Clarihon blog

• Welcome to Clarihon Web Service’s blog

Having taken over the maintenance of the China Fleet site in November last year, we have been busy working on raising the site’s profile on the web.   The areas we have been working on are:

• making sure individual pages are ‘optimised’ with the right phrases and tags to the pictures, specific fields and links
• removing duplicate content in the page titles and descriptions
• improving the incoming links (‘link building’)

All of these are factors in ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ (SEO) and contribute to improving the site’s ranking on Google.  Much of this work is ongoing as SEO is not an exercise you do once and think that a site will look after itself.  The phrases people use for searching will change over time and the way search engines evaluate sites for ranking also changes, so these factors need to be taken into account and amended where relevant.

In addition to regular SEO and maintenance on the site, we also do specific projects to improve the way users interact with the site.  A recent example of this is the Activity Timetable that has been incorporated on the Leisure page.

We are pleased to report that there has been a notable improvement in both the number of visitors to the site and its Google ranking for targetted key phrases over the last 6 months.

If you think we can help you with your SEO or site maintenance, please get in touch!

Everyone gets Spam sooner or later. Anyone who’s given out a business card, bought or registered anything on-line or has an address visible on their web site is almost certain to receive Spam at some time. The more you’re active on the web and e-mail, the more Spam you’re likely to get.

There are ways of limiting the problem though.

One way is to protect your main e-mail address(es) but giving out a ‘disposable’ or ‘virtual’ address instead.

If you have control of your web site hosting and/or e-mail facilities you can create what’s known as ‘forwarding addresses’. These appear as normal e-mail addresses but don’t have a real mailbox behind them. They simply ‘redirect’ to a real e-mail id and mailbox.

For example, I can create a mail id info@clarihon.co.uk. If I create it as a ‘virtual’ or ‘forwarding’ address, I can redirect mail to this new address on to my REAL address, nigel@clarihon.co.uk. That way I only have to check one mailbox but receive from 2 mail ids. I can then give the info@clarihon.co.uk address out to the wide world and keep my main address for sending and to give to trusted people.

At some time though, the info@clarihon.co.uk address will get into the hands of Spammers and I’ll start to get Spam.

Assuming I can make the change easily on my web site and my e-mail accounts, all I have to do is delete info@clarihon.co.uk and create info1@clarihon.co.uk, or admin@clarihon.co.uk etc.

I can also create different ‘virtual’ or ‘forwarding’ addresses for different aspects of my business and on-line dealings. One for shopping online (shopping@clarihon.co.uk), one for registering at on-line business directories (directory@clarihon.co.uk) and so on.

I can also create one for specific people or companies I deal with – like amazon@clarihon.co.uk for example. That way, if I get Spam via that address I’ll know where the Spammers got it from!

Of course, having a good Spam filter will reduce much of the hassle you get and it depends on how much of a problem Spam is for you but the use of ‘virtual’ or ‘forwarding’ e-mail addresses is another string to your anti-Spam bow.

When you’re out of the office, how do you access e-mail?

If you have a Blackberry or iPhone, you’re probably fine. If you access the Internet via WiFi, you’re also probably a happy bunny.

But what if you use a mobile phone, or a ‘dongle’ from one of the mobile phone suppliers?

Oh dear, oh dear…..

It’s all well and good when you want to send e-mail from your O2, Vodafone, 3 account etc, but not when you want to send from your business e-mail account – like nigel@clarihon.co.uk.

All is not lost though – unless you’ve got Orange (more about that later).

The first thing to realise is that e-mail from your laptop of mobile device needs to go out via some sort of ‘outgoing’ e-mail server. At home, or on your home PC it would be mail.clarihon.co.uk or similar. On the move, using a mobile phone or dongle this is very unlikely to work.

Mobile phone operators almost always restrict you to using THEIR outgoing servers – often referred to as SMTP servers. If you change the outgoing server setting in your e-mail account set-up it’ll probably work. For the common mobile providers the list of settings is below:

smtp.o2.co.uk
smtp.vodafone.net
smtp.t-email.co.uk
smtp.orange.co.uk
smtp.three.co.uk

For virgin, Talk Talk etc, please check their Support web sites or call them.

For Orange users the ‘fun’ doesn’t end there. Another setting needs to be changed. It’s the SMTP ‘port’ and it MIGHT work if set to 587.

For further information on the ‘challenges’ faced when roaming with e-mail have a look on Google and read the articles here:

http://www.knowyourmobile.com/info/1310/use_our_internet_setting_chart_to_setup_email_and_the_internet_on_your_mobile.html
http://www.geekgirls.com/articles/2010/03/portable-smtp-take-your-email-with-you/

Lastly, I don’t think it’s possible, in Outlook at least, to store two configurations for the same e-mail account, one for home and one for mobile, and switch between them. You need to edit the the outgoing server configuration depending whether you’re using your home broadband connection or the mobile one.

The joys of IT eh?…..

I came across a problem the other day and was surprised that it’s not more common. It relates to SPAM and the use of broadband for e-mail and Internet at home or small office. Bear with me to the end of this article and I’ll show you how you could be branded as a ‘Spammer’ even though you’ve done nothing wrong.’

You can tell whether you’ve gained a reputation as a Spammer by looking at the rejection messages you’ll start getting. The rejection reason might give you a clue and the error type/number of 550 will usually be quoted. You can check it more thoroughly by looking for bits of the error messages on Google.

Spammers are detected and labelled in one of 2 main ways.

The first is by their e-mail address – especially the second, or ‘domain’ part. This is the bit following the ‘@’ sign. For example, if spam e-mail is reported or detected from an e-mail address with ‘@myaddress.co.uk’ as the second part then mail from nigel@myaddress.co.uk, info@myaddress.co.uk and even.you@myaddress.co.uk is quite likely to be treated as SPAM by the various spam filters on PCs and e-mail machines across the Internet.

The second is by the address from which an e-mail is sent.

All devices, resources, web sites, e-mail senders etc across the whole Internet have their own address, universally recognised by the machines that make up the Internet. It’s called the IP address.

This address takes the form of 4 sets of numbers, each between 0 and 255, separated by a dot ot decimal point. Examples would be 1.1.1.1, 123.96.247.5 and 192.168.1.1.

If you have a broadband connection at your home or small office and it’s from a provider (ISP) like BT, AOL, Virgin, Talk Talk and so on, you’re likely to be assigned one of these addresses on a ‘dynamic’ basis. It’s actually assigned to the ‘router’ where your broadband and phone line comes into the house. The ‘router’ is that small box with flashing lights sitting next to the phone point and powered from the mains. There will be a cable connecting it to your PC – either directly or via other cables across your house (‘network’).

When you switch this ‘router’ it will connect to Virgin, BT etc and ask for one of these network, or IP addresses. This is likely to be supplied to you on a dynamic basis. That means you don’t have a specific address, but rather one is assigned to you from a pool at the time your ‘router’ requests it. This address will be assigned to all devices in the house that use your broadband connection to reach the Internet – for browsing, listening to Internet radio, downloading or e-mail.

And here’s the rub.

If the last person to use that ‘IP address’ you’ve just been assigned happens to have been sending Spam, or otherwise behaving badly with e-mail, you will inherit their reputation!

The good news is that by simply leaving your ‘router’ switched off for an hour or so and back on again, you can regain your clean reputation.

If you don’t suffer power outages regularly and don’t have any other reason to switch your ‘router’ on and off very frequently, you probably won’t see this problem. If you’re paranoid and/or South African you will be switching your ‘router’ on and off frequently and WILL come across this problem sooner or later.

Painless Practice and Painless Business are two consultancies run by a client that I now consider as a friend – albeit a long distance one!

They were both started by James Butler shortly after the beginning of the new millenium. Both are business coaching consultancies, one general and the other specialising in complementary healthcare practitioners.

Recently James was joined by Celia Champion as a co-partner.   Aside from running a growing business (there are now 5 coaches plus an administrator), James writes a sparkling monthly newsletter. Whether you’re a complimentary therapy practitioner, in need of general business coaching or just like an inspiring read, you should try one. Recent editions can be seen here: www.painlesspractice.com/newsletters/.

James and Celia realised that the existing Painless Practice web site was in need of a facelift and re-organisation so they (naturally) came to us. We’re currently building the new site and are likely to be adding a blog soon.   Until then, you can read more about Painless Practice on their existing site here: www.painlesspractice.com.