Author: Alexander

  • How to check outbound links, why it is important?

    Every business, be it a well-established one or a startup, is looking for ways to enhance and improve its online ranking. For doing so, outbound links play a vital and important role just as the inbound links. The outbound links should be controlled so as to have an effective on-site SEO strategy for the business’s website. Let us take a dip in the details of outbound links and know why they are important for the growth of the business.

    What does outbound links mean?

    Outbound links are links to a site which is outside your site. The outbound links are such links that direct the visitors to another or a different webpage or website. In simpler words, when the visitor clicks on the outbound links available on your site, it means that the visitor is going to another website by moving out of your present site. However, if facts are to be believed, most of the websites, if not all of them, contain outbound links. There are two main types of outbound links:

    1. Dofollow Link: it is the normal default link that every link is. It aims at passing the benefits of Google Page Rank from the source webpage to the linked targeted webpage. The Dofollow tag indicates that the link should be followed for a better enhancement in the value of the website and web pages.
    2. Nofollow Link: these are just the opposite of Dofollow links. These are abnormal links which instead of passing the benefits of Google Page Rank to the linked targeted webpage, blocks the normal flow of the page rank.

    While there are many websites which prefer using outbound links on their websites, there are many which do not prefer making use of the outbound links on their websites. The websites that support the presence of outbound links believe that having such links will enhance the value of their site along with encouraging visitor retention. On the other hand, the websites which are not in favor of using outbound links consider it as a huge risk for the business because of the higher cost of customer acquisition.
    Should outbound links be used? If this is the next immediate thought that you had after learning about the concept of outbound links, then here’s something that will convince you completely.

    What are the benefits of having good outbound links?

    There has always been a debate whether to use or not to use the outbound links on the website. While many of the websites do not prefer using outbound links on their websites as they scare a number of factors such as:

    • Reputation damage
    • High cost
    • Creation of exit portals
    • Downfall in the search engine rankings

    But to a surprise and to the contrary of all the above-mentioned points, it has been observed that the use of outbound links on the website is actually beneficial for the website. Let us have a look at the benefits that the relevant outbound links can provide to your website:

    1. Useful resource: Adding relevant and specific outbound links to your website makes it as a useful resource for the visitors. The people who will visit your visit for some relevant content will always find something new, interesting and relevant as per their likes and preference. This indeed will help in increasing the customer retention along with reducing the bounce rate of the website. Consider it in such a way that by using the outbound links on your website you are actually providing your readers and visitors with more relevant and specific information. When readers will find something of their benefit and interest on your website, they will surely come back.
    2. Improvement in your website’s SEO: Connecting with the relevant people in the industry and adding outbound links that can help you connect with them is a great way to improve the SEO context of your website. As the inbound links help the readers to land on your website, the effective use of outbound links on your website also gets noticed and in turn rewarded. Moreover, the addition of useful outbound links on the website helps in making your website to be counted as useful amongst the many available websites and thus helps in attracting more users towards it. If you are not using outbound links on your website, you are certainly missing many benefits for your website.
    3. Google ranking: It is just not the users, customers or the visitors who appreciate and notice the use of outbound links on your website. Google, the well-known and the most trusted search engine also does. If your website mentions relevant and specific outbound links, Google appreciates this and thereby improves your website’s ranking. Google when notice that you are mentioning some of the great websites on your own website as outbound links and are working on improving your visibility, it makes sure that you get the best of the benefits of your efforts. You just need to be sure that you are being connected with those websites which hold some relevance to your business and are well-known amongst the users.
    4. Positive reviews: Having positive reviews highlighted on the website is one of the effective ways that can bring in better business results and opportunities. Though earlier it was not considered as important as it is today. The present times have indicated that most of the new visitor on your website trust on the reviews mentioned by the previous visitors. Thus, if you have relevant reviews on your website, you are improving the chances of your business to perform better. But how can you get positive reviews and feedback from the visitors? Simply, by providing them with the relevant information and resource that can excite them and capture their interest. Outbound links can be the easiest way of doing so. Update outbound links according to the audience type you have and open an immense pool of opportunity for your business to grow amongst the competitive business environment.
    5. Attracting more traffic: What does a website need to improve its business? Some would say attractive designed website while some will favor the effective use of well-planned marketing strategies. But above all, a website which is looking to grow itself in the online world would need better and improved traffic of visitors. If the website is not getting any traffic then even the use of best of designs and strategies will not help. Thus, attracting better and relevant amount of traffic is the only need that the website has for growing itself in the market. Outbound links are the best way to attract advanced traffic on the website as it helps in making your website a more and better useful resource for the visitors and users.

    What can be the consequences of bad outbound links?

    There are many websites that are totally in the favor of using outbound links on their websites. Without a doubt, adding a relevant and useful outbound link can do wonders for your business and help it to grow its reach in the online world with an optimized SEO. But, if the other side of the coin is analyzed, the use of too many or irrelevant outbound links can cause severe consequences to your website. Some of the experts have observed that the use of too many outbound links does not harm the homepage but it certainly causes a big difference on the internal pages linked.

    The major consequence that the use of risky or a bad outbound link delivers to the user is the risk of having a virus. Also, the bad outbound link can result in imitating the data of the user by some spammer. Some of the outbound links are so made that whenever anyone clicks on the link, the user data gets attacked by the viruses attached with the link. Such kinds of virus infected outbound links are present in the comment sections generally. As moderators forget checking the genuineness of these links, the sites have to suffer. That’s why you always need to put constraint on comment box.

    Moreover, adding too many outbound links on your website will actually affect the Google ranking of your website. Google will consider the source website hosting too many outbound links as fraud or spam website and thus will decrease its ranking in its list. Sometimes, the impact is so severe that the website gets blocked. Some of the other consequences that a bad outbound link will do to your website are as follow:

    • Creating too much confusion for your audience
    • Not being able to target a specific set of audience
    • Increased server load
    • Affecting the speed of your website
    • Chances of being considered as spam

    How to check outbound links?

    Checking the outbound links for their strength and relevance is very much important for marking success in the business. Now that you all are aware of the consequences that your business may suffer if you are not using relevant and useful outbound links, you would be interested in knowing how you can check the outbound links that you have used. One of the easiest ways of doing so is by using the security and malware scan by CleanTalk and if you question why CleanTalk, then the one word answer to this can be because it is Simple.

    CleanTalk is a well-known and useful security plugin which is working compatibility with the service of checking the relevance of outbound links on the premium cloud. In other words, CleanTalk is a cloud-based solution that prevents the use of irrelevant outbound links on your website based on WordPress. Over the time, CleanTalk has been adding relevant updates for its effective working.

    Working of the CleanTalk:

    The main aim of using CleanTalk is to let you know about the irrelevant and risky outbound links on your website.

    Setting up the plugin:

    Here are the following steps that you need to follow for making the use of CleanTalk plugin:

    1. For using the plugin of CleanTalk, first, the users need to create an account on their official website.
    2. Creating an account on their website will provide the users with an access key which will be used for accessing the features of the plugin.
    3. Download the plugin and configure it for using the plugin on your device. You would have to enter the access key while configuring the plugin
    4. Once you enter the access key, you will be able to access all the offered features of the plugin and thereby can check and prevent the outbound links on your website
    5. To launch External Links Check go to the tab “Malware Scanner” and press the button “Perform Scan”. First step in the scanning is searching for malware in WordPress files, second step is searching for links in your whole website including theme files, posts and comments.

    The result of the scanning will be the list of each link you have. You can look it through and decide what links are unnecessary and delete them.

    CleanTalk can also be used for observing the progress of your website after the use of this plugin. The plugin will demonstrate every required site security log with the needed detail so that the user can be well aware of the required stats regarding the use of outbound links.

    Conclusion:

    In conclusion, CleanTalk works really well on all the fronts that are needed by a business for successfully running its operations. The activation and use of this plugin from CleanTalk are extremely simple and is worth making the investment. If you are facing many problems because of the high rate of risky outbound links on your website, then CleanTalk is one of the high recommendations that you can use.

  • Auto-Update for CleanTalk Anti-Spam Plugin

    Updating plugins and themes on the site can be a problem for website owners. This is especially true for webmasters who support several websites, you have to go to every website and make an update, and it takes your time. We have released an update that will perform this routine task and will update CleanTalk Anti-Spam on all sites at once.

    CleanTalk Dashboard allows you to select several websites and update the plugin at once on all sites one click or you can setup auto-update for all websites or separate websites.
    Note: there is 24 hours delay before auto-update will do. This delay allows needing to avoid any issues. All updates that made through CleanTalk Dashboard manually will do immediately.

    How does it work?

    • Manual update on all or selected websites at once.
    • Auto-update on all or selected websites at once.

    Please, go to your CleanTalk Dashboard.

    • Choose a website that needs to update the plugin.
    • Click on the link Update app.
    • Next step, in pop-up you can choose:
      do a manual update and the plugin will be updated immediately. You can do this action for all websites
      or
      set auto-update, in the next time plugin will be updated automatically.

    In the end, enjoy you saved your time.

    Auto-updating system will work from CleanTalk Anti-Spam version 5.88

  • Spammers attack by using CleanTalk’s email

    Hello,
    We have to inform you that today we have been attacked by spammers who used our email for sending spam comments/registrations/subscriptions. At the moment, a total of about 4,000 websites were affected.
  • Checking Outbound Links with CleanTalk Security

    Checking Outbound Links with CleanTalk Security

    Outbound links have an effect on your SEO and when search crawls your web pages all of the outbound links may be an important thing for page ranking.

    We have added the option “Scan outbound links” in our WordPress Security Plugin.

    This option allows you to let know the number of outgoing links from your website and websites on which they linking to. All websites will be checked by our Database and will show results if they were used as links in spam messages. It allows you to check your website and find hidden links or spam links.

    You should always remember if you have links to other websites which have a bad reputation, it will be able to have an effect your on visitor’s trust and your SEO.

    To launch External Links Check go to your WordPress admin panel -> Settings -> Security by CleanTalk -> General Settings and pick Scan Links option. Next step, go to the tab “Malware Scanner” and press the button “Perform Scan”.

    The first step in the scanning is searching for malware in WordPress files, the second step is searching for links in your whole website including theme files, posts, and comments.

    The result of the scanning will be the list of each link you have. You can look it through and decide what links are unnecessary and delete them.

  • Security Statistics and Trends

    Hello,

    We have launched Security Statistics and trends so you can view the dynamics for each of your websites.That allows you to make right decisions to keep your website safe.

    Measuring effectiveness of security in the face of attacks is critical. Faster time of detection is critical to minimize damage from attacks. The logical step in this way to better web security is to establish full visibility of activity, as you can’t manage what you can’t see.

    The Statistics includes all registered actions and detailed statistics on individual security parameters.

    To see your statistics, go to your security dashboard and click “Trends” in Dashboard menu.

  • Changing SSL Policy Requirements

    Changing SSL Policy Requirements

    Hello,

    We want to inform you about changes in our SSL service providing.

    The Comodo Certificate Authority will make a change in Certification Authorities’ policy requirements, reducing the maximum lifetime for all TLS/SSL certificates to 825 days, which is just over 27 months. This is a reduction from the existing maximum term of 39 months, meaning the maximum validity for an SSL certificate is now two years, and not three.

    As a result, Comodo CA will adopt these new lifetime requirements effective March 1, 2018 and three-year certificates will be removed as options from all prices.

    So, you don’t have a much time left to buy SSL for 3 years and forget about re-insurance your SSL every year.

    Look at our SSL offer.

    Thank you!

  • CleanTalk Released a MOD for the Protection of XenForo 2 Against Spam and Spam Bots

    CleanTalk completed the development MOD for the XenForo2, to protect your online store against spam and spambots.

    The anti-spam MOD is compatible with XenForo versions v2.x. and approved on the XenForo official catalog.

    This extension allows users to quickly and easily connect to CleanTalk anti-spam service. Its service provides 100% protection from spam bots and provides a simple and convenient commentary/sign-up form for visitors.

    This MOD allows protection from automatically distributed spam, as well as from spam bots registrations. The protection method offered by CleanTalk allows users to switch from the methods that trouble the communication (CAPTCHA, question-answer etc.) to a more convenient one.

    CleanTalk saves time and resources spent on moderation and verification of questionable users or comments. Unnoticeable Protection from spam and registration forms, which does not require the visitor to prove who they are, increases the conversion in registration and is not annoying.

    CleanTalk is a cloud service, security module, installed on a website, which sends the behavior parameters of the visitor or spambot. These parameters are estimated, and the service makes a decision – to post a message or to define it as spam and reject.

    On the basis of such checks, the service forms its own list of email addresses used by spambots. Likewise, the registration of visitors is checked. The service adds not only email addresses to the blacklist but also IP addresses and domains of the websites that are promoted through spam mailout. The CleanTalk company developed unique algorithms to assess the behavior of the visitor, and with 100% accuracy, we keep spam messages at bay. All of this happens automatically and requires no action from the administration of the website.

    You can now download CleanTalk Anti-Spam from XenForo official catalog.

    The Company provides automatic spam protection services for popular CMS: WordPress, Joomla, phpBB, Drupal, DataLife Engine, IP Board, vBulletin, MediaWiki, SimpleMachinesForum and API for PHP, Perl, Python, NET.

  • Why You Must Be Using SSL on Your Website and for e-Commerce

    Why You Must Be Using SSL on Your Website and for e-Commerce

    With more and more businesses coming online and commercial markets opening every day, we are moving towards a cashless economy speedily. A wide range of goods and services are available online now. Cyber threats, in this scenario, aren’t any less. Hence, it has become equally important to protect and safeguard one’s legal rights online. That’s where Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificates comes in handy. Most of the well-aware customers do not make a purchase from a website or consider a business less authentic if that ‘green light’ in your URL isn’t visible.

    Do you know what impacts can SSL make, why is it a compulsion for your online store or website, and how to install or download it?

    We have covered it all step-by-step. Take a quick look to understand it:

    What is SSL and how it works?

    The function of an SSL is to provide encryption between a Web server and a browser, by generating a link which guarantees that whatever information is passed between a browser and a server is completely secure and encrypted. This certificate is being used by websites all around the world today, especially by those, involved in e-commerce operations. It is mandatory to safeguard the transactions between a business and its customers.

    In order to create a successful SSL connection, a certification is required by your server. When activated, it leads to the creation of two cryptogenic keys upon confirmation of the identity of your site and service. One of these is private key and another is public. An SSL Certificate contains details that validate your authenticity including the name of your company, domain website and your official offline address.

    Benefits of SSL – Why is it Essential Today?

      1. SECURITY:
        Online privacy is of paramount importance to companies and individuals. Information passed from one source to another actually travels through many different computers before reaching the server it is destined for. Hence, the chance of a leak of private and crucial information such as credit card and bank account details is rather high, enhancing the need for a reliable security system such as SSL. Through SSL, identity thieves as well as hackers are kept at bay.SSL ensures tight encryption of the web pages, presence in registered domain. Through this, your buyers and visitors can stay assured that their personal information, identity and their other details are secure and that they are being legally protected against cyber theft and malpractice.Since e-commerce is being used by everyone and people have to share the confidential information, such as credit card details, no one trusts a non-SSL website for making purchase. Due to this security issue, your sales will face excessive decline. Not only your users, it also secures you by transmitting the amount to your account and not to the hacker.
      2. AUTHENTICITY
        Using SSL is the guarantee that the information that is transmitted, reaches the correct person. Even though multiple computers are involved in the transmission of information, safety is guaranteed.Authenticity grants the boon of trust amongst the customers and service providers. Many customers will be using multiple computers or devices to make the purchase. Suppose they make the purchase through cyber cafes, the chances of an impostor website pretending to be yours is very high. Such sites are aimed at obtaining the financial and personal details of the customers. SSL certificates are only handed to those companies and websites who are able to prove their identity through many means. Authentication of an SSL certificate is guaranteed by third-party involvement in the procedure. This leads to increased contrast between the website and the SSL provider as well.
      3. TRUST
        When customers see the symbols that are placed as visual cues for them – for example the symbol of a lock icon on their web browser- this indicates to them that the connection they are currently making is secure and that their information is being protected against any kind of misuse which helps build the crucial trust between the clients and the traders. Healthy professional relationships are built on trust and reliability of the quality of both the websites as well as the products they sell. It has been shown that customers would keep coming back to a site reputed to be safe rather than one that offers a wider selection of services and products or even the websites that offer similar goods for lesser prices- hence proving the essentiality of trust. Providers of SSL generally add visual cues targeted to your customers who upon noticing them are not reluctant to make a purchase from you- following their instincts of your website not being a scam.This is also attributed to the fact that in order to be able to obtain secure credit card information from the customers for your website- there are many credibility tests to be passed before achieving the qualification of being compliant with the Payment Card Industry standards and guidelines- and one of them is a licensed and valid SSL certification.
      4. PROTECTION AGAINST PHISHERS
        Many identity thieves and hacker websites resort to a scam method that is highly popular these days known as phishing- where in under the name of your company spam emails are sent out in mass to customers within and sometimes outside your database- so that when the customer- believing the e-mail to be sent by you opens the mail- they see a link which they assume is to your website- while in reality it is to a website set up by the phishers site where they either attempt to scam your customers out of information about their IDs or financial details including bank accounts and passwords. However, such phishing sites have one major drawback- they are not given any SSL Certification if your website has already acclaimed yours- hence to your customers who have previously visited your SSL protected site with the visual cues- something seems wrong and thus they do not trust that it is your website who has contacted them. This guarantees the safety of the customers from the phishers whilst leaving your reputation and customer relations untarnished.

    All this being said here is why SSL isn’t that popular among many websites yet-

    1. The high cost of obtaining an SSL certification and renewing it periodically is not something that is affordable to most start-up and developing websites. Since the provision of an SSL service is rather detailed and tedious with most of the work being of a rather complicated nature, the cost is bound to be high for the amount of work put in. Since the arrival of numerous competitors the prices however have more or less been regulated.
    2. There is a delay in delivering high speed performance due to the multiple servers and multiple encryptions involved for each of these services which then has to be decoded by the designated server- the involvement of multiple resources along with the detailed encryption might lead to a less effective overall performance.

    Improve Search Ranking. In recent orders by Google, the sites that have procured an SSL certification are listed as secure websites and hence prioritised by the search engine by boosting them to the top of the search results, thus SSL acts as an SEO tool without you even realising it. Google provides warnings to its users about the sites that are not using SSL by stating that these sites are not secure, quite rightly. A high ranking in the search results is a very important tool in the success of any online venture- business or not, hence this is of paramount importance to the commercial websites that they ensure they stay in the good books and approved lists of the very popular and highly trusted search engine providers such as Google since it is the most important link between any site and their potential customers or viewers. Since the impact of Google is rather high, customers are one hundred percent likely to steer clear of any site that has been given the label of being not secure by Google.

    However, since the benefits outweigh the risks and drawbacks by a large amount, the best option is to always invest in a quality SSL providing service. Now the need comes to choosing wisely the best SSL available to you.

    One of the most highly recommended SSL services would be CleanTalk which is ideal for start up websites who are practising small to medium scale businesses. Services are provided for personal blogging sites as well.

    Why CleanTalk is one of the best SSL provider?

    It is definitely one of the most cost effective SSL provider for small websites, among all others because it uses an effective and necessary SSL certificate that is the least expensive one of them all but covers all your basic needs- it guarantees your safety as well as your customers just like all the other SSL certifications but instead cuts out implications that are unnecessary for smaller websites- so there is no additional cost as this certification is provided keeping in mind exactly what you need and the financial drawbacks that are experienced by small scale websites.

    User information is one hundred percent protected, the less expense does not compromise in any manner with the effectiveness of the service- customer satisfaction is guaranteed- in both quality and effect of the service- which has stood test of time.

    At very affordable packages, you can avail the following services-

    1. Securing your domain name- both abc.com as well as www.abc.com (examples)
    2. A single domain can be effectively secured.
    3. The site is modified to be supported in mobile format.
    4. Guarantees 99.99 percent browser recognition.
    5. All this is done using 2048 bit signatures or 256 bit encryption.
    6. CleanTalk provides you with unlimited reissuance of the certification.
    7. Unlimited server licenses available.
    8. No tedious paper work involved- once certificate is obtained, the Comodo Certificate Centre automatically checks the domain name you have secured – saving you the need for other forms of legislation and proof in the form of additional paperwork.
    9. Search engine optimization results in Google search.

    CleanTalk believes in putting the needs of the clients ahead of anything else and thus customer satisfaction and providing an error free service beneficial to the clients and their customers is the top priority. Technical support is always available on the website whether you need advice or help of any kind. All the staff are highly experienced and provide you with reassuring and always accessible services. It is an investment that is guaranteed to bring out the best in you along with guaranteed raise in your customer count. Other services are available on the site to protect you from scams. For effective security and a guaranteed beneficial plan avail now by reaching out as soon as possible – for the sooner you are secure, the more exposure you receive and higher is the success and popularity of your website as well as your overall reputation. So hurry now-now is the time and CleanTalk is the place to start building the trust and authenticity you and your brand deserve. Contact us for more details and check out our attractive deals available at easy access on our website – no time to waste if you want your rankings to be the top. Cleantalk is a reliable and trustworthy service that many popular sites have benefited upon and grown with mutually benefitting one another in the process.

    Are you ready to receive an SSL Certificate?

     

     

  • CleanTalk Released a plugin for the Protection of MODX Against Spam and Spam Bots

    CleanTalk Released a plugin for the Protection of MODX Against Spam and Spam Bots

    CleanTalk completed the development extension for the MODX, to protect your online store against spam and spambots.

    The anti-spam extension is compatible with MODX versions v1.x. and approved on the MODX official marketplace.

    This extension allows users to quickly and easily connect to CleanTalk anti-spam service. Its service provides 100% protection from spam bots and provides a simple and convenient commentary/sign-up form for visitors.
    This extension allows protection from automatically distributed spam, as well as from spam bots registrations. The protection method offered by CleanTalk allows users to switch from the methods that trouble the communication (CAPTCHA, question-answer etc.) to a more convenient one.

    CleanTalk saves time and resources spent on moderation and verification of questionable users or comments. Unnoticeable Protection from spam and registration forms, which does not require the visitor to prove who they are, increases the conversion in registration and is not annoying.

    CleanTalk is a cloud service, security module, installed on a website, which sends the behavior parameters of the visitor or spambot. These parameters are estimated, and the service makes a decision – to post a message or to define it as spam and reject.

    On the basis of such checks, the service forms its own list of email addresses used by spambots. Likewise, the registration of visitors is checked. The service adds not only email addresses to the blacklist but also IP addresses and domains of the websites that are promoted through spam mailout. The CleanTalk company developed unique algorithms to assess the behavior of the visitor, and with 100% accuracy, we keep spam messages at bay. All of this happens automatically and requires no action from the administration of the website.

    You can now download CleanTalk Anti-Spam for MODX from the official catalog.

    The Company provides automatic spam protection services for popular CMS: Drupal, IP.Board, IPS Community Suite, Joomla, Magento, MediaWiki, ModX Revolution, MyBB, OpenCart, phpBB, Simple Machines Forum, Typo3, vBulletin, WooCommerce, WordPress, XenForo and API for PHP, Perl, Python, NET.

  • Rearrange of management for “Stop Word” interface

    Stop Word Feature allows you to block comments and messages which contain any word from your Stop-Word List to filter out to enhance spam protection and messages with obscene words blocking.

    The control of interface of the “Stop Word” option has been moved to the main management interface for personal blacklists.
    It allows you to manage all of your BlackLists in the one place.
    So, we also added a counter for requests. It allows you to know a number of blocked/allowed requests by stop words.

    Many spam messages contain some words markers in the text on which you can identify spam.
    For example: Earn per week, 100% free, No credit check, and etc.
    All messages that contain these words will be sent for moderation.

    Thus, using the stop words option, it is possible to improve the protection against spam, including manual spam and block comments with indecent and offensive content.

    To create a list of blocked words you can click here to add particular words or phrases. We also recommend checking comments from time to time and adding new stop words. If you already use your own lists they will be moved automatically.

    Our instruction How to use Stop Word here.