Joomla security - one of the most frequent topics of conversation among Joomie's (usability is a close second) - is a complex area and the technicalities of it quickly get ahead of most Joomla users. Often, it's a conversation about the reputation Joomla has about security that starts "Is Joomla secure?" People are often concerned about the seeming high number of hacked Joomla sites, and people defending Joomla pointing at the need to update 3rd party extensions or use good hosts.

There are many specific things you can do to make your site secure. They range from the obvious to making sure folder permissions are correct on the server, to esoteric like changing the jos_ MySQL table prefix that Joomla uses. For 99% of sites, security boils down to:

1. Use a good host, that means paying more than $10 a month.

2. Backup lots. Be like Nike... Just DO it

3. Patch often. Joomla and all your extensions.

Of course, life isn't so simple. The reality of Joomla security is much more complex, as these are very generalized tasks. Other things to think about as you are securing your website.

• If you have a website - someone needs to be keeping it safe.
  If it's not you, make sure you know who it is (btw, its not your hosting company unless its a managed one like Simplweb). Unless you live in Vermont, you probably lock your house and car; do the same for your site!
• You are being hacked all the time.
  All sites are - check your logs! Hacker bots are continually scouring the web trying to find server weaknesses. The troubles start when they find one.
• Just like insurance - Joomla security is only thought of *after* you have a problem.
  You need to consider security a cost of goods. Would you drive with no car insurance? Time and resources for securing your site are an ongoing cost of running your website.
• It's not Joomla security - its web security.
  Your CMS is only the front facing part of your website. There are lots of ways to hack into your site... FTP, apache, or simply poor password management. Make sure you are looking at the big picture.
• Yes, keep extensions up to date!
  Joomla has probably the biggest universe of 3rd party plugins for any open source CMS. Along with that, the quality insurance is difficult. Use only trusted sources and make sure you have the latest version.
• Keep Joomla up to date (duh)
• Have a backup of your site.
  You should be able to get back online from a dead server in 1 day or less. You might be backing up everything with tools provided by your host, using a Joomla-only backup tool like Akeeba, or maybe you are paying for managed hosting for them to it.
• As your site grows, it paints a bigger target on itself for hackers.
  If your site is doing well, then you need to make sure you are taking extra steps with security. This is most often non-Joomla steps like hardening the server, turning off FTP and installing Apache firewalls and security.

Joomla Security Resources

I have tried to gather a range of resources, from official news to useful 3rd party guides. Everything here is based on personal interaction rather than a quick untrusted search through Google.

Joomla Security Strike Team
http://developer.joomla.org/security.html

RSS Feed of Security issues (these appear to be the same feed)
Security RSS Feed - http://feeds.joomla.org/JoomlaSecurityNews
Vulnerability News - http://developer.joomla.org/security/news.html

Official Documentation on Joomla Security
http://docs.joomla.org/Category:Security_Checklist

Official Vulnerable Extensions List
http://docs.joomla.org/Vulnerable_Extensions_List

Useful 3rd Party Security Tutorials
http://www.howtojoomla.net/how-tos/security/joomla-security-primer
http://www.compassdesigns.net/joomla-blog/review-of-securelive-joomla-security-extension
http://www.joomlashack.com/university/intermediate-course/199-21-techniques-to-secure-a-joomla-website (requires subscription)

Security Extensions
Secure Live - http://www.securelive.net

Fully Managed Joomla Hosting (all patches, backups and security monitored)
Simplweb - http://www.simplweb.com

About  Joe Manna

You probably are aware of all the ways that you should perform SEO, maybe even dabble in a bit of paid search engine marketing and even getting yourself noticed in social media. But, what if I told you that you can get a #1 spot in Google for your business locally? Yeah, and it’s free. I recommend every small business and local entrepreneur invest the 20 minutes and get themselves listed.

Getting the top listings in search engines such as Google, MSN/Live/Bing and Yahoo are the difference between getting Web leads and no leads. A common misconception is that it costs a lot of money to land the top listings. Additionally, those who are unfamiliar with search engines might think there is some mysterious authority that judges which business appear. There isn’t.

At least, not anymore. The search engines are still in a three-way race to win over consumers to become loyal searchers. What does this mean for you, as a small business? Free local visibility and well-connected customers can keep in touch with you.

As great as it is to dominate “dog grooming,” it can be twice as effective to be first on “dog grooming phoenix, az.” Consumers now have the tools to give them relevant information, reviews and ratings on local establishments. Anyone with an iPhone now is connected at the lifeblood of Google with their Maps application and have it at a finger’s touch away in Safari. Contrasted to five years ago, Yelp!, Google Local and MSN Local listings were a far cry for entrepreneurs. Now they’re commonplace for reputation management and consumer experiences.

Google and Live Search (now, Bing) has made it incredibly simple for any small business owner to claim their stake in the local, competitive search engine market. Through a simple submission process, verification, you can blaze to the top of their search engine listings as if you were always there. Doing this gives your business visibility and the ability for customers (and potential customers) to find you quickly, no matter how they’re trying to find you.

Google: How to Add Your Local Search Engine Listing (FREE)

1. Add your local business to Google. Doing so requires a free Google Account.
2. Fill in the details including location, phone number and services/products offered. Take your time but don’t worry, you can edit it later.
3. Submit your listing and choose either telephone or postal verification. Postal verification takes longer, but is needed if you have a toll-free phone number. I chose Postal verification, and received this two weeks later:
   Google Local Postal Verification for Infusionsoft that I received.

MSN/Live/Bing: How to Add Your Local Search Engine Listing (FREE)

1. Add your local business to Microsoft’s directories. Doing so requires a free MSN Live account.
2. Wait.
3. In about two weeks, your small business listing will appear out of thin air.

Yahoo: How to Add Your Local Search Engine Listing (FREE)

1. Add your local business to Yahoo’s local directory. Doing so requires a free Yahoo account.
2. Wait.
3. In about two weeks, your small business listing will appear out of thin air.

Now, if you simply stuff your Local Search pages with a laundry list of keywords, you’ve missed the point. It’s about relevance and enabling people to find your business on their terms. It would be a good idea to point to your Website,  Twitter, Facebook Page and include key local terms that your customers may refer to. (For instance, the East Valley which includes cities like Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa and Scottsdale that are located in the Phoenix metro area.)

If you’re like me, it bothers you when it’s difficult to locate a decent local business, and when you do, the Website lacks current contact information. Local Search addresses this frustration for consumers. This is probably the best time ever to start a small business. It’s insanely cheap to get started, it’s easy to make a difference and there is awesome marketing applications out there to help you grow quickly.

Have you seen any effect from these top Local listings; any tips from those who have seen results? Share it in the comments below!

You might also like these blog entries:

• 17 Tips for Small Business to Improve SEO
• 19 Ways to Connect Social Media & Email Marketing Together
• Why Do Email Messages Go to Spam?

If you are starting off setting up a brand new domain, here are some of the things you need to know to incorporate into your new site's design. Plus you need to pick your domain name with SEO in mind, don't have your domain name work against you.

If you are preparing to buy a domain from someone else you really need to keep these factors in mind before you pay for something you may regret later.

The measureable factors that affect your SEO are:

1) Backlinks

The more relevant links there are to your website the more SEO value it will carry. Obviously a new domain will not have any backlinks to it yet. If you can buy an established site with a lot of relevant backlinks that will make your life easier as creating these links to your site can be quite time consuming.

Google automatically checks for the quantity and also the quality of backlinks there are to your website. This along with some other factors will determine the pagerank for each page on your website from 0 - 10 (0 for new pages & 10 for authority sites such as CNN.com).

These numbers are calculated to the power of 10, so for example a PR3 is 10 times more powerful than a PR2. So the higher ranking the more powerful it will be.

3) Age of Domain

The age of a Domain is determined from the date it was registered. Age is also an important SEO factor as Google puts a lot more trust in a site which has been around for some time, rather than the new kid on the block.

4) History of Domain

If the domain name you are looking at purchasing did have content on it before which was related to the niche you are going into, then the history of that domain is good and Google will reward you.

On the reverse side if the domain had content that was not related to the niche or was of questionable quality then the bad history of that domain could hurt your SEO. So in this case you would probably be better off to register a brand new domain in your niche.

If you can get your hands on an aged domain name which already has a listing in DMOZ or in the Yahoo! Directory, then you will be saving yourself a lot of time, money and effort. It is very difficult and expensive to get these listings.

6) Indexing

If you are starting a brand new site then clearly you need to get your web pages listed on Google or the other search engines., otherwise known as getting your pages index. This is how people will find you. The more indexed pages a site has the more weight it will have with the various search engines.

So now you know some of the SEO factors to watch out for when deciding whether to buy a domain name or start from scratch.

You do not want to be penalized for things you really had nothing to do with, but why don't you take advantage of a domain for sale with SEO factors working in your favor?
About the Author: Janet Andersen - Do you want to learn the secrets that will help you make more money online, and easier? Read my review on a simple system to make money online here.

About the Author: Janet Andersen - Do you want to learn the secrets that will help you make more money online, and easier? Read my review on a simple system to make money online here.

A CMS does precisely what we have discussed. It allows you to manage and change content easily on your website in a professional manner. The evolving nature of the web and the advent of Web 2.0 design have made content management indispensable for every professionally meaning website. A CMS thus offers the right way ahead in content management for a wide variety of portals and websites from an extensive range of industries.

One of the best CMS packages available presently is Joomla CMS. In fact, Joomla CMS is extremely easy to use and it has extensively attracted the attention of website developers all around the world. It leads the way in content management and suits the needs of a vast majority of web professionals including designers and managers alike. It is also called a 'dynamic portal engine' because you can use it to build dynamic websites as well.

Joomla is best suited for a variety of B2B and B2C portals and applications and easily meets the specifications for web development set out by companies that require direct access with informative content to their visitors online. Joomla CMS effectually meets the needs of companies and individuals in this information age. With Joomla, companies access vast and limitless possibilities to create open and powerful web applications in amazingly less time. You can easily put video, audio, blogs, and forum on your website. Plus, the availability of templates makes your task of building the website an easy one.

Since Joomla is flexible and adaptive, there are a number of advantages of using this package over several other competing content management systems. The simplicity of Joomla means that it is easy to use even by non-technical users. At the same time, it is an open source content management system and is available free of cost from the Joomla website. Besides being easily maintainable, it allows for faster and better organization of web content.

The open source nature and free-of-cost availability of this package means that the Joomla community comprises of many distinguished entities such as community forums, corporate portals, ecommerce websites, corporate intranets, educational websites, website directories, and many more.

Due to its flexibility and ease of use, Joomla has received a lot of support from large and small companies, businesses, and even entrepreneurs. With the Joomla community growing day-by-day, many web development companies now offer a variety of Joomla related solutions that are proving to be effective and valuable in this competitive business scenario.

What can you expect from Caffeine's injection directly in the SERPs? Fresher results says Google. In fact, 50 percent fresher for Web searches than its last index (and from the largest collection of Web content it has offered to date).

This puts your content development and social media marketing efforts on center-stage.

The reason for Google's introduction of a more caffeinated search is simple - content on the Web has evolved. The introduction and importance today of video, image, audio, real-time updates and reviews makes the Web a far more complex environment and one that Web users have grown accustom.

Instead of refreshing its index every few weeks, Caffeined enables Google to analyze the web in small portions and update its search index on a continuous basis and on an enormous scale. Google shared an excellent statistic about just how much information is being shared - Caffeine processes hundreds of thousands of pages in paralell which, if it were a pile of paper, would grow three miles taller every second.