gHacks technology news » traffic

Webmasters: Search For Links Posted On Twitter

Martin — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 11:16:01 +0000

Webmasters should be interested in comments and links that get posted about their websites. One very popular platform to post links on is Twitter which recently got more into the focus of webmasters when Techcrunch reported that Twitter was already the third highest traffic source for the popular technology blog. I have since then talked to a few fellow webmasters like my business partner Everton from Connected Internet who all confirmed that Twitter rose to become a very reliable source of traffic for their websites.

There are obviously two factors that play a role here. The amount of traffic that can come from Twitter depends largely on the Twitter users who post links pointing to a website on Twitter. The more users and the higher their follower count the better. It certainly depends on the content as well but the content is usually of interest if it is posted by a user.

Some webmasters like to monitor the dynamic process more thoroughly. The default Twitter search engine is no real help when it comes to discovering links pointing to a specific url or website on Twitter. BackTweets is a third party search engine that offers more reliable results. A search for ghacks.net would reveal nine results at the Twitter search engine and more than 4000 results at the BackTweets engine.

Results display the Twitter user who made the post, the post contents and the time it was posted. A click on the user icon or name will open the Twitter user page. A good way of finding new users to follow (and to thank them for posting links). An advanced search form is available as well which can be used to search in a specific date range or by Twitter user.

Backtweets is an interesting service for webmasters who want to analyse and increase the traffic that Twitter is sending to their websites.

Tags: backtweets, link analysis, link building, seo, traffic, twitter, twitter links, twitter search, webmasters

Measure exact throughput of any TCP IP network

Tobey — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:00:48 +0000

Wondering how much traffic can be pulled through the network you’re working in during certain period of time or how quickly your network components work? Yeah, be a networking proffesional or a regular home user with a small LAN (like me :) ), it’s always good to know what’s your network capable of. But how do we find out? Well, some smart IT guys thought a utility capable of precisely measuring the amount of data flow within a period of time could come in handy and were so kind to share these tiny yet sophisticated utilities. Though, you do need to be able to access both endpoints between which you want to measure since the applications must be running on both sides in a server-client setting. Let the measuring begin!

NetCPS – the easier way

This little tool called NetCPS (a single executable file) is rather simplistic, no fancy features as the author (credits to Jarle Aase) says. It pumps 100MB of generated data (without accessing the HDD which could mess with the final result) and then displays the result in form of average speed stated in both KB/s and MB/s. Sourcecode is available for download as well in case you’d like to do some further tinkering with it. Freely usable unless you intend to use it on behalf of military or government.

Example of use:

Server-side end-point: netcps -server
Client-side end-point2: netcps *IP address/hostname of the host*

Additional switches to change the default port (4455) and default amount of transfered data (100MB) are supported. Use the -help switch for further instructions.

Iperf – the powerful way

This tool on the contrary is rather advanced while still maintaining its portability and small size. It can measure performance with many different settings but those are optional and not neccessary for the essential purpose of finding out what the network’s throughput is. You can affect a lot of settings by changing them with various switches. Take notice of the example screenshot for instance, where the port used is changed to 1234, amount of sent data set to 200 MB, interval of reports set to 2 seconds for better accuracy and report format set to MBytes. Iperf can be run as a solid Windows service as well. Here’s a download link to the compiled Windows version of Iperf (a single executable).

Example of use:

Server-side end-point: iperf -s -p 1234
Client-side end-point2: iperf -c *IP address/hostname of the host*

Many additional switches and settings are available for advanced use of this nifty utility. The usual -help switch brings up further instructions again.

Tags: ip, iperf, netcps, network, tcp, tcp/ip, traffic

Netlimiter 2 Monitor

Martin — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 08:34:08 +0000

Do you know which applications and processes connect to the Internet on your computer ? If you use a firewall chance is that you had to define rules to allow certain programs the right to connect to the Internet. Sometimes however users think of this as a burden and use low security settings to prevent that they are being pestered all day with questions from their Firewall.

Netlimiter 2 Monitor is a sweet software that displays all open processes and applications on the system detailing their incoming and outgoing bandwidth along with ports, IP addresses and process numbers. That’s basically the same amount of information that my previous favorite Currports is displaying.

The first difference is that Netlimiter Monitor has a history function where it is displaying which applications connected to the Internet before on your system. Great for quickly checking out if an app is among the list that should not be there.

It’s definitely a great application if you want to evaluate the bandwidth usage of a process or software. I used it to keep an eye on Skype to see if my computer was used as a Skype supernode.

The Pro version of Netlimiter adds some interesting functions like Traffic Shaping, Network support, Network Tools like Whois and Traceroute, Remote Administration and Advanced Rules.

Tags: bandwidth monitor, currports, netlimiter, traffic, traffic monitor

AT&T considering spying on its users

Martin — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 10:06:08 +0000

AT&T are currently evaluating if they should implement a system that would in effect monitor all traffic coming through their lines in an effort to stop sharing of copyrighted material on the Internet using P2P networks. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson came up with a weak analogy to prove his point: “It’s like being in a store and watching someone steal a DVD. Do you act?”

Dear AT&T, dear Mr. Stephenson, are you aware that you can’t compare the theft of a DVD in store with downloading a DVD on the Internet. The theft of the DVD takes something away from someone while the second does not. It is not the same. But that’s not my main point of criticism, not at all.

AT&T is an Internet Service Provider which means that they provide the necessary infrastructure so that their customers can access the Internet. Let me ask you a question. What qualifies you to monitor or classify Internet traffic as copyright infringement ? Are you the police or a federal agency ? No you are not.

I’m not an expert in American law but I suppose that it is not allowed to spy on users that easily and even block traffic that has been analyzed before. Correct me if I’m wrong though.

What you are basically saying is that telephone companies should also eavesdrop on every call made because someone could plan or commit a crime over phone. What you are saying is that every letter and package send by mail should be opened and examined because someone could send copyright infringing material.

I’m sick of companies that side with the industry against their company. If you are a AT&T customer consider switching to another provider and LET THEM KNOW that what you will do if they follow this shady pass.

Tags: att, internet, internet filter, P2p, traffic

Monitor your traffic

Martin — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 07:47:13 +0000

If you want to monitor your network traffic either because you have an account that gives you only a limited amount of bandwidth each month or because you simply want to analyze the traffic that is sent over your connection during a special period. Netmeter starts in a small window immediately starting to record outgoing and incoming traffic as well as other data such as peak upload and download speed. You can adjust the transparency level of that window or move Netmeter into the system tray. You can also adjust the colors of the graph if you like but the default values can be nicely distinguished.

The most important feature of Netmeter is however not the current network traffic but the statistics that it accumulates over time. In short, it displays totals for the day, week and month as well as projected figures for the the same periods.

It also displays the peak upload and download which is the maximum amount of traffic that your connection was capable of. This can be used to analyze the download and upload limit of your connection. Helpful if your provider sold you a 16 Mbit connection but you only get speeds of 2 Mbit. Just make sure you use to download and upload data from a server that is capable of sending data in your maximum speeds.

Netmeter has an alert function that warns you when you reach a defined amount of gigabytes during a day, week or month. This is probably the best feature for users with limited bandwidth accounts making sure that you do not have to pay additional fees to your provider because you went over your bandwidth limit.

Best of all it is free to use and does not use many resources. Available only for Microsoft Windows. Found at Lifehacker.

Tags: bandwidth, internet, monitor traffic, netmeter, traffic

gHacks technology news » traffic

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