What Is an ASP File? Files created with Active Server Pages have the extension .ASP. This story is an example; take a look at the address above. With ASP files, you can activate your Web site using any combination of HTML, scripting such as JavaScript or Visual Basic?

Is It Hard to Use? I don't know about you, but whenever people start talking about doing things on the server, I start to get nervous. I think a lot about threading issues, synchronization, and generally stuff without a user interface. I assume it's going to be hard to do. Well, using ASP is about as easy as anything I've come across in years.

Aw, Mom. Not Another Object Model! I really hate doing this to you, but I'm going to have to use that overused and overcomplex term "object model" again. Here's how it works. When a browser requests an ASP file from your Web server, your Web server calls Active Server Pages to read through the ASP file, executing any of the commands contained within and sending the resulting HTML page to the browser.

The problem with Search Engine Optimisation is that every body does it. Whenever a new technique gets into the public domain, it soon becomes overused. In order to maintain the credibility and usability of their search results, the search engines quickly reduce the weighting in their ranking algorithms of such techniques. Linking is a case in point. A central factor to “relevancy”, inward/outward links contribute significant weight to page rank and overall search ranking. However, as linking is now both hackneyed and abused, the SE’s are damping or reducing the weighting attached to certain types of links.

This has in turn led to a renewed emphasis on quality content – useful, unique, timely, fresh – and links that fit into this new paradigm are given more weighting than those that don’t. Not only are link farms out, but links on so-called resource pages, even when properly categorized and sparingly placed (not more than 100 per page) are being penalized. The SE’s, unable to fully differentiate between organic link building, and software-enabled, cookie-cutter link spamming have tweaked their algorithms to consider the context in which the link is placed. The number of links on a single page – for “quality links” not more than 5. The link to text ratio – the fewer links per quantity of text, the higher the link quality. The link relevance – both to the content of the page the link is hosted on, and the page it points to. The keyword focus – this should be as narrow as possible both to channel maximum ranking weight to the links, as well make for a readable, useful page.