Understanding Data Centers: The Core Infrastructure Driving Digital Transformation

As businesses and organizations increasingly rely on the vast potential of data-driven operations, comprehending the significance and functionality of data centers becomes essential. In this article, we will help you to delve into the depths of data centers, unraveling their critical role and shedding light on their intricate workings.

The Significance of Data Centers:

Data centers serve as robust repositories, housing a colossal amount of digital information and functioning as centralized hubs for computing resources. They form the nucleus of operations for numerous industries, encompassing everything from banking, healthcare, e-commerce, and entertainment to research and development. The extensive network of data centers facilitates real-time data processing, rapid access to information, and uninterrupted online services – cornerstones for modern-day business continuity and competitiveness.

The Architecture and Components:

A data center’s architecture is carefully designed to optimize performance, reliability, and security. The primary components include:

Servers: The backbone of a data center, servers handle data storage, processing, and distribution to fulfill the diverse demands of users and applications.

Networking Infrastructure: High-speed and redundant networking infrastructure ensures seamless data transfer within the data center and beyond.

Storage Systems: Data centers rely on advanced storage systems, such as solid-state drives (SSDs) and hard disk drives (HDDs), to safeguard and deliver data promptly.

Cooling Systems: Due to the substantial heat generated by the vast array of servers, sophisticated cooling systems are employed to maintain an optimal temperature and prevent hardware failure.

Power Supply: Uninterrupted power supply through backup generators and redundant power feeds is critical to avoid disruptions in data center operations.

Security Measures: Data centers implement comprehensive security protocols to safeguard data and protect against unauthorized access or cyber threats.

Data Center Classification:

Data centers can be classified based on their size, purpose, and accessibility:

Enterprise Data Centers: Owned and operated by individual companies to support their internal IT needs.

Colocation Data Centers: facilities that provide space and resources for multiple organizations to rent server space and networking equipment. LA Colocation from a provider such as Electric Kitten would be a good example of this classification.

Cloud Data Centers: Infrastructure owned and managed by cloud service providers, delivering scalable and on-demand computing resources to customers.

Data Center Efficiency and Environmental Impact:

As data centers continue to expand to accommodate the exponential growth in digital data, concerns about energy consumption and environmental impact arise. To address these issues, data centers adopt various strategies for energy efficiency, such as virtualization, advanced cooling techniques, and renewable energy sources. Additionally, industry standards and certifications, like LEED and Energy Star, are leveraged to promote environmentally friendly practices and reduce their carbon footprint.

The Future of Data Centers:

The future of data centers lies in their ability to adapt to evolving technologies and ever-increasing data demands. Innovations such as edge computing, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing will play pivotal roles in shaping the next generation of data centers. As these technologies mature, data centers will become even more efficient, secure, and indispensable in facilitating our interconnected world.

Page Speed, SEO, and what do about it

Back in 2010 when Google made its first announcement about the importance of page load speeds and how it impacts user experience, the SEO industry had yet another method of improving page rankings. The advantage of page speed as a ranking signal, is that it is quantifiable and comparable. You can see fast your pages load, how you can improve, and how your site compares to the competition. According to Rack Alley, here are the primary methods of improve page load speed:

External embedded content

Videos, media players, ads, can drastically slow down your page load speeds. If you must include video content, host it on your own server.

Browser optimization

The five primary browsers all deal with content differently, and what loads fast on one, might be slow on all the others. Test all your content on different browsers to make sure the experience is consistent.

Hosting provider

Anyone serious about a website should find a proper host and avoid these cheap hosting providers. Ideally you want a hosted solution at an LA data center to give you the kind of speed, and reliability you need.

Site design

Most websites are basically a CMS with a custom or modified theme. Often, the themes are not optimized for speed, have large images, and a lot of unnecessary scripting. Do a complete audit of your theme to clear out any cruft.

Remember that the page load speed measurement is how long it takes to load your entire website, not just your page. The final time is when your page renders completely in the browser. Always take that into account when planning improvements.

Colocation for web hosting

One of the biggest problems online is the advent of cheap hosting platforms that promise unlimited bandwidth for a few dollars a month. Any serious business should take these promises with a grain of salt. Not only do the terms and conditions heavily limit actual use, but they also leave room for arbitrarily suspending your account. If you are serious about web hosting, you should colocate your servers with a provider like Rack Alley. Here is why:

Physical access

With a colocation facility, you have to travel to the location to get physical access to the server. However, when it comes to web hosting, physical access is not necessary. Almost everything you need to do is possible remotely. If you use a Los Angeles colocation facility, then you cut down on travel.

Bandwidth

The biggest advantage with colocation is the amount and cost of bandwidth to your server. With a data center, you have access to massive amounts of bandwidth. You can serve as many uses as your physical hardware can handle. Also, you will be paying much lower rates than you would in a self-hosting environment.

Ownership

You own everything: the server and the software. You don’t need to pay additional licensing fees, or maintenance. Also, if the need arises, you can upgrade your hardware at any point. Need more memory? Just buy the new modules and have them installed.

Uptime

Last, but not least, colocation provides uptime guarantees for infrastructure that you will not get under any other circumstances without massive capital investment.

Three Major Search Engine Ranking Factors for Every Website

Search engine optimization (SEO) experts are constantly looking analyzing how major internet search providers such as Google and Bing rank the results of search queries.

Internet search providers are extremely secretive about their algorithms; this is the type of secrecy that prompts seasoned SEO professionals at a digital advertising agency to learn about the ranking factors that search engine providers program into their algorithms.

Here are three of the most significant SEO ranking factors for websites these days:

1 – Keyword Targeting

Google recently introduced RankBrain, an artificial intelligence component, to augment its search algorithm. RankBrain will ostensibly learn about natural language processing (NLP) for the purpose of ranking by topic instead of ranking by keyword. Notwithstanding this NLP approach, keyword targeting is still very significant because topics will always be written using keywords. If anything, RankBrain will make content creation less rigid; for example, an article about an online marketing agency should rank the same as an article about a digital agency because those are semantically similar terms.

2 – Mobile-Friendly Websites

In 2015, Google took the unusual step of actually announcing an algorithm update prior to its application. The Mobile Search Update specifically rewarded mobile-friendly websites with higher placement on the search engine results page (SERP) for queries coming from smartphones and tablets.

3 – Page Loading Speed

One of the best pieces of advice a digital ad agency can give to its clients is to improve website speed by means of proper HTML coding and adequate hosting. Google made page load times a ranking factor in 2010, and this is something it continues to recommend as a best SEO practice.

Sticky Web Media is a digital agency offering advanced marketing solutions to businesses of all sizes. Learn more at Stick Web Media.

Tips on Outsourcing Web Development and Web Marketing

Web development and marketing are things that all businesses need–but not all business owners can accomplish on their own. Designing an appealing, effective, intuitive site is complex and learning the ins-and-outs of digital marketing can take time–exactly what a small business owner can’t afford. Thankfully, there are plenty of Los Angeles internet marketing companies out there ready to help you with your web development and marketing–but there are some things you should consider when trying to pick the right one.

Look for Successful Companiesdesign-development

The Los Angeles internet marketing company you hire should have proven, successful results from other clients. They should be able to provide you with links to past clients, testimonials, and information about the increased business they’ve helped bring to those clients. If a marketing and web development company can’t provide those things, it’s possible that they aren’t at the top of their game.

Make Sure They Know the Rules

Los Angeles marketing and web development companies must have a firm, up-to-date understanding of best SEO practices and regulations, such as the CAN-SPAM law, in order to do their jobs both effectively and compliantly. Before choosing a company to work with, make sure to interview those you’ve found to ensure that they understand and apply the latest in SEO rules imposed by the big search engines and that they strictly adhere to all relevant laws regarding marketing.

Once you’ve found the right, compliant company, your business will be on its way to the top of the industry.

Los Angeles search engine marketing firm Sticky Web Media offers expert Web marketing strategies covering SEO, PPC and more. For information, click here.

Keyword Research Suggestions

Article written by : Internet Marketing Showtime

Google algorithms dominate the search engine optimization (SEO) industry. Every time Google roll out a new update, many online businesses as well as those who rely on the Internet for business opportunities including SEOs scramble to incorporate changes to their effort. This cycle needs to be broken in order to achieve business success.

Here is one strategy you can implement to get ahead of Google; rely less on keyword search. It’s a tall order but you can do it. Many of us emphasize on keyword search. Most of the data and research available also based on keyword search. Reliance on keyword search consumes too much of valuable time of SEOs and become harder every day since Google control keyword data. Instead of trying to master Google keyword process, why not develop your own keyword set? After all you are the best expert in your field of business and you have a ready vocabulary that explains your business better than anybody. You can start to build content around these. Once you develop your own set of keywords back test your data against available resources. This will help you to break the reliance on Google keyword search.

When looking for keywords and using keyword research tools, you will find the most searched keywords are also the ones that are the most competitive.  If you have a new site or very few links, there is no way you would rank for competitive keywords. Instead, focus on long tail keywords that get less traffic and are less competitive.

Top 5 SEO Tool Recommendations

Article provided by Pierre Zarokian from Submit Express.
Here are my top 5 SEO tool recommendations.
1) Majestic – This tool allows to check the number of backlinks and the details about them. There are several other available tools out there such as MOZ and ahrefs, but I like this better as it seems to have bigger database than all competitors.
2) Advanced Web Ranking – This is a ranking checker. I like this tool because it is cloud based. When I was choosing this, I looked at several competitors and I like this the best due to different formats of reports it offers. I specifically like the fact that one of the report views offers competing website reports, which if you do reputation management it can be configured to show results for positive and negative sites on one page with color codes.  If you run an agency, this is also great as you can give your customers direct access to only their own websites.
3) Link Research Tools – This is a great tool to use to find low quality backlinks that may be penalizing your website and to create a disavow file for Google. LinkDetox is a subset of this tool and is also available standalone. This tool can be pretty pricey. Link research Tools starts at $169/month and Link Detox starts at $95/month.  If you need to run only a few reports, I have seen a few people selling audits using this tool for $5 to $15 on fiverr.
4) Google Keyword Planner – There are several keyword tools out there, but I like to use the Google tool direct for keyword research and it has probably the most reliable info.
5) Keyword Spy – This is a neat tool that let’s you see what keywords your competitor is using or you can also type keywords to see what they estimated search volume is and the going Google Adwords PPC bids are for top clicks. The fee version will give you limited info, but if you want more data, you will need to buy a subscription.
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This article was provided by Pierre Zarokian SEO of Submit Express.  Submit Express has been around since 1998 and offers SEO Services,  Reputation Management, Local SEO and Email Advertising Services.  Visit their site to find out more.

Traits to Look For In A SEO

Article Written by : Leader SEO

While the concept of using and SEO is all well and dandy, there are some serious negative consequences to consider before heading down that path. For example, an SEO can give your website or pages a fake feeling to them. With this, you may receive increased hits or traffic, but it will all be ‘bad traffic’, or traffic that truly has no interest in the products or services you are selling and representing. An irresponsible SEO will not be willing to go the extra mile to ensure that negatives do not outweigh the positives in your venture, so finding and paying for a great and reputable SEO is absolutely necessary!

The ways in which an SEO may help though are rather numerous. First off, they have the ability to review your site’s content and structure; helping you to find ways to optimize and streamline your work to make it more efficient and easier for search engines to use. Secondly and perhaps more importantly, the technical assistance that should be able to provide on hosting, redirecting, backlinks, and JavaScript is what truly makes an SEO great. Without these tools, they are simply doing something that many site owners could do on their own time; a little spring cleaning. Therefore if an SEO is advertising his or her skills only with regards to keyword research or a specific background in a targeted demographic, be wary! These are things that just about anyone and everyone can dig up, so ask questions and be thorough when hiring these people.

Moz a site with best SEO tools

Moz.com (formerly SEOMoz) is a software development company and an online service specializing in search engine optimization (SEO).  Founded in 2004 it earned an annual income of $1.4 million.  However, at the end of 2011, it earned whopping $11.4 million in revenue.  Some of the tools are free with limited datasets; however, there are three different professional in depth and detail reports, Moz Pro for purchase.  Moz Pro shower its members with perks including discount on other related services including A/B testing platforms, social media tools and industry conference tickets.

The site is friendly and provides many attractive reports.  Some users have raved the site as one of the best for keyword search, link building and site analysis.  Moz provides a series of tools including Moz Term Extractor that shows the importance of words or phrases; Moztrust which compares trustworthiness of the Website to others; MozRank, an alternative to Google PageRank; a tool to compare relevance of a page with other similar samplings; YOUMoz, a tool to research popular search trends; and SEO Toolbar that audit SEOs.  The graphics and layout make it easier to drop screen grabs into any report helping novices to the technology.  This makes the site friendlier to those who like attractive reports.

Moz also has a few version of their tool called Open Site Explorer. It will allow you to do a few searches a day for free!

Why Long Tail Keywords Will Work For Your Website

Article Provided by Pierre Zarokian of Submit Express

Ever wondered why the simple keywords that you use to optimize content for your website have never brought about the results that you have hoped for. The truth is that many people look for these general keywords and several of your competitors would have used these keywords as well.

So what do you do if you want more traffic to your site?

The answer lies in the term “long tail keywords”.  These are specific phrases that people look for.  If you offer a product that is close to the phrase keyword, then you can be sure that the people who visit your site will certainly be interested in what you offer.

But how do you find these specific keywords?

First, put yourself in the user’s shoes. Let us say that you are looking for a product or service.  The first thing that you will do is conduct a Google search by typing in a string of four or five words that are related to a specific product or service.

Since people do this very often with Google, you can be sure that you will be able to find the keywords that are most related to your product by using SEO paid software that will help you find the most common searches.

Another great way to find keywords related to your product is to ask people what they would search for in Google if they wanted to know something about your product.  In doing a bit of research on the concept of SEO, you will definitely find better results the next time around in using these long tail keywords.

We recommend using this free keyword research tool by Submit Express, which will provide you some good keyword suggestions as well keyword traffic data.