In 2008 a very clever type of SQL injection attack defaced many thousands of websites with malware that potentially had the capability to infect the computers of those who visited infected websites. It was christened ASProx.
SQL injection is an old and known threat, it involves inputting SQL into a form field, or passing it as [...]

Website accessibility is a big area, legislation exists in both the USA and UK which mandates that websites should meet certain accessibility design criteria, so that they may be accessed by people with disabilities.  So far it’s not often enforced in the UK, but businesses small and large are taking note!
The good news is that if [...]

I posted this recently http://www.eantics.co.uk/doorway-page-spam-detection/
The application has come on a bit since then, I’ve basically changed it so it searches on main towns; most doorway pages are created on main town names rather than place names which could include hamlets and villages.  This takes a database of 26,000 down to just under a 1000 and makes the load on [...]

Anyone following my blog will know my frustration, shared by my clients, and many thousands of other webmasters no doubt, in relation to doorway page spamming.  It is against the Google Webmaster Guideines, yet it is dominant in many search results.
My stance is DON’T go that route  - instead build a better resource, write more unique and high quality content; [...]

Every website should have some type of visitor tracking mechanism. Analysing server logs is one approach, but you need software which in some cases costs money and isn’t always the most user-friendly.  Google Analytics is an alternative; easy to implement, as much information as you need, and some very user friendly output options whereby you [...]

Wordpress is a great blogging application it’s also a very capable platform for building full blown websites not just blogs.  But, by nature of the fact that Wordpress is a blogging application there are some things you need to be aware of. They’re not pitfalls, but things that might catch you out - like they [...]

I see this sort of thing time and time again. “Many hours were spent building this website to comply with Google Webmaster Guidelines, yet we languish below other businesses’ websites in our sector that are still spamming Google with doorway pages, hidden text, and text designed for spiders not users - can you help?”
To be [...]

If I’m honest, I’d probably be designing websites even if this wasn’t my line of work - in fact I was for years whilst my day job was working as an Accountant in Financial roles, albeit systems and web oriented roles. 
But the fact is I’ve been building websites and web applications since 1995, long before finance and [...]

If you could send a Christmas card to the founders of Google, would you bother, if you would - what would you say?   Would the sentiment be kind or otherwise? In 2008 have they helped your business, or rained on your parade. 
I think many Christmas cards from webmasters and small business owners alike might read [...]

Based in the Runcorn area? Considering putting your business on the web or a revamp of your existing website? Then eantics should be on your shortlist of people to talk to!  Based in Runcorn, we offer a professional service tailored to your requirements, we design standards compliant websites that are useable and get seen by search engines. 
There are a [...]

Google is getting more and more sophisticated in its ability to detect dubious SEO practices they frown upon - whether done by intention or by accident.
Doorway pages, cloaking, and hidden text are old hat now and rarely effective, although it annoys me to see some sites still getting away with these techniques. The current big issue [...]

Over three years ago I wrote a small business guide to e-commerce which has been widely published around the internet.  The guide gave an objective and no-nonsense take on using the internet in business and e-commerce in particular. Based on experience gained from running online retail operations and designing websites for others - it was [...]

Or put another way - is web design an art or a science, both or something different again?
If your web designer considers their profession to be a science that would probably put them in the “geek” category; though technically very competent, they are focused on jargon and web standards. They know all the programming [...]

After a recent headache getting email to fire on Wordpress whilst hosting it on Fasthosts it occurred to me that a “test email” function should be part of the Wordpress administration interface.
Many CMS solutions do have this, Dotnetnuke is the first that springs to mind. The ability to test and retest email settings via a [...]

As a qualified accountant who has also worked in the legal sector for a time, I’m well versed in professional ethics, codes of conduct and rules in general.
After working full time in the web design sector for over 12 months, it occurred to me that Web Design is sadly lacking any form of regulation or [...]

I’m a web designer in Warrington, and like any other I use a number of web hosting companies to deliver services like hosting and email to my Clients.  Aside from a couple of dedicated servers who we source via Donhost, up until recently eantics sourced most of it’s hosting requirements from Webfusion,  a company we’ve held [...]

Choosing a content management system for your website makes commercial sense; you can update the website yourself, add new pages, delete pages, and basically take the website in the direction you want, without having to call your web designer and ask for the updates to be made.  Like writing a letter, you get lots of [...]

There’s a lot of us web designers pitching for business in the Warrington and Cheshire areas;  really professional web design outfits too.  With so many of us being capable of producing high quality websites what should you the prospective client be looking for in your web designer and how do you differentiate one web designer from the next.  [...]

It’s often hard to convince prospective clients that web standards are worth following, especially if it costs them more, or limits how can they can use their website, whether that be the website design itself, or the functionality they can deliver via their website.
As a web designer it’s often hard to keep the faith, and push to build [...]

I’ve been wondering, why would Google want to build a web browser?  I know their expansion is rampant; already many Google applications have only a tenous, if any, link to their search engine beginnings, and I have the impression they like “putting it up” Microsoft - but that’s just my own observation, not fact.
But why [...]

SEO or to call it by name, Search Engine Optimisation, is the process by which a website is made more attractive to the search engines, the aim being a higher position in search results on key terms which relate to the website, resulting in more traffic to the website.
I get loads of people asking about SEO, or [...]