Free Stuff

Written by Richard Lowe


Continued from page 1

http://www.internet-tips.net/Tanstaafl/spyware.htm

Introductions - These free items are attempts to get you to make a purchase by giving you something for free first. For example, a web host might give you a small web site with very limited functionality and then offer you a better site for a fee. The free products are perfectly acceptable although they are not as useful asrepparttar one requiring an additional fee.

A good example of this kind of free thing isrepparttar 113283 service offered by Atomz, which is a web site search engine. You can sign up with them and obtain your own free search engine for your web site. It is free as long as you need less than 500 pages, at which time you must begin paying forrepparttar 113284 service.

Samples - This is very easy to understand. Some companies will give you a sample of their products or services for free, hoping that you will purchase additional copies at some future time.

Viral Marketing - Oftentimesrepparttar 113285 free item is actually, in-of-itself a marketing or promotional tool. A great example of viral marketing isrepparttar 113286 electronic greeting cards which you commonly find on web sites. These cards are fun to send and, of course, completely free. Each card also contains, at a minimum, a link back torepparttar 113287 hosting web site (often simply promotingrepparttar 113288 fact that a return card can be sent). This serves to exposerepparttar 113289 web site to new visitors in a subtle, non-offensive manner.

Promotional - The idea here is to give you something for free inrepparttar 113290 hopes that it will get you to buy something now or at least remind you ofrepparttar 113291 company or products later. A great example of these isrepparttar 113292 free coffee cups that companies give away byrepparttar 113293 boatload at conventions. Each of these mugs hasrepparttar 113294 company name and logo plastered all over it, which presumably you will look at occasionally. This, in theory, will keeprepparttar 113295 brand name on your mind and at ready whenrepparttar 113296 opportunity arises.

I'm sure there are many other reasons for giving away free things. However, these are some ofrepparttar 113297 most common ones.

The point is that it's very rare for anything to be offered free, no strings attached. Virtually always something is exchanged, and that exchange may not be obvious and may not be entirely understood byrepparttar 113298 person receivingrepparttar 113299 free item. This is especially true of spyware, which is one ofrepparttar 113300 newer and potentially more sinister breeds of free stuff.



Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets at http://www.internet-tips.net - Visit our website any time to read over 1,000 complete FREE articles about how to improve your internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.


Free Stuff: Counters

Written by Richard Lowe


Continued from page 1

4) The counter companies usually make money by indirect means such as advertising and selling marketing research information. This makes them very vulnerable torepparttar whims of advertisers (andrepparttar 113282 stock market). You could find yourself replacing all of your remotely loaded scripts more often than you would like simply due to company turnover (and quite a few of these companies have gone belly up inrepparttar 113283 year 2001).

There are not that many advantages to using these scripts. In fact,repparttar 113284 only real reason that makes sense is simply that you have no choice because you do not have access torepparttar 113285 server logs. Another reason is if you really want a hit counter displayed on your pages.

If you must use a remotely hosted counter script, be sure and look at them all before settling on one. Why? Sincerepparttar 113286 code is embedded within all of your pages, it can be quite a pain to change later. So takerepparttar 113287 time to find a script which gives you all ofrepparttar 113288 data that you need to manage your site.

Some remotely hosted scripts are listed below.

BeSeen http://www.beseen.com/hitcounter/index.html Simple counter with a variety of styles.

Bravenet Web Services http://www.bravenet.com/ The counters come in various sizes and colors, and increment when new visitors come to your web page. When you click on your counter it will take you to several pages of useful statistics.

Extreme Tracking http://www.extreme-dm.com racking/ Very advanced tracking service. You will be able to tell exactly what your visitors are doing if you add this service to your site. Some ofrepparttar 113289 features include: real-time reporting and extensive referrer tracking.

Fast Counter http://www.bcentral.com/fastcounter/ This service from bCentral gives you a simple, fast counter. Nothing fancy, just a variety of styles. Not much reporting capabilities.

FreeStats http://www.freestats.com/ A very good tracking service with lots of features. With Freestats you will be able to know exactly what your visitors are doing on your web site, how long they've been there and where they came from.

HitBox http://www.hitbox.com/ By farrepparttar 113290 best tracking service onrepparttar 113291 internet. If you want to find out exactly what your visitors are doing, where they came from and how long they stayed, this service is for you. Note: this service does require a bit more setup than most.

HitMatic http://www.hitmatic.com/ A good counter with lots of statistics.

SiteMeter http://www.sitemeter.com/ Site Meter is a free, fast, and easy way to add a web counter to your web page. Not only does it displayrepparttar 113292 number of visitors to your web site, it also keeps statistics onrepparttar 113293 number of visits each hour and each day.

WebStat http://www.webstat.net/more.html Reasonably good statistics package. Easy to install, easy to use.

WebTracker http://www.fxweb.com racker/ Implementing a WebTracker on your page lets you count visitors to your page. You gain informative data on what browser they are using,repparttar 113294 operating system they are running, and can even tell if they are a return visitor! Find out what days ofrepparttar 113295 week are hot at your site, and find out what time ofrepparttar 113296 day visitors come to your site. Note: limited to sites with 500 hits per day or less.

Additional Information

Constantly collect and analyze statistics http://www.internet-tips.net/Webmaster/Statistics.htm You MUST collect and analyze statistics about your web site to determine what is working and what is not.

Watching Your Visitors http://www.internet-tips.net/Webmaster/maintwatching.htm If you are a webmaster, then you need to know what your visitors are doing on your web site.

Web Bugs http://www.internet-tips.net/Security/webbugs.htm Web bugs are little graphic images inserted into web pages, emails and other web-aware documents to allow companies to gather information about you without your knowledge.

Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets at http://www.internet-tips.net - Visit our website any time to read over 1,000 complete FREE articles about how to improve your internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.


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