The Importance of Protecting Your Domains

Richard Branson and his company the Virgin Group are once again making waves in the business world but instead of engaging in a new battle with companies like British Airlines, Branson and Virgin are engaged in a virtual battle over the domain name richardbranson.xxx.

With the release of the new .XXX domain name in December of 2011, Branson was shocked to see that his name was registered like so many other celebrities and his name richardbranson.xxx was now online. Eager to protect his name and other Virgin intellectual properties his company filed a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum, an organization that oversees domain name disputes.

It Can Happen To Anyone

The domain was registered by an Australian resident on December 10^th 2011 who most likely intended to become a cybersquatter and hold the domain name for ransom until he received a very large payoff from Virgin.

Any cybersquatter knows how much domain names like richardbranson.xxx are worth and jump at the chance to register them when new domain name extensions are released. Richard Branson is lucky though because this .XXX domain name hasn’t been pointed to a porn website like so many other new .XXX domain names have been.

What’s next for Branson?

Virgin has a good case and will most likely be given the domain name if they can prove that it wasn’t registered in good faith. Branson’s case should be a wakeup call to celebrities and business owners around the world who want to protect their brand online and best interests.

Even though the average person or company has to spend money initially to protect their best interests online by registering all of the domain name extensions that apply to their name or brand, the cost is minimal compared to the potential long term financial damages that could result from dealing with a cybersquatter.

Match Your Online Credit Card Processing With Your Hosting

There are many business owners today taking advantage of flagship companies that are able to offer online services that meet most of a business needs. As technology becomes more innovative, more business are migrating all of their services and functions to be based online. One of the wiser and more popular trends for online business owners is to match the online credit card processing company with the hosting company. There are a few security and productivity benefits that make this an easy choice for many online business owners.

Credit Card Processing

Choosing a reputable merchant express credit card processing company is very important for a few different reasons. A well-known company processing payments for your business will add some credibility to your business and will help bring in customers. A reliable company will also ensure large payment and protection in customer disputes and returns. A company that can handle both your payment processing needs and hosting needs is mostly likely large enough to service all of your extraneous business needs you may develop as your business grows. It is important to select a provider that can handle your potential and projected business growth and sales volume.

Hosting

Having the hosting and credit card processing from one provider ensures the security of your data by creating less room for error in information transfers. It also ensures that the host can handle the burden of processing all of your payments. Choosing providers that meet both your needs will ensure all your needs are met opposed to shopping around for services every few months.

Working with providers that can offer all of their services you need or have established relationships with other appropriate providers will make your everyday business transactions much easier. Ultimately, it is simply easier and more effective to deal with one company opposed to two or three to manage your online transaction and security concerns.

Making Sure Your SEO Is Legal

It is too bad the internet is swamped with content that is often written very poorly or fake with no answers or even suggestions of where to go for information. Search engine optimization is very valuable, but if done wrong, can lead to penalties from Google and other search engines.

Securing Your SEO

When doing a search for a term it is always important to be able to spot well written content, and content that is poorly done. Make sure have fresh accurate information that will make potential clients and visitors want to take the time to review your website. Key words that are up to date will help your rankings in all the major search engine terms. Write articles and blogs that are your words, not words that have been duplicated. Search engines finding duplicated content will penalize your website severely for violating those terms. Your own content will also save you lots of time and your reputation if you get busted for having someone’s terminology. Take the time to do the research on what you are writing about, and be sure your information is correct. It will save you so much time in the long run putting in the effort.

Newest SEO Developments

If you plan on taking on the SEO challenge, there are some recent developments that are a must to know. Your content must be high quality or you are not going to stand much of a chance to get your website up the ranks. Content that is copied, stolen, or reused will get your site punished and you might have a hard time finding it amongst the ranks again. Google is one of the top search engine contenders that is not messing around when it comes to fixing this problem with bad content. Your best bet is to either do your SEO yourself or hire a reputable company that has excellent references and can back up their services.

Taking your time with this complex skill is something you cannot get away with. Proper key wording, tagging, and content will keep you safe, legal, and prospering. Finally, if you’re still worried, contact your Arlington lawyer for more help.

Data Center Market Trends: 2011 & Beyond

The essence of data centers is management of data. Over the last couple of years, there has been exponential growth in data. In small, business and large companies, volumes of data are churned every day, most of which need to be archived for a long time. To accommodate this growing data, companies need to expand the existing data centers. This they do by either upgrading the existing facilities or leasing larger data center space. 

What Companies Spent on Data Centers in 2010

Out of all IT factions, data center infrastructure eats up the highest chunk of the IT budget. In 2010, large companies spent billions on data centers each. The US government spent $24 billion on data center infrastructure, from the given $80 billion IT budget.

Large players like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and eBay have built their own data centers to cut costs, with Google spending $2.3 on its custom data center. Microsoft is said to spend $500 million on each of its DCs, which adds up to billions a year. 

Facebook is following the trend. Over the years, the company has been leasing data center space, spending $50 million on lease alone in 2010. Add the cost of servers and this amount escalates to close to a billion if not more. It is only now that the company has moved to establish its own custom data centers, with the first such infrastructure set up in Oregon. 

Current Data Center Trends

1. Energy-efficient data centers
The trend now is towards green data centers. Larger companies are embracing efficient data center facilities, a move that will see them cut data center costs by more than half. Facebook was the first of the larger companies to build a fully green data center facility, and more companies are following suit.

2. Consolidation
Data center consolidation is the other trend that is fast picking up. This is happening in companies and organizations that have data center facilities spread across different locations. The idea is to fuse their programs so that all servers are run from a central location, or can be managed by a singular data center operating system.

It is a move that requires a substantial upfront investment, but there are savings to be made overall, since the operating cost comes down. The government is one of the big spenders adopting this trend. It hopes to close down up to 800 data centers, saving 30% off its data center cost. 

3. Private Cloud
There is a shift towards private cloud solutions, which are cheaper and provide easier management of data capacity. Aspects of the data center that are signed up for cloud subscriptions include back up and archiving. 

4. Tiering
Companies are taking advantage of tiering, which enables them to manage more data while minimizing costs. Deeper tiers are used to archive inactive to less-active data, while top tiers are reserved for data that is used constantly. 

Impact of these Trends on Data Center Costs Beyond 2011

It is to be expected that companies will spend more over the coming years, constructing modern, green data centers and consolidating their server programs into larger facilities. Upon completion of the data centers, this cost will come down sharply. Companies that continue leasing data center space will spend less in comparison, since they will not incur any construction costs.

SEO Solutions for Small Businesses

There are many SEO services out there, geared towards local and small sized businesses. Their purpose is to establish a presence in the natural search engine rankings on the top search engines, such as Google and Bing. SEO services are a good solution because they are backed by search engine optimization and link building teams, managed by trained SEO account managers.

What You Get with an SEO Service

There are many features that come with an SEO service. You can choose up to ten keywords to help your company be tracked down in search engines, and services also offer keyword research, to help you find the best ones. You get search engine ranking reports, link popularity audit and analysis, and competitive analysis to help you see the fruits of your labor. You can also get recommendations for optimized code analysis and optimized content analysis. Other helpful services are customized link building and management, account management, rankings management, and internal link building and management, to take some of the work off your hands. Scheduled optimized code/content check-ups, website analytics, monthly recommendations, and quarterly reviews are other services that are typically offered by SEO services to keep you on track.

Signing Up With a Service

You can contact an SEO service to inquire more on their company and services. They will have search engine strategy teams that can provide you with specific recommendations and give you a detailed proposal with frees. From that point, services can be customized regarding your needs. Typically, these services will start at around $400 a month.

Having a small business can be tough, especially in a shaky economy, But search engines are the best way to customers and potential clients to find you, so an SEO and Dynamics CRM services can go a long way.