Everyone likes to know statistics about their website.  Here is the way to learn the Google Pagerank and tons of other information, not just about your own site, but any one you choose.

I have purchased and installed a program on my companion website PageRankToday called RankChecker. 

RankChecker is a great program written as a php script and is easily installed on a webserver.  It is hosted on a site called GetRank.org.  You can get to the website by clicking on the picture to the right.  The author has a great demo of the front page as well as the administrative area. 

This script gives a tremendous amount of information about any website you wish to explore.  Straight from the website, here are the tools and information it displays.

TOOLS:

• Domain Age
• Google Pagerank
• Alexa Rank
• Google Backlinks
• Yahoo Backlinks
• Alexa Backlinks
• Altavista Backlinks
• AllTheWeb Backlinks
• DMOZ Directory
• Yahoo Directory
• Google Indexed Pages
• Yahoo Indexed Pages
• Bing Indexed Pages
• ASK Indexed Pages
• Digg Links
• Delicious Links
• Google Bot Last Visit
• Site Value
• Pagerank Button

I am looking forward to having RankChecker as part of my SEO toolkit.  I have made it available on PageRankToday as one of my SEO Tools, but I would encourage you to purchase a copy for yourself if you would like to host it on your site.  The $10 cost is minimal. 

If you aren't really sure, there is a free version that doesn't have all of the features, but would give a good "test drive".  You can access the free version from the GetRank.org main page, or just click -> HERE.

I have only good things to say about this script and its author.  There were a couple of small issues with the script running on my hosting server, but they were quickly fixed.  I would rate the Script and Support outstanding.  

RankChecker is a great way to learn many details about any website, not just your own.

Enjoy!

-Loren

Leo Is absolutely the GO TO GUY for computers and technology.  I have been following him for years.  You may recognize his name from the show he had years ago on Tech TV called Call for Help.

His weekly Radio Show on KFI out of San Francisco is awesome.  I recommend that you download and listen. 

Here is a link to the shows web page.

http://techguylabs.com/radio/pmwiki.php

Enjoy!

-Loren

The Tech Guy for Sunday 14 February 2010 – Show 640

Host: Leo Laporte

Google Buzz and privacy, cable vs. DSL, new computer buying advice, the latest anti-virus software, and your calls.

For detailed show notes, visit techguylabs.com.

Bandwidth for the Tech Guy podcast is provided by Cachefly.

Running time: 1:59:47

More Info: http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/twit.cachefly.net/ttg0640.mp3

It is time for some Technology Education.  I have posted the basic  content of this post before, but the basics cannot be emphasized enough. 

I get lots of requests for my suggestions on software for antivirus and spyware.  There are many good programs out there.
These are the ones I personally use and have had success:

You need Anti virus protection AND Spyware / Mal ware protection, generally a single product won't do both.  You only need a single anti virus program, but as for spyware / malware no program has a 100% detection rate, so you need more than a single program.

I don't like to spend money if I don't have to, these days for me $$$ are tight, so I like FREE.

If you are running windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 I would recommend looking at Microsoft Security Essentials.  It is a good stand alone antivirus and spyware suite.  Since it is made by Microsoft it will integrate very well into your system.  I have found it to be pretty good.

http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/

Anti virus -
I have used AVG anti virus for over 2 years and have had good success. It is totally free, and will automatically update and protect you very well.

http://free.avg.com/

Spyware Protection -
First you need to protect your computer from even going to sites that are known to be unsafe. Use Spyware blaster to do this (you need to manually update the free version)

http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/

Second you need to use real time protection as well as scanning of your computer to prevent infection by malware or spyware. For this I recommend SuperAntiSpyware. The free version requires you to do updates manually, but it will do automatic scans and provide real time protection. (consider purchasing the Pro version…I did)

http://www.superantispyware.com/

The other free spyware protection I use is Spy Bot Search and Destroy. It does an excellent job finding the real insidious spyware and removing it if you become infected. It is free as well, and has a real time protection.

http://www.safer-networking.org

The combination of these programs will provide very good protection for your computer. The main thing to remember is that you MUST keep the definitions updated. Anti virus and Spyware protection that is not updated is the same as using Nothing at all.

If you need any other help, or have questions, just send me an e-mail.

I hope this information helps, be sure to pass this along to all your firends.

Good Luck!

-Loren

There are methods other than SEO to generate Web Traffic.  This post will discuss other methods to get visitors to your website, it’s not all about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). 

Welcome to the final video in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Video Series.  This video has a rather long running time of 24 minutes, but it is well worth it. 

You will learn how to increase your website traffic using:

Search Engine Optimization – Video 3

As with the other two video tutorials, this final clip has some great tips on getting more relevant visitors to your blog or website.  The instructor gives out ideas and theories, and then follows up with practical examples. 

Just in case you missed them, here are links to the first two Videos in in the SEO Series.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO as it is widely know is a key concept that all webmasters and bloggers need to understand.  TheTeachingBox is proud to present a 5 Part Tutorial series on SEO. 

I came across these videos a while back, and thought that they would be a good fit for Technology and Education.  Granted SEO Optimization is a bit more on the advanced side, but everyone could learn from these videos.

As with my other video series, I will present the 5 videos one at a time so that you are able to focus on the content and think about how you will implement the information on your own website.  As we cover each of the videos, I will make sure to include the links to all previous videos so that you can easily go back and review.

The presentation of these video tutorials is well done, and I was able to learn a quite a few tips on how to make my Blog Posts pop to the top of the online Search Engines.  They are all in Flash (.swf) format and will open in a new browser window.  You should have the latest flash viewer to watch them, but if not, your browser should prompt you for the appropriate plugin download.

Search Engine Optimization – Video 1

In this first video you will get an introduction to the Top 10 On Site SEO Fundamentals and how to implement them on your site.  They include the types of HTML formatting, and content you need to make your pages and posts search engine friendly.  The running time for this video is around 24 Minutes. 

In this tutorial I learned about the Traffic Travis tool for Keyword Research and SEO.  He spends almost half of the tutorial talking about it.  It is free and could prove to be a very valuable tool in your webmaster arsenal.

The author of this video knows his stuff, and gives evidence.  Let me know what you think about this series in the comments, or send me an e-mail.  What are your favorite SEO tips and tricks?

If you are interested I can make the set available to you.  They are in .swf format and the .zip files are still quite large.  Drop me an e-mail and we can work something out.

-Loren