In this second exciting instalment in the Digital Economy Bill series, The Manchester SEO Blog Just Roger IT! will demonstrate how you can reconfigure your computer to make use of Google’s own DNS system. I will also explain why this might provide another valuable tool to add to your Swiss Army Knife of tactics that will subvert any level of control the UK government might attempt to impose upon the Internet itself.

What is DNS (Domain Name System)?

Basically, DNS is a giant Internet phonebook – every time you access a website using a domain name, your computer resolves that name into the IP address of the machine that will serve out your desired website. For example, this website www.manchester-seo-blog.co.uk is hosted on the machine with the IP address 82.165.217.36. Although the reality is more complex, this is essentially why DNS is an important part of being able to access a website.

Google’s DNS and Blockages

DNS may become important if our government tries to block ‘undersirable’ websites that may have found their way on to Santa’s naughty list. One possible block the government may attempt to use, would be to do something to the DNS itself. While the machine itself may be reachable from yours, the website will become – in effect – ex-directory and you will therefore not be able to connect to the website through the domain.

A few months ago, Google began offering a free and fast DNS service, and with some minor reconfiguration of your computer, you can use Google’s DNS instead of your ISP’s own. Because Google operate this service from the United States, the UK government will be unable to stop your machine using this service.

How To Configure Your System

Configuring Google’s DNS for Windows XP

To add Google’s DNS servers to your Internet configuration, simply follow these steps:

• Click Start, then Control Panel and from here double click Network Connections
• Right click on the network connection you use and click Properties.
• From this dialog box, highlight the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) option and cilck Properties

Right click on the network connection you use and click Properties.

• Next, simply click the radio button: ‘Use the following DNS server addresses:‘ and enter Google’s DNS servers 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

Configuring Google’s DNS for Windows 7

• Click Start, then Control Panel and from here click Network and Internet
• From this control panel, click Network Center and then click the Personalize link.
• From this dialog box, highlight the Internet connection your computer uses, then cilck the Properties button.

Right click on the network connection you use and click Properties.

• Click the Properties button in this next dialog box (you may need to provide admin password at this point)
• Highlight the TCP/IP Version 4 option and click ‘Properties‘ and in the next dialog box, click: ‘Use the following DNS addresses‘ and enter 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4..

Okay, by now you should be all done! Click OK and apply all of those settings. Google’s DNS System is so awesome that you may well improve the speed and responsiveness of your Internet as a by-product. The important thing is that nobody within the UK would be able to stop you, and should the government attempt to block domains using some DNS tricks, this would provide a neat way around it!

This week saw the UK government’s Digital Economy Bill sneak past the Houses of Parliament and Lords. Here at Just Roger IT : The Manchester SEO Blog, we believe that freedom should rank highest among our life priorities. It is too easy for us to take our liberty for granted, and willingly surrender a small slice of it to appease a hungry wolf. But the wolf will always return for seconds. They can do nothing without the co-operation of the I.T. world, and in the meantime until the world comes to its senses, I feel duty bound to place more power in the hands of Internet users to help address this terrible injustice.

What Is a Proxy and How Does It Work?

Using a proxy to access the Internet simply involves routing your Internet requests through a third party computer. Let’s suppose website X is on the ‘verboten list‘ of restricted sites by the UK government. You can reconfigure your computer A to request site X from proxy computer B as pictured above. To the outside world, it will seem as though computer B is accessing the restricted websites, with no way of preventing computer B completing this request on behalf of A, if B lies outside of the UK. Digital freedom fighters across the globe specialise in setting up proxies that are available for countries that do not have the same freedoms we enjoy in the West. Entire lists of public, free and open proxies are maintained and a simple Google search for ‘public proxies’ (or something similar!) will quickly reveal a list of proxy companions for your computer.

Your mileage will vary, and a user will need to be patient as new proxies are appearing every minute, while some may only exist for a few short hours before slowing, and finally going offline altogether. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!

Using a Proxy

Some proxies will have their own domain, complete with a nice web based interface such as hidemyass.com and the-cloak.com, which are usually easy to use and need little or no explanation. In a desperate attempt to enforce this ridiculous bill, I predict the UK government may move to block access to these domains from within the UK. Even so, you still have access to the slightly more gritty proxies which are accessible by their IP address and socket number. Using these is equally straight forward, but requires a little reconfiguring of your browser!

Configuring an HTTP Proxy for Internet Explorer and Firefox

As these are the two more common browsers, I will discuss the step-by-step how to, once you have your chosen proxies IP address and socket number. Okay, so in these examples, I will be using the following proxy example:

An Example Proxy Based in Thailand
203.114.110.186:3128
[IP address] : [socket number]

Configuring Proxy Settings of Internet Explorer

Using Internet Explorer you can click, Tools » Internet Options » Connections » LAN Settings. Then in the space at the bottom of this dialogue box tick the ‘Use a proxy server for your LAN’ and enter the IP address and socket number of your chosen proxy and click OK, then Apply.

Configuring Proxy Settings of Firefox

Firefox is very slightly different, but follows the same process. Click on: Tools » Options, then click on the Advanced icon to the far right of the top menu. Select the Network tab and click the Settings button under ‘Connection’ and enter your proxy settings here.

When you apply these settings you can browse normally, and your browser will automatically route all requests through the third party machine.

It may be hit and miss for a while, but this technique ensures that no single government can hold their people’s intellect, creativity or freedom of expression hostage.

Caveat Emptor is a slogan used all too often. It is true that a fool and his money will be easily parted, but it is doubly sad to see a well respected company, suddenly open up a scheme that is more than a little crooked. It is both my sad duty and heavy responsibility to report a scheme being run by Yelldirect, a branch off the popular Yell and Yellow Pages brands which is designed to fleece less web savvy entrepreneurs of their hard earned cash.

Yell is a respectable business directory, that even your SEO consultant will say can benefit your websites profile and traffic. However, a newer branch from this company known as Yelldirect is far less honest and much more murky.

I know this news article will make me unpopular initially, but like The Manchester SEO Blog’s discovery that gb.com domain penatly in Google, but people will eventually realise I am doing this for the benefit of the people less Internet savvy in the hope I can show you why you should avoid YellDirect, who is in no danger of living up to a single claim they make about their service.

What Do You Believe is Wrong With Yelldirect?

Well, firstly, there is a ‘Web Creation Charge’ of around £100, and as a Webmaster myself I have trouble understanding what this is for, because it does not include the .co.uk or .com domain which will set you back another £50 per year, (roughly 10 times the value of these domains had you gone to a regular registrar such as 1and1, 123-reg or any of the other big names). There are all sorts of interesting charges for work (whether real or imaginary!). There will be another charge of around £200 for ‘artwork’ even if the imagery is supplied entirely by the client.

If the client wants a content management system, the Website Builder costs £1000 (in addition to all the other charges for setting up a website! But wait – it gets better – because even with the Website Builder, the client must still pay another £100 for the privilege of adding each new page, even if they provide all of the content!!

When all said and done, an awful-looking website with Yelldirect is likely to set you back somewhere between £1000 and £2000.

So Your Problem is with Price? That Doesn’t Sound So Bad Does it?

Well, no, the problem is worse than this. The user gets a maximum of around 300 characters to play with on each page, and has no control over where these appear. Some testing from myself revealed that any website created with Yelldirectwill face a penalty in Google. Why? I think one of the reasons is that the CMS system will copy the entire page of content as your META description, ensuring you have long, and the keywords are made up of the various services you offer, giving you no control over what appears here, and forcing you to generate a page that is so spammy, it will struggle to get listed well in Google. But wait! It doesn’t stop there – in Yell’s own search, they will not list you on your own domain (which you paid over £50 for) they will – in fact – link through to your mysite.sitebuilder.yell.comdomain, ensuring they pinch all of your good PR for themselves, but take your money for the privilege.

Proof That YellDirect Will Give You a Spammy Site

Just try doing : site:http://sitebuilder.yell.com in the Google search bar, and have a close look at the META tags of all the sites that are returned. It’s fair to say that Yelldirect have gone to some extraordinary lengths to ensure their clients are penalised in Google with websites that will never perform anywhere near as well as a regular domain registered with a average company with a ‘normal’ hosting arrangement..

Why Their Claims are Scandelous

Let us take a look at some of the claims made on their homepage. ‘Generate more business leads with Yell.com’, ‘Cost-effective advertising to suit all budgets’. When I inform the reader that the average site will cost around 2000 GBP and upwards, and will struggle more than a normal domain to get listed in Google, I feel that these statements are not just misleading, but are designed to prey on entrepreneurs lack of knowledge about the Internet and SEO, exploiting their deepest hopes and desires of making money through the web.

I hope other SEO consultants will join me in condemning the scheme. The moral of the story? Yell, please leave the web marketing to the SEO bods who know what they are doing. And as always caveat emptor.

In a recent post on Just Roger IT! The Manchester SEO Blog, I brought to everyones’ attention, the extreme penalty that gb.com domains face in Google.  Instead of being thanked by potential consumers for avoiding a product that was clearly defective, I was brutally chewed out on Google Forums. A user called Lysis called me stupid, and then posted a lovely comment calling me a ‘dumbass’ in my own blog entry. I allowed this, so the reader has the opportunity of witnessing the childishness I face on a daily basis from some web developers who think they know it all.  This was quickly followed by RickyD, who said I should be ashamed of myself before chewing me out some more, despite the fact that his main grievance appeared to lie with the headline of the article itself.  Perhaps ironically, it was this headline itself that had led Mr Code Red to find the correct answer he was seeking.

At first I assumed all these people all worked for Central NIC registrar, and forgave them for defending their brand and interests by jumping on me. However,  as the conversation unfolded, more of them began to notice there was indeed something very wrong with .gb.com domains in Google.  The thread fell deafeningly quiet and I realised – to my amusement – these people did not work for Central NIC at all, but were actually web developers who believed they knew everything about SEO and wrongly assumed I was sensationalising my document, slamming me as a ‘blogger’.  (To this moment I’m not sure how exactly this is supposed to be taken as a negative!)

I wanted to use this opportunity to restore a little balance to the Universe, as this is something I face on a daily basis.  Please listen to your SEO consultant.  Web developers will often assume they know it all, and that SEO is simple and neither of these are true.  I hope some good comes out of this.  I hope Mr Code Red follows my advice, because he will succeed in fixing his clients problem and when he does, I hope he will let us know.

This week, the diarrhetic discourse of Derek Powazek unleashed an unfortunate cacophony of criticisms into the world of SEO that left a rather bitter aftertaste. I for one shall certainly not be defending Search Engine Optimisation. Why? SEO no more needs my defence, than one plus one needs me to convince people it is – in fact – two!

It was doubly distasteful therefore, that he chose to use personal attacks upon the character of the people involved in SEO, instead of focusing his hatred on the industry where his grudge and (more accurately) his lack of understanding originated.

Rather than stoop to his level and render my personal criticisms of his character, I would rather play his words as knives upon which he will fall, allowing the reader to carefully dissect his arguments and arrive at an informed decision. Lets start with the obvious:

SEO is Not a Legitimate Form of Marketing

This is a very arbitrary statement. Surely if I were to walk down my street, talking loudly on my mobile about McDonalds for everyone to hear, this might be considered a form of advertising, even if I didn’t necessarily intend it to be so. If I spray painted the Nike logo on my neighbours house, Nike would certainly consider this publicity, even if my neighbour didn’t like it. Heck, the Britons are so frightened of accidental marketing they will even blur brand names in movies and documentaries! If any of the above tactics are done with a definite goal and plan, we have met the definition of marketing! Anyway, who put Derek in charge of deciding what marketing is? I could say the sky was green, but that wouldn’t make it so either. He offers no justification upon which this statement is based, other than his own say-so.

These scammers claim that they can dance the magic dance that will please the Google Gods and make eyeballs rain down upon you.

I think Derek may need to lay of the drugs a little, what we actually claim runs a bit more like : “if you write a document entitled : ‘SEO is a scam’, where you make wild and unfounded accusations about SEO being a scam, then you are more likely to start getting found for phrases around ‘SEO’ being a ‘scam’ in Google”. I’m having trouble putting it any more simply than this. Part of SEO is about writing content people wish to read that is relevant to the search terms and giving the search engines a damn good reason to deliver fresh readers to your website!

It’s So Obvious …Anyone Who Pays For SEO Is a Fool

Very true Sir Derek, and I can wash my own dirty dishes in the kitchen sink fairly easily too. Does this mean anyone paying for a dishwasher is a sucker? What about financial outsourcing services? Many small to medium sized businesses find that a outsourcing to a professional accountant gets the job done quickly, and therefore costs less in the long run.  SEO is certainly not simple, otherwise why would so many resources, blogs and self-help websites exist?  There are some great links in this blog I openly encourage people to visit.  SEO is by no means simple, and anyone who believes it is, probably isn’t doing it right!

SEO is Poisoning the Web

This is my favourite of all! Six months ago I began writing my own simple search engine using PHP 4 and MySQL 4, and actually found it helpful to rely a on META Keywords, META Descriptions and Titles of documents a little, as they often gave clues as to the documents content. The honesty of the user can be easily verified by simply checking to see if this word occurs within the page itself. Aside from the obvious overspaming of these elements, I actually found this gave me more information on which to base my search queries. Without them, I would have less information on which to base my SQL query, making the job harder, and forcing me to do more complex analysis of the text content itself.

Equally, encouraging users to include relevant links between documents actually help make the web easier to navigate, giving your visitor the choice of learning more about any particular topic under discussion. When I began building my own search engine I found this document very helpful, and would thoroughly recommend the O’Reilly book on  High Performance MySQL.

Google Believe in SEO

If SEO is a scam, why would Google post their own official web master guidelines? You calling them a liar?

Finally, My Own Testimony

As a graduate of Computer Science who left the University of Liverpool with a 2:1, writing his dissertation on Genetic Programming – a cutting edge form of artificial intelligence at the time – I have used a range of languages to develop everything from Windows to Linux platforms.  I maintain a web server on my home network of six computers, yet I can quite honestly say that SEO is a labour that demands all the skills I have, and plenty I’m still working on!

No ladies and gentlemen, Derek is the child who cannot stand being beaten at a game, so he throws his toys out of the pram and tells us that the game was stupid anyway.

When the history books are written, we shall not be painted in as con artists and SEO scam merchants, but pioneers of a cutting edge (and often misunderstood!) form of marketing, still in it’s relative infancy. A form of marketing which didn’t exist before we started typing.

The Internet is all about freedom.  Freedom is the prerequisite of choice, and in the marketplace this means competition. Let’s suppose you were shopping for beans and couldn’t find the budget brand you usually buy, you would probably pick up Heinz on your way out just to avoid making a second trek to the shops! You set aside the fact that price has gone up because choice went down.  On the web, things work quite differently … I just click back on my browser and do another search!

In many respects, Google is both a consumer and a service – it provides users with it’s top choices for their search phrase and with only 10 spaces on that first page, it had better be damn sure it picks only the very best! I often find people can become overly focused on one particular phrase which is general and quite competitive. My message tonight for people who are finding it hard to rank for a particular phrase is simple :- what makes you think your website deserves to be on Google’s first page?

Think of Neo running the ‘Jump Program’, or Yoda lifting that X-Wing from the swamps of the Dagobah system; it doesn’t matter how far that other building is, or how big the X-Wing ship is … or even how many competitors you have! If your website is the most informative, most comprehensive or most useful in some way, then it would be in Googles’ own interest to place you first. Competition is simply irrelevant when you know your strengths and are able to capitalise on them!

Could you offer the widest selection of products in that market? Perhaps you could include the most detailed background information, content or advice about them? What role does social networking play to your business and products? For each great gizmo, there is usually some sort of group that grows around it. What do you need to do, to be able to tap into this potential source of customers? If you are still struggling to rank for this tough phrase, remember – Google likes variety. If you find yourself bobbing below the surface of that golden first page, simply ask yourself : ‘what can I offer that Google has missed?’ If you can find even one new angle on a well-trodden subject, then there might just be a spot on that first page for you!

In a nutshell, cracking open your niche in competitive word-markets is all about doing what you do best! Customers are king and on the Internet this is doubly so! Simply put yourself in your visitors shoes and ask yourself what could be better?