is send the instructions to your mobile device (GPS, Blackberry, Cellular Phone). You can save the directions right on the website so
you do not have to search for the same address ever again.

You can pinpoint interest points right there on Yahoo Map Quest if you like so it’s perfect for a road trip with friends. Another great feature about Yahoo Map Quest is that it’s not just intended for the United States. Cartographers have brought us online mapping worldwide. You can take points of interest anywhere, even if you are overseas or even as close as Canada. Online mapping has given us the chance to not be scared of exploring new places and doing it all on our own. For those who do not have access to the internet can always stop and get directions at any local store or convenience center, but those are not nearly as accurate as the directions you can find on Yahoo Map Quest. You can get up to date traffic information on the site as well. If there is a detour or a traffic jam, it can be easily avoided with these real time updates.

I am sure that anyone who has taken even only a few steps into web development has come across the gigantic force that is Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Even for the most experienced coders, the most popular browser of this age has always been a prominent foot across the path of our websites technological progression and the possibilities of which the internet is yet to yield. Maybe not crushing ideas, but certainly making it a lot harder to bring these ideas from paper to browser.

However, although IE, wielding its scathing weapon the Microsoft corp. and therefore for-fronting the battle as the windows default has dominated the market; we have weapons which allow us the fight back! I think I’ll cut the metaphors here and get back to business… Well, how can we fight back? And more importantly, what can be done to keep our designs looking slick in the interim… Yeah before the proper browsers take over!

I’ll start with the fighting back. Personally my favourite method would be to utilize a conditional comment and tell people what they should be doing! Something like this…

Sorry in advanced that all the code used in the article has had to be altered so that articlesbase wouldn’t filter it out If you pretend that there is an open triangle bracket infront of each bit then you’re okay! eg h1> /h1>

!–[if IE]>

h1>strong>Internet Explorer is Sh**e! Get a proper browser like a>Firefox/a> before I come round and make you!!!/strong>/h1>

![endif]–>

Realistically I wouldn’t try this method though, probably not the most tactful way when it gets down to it. You could however place a banner showing your support of these less buggy browsers such as firefox. This websites great for this promoting firefox business, very nice banners right here: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates/homepage

Conditionals are pretty clever little buggers though, for general use they can become quite useful. And you’re not just limited to !–[if IE]>. The comments understand other operators as well; you’ve got the NOT operator which is an ‘!’. So “if not IE” would be !—-[if !IE]>. In addition to this there are “greater than” = ‘gt’, “greater than or equal to” = ‘gte’, “less then” = ‘lt’ and “less than or equal to” = ‘lte’. These can be used when referring to browser versions, so !—-[if lte IE 5.0]> could be used to warn users about a feature unavailable to them when browsing your site with IE version 5.0 and below.

But we are not here to help out the Internet explorer users; we’re here to convert them! Doing your bit locally can make all the difference. If you are round at a friends and he/she happens to log on to the internet using IE (boooooo), make it your concern that the very first thing that is done is the downloading of firefox (sorry Opera etc I’m a bit biased to the mighty fox.) Of course if the loging on to the internet part does not occur in the general flow of things it must also be your concern to make sure it does!… “Umm, you mind if I check the train times?” Okay I’m getting a bit carried away here, although very important to the advancement of the human race, you need not devote your life to spreading firefox.

The great progression in the internet and its uses over the last few years has meant that the look and the feel of a site has come under a lot more scrutiny, especially with ever rising amounts of traffic as more and more people connect to the internet. Complicated uses of graphics and CSS mean that when it come to interpretation by different browsers, everything can go wrong. The Browser that is renowned for taking perfect code and screwing with the end results is of course Internet explorer. It is so tempting just to say screw it and ignore the IE users and their browser, but with over 58% still using a version of IE this really isn’t plausible solution.

So okay we’ve got to fix the problem. Where to start?

Well firstly it is a must to make sure your code is valid. Just from an incorrectly written Doctype or wrongly phrased line of css can through internet explorer into all sorts of funny modes where anything can happen. Make sure you get a green light here http://validator.w3.org/ and here http://htmlhelp.com/tools/csscheck/ .

Good stuff, that’s one step in the right direction if anything. Now if the problem still exists, what now?

Most of IE’s rendering blips are caused by bugs, which can be worked around with quick alterations or what are called hacks. Chances are your problem has been experienced by people before you and a fix has been fabricated already.

So what’s going wrong? I will list a few of the most common bugs, some which I myself have experienced and a link to some relevant articles explaining in depth the fixes.

• My borders have gone crazy! – fix… http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/border-chaos.html

• Margins doubled, pushing my content down and generally mucking stuff up – fix… http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/doubled-margin.html

• Contents there one minute gone the next, the peekaboo bug – fix… http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/peekaboo.html

You may have noticed that all those fixes above are at one website. Basically “Big John” and co of Position is Everything .net have done a fantastic job among some other geniuses out there, so why don’t I just give you guys a link to his site, the chances are you’ll be able to find a fix there… http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer.html

You’ve now with a bit of time and effort (it sucks doesn’t it, and it really is unnecessary effort!) probably been able to fixed up your site. But what if something still purists, what can you do!? Well here is what I do…

Firstly if you know something which could be causing the inconsistencies in your site when rendered by different browsers, try just experimenting with this particular element of the code. Say the content part of your page is being pushed below your side navigation and you recon that IE is playing with your margin values but it’s not the double margin bug. Just adjusting the values of margins can bring results. This is a good time to introduce an excellent piece of free software called CssVista. If you know css well it can also be an excellent tool when in depth analysing your code when looking for problems. Check it out here http://litmusapp.com/cssvista/

If you can still find no joy using this experimentation method I’m afraid the best hope is now to do what I really find annoying especially since if browser bugs didn’t exist it probably wouldn’t be necessary. We’re going to have to start again. Now don’t panic we’re not going to redesign your site from scratch, we’re going to make a mock up page of your current design, testing for rendering problems all the way.

Okay, well your average website nowadays is divs inside divs inside divs. So first step is to create you’re outermost div and in your css give it all the position you want and a background-color so that you can see it. Now add the divs that are contained with-in this one and do the same thing, giving them all nice bright colours so you know exactly where they are. Now test it like crazy, anything going wrong so far? Basically keep going like this, until something starts to look weird, then think why it doing this? What have I just done to make it go weird? Google and other free recourses can be come very useful now. Yahoo answers is fantastic for everything so it is always worth a try at http://answers.yahoo.com.

That’s about it really; Give that a try and well, good luck!

So, we’ve had a quick look at how to rid the world of Internet Explorer and how to get by in the time being. I’m not a fan of Microsoft attempt at an internet browser but not really in the league of this guy http://toastytech.com/evil/index.html .

Basically guys have fun and make sure you’re not supporting the IE domination by using it!

Pete Taylour is co-owner of the fast growing ebook site http://www.liquidebooks.com the only place to go for your cheap and free ebooks. With strong interests in a huge amount of different music styles Pete and friend are soon to embark on some crazy mix submission site for upcoming DJs across the globe, be sure to keep your eyes peeled for that and make sure you check out Liquid Ebooks at http://www.liquidebooks.com

There are certainly newer search engine algorithms being developed for the web but effective linking continues to be the most decisive factor in search engine optimization and will likely be for several years more.

Links as the name implies, are the most basic connectors to all the pages on the Interent and is the easiest way for a given application to gauge the relevance and integrity of a web page.

People love lists; find a way to integrate a list into your site. This can be anything from a list of tips or things to avoid or a list suggested reading, for example. Lists give the impression of being a definitive source of information and many people will want to link to them.

Often people will link to a site if they feel that it is an authority on a given subject; they will then feel confident about recommending that site to other people. That is what link building is all about after all, a sort of digital referral or stamp of approval.

Every web site should strive to have reliable and well-researched content. Try to keep your content informative but simple; if no one can understand what your web site says they probably won’t want to link to it! Check your text for spelling or grammatical errors; a web site riddled with poor spelling and bad sentence construction doesn’t seem very professional or authoritative.

Online news sites are a good way to establish links. Some of the things you can do are: submit an article for online publication or syndicate an article with a news site. Reputable sites usually enjoy a high search engine rank for their articles and receive plenty of traffic. You may also send press releases or trade articles with other sites…or even write an article about another site and ask then to link back to your site; most will be happy to repay the favor.

Establish contacts with the Better Business Bureau or the Chamber of Commerce in your area or the relevant city and state government offices. You may even look around closer to home by submitting your link to the local library or exchanging links with local businesses in your area; even non-competing businesses in the same field.

Consider starting an affiliate program; it may not lead directly to high SEO value but it can still prove useful in providing additional links.

Submit your site to directories that allow free submissions such as DMOZ (http://dmoz.org) or even paid directories. You can even take this a step further by creating your own directory of similar web sites. You can obviously link to your own site here and even include other important pages in addition to the home page. Quality listings are important here so if it is a useful directory to the most number of people, it will easily attract links.

You may want to post a link to your site in classifieds sites such as Craigslist or if you belong to user groups like Yahoo and Google groups it is often acceptable to post links to your site if you are asking or answering a question. Just make sure it is in the context of the discussion, as most people do not take kindly to being spammed.

Reviews are another great way to get people to link to your site. If you have a reputable looking site and carry informative, well-written reviews, there’s a good chance that your articles will receive high search engine rankings. Try to keep your reviews on-topic, informative and thorough, and be specific whenever possible.

Blogging has become an integral part of the Internet and is one of the most effective means of linking; you can either drop a few words of comment on someone’s blog or link to them from your own blog. Most blogs will be happy to link back to you. Try to update your blog regularly and post interesting content so people will want to link to you.

If your budget permits, explore the possibility of hiring a professional web-linking publicist (yes they do exist!) or consultant for your web site. If you choose carefully this will free you up to take care of other areas of your web site and leave the details of link building to the experts.

Those are a few things to do to create good links, what about things you should avoid? These methods will actually hurt your visibility on the web as it may cause search engines to ban your site or ignore it altogether!

Do not spam forums! Nobody likes a spammer and can usually tell if someone joins a discussion forum for the sole purpose of self-promotion. A sure way to annoy people is to post a non-relevant reply to a question and then include a link…or worse not even answer the question at all!

Choose carefully when submitting your site to directory services; a poor one won’t help increase your traffic at all and may carry out-of-date or off topic links.

When asking someone to link to your site, make sure that there is a good reason why he should; maybe your site is similar to his own in subject matter or your site showcases him, his products or his web site in a favorable light.

Take the time to compose a polite, well written personal request for linking. It doesn’t have to be long but the important thing is to make it seem like a genuine request as opposed to an impersonal, automated email. Do not pester a Webmaster with several, persistent emails; it is annoying and will not likely help your cause any. If you don’t get a reply, move on.

Whether you already have a web site and not getting enough traffic, or thinking about starting up one, traffic has to be at or near the top of your list of priorities.

To help you generate more traffic for your web site, here are some surefire ways to increase your traffic.

1) Invest in ppc (pay per click) advertising with the major search engines.

Google’s Adwords and Yahoo’s Overture provide great advertising schemes that are very popular and assure you targeted traffic. While this is a surefire way to generate traffic, the downside is the expense which can be quite considerable if you are in a very competitive niche. While some shy away from spending money to increase traffic, this is a guaranteed way to bring potential customers to your web site.

2) Exchange, trade or buy links.

When you exchange links with other sites, both of you benefit from those exchanges as the traffic one site generates can flow on to the other. This is especially beneficial to you if the other site has a higher page ranking. The search engines crawl high PR sites regularly and will follow the links to your site and hopefully rank your site higher as well. The more links you trade with other sites the more traffic you can expect. Just remember early on in your traffic generation program, to keep the links within the same or similar niche.

3) Use Viral Marketing.

Viral marketing allows you to advertise your company or product with minimal or without any cost at all. This method involves attaching your link to a variety of media such as a funny video, entertaining games, interesting articles or a gossip. With this method, people get infected with the creativity and entertainment of the medium and pass it on to others. Your link will be seen and investigated.

4) Search Engine Optimization.

Ensure that you use proper keywords/keyword phrases that relate to your site’s content when you design your web site. Search engines look for certain keywords that they show in their results page. Having the right keywords/keyword phrases is a high requirement in ranking well in search engine results and thereby getting lots of traffic.

5) Write and submit Articles

Submit your original articles to article distribution sites. You can write these yourself or have others do it for you. Make sure that you attach a description as well as a link to your web site in the resource box at the conclusion of your article. As well as directing readers to your site, you will also get backlinks to your web site which will increase your web site’s ranking.

6) Join forums and contribute to discussions.

Show your expertise and credibility by making constructive comments. People will begin to trust you and your site will benefit from the traffic of those wanting to visit it to get more information about you or your product.

These are just a few methods you can use to generate traffic to your web site. Obviously there is a limit to how much detail can be explored and each of the above topics merits an article in its own right.

I will be launching a website in the near future to provide substantially more information on this topic. Keep a look out for it in links within my other web sites listed below.

At the end of 1994, approximately twelve months after its creation, Yang and Filo had over one million hits on their fledgling search engine. Understanding that they had designed something that could enjoy potential business success Filo and Yang incorporated Yahoo! early in March of 1995, fourteen months after its inception. Because the name Yahoo was already the brand name of other enterprises, human propelled watercraft, barbecue sauce, and knives, Yang and Filo were forced to add the exclamation point in order to trademark the name. Yahoo! had it first public offering on April 12, 1996. Two point six million shares of Yahoo! were sold at thirteen dollars a piece, earning a total of thirty-three point eight million dollars.

By the late 1990’s Yahoo! and several other internet communications company’s diversified into web portals.

In the late 1990’s Yahoo! also started buying out other companies such as eGroups and GeoCities. Because Yahoo! had a reputation for changing terms of service when purchasing companies most of the buy outs were wrought with controversy.

Although it stocks fell to an all time lo, Yahoo! was able to survive the dot.com bubble burst. In order to help rebuild itself, Yahoo! started forming partnerships with telecommunication companies and internet providers, these alliances led to the creation of content rich broadband services that actively competed with AOL.

With their eye on the future, the powers in charge at Yahoo! are working on creating Yahoo!Next, a concept similar to Google Labs that contains forums that provide places for Yahoo! users to leave feedback that will hopefully assist in the development of future Yahoo! enterprises and technologies.

Like most successful companies Yahoo! is constantly working to improve and expand. Yahoo! currently provides its customers with a smorgasbord of internet services that cater o most online activities. These services include Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Maps and Driving Directions, and Yahoo! Messenger. While Google holds the top spot in search engines Yahoo! is standing strong in second place. Yahoo! competes against Yahoo! by offering its customers vertical search services such as, Yahoo! Image, Yahoo! Local, Yahoo! Shopping Search, Yahoo! Video, and Yahoo! News. Yahoo! is proud to boast the largest, most successful e-mail service in the world.

User generated content products such as Yahoo! Personals, Yahoo! Photos, Yahoo! 360, and Flicker offer Yahoo!’s customer’s social networking services.

Yahoo! Shopping, Yahoo! Merchant Solutions, Yahoo! Store, Yahoo! Web Hosting, Yahoo! Domains, and Yahoo! Business Email are services Yahoo! provides to small business owners that allows them to develop their own online business using Yahoo!’s tools.

In March of 2004 Yahoo! launched a paid inclusion program that guaranteed commercial websites listings on Yahoo! search engines for a fee. While the paid inclusions were lucrative for Yahoo!, they where unpopular with the online marketing world. Business owners didn’t want to pay the internet mogul for search engine optimization. Paid inclusion simply guaranteed that the businesses websites would be ranked; it didn’t guarantee that it would be ranked in the first two pages.

After checking that out, I decided to check out some more challenging and more exciting games. After having a look around, I decided that there is so much to do on the Yahoo site that you really need to have some time to enjoy them all. For example, this site is so easy to navigate and use that visiting the arcade and playing Resident Evil is just as simple as playing Candle of Rome over in the puzzle games section. Once these games are downloaded you will have to make sure that you have your internet setting set to run java. Otherwise, they will not work. Downloading is fast and once I got going, I was playing in no time.

I feel that Yahoo is targeting pretty much any gamer out in internet land. There are games on this site for everyone including Moms like me, who don’t mind taking a break from the busy day and getting lost in game playing. With a site that is easy to use and even easier to navigate I won’t go wrong when it comes to gaming. There is so much to do and explore, it will take months to get through it all.

In the end, I would have to say that my experience with Yahoo Games is very positive. I am excited about “wasting time” on that site and maybe building some new skills.

Don’t forget to maintain your site map on your site and notify Google and Yahoo when you make changes or additions to your site.

Let’s take a look at what the site map looks like for Retirement Jobs Online.com. Click on the link http://www.retirement-jobs-online.com/gAe7FNB6.xml to see what is in the site map. It is basically a list of the pages in the website.

Here is an example of an entry in the Retirement Jobs Online.com site map.

&ltxmp&gt&lturl&gt&lt/xmp&gt
&ltxmp&gt&ltloc&gthttp://www.retirement-jobs-online.com/advanced-ebay-education.html&lt/loc&gt&lt/xmp&gt
&ltxmp&gt&ltlastmod&gt2006-07-01T16:04:36-04:00&lt/lastmod&gt&lt/xmp&gt
&ltxmp&gt&ltpriority&gt0.5&lt/priority&gt&lt/xmp&gt
&ltxmp&gt&lt/url&gt&lt/xmp&gt

Author’s note: If you see the HTML tags xmp and /xmp these are added in this article to tell the browser not to consider what is between them as executable HTML, but rather, print it as text.

The site map is written in XML. The url tag starts the entry. The loc tags specify the URL for the page. The lastmod tags tell the date of the last change to the page. The priority tags specify the priority of this page relative to other pages on the same site. The value is a number between 0.0 and 1.0, where 0.0 is the lowest priority and 1.0 is the highest priority. The priority can affect the order that search engines select URLs to explore on your site. Since the priority is relative, it is only used to select between URLs within your own site; the priority of your pages will not be compared to the priority of pages on other sites. The /url ends the entry for this page.

Google has a free utility to help create site maps in its webmaster’s section. Go to Google for more information on how to submit your site. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769.

• The first thing that you need to do before you submit to Yahoo is to analyze whether your webpage actually has original and valuable content. Pages that focus on human beings rather than search engines are appreciated by Yahoo and as a result, you will rank higher if you provide good content interspersed with useful hyperlinks and accurate meta tags.

• The key to getting higher rankings in Yahoo search results is to submit your webpage to the most apt category available. When making website submissions to Yahoo, make it a point to locate the correct category for your website, since this would help in getting your site listed quickly and easily.

• When making web site submissions to Yahoo or even when making other search engine submissions, make it a point to adhere to all their rules and regulations. Search engines can afford to be quite pricey and ignoring a small rule or by rule can get your site blacklisted.

• A particular idiosyncrasy related to Yahoo is that the search engine condemns the use of promotional copy on websites. As a result, you might face problems getting your site listed if it is full of promotional words like best, cheapest and unrivalled when making web site submissions to Yahoo.

• Most search engine bots have become quite savvy and are undoubtedly becoming savvier by the day. Avoid keyword stuffing on your site since this will only create problems for getting your sites listed with search engines. Make sure that you have a low keyword density and that your text makes sense to human beings before making search engine submissions.

• When making search engine submissions to Yahoo, you will need to provide them with correct information since the provision of any kind of misinformation regarding your business; its policies and procedures will be taken as fraud. So be doubly careful while filling out search engine submission forms and double check the information that you provide to prevent any future problems.

• Yahoo requires that you provide them with a physical business address, instead of just a mailing one. This is a good thing too since it keeps scammers out.

• Remember that your site will not be looked upon favorably if you have links on link farms and if you have resorted to paid linking. The same case applies if you have your back links on sites that are blacklisted. Excessive keyword stuffing and content duplication will also lead you nowhere when you are making search engine submissions. Apart from these, you should also avoid using any cloaking techniques or methods that will temporarily inflate your search engine rankings, and hopefully, you will be able to make search engine submissions that get you high search engine rankings in Yahoo.