|
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)
- updated 19th March 2012 -
How Do I advertise on this site.?
Google Advertising? (publisher partner identification code: UA-19167700-2)
All advertising on this site is handled by the Google Adsense team. Just refer goan.com's "Adsense ID" to the Google Adsense team. You can then advertise on "Best of the Net" with goan.com's Google Adsense publisher partner identification code: UA-19167700-2 .
What does GOAN stand for?
The meaning of GOAN?
The Indian residents of Goa would probably like you to believe that goan.com was a reference to a very beautiful holiday destination in Goa India. Unfortunately this is not the case. I was not aware of Goa until I had already registered the domain goan.com. NOW I AM! Hopefully I will get a chance one day, to visit that exotic location. The domain GOAN.COM is an acronym for "Global Online Academic Network" and named to reflect the origianl spirit of the internet back in 1997. Sorry to disappoint anyone who thought it meant something else.
Is the domain GOAN.COM for sale?
Why the domain GOAN.COM is definitely not for sale!
The domain goan.com was established in 1997 as "Best of the Net". Best of the Net had actually been up and running for at least a year before the domain goan.com was registered. I was asked by Lance Taylor (Redstation UK / origianally Atlantic Hosting) if I was willing to have the "Best of the Net" hosted on a UK server. Lance suggested hosting "Best of the Net" would be a good way to develop the web site further and increase interest in Atlantic Hosting. The answer was obviously "YES". Since then "Best of the Net" (in all its transmogrifications) has been hosted on multiple servers, in multiple countries and even had the logo registered in Australia as a trademark (waste of time). The domain goan.com is registered until 2021 and I do not think there are many other domains that are reqistered that far in advance. Several people have asked if they can buy goan.com! I have tried setting up mirror images of this domain on other servers but I cannot generate enough traffic to ever compensate selling goan.com, since this site has history, back links and internet credibility! So do not contact me about buying goan.com unless you are talking at least 8 figures thanks.
Why is my IP address banned from goan.com ?
Error 403 - Access Forbidden.
The most likely reason your IP address is banned, is that you are using a bot for URL harvesting or email scraping (creating spam lists). Email scraping (spamming) is now illegal and any bots trying to scrape email addresses from goan.com me will be banned permanently. Attempted hacking will also incur the same penalty. Any frequent access from a single IP address to goan.com that does not use GZIP compression is a "dead give away" to the fact that the bot is not a valid browser. Bots not obeying the robots.txt directives (crawl delay = 30 seconds) is also an indication of a bad bot. Malformed "user-agents" are also easily found as bots. The logs on this site are inspected by a human being (not a bot) every 8 hours and all malformed "user-agents" and bots that do use GZIP compression (requires up to 4 times more bandwidth) or do not obey the robots.txt directives are banned (including IP addresses if required). If you have a legitimate reason to pull information from this site using a bot, contact Mark Dickenson via the goan.com whois details and I will make a special arrangement.
Why is my Operating System version banned from goan.com ?
Error 415 - Media Unacceptable.
goan.com does not support Operating Systems that are over 10 years old or Server Operating Systems that try to access this site. In both cases, these types of operating systems are used by malicious bots. The oldest operating system supported is Windows XP Service Pack 3 (if Microsoft no longer supports their older operating systems then this site will not either). To fix this problem, install the latest service pack for XP or upgrade your operating system to the latest version. Also, goan.com has implemented HTML 5 extensions that can only be viewed with the latest versions of CSS3 stylesheet compatible browsers such as Chrome (Google), Firefox (ex Netscape), Opera, Safari, Internet Explorer 10 (only runs on Windows Vista and Windows 7), etc.
Internet Explorer 8 is not displaying maps on goan.com.
Upgrade to Internet Explorere 9+ or use the Google Chrome web browser. Internet Explorer 8.x (only runs on XP and previous versions of MS Windows) is no longer supported by Microsoft. IE 8.x and has multiple problems with the latest HTML 5 websites.
What is goan.com ?
goan.com is based on the Open Directory Project with major extensions added beyond the capabilties and scope of the Open Directory Project (ODP). Added functionality includes website snapshots, website Internet information and geo mapping of a website's host server location. The integration of Google custom search provides searches on the portal, the internet and also direct searches on the largest Internet domains such as Cnet Downloads, Ebay, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, YouTube, etc. goan.com is provided as an alternative to DMOZ.ORG which is often overloaded due to heavy user access, especially on weekends.
Does goan.com contain Adults only websites ?
There are no XXX adult content websites listed on goan.com even though they exist in the open directory project. Google custom search is preset to safe search. This site is safe for children and is a family friendly site. You cannot submit adult websites to goan.com even though they can be submitted to the open directory project.
What is the history of goan.com ?
goan.com was established in November 1997 and is the latest of a number of websites that Mark Dickenson (Qld, Australia) has run since 1996 which were either web directories or involved with internet browser filters. These have been goan.com (started as static HTML then moved to CGI scripting), bestofthenet.tv, bestofthenet.ws, advanced-internet-filters.com and goan.com. All of these sites have been merged over time into the goan.com website. This represents over 15 years development of the "Best of the Net" internet portal as it stands today.
What computer language is goan.com written in ?
goan.com utilizes the PHP programming language (Programmable Hypertext Preprocessor) - which is a free to use public internet computer language. The PHP source code used on this site is derived from the original public internet source code of Bjorn Borresson. See http://www.bybjorn.com/phpodp/. Bjorn lives in Norway and completed his IT degree at the University of Queensland (UQ) - Australia. The original PHP source code is less than 100 KBytes including comments (very efficient coding by Bjorn). The code on this site has been reduced to under 50 KBytes by removing code that is not relevant to goan.com.
The original PHP source code (by Bjorn Borresson) was updated (very minor bug fixes by Mark Dickenson) up until October 4th 2010. The code has not been updated since then due to an upgrade to Version 2.0 of DMOZ.ORG open directory project which will require a major re-write of phpodp to work again. Some of the phpodp code has been deprecated which makes it incompatible with the latest version of PHP. Bjorn is too busy with other (paying) projects to update the original source code, which he advised the last time I contacted him. You can always try updating the original phpodp code yourself if you are fluent in PHP.
The code used on goan.com has been heavily modified and updated from the original phpodp source code and is not available for public use. The code on this site is now domain specific and does not support DMOZ search, Amazon resellers, customisation to other domains, etc. The Internet info pages, website Whois information, Geo mapping, GZIP compression and Google custom search are extensions that have be added by Mark Dickenson and are not available in the original phpodp source code.
If you want a working web directory site written in PHP that is highly customizable, I suggest that you try PhpLD which can be found at http://www.phplinkdirectory.com/. PhpLd also supports the MySql database.
What type of server does goan.com run on ?
The goan.com website runs on a Unix Operating System (OS) which hosts the Apache internet web server. Apache internet web server also runs on the MS-Windows operating systems. Apache web server is public Internet software which is free to use. Of all the free to use (freeware) software available for the internet, Apache web server would have to be the best! Apache web server will also run on a Microsoft single user or Microsoft server operating system for free. That's awesome! If you want a pre-configured Apache web server for a MS Windows PC, checkout WAMP SERVER. Just download and install WAMP SERVER and you have your own PHP/CGI, MySQL, enabled, pre-configured Apache web server on your own MS Windows operating system for "free". Instant web development at your finger tips.
Does goan.com use MySql ?
No, goan.com does not use any kind of SQL database at all! goan.com uses the php md5 hashing algorithm (same as MySQL) for indexing pages.
Side Note:
For the hackers that keep trying to login to the MyAdmin account for SQL give up! It does not exist on this site. There is also no //Admin account, config files or setup files on goan.com either, so again don't waste your time. For the other hackers that keep trying to get a password from an exploit in a SQL server patch, you can't access that file since this site does not use SQL, so don't bother. Those that have tried (and keep trying) are banned from the site via Apache htaccess and the http requests forwarded (on an ongoing basis) to the FBI internet complaints website. Those trying to use the Internet info page to include your site in the goan.com site, it will not work. The Internet info pages are reference records created and used by the portal, not the other way round.
All attempted hacks on this site will result in a permanent ban of your IP address(es) - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Where is the data set(s) for goan.com derived from ?
goan.com utilizes the DMOZ.ORG (aka Open Directory Project) dataset as per the licensing details found on the DMOZ.ORG website. The dataset is freely available from http://www.dmoz.org/help/getdata.html
Google custom search - specifically setup for goan.com via Google Adsense. If you try to use the Google custom search code from goan.com for use on your own site, I will end up with the ad revenue - Thanks Heaps!!
Thumbshots are provided by thumbshots.com as per their licensing agreement. Updating of thumbshots is available through the thumbshots.com website.
Internet info is supplied via the PHP Whois module. The Internet "Whois" information is provided for legitimate research of website owners and hosting locations to identify possible internet fraud regarding E-Commerce. Unacceptable repeated accesses from an IP address of the Whois infomation from this website will have their access BLOCKED PERMANENTLY.
The PHP Whois module can be installed via the "PEAR" PHP extensionsons library on your own server rather trying to use goan.com.
Mapping is provided by the Google Maps API
GeoIP location info is supplied via the HostIP.info API
Note : GeoIP information of the host server location is only resolved to the "city" level on this site. If your GeoIP location is not found, please update your details on the GeoIP.info website and your IP location will appear on this site once it has been accepted by GeoIP.info. If location information details are inaccurate, please update your details on the GeoIP.info website. It will take a long time before the corrected information will be updated on the goan.com website due to long term caching of GeoIP information. You can always contact Mark Dickenson via the goan.com whois details and I will edit the GeoIP details directly on the goan.com website if the GeoIp database information is incorrect.
Is the data on Internet Portal.me available for use on other sites ?
Yes and No.
YES -
The data on goan.com is provided for the use of legitimate research via web browsing. Linking directly to pages that you are interested in is encouraged. You can even display goan.com pages within frames on your own site provided the entire page is displayed including the Google custom search form.
NO -
goan.com pages are not provided for bots that are used for email scraping or URL harvesting. These type of bots are aggressively banned and the site logs are inspected every 8 hours to ensure that there is no abuse.
Search Engine Bots
Currently, the only legitimate Bots accepted are Google, Yahoo, Baidu, Ask, Majestic, Yandex, Bing, Yeti, Soso, Yadou and Sogou. All bots are limited to a crawl rate of 1 page per 30 seconds. Google, Bing and Yahoo index all languages. Other languages indexed (so far) are Yandex - russian, Yeti - korean, Baidu - japanese & chinese, Soso & Sogou & Yadou - chinese.
How many pages have been indexed on goan.com ?
As of 12th March 2012, Google has indexed over 720,000 pages (varies from day to day). Google webmaster tools reports that it is aware of over 1,500,000 pages on goan.com so far and the count keeps growing daily (many pages are blocked in robots.txt).
Can I submit a website directly to goan.com ?
No, all websites must be submitted to and accepted by DMOZ.ORG (Open Directory Project) before they will be available on goan.com. Websites are submitted directly to the Open Directory Project via the "Submit a Site" link at the bottom of an appropriate category page on goan.com. Please note that submissions to the high level directories may be restricted.
Can I become an editor of goan.com ?
No, at least not at present. However, you may become an editor of the Open Directory Project by applying via the "Become an Editor" link on a appropriate category page on goan.com. Please note that requests to become an editor to the high level directories may be restricted. The "Become an Editor" link is provided as part of the licensing agreement for the Open Directory dataset.
You can contact Mark Dickenson via the goan.com whois details if it is important. If you are after the source code for this site, it is not in the public domain, so please do not ask. You can always contact Bjorn Borresson (see http://www.bybjorn.com/) and he might be interested in upgrading the original source code (which does not currently work with DMOZ 2.0) for a fee if he is not working on other projects.
All advertising on goan.com is handled by Google Adsense, so it is best to contact Google directly if you wish to advertise on this site.
goan.com (c) 1997-2012
Mark Dickenson
Noosa Heads
Queensland
Australia
| 
