Understanding The Domain Naming System - DNS

DNS is Short for Domain name System on the Internet.

The root address of all website hosted on the web server is the DNS. It is alphabetic in nature hence it has to be translated into numbers which the system understands.  A single group of the translated numbers is called IP address this is the protocol that Internet understands. Hence when you are writing your domain name websitepromotion-india.com it actually translates into an IP Address which in case of DNS is fixed. 

Using this service: http://www.hcidata.info/host2ip.cgi I can find that IP address of my domain is: 

182.50.130.158

When a user types a URL on web browser the query is sent to the operating system which forwards it to DNS root servers until the query is matched appropriately that is the IP address is located in the web host of the registrars.    

The IP Address in the DNS server is attached to a host server which dutifully sends the query to it. Once this is resolved the files on the web host server are resolved on the browser of your computer.  This is also known as TCP or transfer control protocol TCP is facilitated by HTTP which is hypertext transfer protocol.  The look up tools act as resolver according basic information about the name. No two domains can have the same IP address.      

All these services are managed by various organisations in order to be perfect and make feasible the browser queries. For resolution of domain name there are thirteen designated servers of which one can be where you domain is hosted. The resolver looks up at these 13 servers.    

For registering a domain name you have to go through a registrar to ICANN. This stands for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The organisation operates the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority - IANA, and is in charge of maintaining the DNS root zone which keeps all the TLDs and is referred as TLD name server.

 A fee has to be paid for registration. After this you are the owner of the Domain and details can be had using the who is services on the Internet.   

More on DNS

The domain names are called TLD or top level domain generic or country specific. Example .com. .net, .org are generic TLDs while .eu, .in.   

Driectly under this heirarchy will be an SLD or 2LD a second level domain name example is CO.UK or AC.UK. While the former is concerned with a company the latter is concerned with and institution usually educational institute.   

More information on SLDs can be had here About SLD

Internet Protocol Suite - Communication Protocol

Internet Layer makes internet working possible the primary protocol are defined below. In order address the right route IP address number is assigned to each computer on the Internet Network.   

IP Address are written in a way that humans can read and remember them.

Ex.192.192.1.1 

IP address are managed by Internet Assigned Numbers Authority and another five registrants responsible for regional database on addresses. 

They are:

• African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC)
• American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)
• Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC)
• Latin America and Caribbean Network Information Centre (LACNIC)
• Réseaux IP Europeans Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC)

Commonly known as TCP/IP in the Internet Protocol Suite it is set of protocols that make transmission of data on the interconnected network of computers possible. In the Internet Protocol Suite the data is authenticated and encrypted and sent to the data stream.    

TCP stands for transmission control protocol provides flow of bytes on to the host computer on the Internet. WWW, file transfer, email messaging all rely on TCP.     

IP is an abbreviation for Internet Protocol.  The main function is to deliver packets from source host to the destination host using the IP Address to route.  Hence it address IP address of both the source and the destination host. The main hardware is the router that enables the transfer of datagram of packets.    

IP has two versions in is Internet Protocol Version 4 or IPv 4 and another IPv6 the latter is less popular but the usage is growing. IPv4 defines IP Address as 32 bit number while IPv6 defines IP address as 128 bit.    

Web Hosting Control Panel

Web Hosting Control Panel connects to the server or space in the hosting computer and enables various activities. There are done to manage your website. The web hosting panel is provided by the hosting company and is operated through using a password and username. It is a GUI based interface and easy to understand and execute.  

The panel is an assimilation of different programs to manage various aspect of the website. Some of the activities done on regular bases are upload files and images, create ftp for downloading your site onto the folder of your computer, messaging, manage server, create analytics to name a few. 

The file manger is most important as it lets you download a file on to your computer and edit it using HTML editor. After the editing is complete and changes saved you can upload the page to its respective folder using FTP. In other case you edit the file directly using the facility in the control panel and save it right there.    

Some of the popular hosting panels in use are:

• Plesk
• CPanel
• ZPanel 
• CentOS Web Panel
• Kloxo MR 
• Ajenti 

Servers where sites are hosted require firewall and high security softwares the panel whould be abel to support such installation.  Sometimes in case of complex technology based websites managing files may be difficult. In order to edit such portal one needs to become familiar with the site structure and how to control it on the web hosting control panel.   

FTP - File Transfer Protocol

Whence you have to download from a server website files the process is called file transfer protocol. FTP stands as abbreviation. In simpler terms it is a network protocol that enables transfer of website files contained in a hosting server to client which may be a folder in your computer or laptop.   

An FTP tool usually contains two columns one on the left enables you to direct the files to a folder contained in your computer or lap top. For authentication a dialogue box is provided usually a clear text sign is done. But there can be various options for authenticating the user name and password. Encryption using SSL/TLS is preferred. TLS or transport layer security has preceded SSL or Secure Socket Layer. Symmetric cryptography is used to transmit data over two networked computer the methodology is too complex to be explained here. This offers a private and secure data transmission.

Another protocol used is SSH FTP or SFTP  this provides file access, transfer and management over a trusted data stream.         

For downloads many FTP software or tools are available on the Internet. The the IP address, username and password is obtained from the hosting service that configure it. The protocol used  is configured by obtaining details from the hosting service a well. 

Most of the ftp tools are available on the Internet without any charge but the one's meant for highly secured transmission may be available for a price. This applies to both FTP Client and FTP server the later is essential for server management and interact with the former.   

About Hreflang Language Specific Attribute

Code Sample

<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com" hreflang="en-us" />

hreflang attribute informs search engines as to which language you are using on the page. The code introduced by Google is placed in the head sections of website along with other attributes, title, keywords and description.   

Different language pages are created whence local audience is targeted. The page could be in any language and the attribute informs the search engine about it. This is essential in order not to confuse the search engine. 

Hence designers can create pages in different languages as per the audience targeted and literally make it more conversant as well as decrease the bounce rate. The visitors land on the right language page whence the algorithms detect their IP address as pertaining to a particular country where that language is in popularity.     

Even variants of a single language can be targeted using the attribute by adding annotation hreflang="es-es"/> to hreflang="es- mx"/> the latter being Spanish in Mexico. But this targeting is limited to countries only and not continents, unions of subcontinent.

Google and Yahoo support this attribute while Bing supports language meta tag. Coding should from ISO 639-1 and for regional targeting ISO3166 -1 Alpha 2. 

This tag generator tool is also available online making your work easier.  On one page depending upon the relevancy multiple attributes can be placed.

This attribute is preffered for International targeting in place of cannonclization. 

Anchor Text And Its Importance

Anchor text is a word or a phrase which is used to create a hyperlink. 

Example of HTML linking. 

<a href="http://www.xyz.com">anchor text</a> 

The phrase in red is the anchor text. This is very important for search engine optimization for indexing, and the search engines use to understand what the page is all about.  In order to retrieve contextual information and description of the page topic and popularity, the algorithms analyse a number of anchor text besides the link itself. 

In order to provide relevant results on SERPs search engines use the anchor extensively. Hence webmaster use popular anchor text for ranking but then this can be manipulated hence the importance of anchor as ranking factor has been diluted. Overuse of anchor for ranking can often result in penalisation or drop in ranking of a website being promoted.  

As always keywords are used as anchor text by webmasters. Earlier they used same anchor text again and again to rank the site on that keyword. This does not work anymore. Hence it is better to use minimally naturally occurring words and phrases that describe the page well nothing more. 

Search engines have factored hundreds of metrics in their ranking algorithm hence repeated use of anchor is bound to fail.    

Contextual inform is deciphered using semantics or correlated words and phrases in anchor and surrounding content. 

There are few types of anchor texts:

Exact Match is a phrase that is used after the URL naming. For example if the page is about "website promotion" than that becomes the exact matching phrase similarly "top website promotion" will turn into partial match.  Brand names can also be used in hyperlink creation or the link can just be left naked with the linking world.