When I first started working with HTML, one problem I run in to was in order to create a great user experience I had to import scripts from several different third party service providers. For example, the site visitor data was kept by a one company and the contact form from another. The problem is that these companies that provide such services are asking too much in return from web developers. Not only they forcefully post pop-up ads and other useless materials, but also referral URLs to back to their sites are often open in the same window causing the visitor to exit the site itself. I managed to avoid some of these issues by loading PHP, SQL and Java databases to the server and facilitating packages such as WordPress. For items such as Contact forms now I use my own PHP script that save data on my own server. For visitor logging I created the ip log file code, but it is time consuming to go over millions of IP addresses to analyzing treads and traffic flow to this site.

Then here comes to Google Inc from California, USA. A company that provide great web management tools with far less issues compared to others. I use several services from Google that includes, the Google Analytics, Google Custom Search, Google Ads and Google hosted email services(aka Google Apps).

The Google Analytics service is a visitor data collection system. The administration control site provide a unique script with site-ID code attached, which I posted at the top of each page of this site. If you use a CMS like WordPress or you have a PHP include type loading for the header, you can simply paste the code to the header file. The Google do not ask for anything in return. In fact, they don’t even want you to post a link back to their website for this service. It is provided as a back-end hidden code that generate user behavioral data that includes, demographic information (based on IP), peak times, page visits and page popularity and customization friendly graphs. You can download the information as a CVS file for data backup of for other purposes.

Google Custom Search is great for all types of sites because Google Inc do a very good job on indexing the site contents. I would say that this is even better than the Worpress and other CMS based search systems. It also reduce the load on your server because if you use a custom search script using databases hosted on your own system, it may(it will, the only reason I use MAY instead of WILL is that processing power of a server depend on many factors and for simple PHP/HTML site, with a high end dual chip system will have little to no effect on processing…however, the Internet bandwidth WILL have a negative effect) hinder or slow down the processing power of the server and the data connection. The indexed information is kept on Google servers and when a user request search it will go to the Google servers and return with the data. Another nice thing about this is that they allow you to use your very own page layout for the search results and you can modify many aspects of the code for seamless integration. Because I love Google services so much, I posted a secondary link back to Google Inc. The code embedded link that they provide will open in a new window so that your visitor will not leave the site unintentionally. What a great way to support armature web developers!

I don’t think I have to say much about Google Ads…. It is a free service that provide you with access to millions of ads with great control over what ads will be posted on your site. You can block contents from as small things like, blacking all banking ads to religious materials to adult materials. In addition to that you can also block specific companies from promoting their items on your site. This is useful to some because let’s say you are selling bricks and an AD on your site appears from another brick making company. That’s bad for your business and Google Inc think so too. You can block them from appearing on your site by entering their main website URL to the block list! The amount of money you can earn from this service may depend on several factor such as popularity of your site, clicks per link and several other factors such as what type of ads appear on your site. You can read about the policies at Google Ads site.

In a world where companies take too much from their paying customers and expect too much out of their free users, Google Inc is a silver silver lining in the dark cloud of current markets, where Google provides a reasonable free service for web developers. I wish I can personally thank Google CEO, shareholder and others who made this possible.