Update 5/9 : added mp3-center.org

Update 13/8 : added mp3int.com and torrentplaza.

General

The Pirate Bay



• The Pirate Bay is the 305th most visited internet site as of May 30th, according to Alexa.
• The Pirate Bay was raided by Swedish police on May 31st, went offline till June 3rd where it came back with new a new hosting location in Netherlands. Plans to setup backup servers included Belgium and Russia.
• Since reopening the visitor count doubled and The Pirate Bay became more popular than ever thanks to the media coverage.
• Directly after the raid, advertisement revenue on the site shot up to a speculated $75, 000 by Swedish newspaper SvD.
• Reports indicated bandwidth usage of The Pirate Bay to be at 2,000 HTTP requests per second across all 4 of it’s servers.

Mininova



Started in January 2005 as a successor to the then very popular SuprNova that was taken down in 2004 due to legal issues.

• Anyone can upload any torrent to the site, tracked by any Bittorrent tracker.
• Mininova does not log visitor IP addresses
• Mininova is porn free.
• ‘mininova’ is Google’s 9th most searched term in 2006.

Demonoid



• Created by an anonymous Yugoslavian who goes by the nick of Deimos.
• Torrents are externally indexed and Demonoid-tracked torrents are easily found on other Bittorrent sites like Mininova and thePirateBay.
• New membership registrations are only held once a month. However, existing users who are in good standing have the ability to send invites.
• Demonois is porn free.
• A sister site called Demonorgy was created but shut down after a few months when the owner couldn’t keep up with website maintainence.
• Demonoid keeps users with good upload/download ratio and automatically ban users with lousy ratios.

isoHunt



• At the time of viewing, isoHunt indexes 713,176 online torrents in its database with over 15.11 million peers.
• As of May 2006, isoHunt boasts of 7.4 million unique visitors. An average of over 40 million unique searches are performed each month.
• isoHunt is derived from the term ISO image that describes a 1:1 soft copy of a CD or DVD, a format often used in peer-to-peer file distribution.
• Earlier in 2007, isoHunt restructured it’s server setup and bought lots of new hardware for the cluster which now includes a total of 34 Opteron cores, 70 GB in ram and 30 hard drives ranging from SATAs to 15k rpm SCSIs.

TorrentSpy



• Hosts externally tracked torrent files
• As of 18th June 2007, TorrentSpy has 668,329 torrents indexed with an average of 800 new torrents everyday.
• On May 29th 2007, a federal judge ordered TorrentSpy to monitor user activities and submit logs to MPAA. TorrentSpy indicated that it will turn off US access before it started monitoring anyone, to maintain TorrentSpy’s own privacy policy.

TorrentReactor



• As of 18th June 2007, TorrentReactor has a total of 354,330 torrents hashed.
• Files are not hosted on the server, but available from peers of the bittorrent network.
• A ‘health’ bar is used to show peer ratios. The more the seeds, the better the health.
• Get ideas of what to search for through the top movie, music and game charts.

FullDls



• FullDls has 446,753 torrents in it’s database at the time of viewing.
• It has an average of over a thousand new torrents added everyday.

TorrentScan



• At the time of viewing, TorrentScan has the ability to search 14 other major search engines from a single spot.
• TorrentScan does not maintain a database of torrents that it finds when indexing the site.
• Preserves advertisements on other sites though it may be slow when switching between search engines.




Music

Mp3000.net



mp3000.net is the bomb! DIRECT DOWNLOAD mp3s for FREE. No registration required. Make full use of this site while it lasts.




Mp3Int.com



Another free mp3 direct download site. No registration required.




MP3 Center



And another one.




Films

Flix Flux



FlixFlux is a films specialist torrent meta search engine. Launched in 2006 with basic search function besides a list of new film releases. All torrents contain information details such as the genre, rating and plot information. You can even watch the actual trailers before downloading the torrent.




TorrentPlaza



Get all the latest high quality movie torrents as they come. If you cannot wait, there are always the DVD Screeners (promotional copies). Rest assured that ALL movie torrents are personally selected and reviewed to prevent spam, scam, virusses, adware and mallware. All the indexed DVDrips and DVDscrs are the kind of movies that have a very good video and audio quality.




TV

TvTorrents



Contains every tv episode imaginable that has been aired before in the US. TvTorrents has a system whereby it allows only users with good upload/download ratios to download torrents. Registration is free.

TheSprawl



Contains all the latest high quality tv series, day by day. No registration required. Dowload tv torrents for free.

People cheat for the same reason that dogs lick their balls. Because they can.

Over the years countless people have been intentionally mislead to achieve financial goals of unscrupulous people. The first known scam ever published by the press was in 1849 during the trial of William Thompson who was known as the ‘confidence man’. He would chat with strangers until he asked if they had the confidence to lend him their watches, whereupon he would walk off with the watch. Thompson was captured when a victim recognized him on the street.

Below are 12 types of common scams reported around the world.

1. Prizes and lotteries

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• You have been proclaimed by people or letters to have won a vacation, prize or competition you do not remember entering.
• You may be asked to pay a deposit to access your prizes.
• Some others are just ploys to sell cheap stuff like poor quality jewelry at exaggerated prices.
• Some may ask for personal details instead of money. Providing any detail will only widen the exposure to other scams. Victims’ bank account number have been used to make unauthorized withdrawals and credit card to incur additional charges.
• Some approaches to consumers are made by overseas lottery ticket sellers. Most are illegal. Even in the USA, there are restrictions. Find out more about it here.

Solution

• Always ask yourself, ‘What’s the catch’?
• If you really have won something, you need not pay a cent.
• Never give your personal banking or credit card details to unknown traders or companies.

2. Astrology / Psychic Related Cons

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• Consumers will be told by psychics, who claim to have seen visions of your rich future, to pay a fee to receive their lucky numbers, talismans, golden eggs or guides.
• Some people are just so vulnerable. Consumers have been known to send thousands of dollars in the name of ‘good luck’ to only realize that the items that they receive are crap quality pieces of cards or beads.
• Respond once and you will be targeted for further scams.

Solution

• Do not respond. Once they sniff interest from you, they will keep hounding you.
• Never give credit card or bank account details to people you don’t know about.

3. Advanced Fee Scams

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• Nigerian-style scams are one of the most common types of advance fee frauds.
• A ‘relative’ of a senior government official in mainly African countries writes asking for assistance in getting funds out of their homeland by depositing the money into your bank account.
• A response will trigger them to ask for advanced money to process the payments or bribe officials.

Solution

• Do not ever give personal information to someone you do not know or trust.
• Do not respond to any offers.

4. Pyramid schemes

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• Also known as franchise fraud or multilevel marketing are investment frauds in which an individual is offered a distributorship or franchise to market a particular product.
• It is a system of selling in which you sign up other people to assist you and they, in turn, recruit others to help them.
• You see, success in multilevel marketing means continuously getting additional people to join the pyramid. What many people don’t see is the practical limit to how many distributors can be found and to how many product units that can be sold.
• Many of them will have no real commitment to the program. They may have been high-pressured, just like you, to become a distributor.
• Entrance fee to include yourself as a node to the pyramid is usually very high.

Solution

• Understand the fact that there is no easy way to wealth, with the only exception of the genius who originated his multilevel marketing organization.
• NOTE whether the basis of the promotion is the sale of a product at the retail level, as opposed to an emphasis on recruiting more and more distributors to help you increase your income.
• Refuse to commit to anything at high-pressure meetings or seminars. Take time to do your homework on the scheme. Think it over and seek professional or legal advice.
• Check that any products can be returned if unsold. Refuse schemes that require you to purchase more inventory than you need.

5. Email Scams

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• Email spammers have access to lists of email addresses to send fraudulent emails to which can cover millions of internet subscribers in an instant. Word lists to registered Internet domains not even knowing if they are actual email addresses.
• A handful of replies from victims at no cost is still a good deal to them.
• An option to unsubscribe to their mailing list has become a method to verify that they have reached a real email account. By replying, you may find that you are targeted with more spam.
• The most common scams will claim that they come from your bank or credit card company. Your account details and your PIN will be requested by return email or through a website. By responding you are opening yourself up to identity fraud, spam and viruses.

Solution

• Do not open email from unknown people. Delete it from your in-box and empty your email trash can.
• Do not open email that is not specifically addressed to you.
• Do not open email that promises you some unrequested benefit.
• Most email systems today provides spam/junk protection. If not check this out.
• Remember spam can be used to send spyware that saves your keystrokes.
• Be careful of unsubscribe and remove options on unsolicited email. Do not click on any link. The link may be used to confirm your email account details and send more spam to you.
• Protect your email address by only providing your email contact details to organizations that you know and trust.

6. 1-900 Premium Rate Numbers

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• Fax back scams that usually offers weight loss programs, employment opportunities or competitions, use 1-900 premium rate numbers to incur very expensive charges per minute.
• There have also been reports of defrauders using slow responding fax machines to suck more cash out of victims.

Solution

• Know that ALL 1-900 services will always cost higher than average phone services.
• Ignore any 1-900 offers that are supposedly urgent or time limited.
• Avoid any overseas services linked with 190.
• Avoid any 1-900 services that do not clearly disclose the total cost of their service.
• I know it may not be easy but read all terms and conditions carefully first.
• Shop or ask around locally to see if the offers are available elsewhere, cheaper.
• Shopping locally will always give you better redress if something goes wrong.

7. Directory Listings / Registry Scams

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• Posing as publishers of magazines, directories or internet sites, these scammers will call business and community groups.
• They repeatedly send invoices and demand payment without signed authority for an advertisement in a poorly circulated or non existent publication.
• Some may even pose as government officials. Victims have reported being sent business invoices to ‘renew’ their internet domain name registration for double the cost.

Solution

• Do not give personal or banking details to anyone you do not know and trust.
• If a call or letter is supposedly related to an existing arrangement, contact the organization yourself to verify and request a copy of your signed authority.
• Request the street address and phone number of any new advertising offer and check them out with Consumer Protection.
• All orders regardless of how small, should be recorded and cross-checked by the person who pays the accounts.
• Never pay anything that has not been authorised or fully understood.

8. Investment scams

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• The calls often come from overseas and offer you high returns for your money. Sometimes an appointment is made for a ’senior adviser’ to call back. They generally offer share, mortgage or real estate investments, high return schemes, option trading or foreign currency trading.
• They are persistent and bent on making you look foolish when you say no.
• People with specific religious or community interests are targeted with promises to send profits to charity or worthy causes.

Solution

• Work out the risk first.
• Always investigate money making schemes very carefully before parting with your money. Take time to seek professional or legal advice.
• Take time to do some homework first. Don’t be pressured into making a decision on the spot.
• Ask for published independent substantiation of projected earnings, current financial statements, and prospectus. Ask for proof of testimonials of financial success.
• Ask the scammers these questions and they’ll probably hang up in embarrassment:
  - What is your securities dealer’s license number?
  - Who is lodging your prospectus?

9. Employment scams

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• Defrauders are using the internet, newspaper advertisements, seminars, mail and direct approach to lure people into self-employment schemes. Instead of making money, it ends up costing money.
• Look out for ‘make large amounts of money quickly and with little effort’, ‘work from home’, ‘requires payment for registration or for more information material’
• These scams sell information of no value, some pretend to provide skills which turn out to be unmarketable, and others pyramid schemes which rely on recruiting or luring others into joining.
• Computer gambling or share market software programs that guarantee winners is a scam.
• Money transfer or money mule schemes are worse. It’s money laundering. You will be prosecuted. There is no way around it.
• Anti-fraud experts say the money being transferred is often stolen from other people’s bank accounts via the Internet. Defrauders use Trojan and key logging viruses to capture customer online banking details. Once you receiving the money, you take your share and pass the rest to a prearranged overseas destination.

Solution

• There is no ‘easy way’ to make money from home.
• Get details before committing to anything.
• If you are asked to pay money, find out more.
• Always ask yourself, ‘Why contact me when we have no business relations at all’?
• Find out if there is a market for the work you plan to do.
• Check whether there are special legal requirements such as licenses or other constraints on working from home.

10. Door to Door

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• The product or service may be real or fake. Either way, con artists can still act illegally to the detriment of other people.
• It may be roof repair, maintenance, bitumen work or telephone services but they are itinerant and flee as soon as they have their money.
• Payments come in the form of deposits or full, in cash or by credit card. As checks can be easily canceled, they are not an option.
• Genuine door to door salespersons will always show personal identification and neither pressure nor require you to purchase any good or service.
• Genuine sales come with an official receipt with the company’s registration number, name, address and telephone details.

Solution

• If it’s a survey, ask for identification. Surveys are often a means to make an appointment for a salesperson to call. If you accept, make sure you know the name and address of the salesperson and of the company.
• If you are smart enough like the rest of the world, you won’t be cheated of claims such as `your roof needs painting’ or ‘your vacuum cleaner doesn’t work properly’.
• Never accept quotes at face value. Always do your homework, compare prices and terms.
• Get everything in writing. Ask about warranty coverage and periods and know all the costs before signing anything.
• Salespeople are required to show you company identification when you request it. Make a written note of the person’s and the company’s name, address and telephone number.
• If you think the salesperson is pressuring you or preying on your emotions, such as your fear, need, curiosity, sense of obligation, then give a simple ‘No’ ask them to leave. If the message didn’t get through, then just tell the salesperson to f**k off.

11. Gambling systems

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• Will you sell a system to make money if it was a certainty? Isn’t it like finding a treasure chest and telling the world where to find it.
• Usual targets are retirees and people with funds to invest.
• The promotion of the system of reaping money from horse racing, lottery tickets or share market do not have the word ‘gambling’ on it.
• They will promise huge returns based on past results which are actually manipulated to prove a particular outcome.
• The schemes may involve a SMS service to your mobile phone to tell you which teams to bet on.
• Let’s take a look at how the football picks scam works. First, the scammer sends out tip sheet stating a game will go one way to 50 potential victims and the other way to another 50. The next week, the 50 who received the correct answer are divided into two groups and fed another pick. This is repeated until a small population have received a series of supernaturally perfect picks then the final pick is offered for sale.

Solution

• These are high-risk schemes and are not worth wasting your money on.
• The high-pressure sales tactics and slick presentations are crap. Let it swirl around your head first.
• It is very easy to claim that you predicted that a particular team won a match after the match has finished.
• If it’s a horse race, ask yourself how a computer can make an accurate prediction on a horse race based on weather conditions, the state of the horse, the jockey, the track, the draw and luck? How can a computer predict what numbers will be drawn in a game of chance like Lotto?
• All ‘Get rich quick’ schemes are crap. Higher returns mean higher risks. If common sense says that it sounds too good to be true, then it is.

12. Telemarketing

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• Though annoying, telemarketing is a legitimate marketing practice. However consumers need to be alert to con artists who use it cheat people.
• Telemarketing is big business with companies wanting to sell you goods and services, to participate in surveys, or to make donations to charities.
• You may be contacted by an operator, sometimes a telemarketer based overseas.
• There are also automated prerecorded voice messages and, pop up internet ads which require you to contact a telemarketer. Some may also encourage you to respond to voice interactive premium telephone services which can charge up to $5 a minute.
• Automated dialing equipment which randomly dials numbers, and if you answer the phone, the telemarketer is switched through to you.
• Most telemarketers are very good sales officers that catches you off guard and try to get you to agree to something right there and then.
• Consumers usually agree to buying services and goods without understanding exactly what they are getting, or the exact terms and conditions of the offer. For example, people have agreed to buy overseas accommodation without realizing the package does not come with airfare.
• Some telemarketers start their sales pitch with ‘Congratulations! You’ve just won yourself a ….’ or ask you to participate in a survey, when in fact they are just trying to hook you in.
• Never agree to buy anything until you’ve done homework and find that it is of value to you. Introduce a delay to allow you to ’sleep on’ the offer. If not, forget it.

Solution

• Tell them to ring back at a time that suits you.
• Always check out the terms and conditions of the contract before agreeing to anything.
• Compare prices on any goods or services offered with local traders first.
• It is very difficult to enforce your consumer rights with a company based overseas.
• Any opening pitch which says ‘Congratulations, you have won …’ is questionable.
• If you are asked to participate in a survey or poll, ask questions to make sure it is legitimate and not a pitch to sell you products, or worse, criminals trying to ascertain your movements
• Your personal details are worth money to others, like telemarketers, so guard it carefully.
• Below is a video of the greatest thing ever said to a telemarketer.

There are many things that you can do to optimize your website for better ranking in search engines. Below are a list of things that anyone can do to rank better. I’d like to imagine search engines using a point system to govern the billions of websites in the universe, giving points for elements and keywords that will help in bringing the most relevant results to searchers. I’ve divided the list into 3 different categories, for better understanding of the importance that each item brings. Important, quite important and very important.

Very Important



Keywords in < title > tag

Imagine walking down a street with dozens of shops on the left and right, each with a name at the top, wanting to buy a table lamp. The street is busy and as you walk down further, you see a shop with the name of ‘Lights & Lamps’. You walk in, buy that table lamp you’ve been searching for and walk out. Little did you know, the shop next door also sells table lamps but with a cheaper price. You didn’t notice it cause it’s name was ‘Mr Chee’. It’s name sounded more like a restaurant than an electrical store.

Shop = your site
Signboard = < title > tag

Keywords in URL

http:// rangit.com / keywords-in-URL /

Directory names can help rankings in Google even if competition is competitive although keyword stuffing in URL may contribute to the site being flagged as spam. If the content is of quality and it matches, you’ll have full points for it.

Keyword density in content

Keyword density is the ratio of the word that is being searched for against the total number of words appearing on a given web page. A naturally written document contains a keyword density of at most 10%. It’s one of the simplest way of gaining points in search engine rankings. Chris did it.

Keywords in anchor text

The anchor text of inbound links can be a decisive factor when going after top ranking on extremely competitive search terms. John Chow displayed the power of anchor test when he lured anchor text in the form of contests, though linking for prizes is considered a violation of Google’s terms and conditions.

Keywords in headings

There are six levels of headings from < h1 > (the most important) to < h6 > (the least important). User agents may use headings to construct a table of contents for a document automatically. If the content is of quality and relevance, you’ll have full points for it.

PR of inbound links

In the world of Google, the higher your PR the higher your reputation. Getting an inbound link from a high ranking site will certainly give more value to the inbound link.

Site similarity of inbound links

A hundred related sites linking to yours is more valuable then a thousand unrelated sites. Full points is awarded for relevance and and similarity.

.edu and .gov inbound links

Both top level domains are not sold to the public, hence the value. They don’t expire, are trusted and an inbound link carries much more weight than any other.

Quantity of inbound links

The more the better. It’s like voting. 1 link = 1 vote. All legitimate ones are counted and weighted against link popularity and originating context.

Site accessibility

Just think like a website visitor and your best selling layout is generated in your mind. Improvements include checking browser compatibility, reducing password protected areas, 404 errors and broken links. Getting more pages successfully indexed will earn a site full points in this area.

Another fundamental issue, which that is often neglected. If the site (or separate pages) is unaccessible because of broken links, 404 errors, password-protected areas and other similar reasons, then the site simply can’t be indexed.

Unique content

Content is king. Wrong.

Unique, high-quality, unduplicated content is king!

Regular content changes

Frequency of content updating in blogs and websites are becoming of more value to Google than it used to be. The more frequent the content, the more likely others are going to visit your site and find articles that they want to link to, which in turn provides leverage in SERPs. I personally regard frequent content updating as the BEST marketing tool you can ever have in today’s web.




Quite Important



The first in line

The heading should contain the most important keyword. Followed by a paragraph containing all the important keywords. Logic being the higher up the keyword, the more important it should be.

Keywords in < alt > tags

< alt > tags are considered by all 4 major engines. Use them to describe images. Put appropriate keywords in them as long as they actually describe the picture.

Anchor text of internal links

Internal links are hyperlinks that join the documents in the website. This is assuming you have more than one page which should be the case if you are serious about optimizing your site. As you have direct control over these internal links this is the place to start using the keywords that you are targeting in the anchor text.

Around the anchor text

Search engines pay attention to all of the text around a link as key words and descriptions to further indicate the relevance of the link. The text around it is also used to determine the nature of the link, whether if it is artificial or natural.

Age of inbound links

Think of it as wine. Also, gaining links consistently will certainly appear natural to search engines. A sudden spike in links will certainly alert them.

Links from directories

Certainly a boost in rankings. However, the most boosts will come mostly from huge directories like dmoz.org, yahoo directory, or about.com.

Age of document

Recent and regularly updated documents gain points from search engines.

Sitemap

Gain favor with search engine spiders. Every website should have one. Here’s a suggestion. Try this sitemap generator.

Site size

The bigger, the better. Also, take user friendliness and ease of navigation into consideration as it grows.

Site age

The older the site is, the more recognized and regarded it will be. Trust points are awarded to respected and established sites, for they indicate the notion that they have been around and are here to stay.

Site theme

This is an area that matters a lot as it promotes the ranking of pages that are related to the theme. The theme ‘because you value your mind‘ is one example of low theme/content relevance.




Important



Keywords in < description > and < keywords > metatags

Since the search engines use a wide variety of factors to determine site rankings, optimizing a page to rank high is a cumulative effort. You should use everything available to you that the engines might give some weight, and therefore you should certainly use < Description > and < Keywords > metatags along with every other legitimate, acceptable technique available. At best, it may help boost your site a bit in those engines that still read them.

Keyword phrases & adjacency

The gap between 2 keywords is best when close to each other. Imagine ‘heart surgery’ in the first paragrgaph compared to ‘heart’ in the 1st sentence and ’surgery’ in the 10th sentence. Keyword phrases stand a better chance when it is popular like ‘free online dating’ or ‘make money online’.

Secondary keywords

Rank better for targeted traffic. Imagine battling with hundreds of thousands of others for ‘plastic surgery’ compared to a handful for ‘plastic surgery manchester city’.

Misspelled keywords, Word stemming and Plural keywords

Sometimes misspelled keywords can represent a very high number of searches. Obviously, you don’t want to have misspelled words be visible on your page, however, it is a good idea to include them in your keywords meta tag.

Word stemming refers to the use of root words as synonyms for other words. For example, the word “climb” will be treated the same as “climbing”. Most search engines use word stemming, but in many cases the search results will vary. It is best to add the most commonly used versions of each word.

You will also find different results when searching for singular and plural keywords. It is best to include both.

Synonyms

Search engines do take into account synonyms of targeted keywords besides the main ones. The site get points from search engines when ranking and relevancy is calculated.

Total outgoing links from the page that links to your site

Scarcity brings value. Imagine an ice cream sale everyday and an ice cream sale once a month. The less outgoing links that the site has, the more value it brings to your site.

Named anchors

Using named anchors where appropriate improves keyword relevancy. When links are in the form < a href="/keyword.aspx#keyword" >, then keyword targeting is improved.

IP address of inbound link

MSN and Yahoo! may not take into account inbound links that originate from the same IP classes. However, Google takes all inbound link IP classes into account.

Page size

A page size of < 40KB gains more favor than a page size of > 100KB.

Location of files

The nearer a file is to the root directory, the better it ranks. Imagine comparing it against another file that is stored in the 5th layer of the tree.

Domains and Subdomains

The domain name http://rangit.com is definitely given more points by search engines compared to the subdomain of http://rangit.wordpress.com

Hyphens in URL

An underscore ‘_’ is not considered as a divider by Google.
Only hyphens ‘-’ are.