Dexterity Unlimited – Articles » Search Engines

Along with many of you, I have read several articles about "proxy hacking" and other issues related to the need to verify the source of user agents purporting to be a known search engine spider. For those of you unfamiliar with such problems, "proxy hacking" involves routing a bot through a proxy server in order to get to your site. Page ranking associated with your site could then be transferred to the URL of the proxy server. Other issues involve browsers or bots masquerading as a known search engine spider for any purpose.

After reading some of these articles, I decided to do something to protect my site. What is there to fear? Proxy hacking can be a legitimate concern. As for the matter of simple masquerading; if you enter my establishment while flashing a fake I.D., it makes me think you’re up to something.

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For several years I have been of the opinion that the majority of people using Google’s search engine do not really know how to use but a small fraction of its potential when looking for something online. Wading through server logs and Google Analytics reports has only reinforced this opinion.

I suppose that this article is not the type to reach the general searching public, but I find that even people who have been online for years, and who work in Internet related fields are unaware of some of the basic functions they can use to get better results from their searches.

I would like to give people a couple basic tips that should help them to narrow their searches in order to find web pages that contain what they are really trying to find.

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