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eCommerce Optimization June 13, 2008

One of the best companies on the Web that promotes eCommerce optimization is “eCommerce Optimization”, and its URL is www.ecommerceoptimization.com. It is providing up-to-date articles regarding eCommerce trends on the Web, and marketing solutions, eMarketing, SEO search enging optimization, and SEM search engine

 eCommerce + SEO & Online Marketing = eCommerce Optimization

eCommerce Optimization, a west coast based eBusiness consulting company, serves as a complete resource for online merchant sellers, business entrepreneurs, search engine marketing professionals and anyone else interested in learning more about eCommerce, SEO, SEM or online marketing. We offer a variety of educational resources in the form of free articles, step-by-step guides, industry news highlights, paid consulting services and other helpful tips and tricks to help online merchants sell more.

What Makes eCommerce Optimization Different & Unique?

We are proud to offer such a unique blend of free, web based, informational content and services geared towards individuals in the industry who work hard to profit from their eCommerce storefronts or eBusiness ventures. You may notice that there are no advertisements on this site and that nearly all of our external links point you towards other industry experts and top authority sites related to eCommerce and marketing.

Rather than focusing on primarily eCommerce or just online marketing news, we continually strive to create topical content that relates to the industry as a whole, with the hopes that it keeps improving. Thanks to help and encouragement from our readers, fans and staff members, we now have a place to call home, where we share common goals, interests and a passion for selling for profit. So what are you waiting for? Start reading eCommerce Optimization today. You never know, depending on who you are, the road to success could start here.

Security in E-commerce June 13, 2008

Security is a very cretical issue in e-commerce. Still many users do not appriciate e-commerce becuase they are worried about security issues. A develper must be aware of all aspects related to security before implementing any e-commerce project.
First let us identify the most commen threats. The major ones are:
-  Malicious code: Code designed to cause harm, in some way. The majority are bundled with free software, and the effects range from displaying adverts to logging every keystroke.
-  spoofing attack: which is a situation in which one person or program successfully masquerades as another by falsifying data and thereby gaining an illegitimate advantage.
- Sniffing: a packet sniffer (also known as a network analyzer or protocol analyzer or, for particular types of networks, an Ethernet sniffer or wireless sniffer) is computer software or computer hardware that can intercept and log traffic passing over a digital network or part of a network.
-  Hacking and cybervandalism
-  Credit card fraud/theft
-  Denial of service attacks

The tecnology solutions for these problems are many depending on the problems wanted to solved. Some are:
 
-Protecting Internet communications (encryption)
-Securing channels of communication (SSL, S-HTTP, VPNs)
-Protecting networks (firewalls)
-Protecting servers and clients
Here are some details about encryption and SSL:

 
* Encryption: The process of transforming plain text or data into cipher text that cannot be read by anyone other than the sender and receiver
nPurpose:
Secure stored information
Secure information transmission
Encryption Provides:
Message integrity
Nonrepudiation
Authentication
Confidentiality
 
Encryption lead to the talk of Cryptography which is the science or study of secret writing (cipher texts)
Basic idea:  convert clear text (also called plain text – the original message) to ciphertext  (the encrypted message)
It has three Main Categories
1-Secret Key (Symmetric Encryption)  single key is used to encrypt and decrypt information
2- Public/Private Key (Asymmetric Encryption) two keys are used: one for encryption (public key) and one for decryption (private key)
3- One-way Function: information is encrypted to produce a “digest” of the original information that can be used later to prove its authenticity.

 
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

SSL Characteristics
Operates at the TCP/IP transport layer
Encrypts (decrypts) input from application (transport) layer
Any program using TCP can be modified to use SSL connections
SSL connection uses a dedicated TCP/IP socket  (e.g. port 443 for https or port 465 for ssmtp)
SSL is flexible in choice of which symmetric encryption, message digest, and authentication algorithms can be used
When SSL client makes contact with SSL server they try to pick strongest encryption methods they have in common
SSL provides built in data compression
 When SSL connection established browser-to-server and server-to-browser communications are encrypted.  This includes:
URL of requested document
Contents of the document
Contents of browser forms
Cookies sent from browser to server
Cookies sent from server to browser
Contents of HTTP header
But NOT particular browser to particular server
socket addresses not encrypted
can use proxy server for privacy

 This Contribution si by or from: Imad AlMuallem.

SEO Softwares and Their Strategic Importance June 13, 2008

As I am focused on this blog to talk about eCommerce and their benefits, I’ll devote this post to the softwares which are used for marketing a certain Website in the Internet space. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it is basically a software that helps its users to market their Website aggressively on the Web thru optimum utilization of great search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MS Live search engines. Such SEO softwares vendors are now ever-prevalent on the Web, and they are competing to gain a greater market share in such a business industry. 

One of the great SEO Softwares that I came across online accidentally is WEB CEO. Int their Website, the marketing of Web CEO syas “Web CEO is the most complete SEO software package on the planet; plus, our SEO software offers more for free than any other software package or suite for SEO”

With a new verssion of Web CEO (Version 7.7) , there are new features combined which makes very competitive, and you can test this software for yourself onlin. This new version of Web CEO brings more professional features of Web CEO into focus. You can enjoy our enhanced Dashboard—a combined report giving you a digest of your web site progress—and a new version of Report Viewer (3.0), which is a significant part of our White Label Report Sharing System that equips professional web marketers with great tools to provide SEO/SEM services in a highly professional manner but with minimum effort on report obtaining and delivery.

Google Competitiveness June 13, 2008

If we look into the search giant’s future and compare it with other technology companies, what do we see. Google is growing fast and wild, Google has went public (the first IPO) since 2004, since then its stock price has increased nearly six-fold. With a market capitalization of around $180 billion, Google now surpassed in value IBM company (worth $160 bn), Intel ($155 bn), and Dell ($36 bn). This nine-year-old company is competing fiercely with Microsoft, and Cisco companies. And if Google continues its operations in this pattern, it’ll definitely grow up to beat Microsoft and Cisco companies. Google is not just a search engine, it’s a new model of business which is realiant on the Web which means their costs are way less than other ocmpanies and they are competing head-on with Microsoft.

Yahoo and Practical eCommerce June 13, 2008

Yahoo! Small Businesses has made a deal with Practical ECommerce (PE) magazine. On this deal  Yahoo Store merchants can get a full one year subscription to Practical Ecommerce’s annual print magazine, complete with all 6 issues for free (magazine printed bi-monthly). This is a great way for Yahoo! to get the benefit of a free eCommerce magazine for one year, bu at the same it is also a strategice way in which PE can gain new reader subscriptions to their industry leading eCommerce magazine, it also helps many of Yahoo’s small to medium-sized merchants gain insights into the world of eCommerce and selling Online.

I’ve take a look at the PE Website and I found it to be a great educational resource and I also subscribed to their mailing list newsletter which is titled as “ECommerceNotes”. And I’m hopeful that this will help me start up an online business soon.

by the Admin (Ahmad Al-Awadh)

E-commerce is the way to go says Saudi graduate June 13, 2008

AFTER studying information technology at the College of Computer and Information Science at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia, Muneerah Essa Al-Oud headed for the University of Essex and an MSc in e-commerce technology, starting last October, Steve Coomber writes.

Google & YouTube June 13, 2008

Google says we don’t know how to make money from YouTube yet. This means that it is still unsure how to make money from YouTube, the enormously popular video-sharing website it owns, but hopes to be able to do so soon. Google CEO Eric  Schmidt said “seemed obvious” that Google should be able to generate “significant amounts of money” from YouTube, on which hundreds of millions of videos are watched every day, but that as yet it hadn’t figured out how to go about it”. The thing is that I beleive it fairly simple to figure out by brainstorming a great idea that will make YouTube generate huge cash, because its popularity. But I beleive that it first need to sor of re-engineer YouTube, and make much more organized, sophisticated, and acceptable according to social and moral standards of people.

by the Admin (Ahmad Al-Awadh)

BBC schools newsletter June 13, 2008

I receive a lot of leraning materials form BBC and the latest email I received contain the following message: 

“Welcome to the brand new all-colour monthly newsletter from BBC Schools.

This month, you can find information about new features from Blast, as well as live webcams from Springwatch and a blog about new material from BBC Scotland.”

What is amazing is that this newsletter which is directed to schoolboys and schoolgirls is mentioning a blog that is to be utilized for specific learning objective. And this brings us to realize how much Blogs & Bloggers are taking the lion’s attention on the Web as a great Web service & utility for people in business, educationm, personal-life, and just about anything that you may think of & is aplicable in this situation.

The River City Project June 13, 2008

The River City Project is a multi-user environment for learning scientific inquiry and 21st centrury skills. This project has been developed to be an interactive computer simulation for middle grades science students to learn scientific inquiry and 21st century skills. River City has the look and feel of a videogame but contains content developed from National Science Education Standards, National Educational Technology Standards, and 21st Century Skills.

As visitors to River City, students travel back in time, bringing their 21st century skills and technology to address 19th century problems. Based on authentic historical, sociological, and geographical conditions, River City is a town besieged with health problems. Students work together in small research teams to help the town understand why residents are becoming ill. Students use technology to keep track of clues that hint at causes of illnesses, form and test hypotheses, develop controlled experiments to test their hypotheses, and make recommendations based on the data they collect, all in an online environment.

What is so amazing about these Web applications and computer programs tailored for specific learning purposes is that there are plenty of such softwares, websites, applications on the Web for the Western society. But when you come to here Saudi Arabia, and the third World you don’t get see such amazing educational resources which can help the public a lot, and further development and technological change.

by the Admin (Ahmad Al-Awadh)

Amazon’s Website Analysis June 13, 2008

Amazon is known as the best electronic commerce business on the whole planent. That makes you wonder what has made such a company the best of the best in today’s fast moving eBusiness industry. Indeed, there are many elements which one can attribute the success of Amazon to, but now I’d like to concentrate on one aspect of Amazon Success which is its Website.

   I will base my valuation of the Website on 4 criteria which are Content, Self-Help, Organization, Uniqueness, and Community. As for Contents, Amazon is an excellent Website delivering the best contents needed by its target audience. The quality of its content is excellent because it includes user reviews of fproducts and services. Tha Amzon Website offers a wide range of products and services ensuring a fantastic shopping and browsing experience that is unparalleled to any other on the Web. When it comes the Self-Help tools which are offered by Amazon, the Website provides relatively easy naviagation through its menu system and the product search facility. The Website includes comprehensive search function making it possible to search via a specific category or through the whole Amazon Website. Although a comprehensive help page exists, Amazon’s Website lacks a sitemap whichis essential for quick location of information, orientation , and search optimization. But the good thing is that users can create their own personalized accounts in Amazon which makes shopping easier for them.  Amzon is organized in a very elegant manner (Organization), Navigation in the Website is provided through the main menu on the left-hand side of the site which opens more categories (drop-down categories) when the cursor rests on any particular choice. With the products provided in a menue on the left side, this is a great feature for peopel since most of people are used to read from left to right. The menu items are in large fonts which makes them very readable, you can find that main services are provided on the top of Amzon’s Homepage, which less desirable (used)  menu items are at the bottom. Amazon is a very unique Website i delivering & communicating the marketing message it wants to get across to its target audience. The lay-out and Websit design  of Amazon are fairly good, the use of high graphics has helped customers & users of the Website to have a unique browsing experience.  The Amzon site caters the specific needs of community, and meets the required standards by which peopole live by. When you visit the Amazon site, it’s like you are at a physical shopping mall you don’t feel that there is much difference between the normal shopping experiecne & the online shopping experience, and that is because Amazon has worked hard to provide the sense of Community  that people like.

by the Admin (Ahmad Al-Awadh)