20 SEO(Search Engine Optimization) Terms you Should Know

1. SEM: Stands for Search Engine Marketing, and as the name implies it involves marketing services or products via search engines. SEM is divided into two main pillars: SEO and PPC. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it is the practice of optimizing websites to make their pages appear in the organic search results. PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click, and it is the practice of purchasing clicks from search engines. The clicks come from sponsored listings in the search results.

2. Backlink: Also called inlink or simply link, it is an hyperlink on another website pointing back to your own website. Backlinks are important for SEO because they affect directly the PageRank of any web page, influencing its search rankings.

3. PageRank: PageRank is an algorithm that Google uses to estimate the relative important of pages around the web. The basic idea behind the algorithm is the fact that a link from page A to page B can be seen as a vote of trust from page A to page B. The higher the number of links (weighted to their value) to a page, therefore, the higher the probability that such page is important.

4. Linkbait: A linkbait is a piece of web content published on a website or blog with the goal of attracting as many backlinks as possible (in order to improve one’s search rankings). Usually it’s a written piece, but it can also be a video, a picture, a quiz or anything else. A classic example of linkbait are the “Top 10″ lists that tend to become popular on social bookmarking sites.

5. Link farm: A link farm is a group of websites where every website links to every other website, with the purpose of artificially increasing the PageRank of all the sites in the farm. This practice was effective in the early days of search engines, but today they are seeing as a spamming technique (and thus can get you penalized).

6. Anchor text: The anchor text of a backlink is the text that is clickable on the web page. Having keyword rich anchor texts help with SEO because Google will associate these keywords with the content of your website. If you have a weight loss blog, for instance, it would help your search rankings if some of your backlinks had “weight loss” as their anchor texts.

7. NoFollow: The nofollow is a link attribute used by website owners to signal to Google that they don’t endorse the website they are linking to. This can happen either when the link is created by the users themselves (e.g., blog comments), or when the link was paid for (e.g., sponsors and advertisers). When Google sees the nofollow attribute it will basically not count that link for the PageRank and search algorithms.

8. Link Sculpting: By using the nofollow attribute strategically webmasters were able to channel the flow of PageRank within their websites, thus increasing the search rankings of desired pages. This practice is no longer effective as Google recently change how it handles the nofollow attribute.

9. Title Tag: The title tag is literally the title of a web page, and it’s one of the most important factors inside Google’s search algorithm. Ideally your title tag should be unique and contain the main keywords of your page. You can see the title tag of any web page on top of the browser while navigating it.

10. Meta Tags: Like the title tag, meta tags are used to give search engines more information regarding the content of your pages. The meta tags are placed inside the HEAD section of your HTML code, and thus are not visible to human visitors.

11. Search Algorithm: Google’s search algorithm is used to find the most relevant web pages for any search query. The algorithm considers over 200 factors (according to Google itself), including the PageRank value, the title tag, the meta tags, the content of the website, the age of the domain and so on.

12. SERP: Stands for Search Engine Results Page. It’s basically the page you’ll get when you search for a specific keyword on Google or on other search engines. The amount of search traffic your website will receive depends on the rankings it will have inside the SERPs.

13. Sandbox: Google basically has a separate index, the sandbox, where it places all newly discovered websites. When websites are on the sandbox, they won’t appear in the search results for normal search queries. Once Google verifies that the website is legitimate, it will move it out of the sandbox and into the main index.

14. Keyword Density: To find the keyword density of any particular page you just need to divide the number of times that keyword is used by the total number of words in the page. Keyword density used to be an important SEO factor, as the early algorithms placed a heavy emphasis on it. This is not the case anymore.

15. Keyword Stuffing: Since keyword density was an important factor on the early search algorithms, webmasters started to game the system by artificially inflating the keyword density inside  their websites. This is called keyword stuffing. These days this practice won’t help you, and it can also get you penalized.

16. Cloaking: This technique involves making the same web page show different content to search engines and to human visitors. The purpose is to get the page ranked for specific keywords, and then use the incoming traffic to promote unrelated products or services. This practice is considering spamming and can get you penalized (if not banned) on most search engines.

17. Web Crawler: Also called search bot or spider, it’s a computer program that browses the web on behalf of search engines, trying to discover new links and new pages. This is the first step on the indexation process.

18. Duplicate Content: Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar. You should avoid having duplicate content on your website because it can get you penalized.

19. Canonical URL: Canonicalization is a process for converting data that has more than one possible representation into a “standard” canonical representation. A canonical URL, therefore, is the standard URL for accessing a specific page within your website. For instance, the canonical version of your domain might be http://www.domain.com instead of http://domain.com.

20. Robots.txt: This is nothing more than a file, placed in the root of the domain, that is used to inform search bots about the structure of the website. For instance, via the robots.txt file it’s possible to block specific search robots and to restrict the access to specific folders of section inside the website.

42 SEO Interview Questions & Answers

 
 If an interviewer doesn't have any stuff about SEO, then he will be asking very general questions. As a candidate, if we make the interviewer understand some basic points of SEO then the interview will be successful.

                  In my SEO career, I have attended many interviews and some ended up with comedies. Recently I attended an interview from a pure Internet marketing company is the special one which I got a feel that is an SEO interview. Even as an interviewer in my present company I haven’t thought of asking such questions. Really I enjoyed the interview very well and just want to share the questions asked by interviewer and answers from my side.

Q1. Tell me something about yourself ?

Ans. You should tell him very confidentially about yourself your strength and your Aim.

Q2. What you know about SEO ?

Ans.It is process of getting traffic from free and paid listing on the search engine like.
Google
yahoo
bing

Q3. How to get top position in SEO ?

Ans. With the help of two factors we get top position in Search Engine
A) ON PAGE OPTIMIZATION
B) OFF PAGE OPTIMIZATION

Q4. What do you know about ON Page Optimization ?

Ans. Where we need to work on On page of our site and we can make changes on title tag, meta tag,site structure and site content, links and keyword.And On page optimization we need to work also on logical factors.

Q5. What do you know about Off Page Optimization ?

Ans.Off page optimization means we can work on important factors like directory submission,link building,social media and fresh content.And Off page optimization we don't need to work on logical abilities.

Q6. Do you know about latest update in SEO ?

Ans.Yes Sir i know about latest updates in SEO
1) Panda
2) penguin

Q7. What is the latest  Panda update ? 

                                                            
Ans. The Panda  is for improve the search result in Google.The latest panda version is 2.5.3 . All the focus was transformed on the user and now quality content , proper design, proper speed, proper use of images and videos, content to ad  ratio all mattered more after the Panda update.

                                                                       

Q8. What do you know about latest update in penguin ?

Ans. In the September 5 the Google penguin 3 has updated. Mutt cutts says it is the new data refresh. 0.3% english language has effected. Penguin is the code name of the google algorithm. It is first arrived the April 24 2012. It’s goal is decreasing the ranking of the website that violate the Google Webmaster guidelines. This guidelines are violated by using black ghat SEO techniques like keyword stuffing, cloaking etc. Lots of duplicate sites are effected by this update. When it first arrived 3.1% search query has effected. But now only 0.3% has effected. Still it is very much dangerous for the SEO. I think best technique is that only directory submission can help you. It can overcome some damage of your site. But after all it’s very bad news for the world of SEO

Q9. Who is Matt cutts ?

Ans. Matt cutt is the head of Google web spam team.

Q10. What is keyword stemming ?

Ans. keyword stemming is the process of finding out the root word from the  search query..

Q11.What is keyword density ?

Ans. Keyword density make your content stand out in crowd.
        Here is important formula of keyword density
                                                     total no of keyword             *100
                                                  total no of words in your artical

Q12. What are webmastertools ?

Ans. Webmaster tools is free service by google where we can check all the details like indexing data,daily user, stats ,search query,CTR and XML sitemap.

Q13. Which  Important factors makes ON Page Optimization better ?  

Ans. In On Page Optimization there are some important factors like
Title Tag
Meta tag
Keyword
Sitemap
Images
Internal linking
Bread crimp.

Q14. Which  Important factors makes Off Page Optimization better ?

Ans. In Off Page Optimization there are some important factors like
Directory Submission
Artical Submission
Press Release
Blog Writing/posting/creation
Classified Submission
Social  Media

Q15. What is google Sandbox ?

Ans. Google sandbox is an imaginary area where less authoritative and new sites taking place while they are popular and authorized on the web.

Q16. What is LSI ?

Ans. LSI stands for latent semantic indexing.It is data retrieval technique.

Q17. How many characters limits in Title tag ?

Ans. In title tag approx 70 characters we can add.
          

Q18. How many types of Meta Tags and their characters limits ?

Ans. 2 types meta tags in Seo
Description Meta tag (150 characters limits)
Keyword Meta tag (200 characters limits)

Q19. What Seo tools do you use ?

Ans. Google webmaster tools, Google analytic,keyword research,Alexa,open site explorer.

Q20. How many SEO techniques do you know ?

Ans. 1) Black hat seo
        2) White hat seo
        3) Gray hat seo

Q21. What is Black Hat Seo ? And how many techniques used in it ?       

                                                                                                                        
Ans. Black hat seo is technique in which we use duplicate issues like content,photos, video,hidden links,keyword stuffing doorway pages and many other.It is not good for our site because when Google starts its crawling it considered the site is full of duplicate issues and he penalized the site minimum +30 Google page ranking
Black hat techniques
hidden link
keyword stuffing
doorway pages
incorrect keyword
link farming
mirror side
Note:- For Best seo this technique is not good avoid this technique..

Q22. What is White Hat Seo ? And how many techniques used in it ?

Ans. White hat seo is a technique in which we used fresh,good contents in our site.Never used any kind of duplicate contents in it.It is the best method to get high ranking on the Search Engine..

                                            White hat techniques
Quality contents
Titles and Meta data
Keyword research and Effective keyword use
Quality inbound links
Note:- Best technique for best seo

Q23. What is Bookmarking Sites ?  

Ans. Bookmarking sites helps you to getting instant traffic on your site by his powerful social media factor.You can easily bookmarks this site on your favorites list and when it requires you can click on this and you will get this.

Q24.Top 6 Bookmarking  sites name ?

Ans. Top Bookmarking Sites.
Twitter
Pinterest
reddit
stumble upon
Digg
Delicious

Q25. Tell me One URL short links site name ?

Ans. http://www.bitly.com

Q26: Define blog, article & press release?

Ans: A blog is referred as an information or discussion published on website or World Wide Web incorporating distinct entries called as posts. Basically, the blog is referred as everything thing where you can include others too. It is more individual in contrast to article and press release. It is also considered as very personal in subject to both style and comprised ideas and information and can be written in the way just like you may talk to your readers. It is also called Web diary or Online Diary.
The articles are concerned with specific topic or event and are highly oriented towards an opinion instead of information. An article is supposed to be more oriented towards showing up opinions, views and idea. Generally, it is written  by a third party or expert of any specific field.
Press Release is related with a specific action or event which can be republished by distinct medium of mass-media including other websites. It should be simple, short and professional. It conveys a clear message or information.

Q27: What are Meta Tags?

Ans: HTML meta tags are usually referred as tags of page data which sits between opening and closing head tags of a
document’s HTML code. Actually these are hidden keywords who sits in the code. These are invisible to visitors but are visible and readable by Search Engines.
Example:

Q28: Difference between keyword & keyword phrase?

Ans: The keyword term is basically concerned with a one-word term, on the other hand a keyword phrase considered as employment of two or more word-combinations. Therefore, it is very confounded to get high ranking in account of one-word keyword term until the one-word keyword has little online competition. Therefore, this practice is not encouraged to employ. In order to drive more traffic and top ranking in SERP it is recommended to employ keyword phrase.

Q29: Establish a difference between PR & SERP.

Ans: PR is Page Rank which is defined by quality inbound links from other website or web-pages to a web page or website as well as say the importance of that site.
SERP stands for Search Engine Result Page is the placement of the website or web-page which is returned by search engine after a search query or attribute.

Q30: Define Alt tag?

Ans: The alt attribute also called as alt tag are employed in XHTML and HTML documents in context of defining alternative text that is supposed to be rendered when the element can’t be rendered to which it is applied. One great feature of alt tag is that it is readable to ‘screen reader’ which is a software by means of which a blind person can hear this. In addition, it delivers alternative information for an image due to some specific reason a user can’t view it such as in case of slow connection and an error occurred in the src attribute.
For example, the HTML for this image will appear something like this:

Q31: What do you know about Adsense?

Ans: Adsense is a web program conducted by Google that enables publishers of content websites to cater text, rich media, image, video advertisements automatically which are relevant to content of website and audience. These advertisement are included, maintained and sorted by Google itself and earn money either by per-click or per-impression basis.

Q32: Can you define Adword?

Ans: Adword is referred as the main advertising product of Google which is useful to make appear your ads on Google and its partner websites including Google Search. This Google’s product offer PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising which is a primary module and incorporate a sub module CPC (Cost Per Click) where we bid that rate that will be charged only when the users click your advertisement. One another sub module is CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impression) advertising where advertiser pay for a thousand impression on flat rate to publisher. In addition it also includes website targeted advertising of banner, text and rich-media ads. Moreover, the ad will appear especially to those people who are already looking for such type of product you are offering as well as offer to choose particular sites with geographical area to show your ads.

Q34: What is PPC?

Ans: PPC is the abbreviated form of Pay Per Click and is a advertisement campaign conducted by Google. It is referred as a primary module with two sub module CPC (Cost-per-click) and CPM (Cost per thousand impression) through bidding and flat rate respectively. In CPC the advertiser would be only charged when the user click over their advert.

Q35: What are the aspects in SEO?

Ans: The main aspect in SEO are divided in two class: SEO On-Page and SEO Off-Page.

 Q36:Can you tell me your own definition for SEO?

Ans: Yes sure, SEO is the collection of strategies that we are following to get visitors to our website from search engines via organic search results. (But almost similar)

Q37:What’s your idea about page rank and how it’s calculated?

Ans: Let me first tell about the calculation behind that. Google says that page rank calculation formula is having more than 2 lake variables. I am sure that following things are the main factor,
1) Internal Back Links
2) External Back Links
3) Domain Age
 Apart from this, number of visits, bounce rate, CTR etc may be a factor in calculating the page rank. Page rank is just a metric from Google which defines the quality of the page. Moreover we do have many other targets like keyword position, quality traffic and conversions. In my vision, I am having very least importance to page rank. But I am crazy about getting full green PR tool bar for my blog.

Q38:I want to change the domain name of well ranked website in SERP. Is it possible to retain the same keyword positions?

Ans: Yes, definitely we can. Just 301 redirecting the corresponding old URLs to the new URLs. In initial after we did this, we may experience a drop in rankings. Once our new URLs got indexed, we can expect a same position that we had earlier.
Can you name the SEO blogs that you regularly read?
1) Search Engine journal
2) Search Engine Land
3) SEOMOZ
4) SEOSmarty
5) Jimboykins

Q39:What SEO tools do you regularly use?

Ans: Google Adwords Tool to find keywords suggestions and search count
IP Blacklist tool 
Server Header checker
How can you rate you out of 10 in the following areas On-Page Optimization, Off-Page Optimization, Photoshop, and Coding (PHP)
On-Page Optimization – 09
Off-Page Optimization – 08
Designing - 06
Coding (PHP) - 03

Q40:How can you optimize a website having 2 lakh pages?

Ans:Following are the special additional SEO stuffs that we have to implement for dynamic website.

1) Generation of dynamic title & description
2) Dynamic XML Sitemap generation
3) Good Internal link structure (Normal)
4) Have you attended any search related conferences?
Yes, I have attended one conference named “search Camp 2008? held at Chennai (India). I had a wonderful time there by sharing the SEO ideas with many webmasters.

Q41:What’s special in XML Sitemap and where do you submit that?

Ans: That is a file which list all the pages of website in XML format designed for SE’s. Here we can give the crawlable frequency and also we can define the priority of all the web pages (1.0, 08. 065 etc). This can be submitted in Google Webmaster tools.

Q42:What areas do you think are currently the most important in organically ranking a site for a particular keyword?

Ans: 1) Keyword in anchor text of external & internal back links
2) Internal link structure
3) Keyword density in content, title, description, alt tags, h1 tag etc
These are the questions that I enjoyed. Also there is some other which I think as usual questions. 8)
Read More About SEO Question : Answer are given below..
My SEO interview question and answers helps you to Cracking the interviewers questions very easily and very confidentially.Read them and prepare for your seo interview.

SEO Basics: The Differences Between SEM, SMO, SMM, and SEO

SEO(Search Engine Optimization) Basics:

 

SEO teach us that search engine optimization is really a specialized part of SEM, or search engine marketing. One must use SEO in an effort to achieve results with SEM. Likewise, SMO- or social media optimization, must be used to be successful with SMM or social media marketing. The often-confusing definitions of these acronyms can make it difficult for those who are new to internet marketing or for those who are broadening their marketing experience by trying out new online mediums. While each one of these internet marketing techniques are independent in application, they are all really part of a group of practices that makes individuals, businesses, organizations and brands more visible on the web. Whether you use SEO, SEM, SMM, SMO or all of these, knowing how each is different from the other is essential to understanding how to apply these techniques for your internet marketing success.

SEO(Search engine optimization):

 

Utilizes numerous practices to increase traffic to a particular website or page. However, the best approaches to this are holistic in that they not only increase website traffic; they also increase the quality of that traffic. Quality website traffic is traffic that converts- meaning customers that actually make a purchase, engage a service, sign up for a newsletter, provide their email address, or otherwise become a lead or an actual sale.

                            SEO seeks to gain this increase in quantity and quality of website traffic by strategically creating and placing keyword optimized content in locations that will generate publicity through organic search results. Organic search results consist of the information returned after a consumer has entered a search term in a search engine such as Yahoo, Bing, or Google. These results are driven by the SEO web content that you post on the internet. Search engine “bots” or “spiders” will index the information on your pages and use that to determine where you will show up when a customer searches for terms related to your business.

SEM(Search engine marketing):

 

Online marketing for businesses and individuals. The principal goal of this type of internet marketing is to improve a website’s visibility on the search results pages of various search engines. This is accomplished using a combination of SEO strategies and paid advertising. SEM efforts can be found on the first page of listings returned after a search. The results bars across the top and sides of a search engine result page are usually paid advertising or paid inclusion in the listing. Utilizing SEO in addition to paid advertising allows a business to dominate both the organic and paid results sections of a search engine results page or SERP.

SMO(Social media optimization):

 

Relative newcomer to internet marketing, rising in use in direct correlation to this rise in popularity of social media sites. SMO consists of creating and managing profiles on social media sites and networks in order to create awareness of a brand or service. This is done by attracting others to associate with the profile by creating updates, using social bookmarking, and video and picture sharing.

SMM(Social media marketing):

 

Similar to SMO, but goes deeper in the level of social interactions by blogging, taking part in online forums or chat rooms, and through paid social advertising and search. Essentially, SMM takes SMO viral.

                      It’s obvious that SEO and SEM are a related pair, and SMO and SMM are another related pair. However, utilizing all four of these practices individually actually serves to better your internet marketing strategies overall. For instance, when an SMM business blog creates links, it helps with an SEO campaign. Additionally, posting articles as part of an SEO campaign can boost SMO results if social bookmarking is used. But while all of these marketing techniques might be unique, there is one central difference between the two that can best summarize the goal of all of these acronyms:

SEO and SEM work to attract the attention of the search engines.

SMO and SMM work to attract the attention of people.

When looked at in this manner, it’s easy to see that these are two very distinct approaches that must be managed jointly in order to achieve the most success possible with an internet marketing plan that includes SEO, SEM, SMO and SMM.

  

ERROR

-What they mean

We have tried to assemble a list of some of the more common Error Messages and have explained what they mean and how to fix the problem.
The descriptions in this particular section are a lot more detailed than the other error articles, and generally provide a specific action that should remedy the fault.

The other articles contain a full listing of all error messages and simply have a brief translation from Error code to English.

To quickly find the answer you were after, you can press CTRL F and enter your message.

Obviously, if you can't find an explanation or don't understand the one we have written, please don't hesitate to email me mithiverma14@gmail.com




400 - Bad requestExplanation
There's something wrong with the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) you typed. This can be caused by one of the following:

* The server you're contacting doesn't recognise the document you're asking for

* Your browser doesn't support the form you're trying to access

* It doesn't exist

* Not authorised to access it

Solution

Check the spelling of the URL. Pay special attention to uppercase and lowercase letters, colons, and slashes.


There may be a problem with that document. Send a message to the site administrator. Normally 


401 - Unauthorized Connection refused by hostExplanation
This error will usually occur, when an Internet site is protected, and the server didn't receive the correct password for entry.

Solution

If you are registered with the site, you could try entering your password again if you have the opportunity. As with URLs passwords are often case sensitive, so type the password carefully.

If you aren't registered, but think you're eligible for one, contact the site's Webmaster and ask for it.

Some sites also put a block on domain types--if you're not from a .gov or .edu domain, for example, you may not be able to gain access.


403 - ForbiddenExplanation
This error will usually occur, when an Internet site is protected and the wrong password was entered.
It could also mean that the server isn't properly configured.

Solution


If you are registered with the site, you could try entering your password again, if you have the opportunity. As with URLs, passwords are often case sensitive, so type the password carefully.

If you aren't registered, but think you're eligible for one, contact the site's Webmaster and ask for it.


Some sites also put a block on domain types--if you're not from a .gov or .edu domain, for example, you may not be able to gain access.


404 - Not Found or File Not Found Unable to Locate the ServerExplanation
This means that the document you've requested no longer exists in its original location. This could be because:
* Document has been moved to another location on the server

* The URL may have been mistyped

* Has been removed entirely from the system

Solution

Try carefully retyping the URL, paying particular attention to capitals and making sure there are no spaces.

Try going one level up, by deleting the portion of the URL that follows the last slash, to see if the site is live. If it is, check to see if there are links to the document you were looking for. Failing that, you could delete the last slash and type .html instead and see what that gives you.

It may also mean that this site doesn't exist any more.


500 - Internal ErrorExplanation
The server was unable to send the HTML document, due to an internal (server software) error. An improperly configured server causes this.

Solution


Contact the site's administrators and tell them to fix it


501 - Not ImplementedExplanation
The server doesn't support the feature you have requested.

Solution

Don't request it?


502 - Service Temporarily OverloadedExplanation
This error indicates that the server is experiencing high-traffic load and can't process the request.

Solution

You can often access the site by trying to reload it. If the error persists, you may want to try again later.


503 - Service unavailable or Gateway TimeoutExplanation
One of your settings (Gateway) is wrong.

Solution

It is fairly unlikely that you will get this error, if you do, contact the administrator, or even the ISP, as it's a fairly big problem (tm)


You can't log on as an Anonymous UserExplanation
This error message appears when you try to access certain FTP sites.

*It indicates that the site allows access only to registered members

*The site may only allow access to a limited number of non-members, in which case the site is simply busy

*Your browser may not support anonymous FTP access

Solution

You can try to access the site again later, or if you're a registered member try entering your User ID and Password manually using FTP software package.

Too many users Network Connection was refused by the Server Too many connections--try again later
Explanation

No site has unlimited access: physical connections or administrator policy allocate a number of anonymous users to a given site. When that number is exceeded, all who try to log on, receive this message. This error frequently turns up when you try to connect to a busy FTP software site that can't generate its own error messages.

Solution

Just keep trying until you get lucky. However, on a busy site (like Netscape's the week after a big announcement) or one with very limited access rights, you may be out of luck. If so, check to see whether the site has mirror sites, and try one of those.


Cannot add form submission result to bookmark listExplanation
You have just entered a search request and tried to save the result as a bookmark. Though it may appear as a discrete address, the result isn't a legitimate URL, so you can't add it to your bookmark list.

Solution

Try using the 'Save As' command from your browser, then add the saved page to your bookmark list. Depending on the CGI/asp/php etc script behind the query, you may or may not be successful. You never know, it could be worth a try.




Host unavailableExplanation
The 'Host Unavailable' error occurs when the host server is down. This could possibly be for maintenance.

Solution

Hit the Refresh or Reload again. But wait a while between refreshes.




File contains no dataExplanation
The site you've accessed is however the right one, but there are no Web page documents on it. You may have stumbled upon this site just as updated versions are being uploaded.

Solution

Try the URL again, carefully. If that doesn't help, try again in an hour. You could also sometimes by-pass this error by re-typing the URL with a :80 before the last slash. For example www.sitepointforums.com:80/




Helper application not foundExplanation
Your browser didn't recognise a file at the Web or Net site you visited. Most browsers can be extended using helper applications (or viewers) to read files they don't otherwise recognise. These files aren't necessarily graphics--they can be sound files, movie clips, or ZIP or SIT archive files you're trying to download.

Solution

The dialog box that carries this message will usually give a clue about the file type that's missing. (You may see some gibberish about octet streams, but after that you'll probably see some reference to graphic-TIFF, which gives it away.) Look at our help for your computing platform (Windows, Mac etc) for viewers for the most common file types. Then follow your browser's instructions for assigning a viewer for each file format that you wish to view online.

NNTP server error
Explanation

You're trying to log on to a USENET newsgroup, but you can't get to it. The Usenet server is one of the services that most ISP's provide; however they can't subscribe to all the newsgroups in the world, so it may be that this newsgroup isn't available.

Solution

Make sure you've typed the URL correctly. If that doesn't help, You could let them know that you would like it enabled, and they may then look into making this available, provided there is enough interest from other people.




Permission denied

Explanation
This error message occurs when your are trying to upload a file to an FTP site. The error indicates that the site will not allow the upload, the site is too busy, or you have typed the wrong URL.

Solution

Check the spelling first and type it again. If the error message reappears, try again later. If it persists, send email to the Webmaster and ask how you can upload a file to that site.


Host UnknownUnable to Locate HostExplanation
These errors will occur for one of the following reasons:
* The host server is down for maintenance,

* You typed the URL incorrectly.

* You've lost your Internet connection

Solution

Hit the Reload/Refresh button. This is often a temporary problem with the Net. Check the URL for any spelling mistakes (and don't forget case-sensitivity), then make sure you're connected by hitting Reload/Refresh, which will re-establish connections in many cases.


Viewer not foundHelper Application not foundExplanation
Your browser doesn't recognise a file at the Web or Net site you're visiting. Viewable files aren't necessarily graphics--they can be sound files, movie clips, ZIP or SIT archive files, and so on. If it's not a GIF or JPEG file, your browser may not know what it is.

Solution

Save the file to disk and then get the application called for by it. Setup in the browser Helper section is required to make it work
The dialog box that carries this message, will usually give a clue about the file type that's missing. (You may see some gibberish, but after that you'll probably see some reference to graphic-TIFF, which gives it away.) Then just follow your browser's instructions for assigning a viewer for each file format that you wish to view online.


Failed DNS lookupExplanation
The domain name system (DNS) can't translate the URL into a valid Internet address. This is either:

* A harmless blip

* The server that you're trying to connect to may be overloaded with traffic or temporarily down

* The result of a mistyped URL (specifically, a mistyped host name).

* If you're accessing the Internet via a modem and you get a DNS error for each Web Site you try to access, chances are something is wrong with your connection.

Solution

* Blips in DNS lookup can be fairly common, and often you can rectify this by clicking the Reload/Refresh button. If that doesn't work, check your typing of the URL carefully. If the problem persists,

* You could also try re-launching your browser and your required communications software. If the problem persists, contact your ISP and they can talk you through some other options.

* Unfortunately, there's no easy way for you to tell whether a server is down or just busy. Try again after an hour or so.


Please check your username and password and try againExplanation
Username Password is wrong

Solution

If you can't connect because your password is not working, double check that you are typing in the letters EXACTLY as shown on your signup sheet. All usernames are in lower-case and passwords are case sensitive.
The most common password problem is the CAPS LOCK key being on Also, make sure you are not using your e-mail login name and password. If you have tried all of this, please call the helpdesk and we can re-set your password.