Internet Content Filtering

Learn How to Protect Your Family from the Worst of the Web!

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If you don’t believe Google’s Duplicate Content Filter exists, I have Dramatic Proof their Internet content filter exists and it’s very effective.

On July 5, 2005 I published an article entitled “7 Top Ways to Avoid Link Theft” which was picked up and included as content on other websites.

Before the article was released I checked on Google whether any results already existed for the exact phrase “7 Top Ways to Avoid Link Theft” and there were no listings for that term.

Over the next few weeks I monitored through a search query on Google how many results appeared in Google for the title of my article. One week after publication there were 6,760 results listed in Google, a week later it was 14,100 and it reached a peak of 17,000 results by July 26, 2005.

4 weeks after publication the results in Google had fallen slightly to 16,600.

Almost 6 weeks after publication the results listed in Google had fallen to 44.

In a matter of less than two weeks the number of search results on Google.com for the title of my article had gone from 16,600 to just 44.

In case you’re thinking this is because all these other websites dropped by article and replaced it with other content I should add that a search on Yahoo.com on the same day still showed 14,300 results for my article.

What’s more of these 44 results on Google, more than half consist of listings from the same websites. In other words some sites have the same article duplicated on different pages on their website.

So Google’s Internet Content Filter is not used to remove duplicate listings from the preferred websites it chooses to keep in the search results.

On August 28th, 2005 8 weeks after first publication I distributed the article again to a new list of article sites to repeat the process. After 6 weeks the same article had reached a peak of 5,620 results on Google. Less than 2 weeks later the results had fallen to 217.

For me this was dramatic proof that Google’s Duplicate Internet Content Filter is active and very effective. If you’re wondering if other major search engines have a duplicate content filter I can confirm that Yahoo certainly does. The same article which was once listed on 14,300 sites on Yahoo, has fallen to 344 over the same time period.

From these results it would seem Google takes about 6 to 8 weeks to remove duplicate content using its Duplicate Internet Content Filter.

But the question remaining is just how does Google decide which out of over 16,000 results does it keep and which does it reject?

I have witnessed situations where my own articles appear in results on other websites, but are not listed in the results for my own website.

So clearly Google does not take into account who the originator and author of the original article was when deciding which sites will remain in its search results.

It also seems to have nothing to do with where Google first finds the article.

Some articles I have published to my website for several weeks before releasing them for distribution to other websites.

In that time the Google spiders have visited my site several times and Google has had enough time to work out that the article was first found on my site.

It would be interesting to see if it’s possible to work out what factors Google is using in its Internet Content Filter to decide which results to keep in its listing and which ones to remove. But that’s for another article.
About the Author

Tony Simpson is a Web Designer and Search Engine Optimizer who brings a touch of reality to building a Web Business. A related report on article distribution is at: http://www.webpageaddons.com/stp/announcerclaim Article Announcer Review - Testing Product Claims

Learn How to Protect Your Family from the Worst of the Web!

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The Internet is one of the greatest inventions of all time. Parental Internet Control will protect our loved ones from internet filth like pornography and hate material just a click away. The fact that every stranger in the world has access to your child, right in your own home is scary enough. exercising some kind of Internet Control will protect the people you love from the tens of thousands of troubling sites on the Internet.

Although nothing can replace a well-informed parent that takes an active part in their children’s online activities, Internet Filtering Software provides a strong, additional layer of defense which gives parents an added measure of control and further peace of mind.

With a lot of Internet filtering software choices available, researching and choosing the Internet filter that’s right for your family can be complex and time-consuming, and that s where we can help.

At www.parental-web-control.com you’ll find articles, and side-by-side comparisons and comprehensive reviews on Internet Filtering Software that will help you make a fast, informed decision.

What makes a great Internet filter software solution?

Though the perfect Internet Filter does not exist in today’s marketplace, there are a number of great solutions depending on what the family needs are. Here is a list of attributes of good filtering software.

Easy to Use How easy it to install the product?, Is it easily set up, and easy to use? Is it easy to find the functions you are looking for? Is it easy to customize the filter settings?

Effective at filtering Does the web filtering software strike a good balance between filtering objectionable material and non object ional - not filter too much? The ability to customize sensitivity of filtering by each individual family member is important as well.

Activity reports Parents should be able to see what their individual family member has been doing on the computer. This would include viewing where they have been on the Internet, what has been going on in chat rooms, and activity based on other functions within the Internet filtering application.

Foreign language filtering One of the tricks that teenagers have found to bypass Internet filters is to type in the foreign language equivalent of certain keywords. By typing in the French, Spanish, or German versions of the word “sex” or “girl” for example, you can easily bypass many filters to view objectionable content.

Individual profiles Can you create a profile for each family member with different filtering rules?

Notification capabilities Can you be notified at work or at home that un-authorized access or blocking is occurring?

Negligible response times Does the Internet filter allow you to access the Internet without noticeable slowdown?

Remote management Can you change settings, change rules, and change profiles from work or while on vacation without the installed software? The correct use of Internet filters in harmony with parental controls can make the Internet a safe and wonderful experience for the family.

About the Author

Please visit to http://www.parental-web-control.com for more articles with side-by-side comparisons and comprehensive reviews on Internet Filtering Software that will help you make a fast, informed decisions.

Learn How to Protect Your Family from the Worst of the Web!

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You spent tireless hours creating your business model, even longer perfecting your website to be the best that it can be. Taking count of your competitors, positioning yourself with a uniqueness that surely could not see you fail.

You agonized for weeks over the perfect website hosting company for your business, and chose the one that guaranteed you 99% uptime (you want your website ‘up’!). You have staff in place, or indeed if working alone, know that you will be your own ‘one-woman’ customer support team.

You have made an executive decision, through the hundreds of business meetings that you have had with yourself (in your own head - whilst falling asleep, in the bath and eating lunch) that you will be providing email sales and email customer support only. After all, if it is good enough for eBay then it is good enough for you yes.

Everything is in place, the site is live, the search engine marketing firm has been contracted for $39.95 a month (you don’t have much of a budget just yet), the advertising is in place and you have decided to do this yourself to save extra money (after all you summarize, why hire a company to look after PPC when you can easily do it yourself right).

It’s Monday, the perfect ‘go-live’ day, 1500 hours and the site has been live 8 hours, your pride and joy is up and running and your dream of making an online business a reality is now yours. You are getting visitors and hey, you are even starting to get sales and it’s all looking good.

You have employed some of the best anti spam/junk mail filter software there is to avoid unwanted distractions whilst you respond to your new customers and your website hosting company also guarantees you the most vigorous defence at server level for unwanted email.

But…suddenly there is a problem, you start receiving emails complaining that you have not replied to other emails, which you had never received. At first you simply thought it was a ‘crazy’ customer or one of those lost emails that never get there that you know the traditional postal service are so well known for.

But….then there are 2 emails complaining of non-response, one from a customer who had bought from you the previous day demanding that if you do not respond immediately that they will charge-back the transaction! Where did that come from, you never received an email but you did receive this email - why was that, this really is coming more of a regular occurrence and something that you need to take action in resolving.

Now, not only are you losing sales by not receiving emails of a pre-sales nature but you are receiving emails from your customers complaining that once they buy from you that you cannot be contacted.

And so it starts, the beginning of the end, a bad reputation for customer support, charged-back transactions that cost you and your now struggling website business additional money and a realization that there seems to be a problem with email, but you do not know what it is.

Ok, so the above might seem a little extreme but we live in an extreme world where just one issue can make or break a company and as a small ‘one-woman’ online business who has spent so much money on search engine marketing, advertising and making your website the best that it can be, you really could do without such issues. You want to be a success, not gain a reputation as one whom provides terrible service.

Where do you look to resolve the issue?

No further than the spam/junk mail filter software you purchased and/or the service mail filters that your website hosting company put in place ‘for your protection’.

The very purpose for which spam/junk mail filters are implemented, being to protect your mailbox from unwanted email, can be the very same good intentions that cause you great issues with your customers and cause annoyance to distraction in resolution.

What is an unwanted email; yes the hundreds of spam emails selling the latest pharmaceutical product from yet another untrained and un-web-educated affiliate. Emails that you never asked for or indeed want - they are so annoying that you ensured that your home PC, which is also used by your 2 kids (12 and 15 years of age) employs the same level of spam email protection as your business PC. You didn’t want your kids to become privy to ‘adult’ spam themed emails that pop through every mail box from uncaring spammers across the world did you.

But wait, this is your business computer and your business website we are talking about now, not your home PC where spam and junk email filters are best put to use. Your business uses email as its main communication tool, is it really a wise idea to put your faith in a piece of software or your website hosting companies default mail filters. Should you not really take on the ownership of deciding what is and what is not junk email, and the question to really ask oneself is, can your website business really afford to put the decision of what should and what should not arrive in your email box.

Regardless of how ‘intelligent’ the spam filter is, how much control you have over it, or indeed how much control you do not have over it if a default feature of your website hosting email accounts, any website business worth its salt needs at the very least to consider all of the factors that make up this fundamental business decision - to filter, or not to filter.

Have you run all appropriate tests? Can you receive emails from Hotmail, Yahoo and other free web accounts? What happens if an attachment comes with the email, and are there any kind of content filters or ‘auto-responder’ issues to think about. What about the different ISP’s, can you receive from AOL users - or more importantly sometimes, can AOL users receive your emails.

Explore the next set of issues, perhaps you can receive all emails, but what happens if your customer is using s spam/junk email filter and they cannot receive your reply. The nightmare scenario then of you actually responding to your customers contact emails but because of their ISP or junk mail filter they cannot receive your replies, have you tested this, have you tested the content of your emails? If you lace HTML or URL’s within the content is that accepted…yes these are all issues that you should have considered before your website even went live but this is not a well documented or well discussed topic.

Yet, this should a subject of conversation, it should be a topic of interest and it certainly should be something that is addressed as part of every website implementation plan.

Do not let a spam or junk email filter ruin your business. Get it setup properly, with thorough implementation and gain knowledge of how to operate it correctly. Don’t let technology take over by simply selecting the ‘default’ option.

NOTE: Not all website hosting companies implement anti-spam filters by default. If in doubt, ask. This article does not assume that spam/junk email filters will ruin a business, only that the business in question should be thoroughly knowledgeable of any issues when running such software - and where implementation and spam control is available that these are properly set up.
About the Author

Suzzi Law is the quality and control marketing arm of www.servicewrap.net, with many years experience in undertaking search engine ranking services for hundreds of companies worldwide - without real visitors it will not matter if you have email communication issues.

Learn How to Protect Your Family from the Worst of the Web!

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Coping With Spam Filters
by Laurie Rogers Copyright July 2002

If you haven’t yet heard about the chaos that Spam Filters
are currently causing for publishers, then I am about to tell
you EVERYTHING you’ll need to know on this subject. Many
of our fellow publishers disregard the fact that Spam Filters
DO in fact exist. For some reason just do NOT want to face
the fact that, they are DESTROYING their businesses.

I write a column on Spam for DEMC small business ezine, so
I do consider myself to be well educated on this subject. If
you have any questions about what I am about to tell you,
feel free to contact me at: http://www.OptinFrenzy.com

Now let’s begin.

Spam Filters are EVERYWHERE online whether we like it or
not they are. And they are becoming more dominant in all
aspects of the internet, through ISP’s, webhosts and the
chances are, one person in three is using some type of a
filtering device. They are inexpensive to purchase and so
it makes it fairly EASY for the average “Joe” to buy one.

And chances are that your ISP or web host probably uses
them and you are NOT even aware of it. Personally, I do
advise that you contact them to ask them about it and
ask them to REMOVE them from your account immediately.
Now, here is why I suggest that you do this, Spam Filters
are NOT 100% fool proof, in fact they have a tendency to
block out your LEGITIMATE email. Anyone who tells YOU
otherwise is in some serious DENIAL.

I’ve personally taken the time to test almost EVERY Spam
Filtering program that there is currently available online.
And what I saw was absolutely mortifying to say the least.
I ran over 100 different types of emails and newsletters all
through each system and 9 times out of ten, it resulted in
being marked as spam. Needless to say, by the end of the
day I was NOT impressed with my discovery.

Most of these programs are designed to target newsletters
specifically, because they have the words “subscribe” and
“unsubscribe” black marked. Meaning, that any peices of
email that contain those two words are “marked” as being
“SPAM”. This is especially predominant in Spam Killer which
is now owned by McAfee. They also LURE publishers into
what they refer to as being “Spam Traps” (which they do
openly admit -right on their web site), so they can create
more filters DAILY based on ezine/email content. And YES,
I did say DAILY!

Now that I’ve probably scared the wits out of you, here
are a few things that you can do and they will require a
bit of added work on your part.

1.) Make your ezine available in 3 different forms, if it at
all possible. Email it directly to your subscribers, put it on
an autoresponder and make it available online. My good
friend jL Scott (owner of iCop) does this and it covers all
of the bases to ENSURE your readers get your ezine. It’ll
also give you an idea of HOW many people actually read
your ezine.

2.) Ask your readers, IF they have had ANY problems in
receiving your ezine. If they have, start keeping a log of
these instances, if your ezine has been marked as being
spam through their email client ask them for a copy of it
for your records. You MAY want to TRY contacting their
ISP and try talking to them about it, ensure that YOU
maintain your “professionalism” in doing so, as this could
create problems for your subscriber. Advise ALL of your
subscribers to contact their ISP’s and ask them if they
are in fact using filters on their email.

3.) Keep financial loss records that you’ve encountered
because of Spam Filters. And remember everything is of
a monetary value including your ezine.

Although there is no fool proof method of avoiding Spam
Filters, there is currently a pending law suit against the
creators of these programs. So if you do have a case or
have proof that you have been filtered, falsely accused
etc. I recommend that you go and file a report asap at:
http://www.e-crucible.org

Article by Laurie Rogers Copyright 2002 All Rights Reserved

About the Author

Laurie Rogers is co-author of the Ezine Resource Guide,
http://www.zineadz.com/erg.html She is the owner of Optin
Frenzy - a paid list building program for ezine publishers
http://www.optinfrenzy.com You can obtain more of Laurie’s
articles at: mailto:ezinearticles@optinfrenzy.com