On the front page there was left a message that the blog was hacked. The hackers left their hotmail addresses and the usual “cool hacker names”. Actually I could have generated the names myself with one of my name generators.

Well. It did not give them much fame. Hardly any visitors and my blog, and it was only down for 1 ½ hours. Unfortunately I can not give any safety tips, because I don’t have a clue about how they got in. But it was probably through a plug-in or a slightly outdated WordPress installation.

One of the best advice against hacking though, is to keep everything up to date. Here you can find some more tips about WordPress security.

Restore hacked WordPress blog

Well anyway. Here are  a short description of how I quickly restored my hacked  WordPress blog.

Step 1: Deleted all WordPress related files and folders on the server.
Step 2: Went to phpmyadmin and deleted all the WordPress tables.
Step 3: Installed a fresh WordPress.
Step 4: Used WordPress’s import function to retrieve my last downloaded XML export.
Step 5: Used Google’s cache feature to copy paste my last blog entry that was written later than the last export.

Total time approx. 1 hour.

Consequences of the hacking

But despite the fast restore the incident still had some consequences:

• Lost a handful of pictures. Obviously I just should have copied them over, but I actually forgot that I  had them, that I don’t use graphics much on the name generators blog.
• Lost the old skin. But it was probably all right.
• Lost a number of plugins. But very easy to reinstall the most needed.
• And then I got a new and fresh wordpress installation.

In such situations it’s a huge advantage to have an out of the box  WordPress installation. Makes restoring the hacked blog much easier.

And of course you also must have a proper WordPress backup.

So if anything looks a little strange here at the Name Generators Blog.  Or if youare missing any features it’s because of the above.

This spring I experienced the first sudden drop in the Google ranking for my name generators. The drop hit me after a SEO optimization of a single name generator. The name generators was approximately 1 year old at the time, so the Google rank had been pretty consistent in a fairly long period. The severe drop in the rankings hit me over night and was not only sudden it was also huge.

The pattern in the rank drop

I wasn’t completely removed form the Google index. But for most of my keywords I dropped out of top 300 hundred (didn’t care to look further). In the screen shot you can see that I for a few keywords kept my position, and for a few I “only” dropped 20-40 spots in Google ranking.

A little closer examination revealed that the pages, who had the best incoming links, was the one who was influenced least.

Overall I lost 80% of my visitors from Google due to this huge drop rank.

I understand from my discussion with other webmasters that this pattern in the ranking drop is quite typical for a too high keyword density.

The request for reconsideration of the website

I was pretty sure that I followed Googles guidelines for webmasters, but after the incident I of course carefully reexamined them. Still couldn’t find anything fishy. I knew I used my keywords to the limit and briefly feared keyword stuffing, but I still found my text easily readable. Also all my site was effected and not only the page I had made the on page SEO optimization on. And furthermore I wrongly expected a Google penalty would remove me completely form their index. So I quickly swept the feeling away.

Working professional with search and indexing I concluded it had to be a fluke in the Google index. Therefore I requested Google for reconsideration of  my website without making any adjustments to my site.

After 14 days I received this standard message from Google:

We received a request from a site owner to reconsider how we index the following site: http://online-generator.com/.

We’ve now reviewed your site. When we review a site, we check to see if it’s in violation of our Webmaster Guidelines. If we don’t find any problems, we’ll reconsider our indexing of your site. If your site still doesn’t appear in our search results, check our Help Center for steps you can take.

And everything was back to normal. No need to say I was relieved and grateful to Googles fair and fast treatment of my request for reconsideration.

Another severe drop in the rankings

The celebration lasted only 14 days, then the exact same thing happen again. Another severe and sudden drop in my Google ranking. Pattern was precisely the same as the first time. I had to dish my theory about the fluked Google index and admit that something on my pages had triggered the Google algorithms again.

I was back to my initial fear, keyword stuffing. And first at this point a used a keyword density checker to actually test my pages. And what a scaring surprise. At some pages the density of the main keyword was around 15-18%. The reason it was still readable despice the very high keyword density, was an extensive use of headings, slogans and one liners scattered all over the name generators.

Only one thing to do then. Rewriting all pages. After a long week the work was done, and the result double checked in another keyword analyzer tool. And many pages got a second fine adjustment.

And then I send another re-inclusion request to Google. I was honest about the keyword stuffing and described, what I had done to improve the quality of my site. 10 days later I was back to my normal Google rankings again. And after 4 days further I received the same standard message again. Apparently the Google bots and algorithms approved the site before the request was dealt with. And this time I was on the right site of the quality standards.

The essence of a good business names

• Are easy to remember
• Are easy to pronounce
• Looks good in writing
• Give positive associations to customers
• Distinguish you from your competitors

The business name generator

A business name generator is a great place to start, when you are trying to make good business names. It can ignite the creative process and in a short time give you a lot of different ideas and suggestions to work on with.

Of course a business name generator can’t come up with that perfect business name, but it’s a great tool in the brainstorming phase, and it really can help you think out of the box.

4 easy steps to the good business name

1. Brainstorming

In the brainstorm all ideas are good ideas. Write all the suggestions down to get as many name as possibles to choose from. Even stupid name suggestions are valuable because you can associate over them, and the associations can lead to new and more serious suggestions.

It’s a good idea to let a brainstorm run over several days or weeks to get time to explore more associations.  And it is also beneficial to brainstorm in different situations. At the traditional business meeting, during a walk in the park, over a lunch, during workout etc. The broader variety in the settings the more variation in the final ideas.

In the brainstorming phase a business name generator can be a very handy tool to get new inspiration and to help loosing up on the creative process.

2. Refining and filtering names

The next step is to choose from all the suggestions and ideas coming from the brainstorms. It’s is time to get rid of all the bad names. Check if the names easy to remember, spell, sounds good and is easy to pronounce. If you are going global it’s important to also thinking of these factors in foreign languages.

And it’s also time to take the initial research a little further. Is their any hidden meanings in the business names suggestions? Any Embarrassing spellings or abbreviations? Does the name  contain profanities or offensive undertones? Does abbreviations and acronyms look all right? And does the business name avoid implied associations with organizations and people  is not connected with?

Also remember to use Google to check, what results you get on your best business names ideas.

3. Check domain name availability

Next step is to check the domain name availability. Not much idea in choosing a name if you can’t get the corresponding domain name.

If the domain name is available you also need to check if your business name is already in use. Especially in your country and region, if you have a local company. The easiest method is to put your business name idea in quotation marks and do a Google search.  If Google doesn’t come up with anything then you should remember to check your local business register.

4. User testing

Finally you need to test your business names on potentially business partners and customers. A user test is extremely important, because the business name you have chosen might give other people some completely different associations and feelings than they give you. The worst case scenario is of course that go on line with a business name that sends completely  wrong signals.

If your business is international it is of course important also to check if the name doesn’t carry any profanities, insults or ridiculous meanings in the languages of any of the countries you operate in.

Good business naming resources

Business name generator. Inspiration and ideas to good business names. The Business name generator is a very easy to use and can really make you help think out of the box.

Brainstorming techniques. Description of some good brainstorming methods.

How to name a business. Tips to business naming from U.S. government.

Business registration in the U.S. Official business registration in the United States.

Guide to making Cool company names. A guide that describe different strategies to making cool company names.

The syntax highlighting plugin is  using GeSHi and supporting a wide range of popular languages. You just need to wrap my code blocks with “pre” tags and add a lang attribute, and an optinal line attribute.

 insert code here

The above gives syntax highlighting to JavaScript, and line numbers starting from line 1. The GeSHi – generic syntax highlighting framework supports a whole lot of different programming and mark up languages. I’m primarily interested in JavaScript, PHP, XML, python, CSS and Java. The line attribute detemines what line number the code will start at.

Thanks a lot to Ryan McGeary for writing this cool plug-in, that have made my name generator scripts and other scripting tutorials at the name generators blog so much easier to read and overview.

In this post I have collected the best tools for precise, fast and easy spell checking.

Online spell checking

Orangoo spell check is my favorite online spell checker. I just copy all my text from my code editor, paste it in the Orangoo and start the spell checker. When done, I copy the edited text and paste it back into my editor. Very easy and intuitive to use, and a great example of a simple online web application, that does the job in an easy way. No complicated configurations and choices to make. Just pure functionality.

Orangoo online spell checkers handles close to 30 different languages.

Alternatively Orangoo also offers a complete spell checking scan of your website. Type in the URL of your site and your e-mail, and you’ll receive a complete report of the entire website for spelling mistakes and typos.

Browser spell check

Spell checking in your browser is a lot easier that the online counterpart. It makes it a lot simpler to spell check blog posts, online articles, web-based emails and  posts on forum, facebook, myspace or whatever social networks and online communities you’re using.

Firefox has been offering build-in and inline spell checking since Firefox 2.0. It’s easy to change language of the spell checker and to download new language packages. All is done with a right click in your browser on the text area you wanna check for mistakes and typos. The Firefox spell checker performs a live spell checking. Just like we know it from our word processing software.

For Internet Explorer I highly recommend the ieSpell. ieSpell is a free Internet Explorer browser plug-in, that spell checks text input boxes on webpages. Opposed to Firefox ieSpell does not perform live spell checking, but need to be activated from the browser menu or a tool bar.  I have used this easy tool in many years and only have nice things to say about the plug-in.

Alternatives

When in doubt I sometimes use the Google search for a simple test. Their  “did you mean”-service is brilliant if you wanna spell check a single word or a simple phrase.

I also like to mention WordWeb. WordWeb is a English dictionary, thesaurus, and word finder software for Windows. The application is free for private use and is a great tool when you’re working with the English Language.

Feel free to add a comment if  I missed out on other easy spell checkers or methods.