Canny domainers (those people who buy and sell domain names at a profit) don’t usually miss a trick. And even while the news wires were red hot with the latest developments, it turns out many of them had spotted an opportunity and were busy buying up all sorts of Jacko-related domain names.

Check these out:

• michaeljacksonisdead.co.uk and jacksontribute.com were registered on 25 June. That’s the day Jackson died - presumably while the rest of us were asking our friends whether the story was an elaborate hoax.
• jackolives.co.uk was also registered on 25 June, perhaps by a domainer convinced the story was untrue. This one’s my favourite actually, because initially I misread it as Jack Olives.
• jackodead.co.uk and jackotribute.co.uk were both picked up the next day, 26 June. Maybe some domainers had gone to bed early and didn’t hear the story develop the previous night.

A few others I’ve noticed include the sinister-sounding michaeljacksonmurder.com, jackowaswacko.com (check the past tense), and thejacksonstory.co.uk.

Finally, there’s at least one with a nod to the now-cancelled ‘This Is It’ comeback shows: michaeljacksonthisisittribute.com. And should the remaining Jacksons ever reunite, perhaps the owner of thejacksonfour.co.uk (registered on 26 June) will have cause to celebrate.

It’s not the fans

One thing’s abundantly clear here. The internet has not been taken over by a bunch of Michael Jackson fans, buying up domain names in order to publish their tributes to the King of Pop.

The domains are being snapped up by people who are in it for the money - just look at the list of Michael Jackson domains for sale on eBay at the moment. Some of the prices seem hopelessly optimistic, but even if a domainer has registered 100 names, they’ll probably only need to sell one or two to turn a profit.

What to think?

It’s hard to know what to think here. There’s nothing new in people spotting an opportunity and moving quickly to take advantage of it. But some of these domain names appear to have been registered within hours of the story breaking. Is that a step too far?

What do you think? Are these domain names in bad taste, or is everything fair game? And do you think anyone is going to make any money out of Jackson-related domain names in the coming weeks? Leave a comment and let us know.

This recent story about a US family who discovered their photo was used by a shop in Prague demonstrates just that, and tools like TinEye (which is so impressive it deserves a post of its own) make it easier to find where photos are being used online.

How to find photos you can use

Going down the legitimate route isn’t quite as tricky as you might think.  There’s a vast range of free, high quality photos you can draw on - the secret is knowing where to look. Read on to find out where to go.

Today we’ll look at how to find great photos using Flickr, a really popular photo website. Then next week we’ll look at other ways to get your hands on free or very low-cost photos.

Introducing Creative Commons

When photographers put their photos online, they can attach a licence to each image. The licence explains what other people are allowed to do with that picture. These days many photographers make their photos available under a Creative Commons licence.

This is good because you can usually use photos licensed under Creative Commons on your own website. And although they can generally only be used for non-commercial purposes, some photographers do release their work under a Creative Commons licence which lets you use it for anything - commercial or not.

Using Flickr to find Creative Commons images

The easiest place to find creative commons images is Flickr. This website hosts millions of photos and anyone can upload theirs to it. Here’s how to find ones you can use:

1. Visit Flickr’s advanced search page
2. Type what you’re looking for into the Search for box
3. Scroll down to the Creative Commons option
4. Select the checkbox next to Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content
5. If you need photos for a commercial site, select Find content to use commercially
6. Click Search

You’ll see a page of search results. As you scroll through, hopefully you’ll see a photo you like. If you do, click the image to see it larger. If you still like it and decide you want to use it, do this:

1. Scroll down till you see Additional information on the right of the screen
2. You’ll one or more symbols and Some rights reserved. Click this.
3. You’ll see the licence for this image. (Here’s an example.)

It’s important you read the licence carefully, because there are several types of Creative Commons licence. It’ll explain, in plain English, how this particular image can and cannot be used. If you’re happy you won’t be breaking the terms of the licence, you can grab a copy and add it to your site:

1. Hit the back button on your browser
2. Click the All sizes icon above the image
3. Click Download the Large size to save a copy of the photo to your computer

You can now resize the photo (if you need to) and add it to your website. If you’re planning to alter the photo (like cutting out an element and using it elsewhere), make sure the licence lets you do this. For basic changes, Picnik is a good online photo editor.

Credit where it’s due

When you upload the picture to your website, it’s important you give the original photographer credit. You can do this by adding a line of text to the page, linking back to the original photo on Flickr and stating the type of licence. The image on this page is a Creative Commons photo, so see the bottom of this post for an example.

It’s also polite to leave a comment on the photo on Flickr to let the photographer know you’ve used it. Most photographers there are pleased to see their work get used elsewhere - that’s why they make it available under Creative Commons!

And that’s it: you now know how to access a library of images which you can use on your website. Get searching - and remember to play by the rules.

(By the way, Flickr is a fantastic way to waste time online. There are loads of photographers on there uploading all sorts incredible pictures, and it’s quite easy to lose yourself in it. Try searching for stuff you’re interested in, looking at the explore page or viewing interesting photos from the last seven days.)

What next?

• See recently-added Creative Commons images on Flickr
• Find something specific with the search option
• And remember to check back here next week to find out about other ways to get photos for your website

Image courtesy of OliverAlex under a Creative Commons Attribution licence.

As you might have noticed, we recently launched a new security product on our main website: SSL certificates.

These provide the technology behind the padlock that appears in your web browser on some sites - so you’ve probably used an SSL certificate before, even if you didn’t realise it.

If you’re new to them, they can seem a bit confusing. That’s why we grabbed a few minutes with Paul Tourret, UK Managing Director of security company GlobalSign, and asked him to explain what SSL is all about.

Security risks

These days, there’s a high awareness of online security risks. “One of the biggest worries is data interception,” explains Paul. “Basically, any transmission of data online involves the fear of loss of that data. And there have been a number of public security incidents that have highlighted this to the general public.”

“Then there’s phishing,” he continues, “where imitation websites try to dupe users into handing over information like passwords and credit card details.”

Often, the threats boil down to one outcome: identity theft. And the growing awareness of the risks is forcing websites to up their game. As Paul explains, “website owners need to do more to reassure visitors that their data is safe.”

What’s SSL for?

That’s where SSL (it stands for “secure socket layer”) comes in. An SSL certificate performs two main roles:

• It encrypts data sent between a website and the visitor’s computer. This means it scrambles it so nobody else can read it.
• It proves the identity of a website. SSL certificates are issued by trusted organisations which make sure a website is legitimate.

The encryption makes data very secure. “The technology,” describes Paul, “is very advanced. It would take a ridiculous amount of computing power to crack the encryption and read the text.”

We take that protection for granted on most ecommerce sites. Whenever you send your credit card details online, they should be protected by SSL (our ecommerce package includes SSL as standard for this reason).

If you use SSL on your website, not only will it keep the details customers send you secure - it’ll also make you much less of a target for phishing. While it’s easy to fake an existing website, it’s virtually impossible to fake an SSL certificate.

“Hackers will move away,” reckons Paul. “If they’re going to build a copycat site, they’ll go elsewhere.”

Give your visitors confidence

But it’s the confidence and trust that an SSL certificate inspires which can really give websites a competitive advantage.

“It’s really important,” reckons Paul, “that you can prove you are who you say you are - especially if you sell things online. If you walk down a high street, you can see a shop front. You get a real feeling for whether the business you’re dealing with has substance.”

“On the internet, you can do that using an SSL certificate. When people visit your site, they can then see your identity has been confirmed by a trusted organisation.”

And this can be particularly useful to less well-known brands. Paul explains: “SSL gives smaller organisations the chance to compete on a level playing field with larger, more recognisable competitors.”

Make your credibility immediately obvious

“Your credibility,” continues Paul, “needs to be immediately evident to your users. You can add a site seal [like the one shown here on the right] to the pages on your site and publish security notices explaining what your site does to protect its customers.”

You can also use one of the new breed of SSL certificates - like our Extended SSL certificate - that turn the browser bar green. Unlike the padlock, the browser bar is right at the top of the screen, so your visitors can see immediately that your site is secure.

“These things aren’t done enough,” thinks Paul, “particularly by smaller websites.” So if you do more to advertise the security measures your website takes, it doesn’t just keep your existing customers safe - it could even help you attract more of them.

What next?

• See our range of SSL certificates
• Read information about keeping your online shop safe from Get Safe Online
• See in-depth information explaining exactly how encryption and SSL works

It’s a bit unfair to suggest that the only thing that changed in that time was the name. Microsoft’s developers have been working hard to out-Google Google. But when you’re trying to establish your brand as a serious competitor to the search giant, such naming confusion can’t be anything other than a hindrance.

Now it’s called Bing

Everything changed yet again a few days ago, as Microsoft ditched the Live Search name and unveiled Bing to the world. Yes, Bing.

At first glance it doesn’t look too different to Google. The simple home page has a nice photo that changes daily and there’s an obvious search box and a few other options. So far, so good.

When you run a search, you’ll see a familiar looking list of results. We’ve not played with it much, but we noticed two things immediately:

• There’s a dot to the right of each result in the list. When you roll your mouse over it, an overlay appears displaying more information from that site. It looks like the idea is to provide more information before you actually click through.
• Many searches return a list of related search terms on the left of the page. Sure, Google displays these at the bottom of its results, but it’s handy to have them there.

There also seem to be some other nice touches, but sadly lots of these appear to be restricted to the US version of the site. For instance, there’s travel search which can tell you if flight prices are more likely to go up or down.

Will it succeed?

So, putting aside what you think of the name (and please do leave a comment to let us know!), the proof of this search engine will be in the quality of its results.

If Microsoft can persuade people to switch from Google to try it (not an easy task in itself), the only way they’ll get people to stick with Bing is if it delivers better results than Google, almost all of the time. That’s quite some task.

We haven’t used Bing enough yet to form an opinion of whether it’s significantly better than its predecessors, or anything like as good as Google. We’ll try and take it for a proper test drive though.

In the meantime, what do you think? Have you tried it? Do you think Microsoft will ever be a serious rival to Google in search, or should they just give up now?

More coverage

There’s more information about Bing over on TechCrunch and the BBC, but we reckon you should just try a few searches for yourself. Let us know how you get on.

So if you’re in Yorkshire and you use MySQL, do come along. The talk’s called ‘When MySQL Bites: Quirks to Watch Out For’ — full abstract and location details below.

MySQL is a very popular DBMS. Or rather, it’s very widely used, which is not necessarily the same thing. It has quite a few quirks, behaviour that many people wouldn’t expect and which if you aren’t aware of can be the cause of much frustration, pain, and data loss.

In the hope that more people being aware of these infelicities will reduce the damage they can do, a collection of them is presented here, along with tips and techniques for dealing with them.

There’s also an examination of why so often the MySQL feature is tantalizingly only available in one version higher than the one you’re running.

The talk starts at 19:00, with the venue (the former BBC Leeds building) open from 18:00 for coffee and chat — and, most likely, the unedifying spectacle of a last-minute speaker frantically trying to get the projector to work.

Old Broadcasting House
148 Woodhouse Lane
Leeds
LS2 9EN
map

The event is organized by Wylug, a Linux user group. Talks are free and open to everybody, so 123-reg customers are most welcome: you don’t have to join, and you don’t even have to know Linux — while MySQL is often used on Linux, there’s nothing Linux-specific in tonight’s talk!

Sorry about the short notice — we’ll try to give you more warning the next time any of us are speaking at an event, assuming that we know about it ourselves of course.

Finding your way around some websites is like tackling a Rubik’s cube; accept you can’t cheat by peeling the coloured squares off and swapping them around. A badly designed website quite literally maroons the user, leaving them with no choice but to click the ubiquitous back button right into next week. Alternatively, the user can restart the whole process by hitting ‘home’, yet it is far more likely that they will just simply leave your site to the circling vultures.

To achieve a navigation system which is clear and intuitive for users you must first produce a well-designed site structure. Start by considering what you want your visitors to see when they grace your home page, and what action(s) you want them to perform. By prioritising your site’s content concisely you won’t overload the user with less important information. Remember, people are more likely to hang around a toxic waste dump than a confusing website.

Having clarified your central message you should then construct your site navigation, and this navigation should logically pre-empt the likely actions of your visitors. The main navigational menu should of course be highly visible, however it is easy to neglect sub menus, and it is within these deeper levels that users often lose their bearings. Sub menus are often displayed with ‘dropdowns’, which appear when the user rolls their mouse over a main menu item. For example, ‘about us’ could be a top level menu item which contains a sub menu link to ‘employee profiles’.

Of course, not everyone has the technical skill to create a dropdown menu, and it isn’t always easy (or possible) to insert a new link into the main menu. This is because main menu links are often represented by tightly arranged graphics, such as buttons. One simple way to ensure that your site navigation doesn’t suffer is to include a ‘breadcrumb trail’ at the top of the relevant pages. A breadcrumb trail is a series of text links which can sit near the main menu. This allows users to trace their previous steps back with the click of a mouse.

Web usability issues can be complex, and entire businesses are built around Human Computer Interaction (HCI). But there’s no reason that any site should lack good navigation, essentially you just need to think like your users. Even if your business is too small to warrant market research it isn’t too hard to gather a group of friends and family round and ask them to attempt a set of tasks on your site.

Don’t get involved, just make the tea, stand back and impartially observe their actions and outcomes. This will help you assess how effective your site navigation really is, so it’s best to do this prior to creating your functional website by using paper. This way you won’t have to sweat over later changes to your website – no love lost!

While watching TV talent shows most viewers simply zone out in a haze of light entertainment. However, some web-savvy entrepreneurial types take the views of ol’ high-trousers and his cronies very seriously indeed. What if one of the contestants really makes it big? The vast majority of talent show entrants are complete amateurs, whose shrill voices won’t have previously troubled anyone other than their budgerigar. This does mean, however, that should a contestant receive the Cinderella treatment – and become an overnight success – you can bet your lunch that they won’t have registered their domain name in preparation.

Enter the Cybersquatters! Cybersquatters prey upon rising stars that haven’t as yet realised their glowing potential. No sooner has the budding starlet endured the hoary glare of Mr Cowell’s toothy grin, and their unregistered domain names will have become the property of opportunist buyers. So when the time to launch a promotional website arrives, the latest singing sensation will have to buy their domain names at the seller’s price.

The latest victim of this predatory practise is Scottish singer Susan Boyle. The unlikely star with an amazing voice clearly didn’t anticipate her rapid ascent into the showbiz elite. Unfortunately, her lack of foresight, endearingly earnest as it may be, has resulted Ms Boyle losing out on a whole host of potential web addresses, including www.susanboyle.co.uk. Ironically, the domain name www.susanboyle.com isn’t owned by a cybersquatter, instead artist Susan K. Boyle must be delighted with the sudden rush of traffic that her site is no doubt experiencing.

The lesson here is simple. If you think that you have even the faintest glimmer of talent, or a profitable idea, make sure you register your potential domain names – before the cybersquatters clean you out! 123-reg offers a huge variety of domain names at some of the cheapest prices on the web.

Buy some domain names now

A closer look at the site 56.com reveals an intuitive basis to the trend: in a region with variations in the Mandarin language, selecting a two-digit numeric domain creates universal branding that transcends regional and local variants, creating a universal brand in a diverse country. 56.com has been called the “You Tube” of China, and consistently ranks as one of the most popular entertainment sites in the country.

Given the growing demand for localized branding, ICANN is at the early stages of opening up complete support for native international domain name (IDN) extensions in a variety of languages. For now, however, many Chinese sites face the dilemma of having a URL partially in native characters but with an English extension (such as .com).

The ability to create an instant brand through a short numeric domain, such as 90.com, makes economic sense as Internet traffic continues to rise rapidly in China. A survey from the China Internet Network Information Center showed that the country had 300 million Internet users at the beginning of the year, representing an adoption rate of only 22%.

The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Opening Ceremony began on August 8, 2008 at 8 p.m. This schedule ensured that the Games would start at the most opportune time, as the number eight is a symbol of wealth and well-being. Native Chinese pronunciations of the numbers reveal their meanings, leading to expensive auctions for lucky phone numbers, addresses and, of course, domain names with special significance. According to tradition, the number “9” signifies everlasting well-being – add a “0″, € 56,000 for good measure and you have a new universal home on the web.

Imagine you posted a letter with the address ‘To Daniel’ written on the envelope. You would have an extremely small chance of that letter actually reaching the person named ‘Daniel’. Obviously this is because the post office would not have a unique address associated with the name ‘Daniel’.

The purpose of DNS is to associate a named address with a website address. We are used to seeing website addresses that we understand, like www.mydomain.com. But underneath the friendly human language lies a series of unfathomable numbers.

These numbers represent an IP address (IP refers to ‘Internet Protocol’). Every computer or device that is connected to the internet has a unique IP address. An IP address is made up of 4 sets of numbers separated with full stops between them, e.g. 194.154.164.90. IP addresses are used by network routers on the internet to send information between computers.

Essentially, a website address masks the IP address with a language that we can understand. So where does DNS come into all of this? The three components of a website address are separated by dots. The components are as follows:

1. Hostname (www)
2. Domain Name (mydomain)
3. Top Level Domain (com)

When you register a domain name it is added to a root database. There is a root database for each Top Level Domain (TLD). When a name is added to this database it is associated with DNS servers that will hold the domain’s detailed information. This information tells computers where to send email and where to locate the websites. To resolve a domain name into a web address, a web browser must locate the domain’s DNS servers by querying the root database.

So if you change your domain information (‘Manage DNS’ on your 123-reg control panel) you are actually updating a database record. This record is called upon whenever someone types your domain name into their browser. The browser will ask the database for the IP address of where your domain lives, and then visit the server where your website resides. This allows the visitor to view a website or send an email.

DNS is a big subject, and can get quite complicated. There are many issues we could talk about. But for the meantime, I hope this post provides an effective overview of DNS and its purpose on the internet.

This time round, we’re bringing in a search engine advertising expert from Euston Digital to answer your questions on pay per click advertising.

Pay per click (PPC) adverts are the adverts you see displayed alongside search results in search engines like Google. We’ve written about the subject in depth before, so check out our guide if you’re new to PPC.

Send us your questions

Perhaps you already advertise your business using PPC adverts. Maybe you’re thinking of starting. Or it might be that you’re just interested in the subject.

Whatever: if you have a burning question about PPC that you want answered, just leave your question as a comment on this blog post. Like last time, we’ll pick some of the most interesting queries and get them answered.