What is a cookie? This post is suggested by Alison Cross over at paganmoontarot.com.

Cookies are little pockets of information that websites attach to you as you move through a site. These pockets contain info like which pages you have looked at, and how you first found the site (was it from Google, or did you click on a link from elsewhere?).

Cookies are the way in which almost all website visitors are tracked and measured. At any one time you will have thousands of cookies attached to your web browser from all the websites you have visited in the last 30 days.

Cookies also enable lots of website features to work properly. Here’s a good example that has just come up. If you vote in a poll on a website, that website will attach a cookie to you that says ‘this person voted in the poll’. This will mean the ‘poll’ will only display the results of all the votes, rather than letting you vote again.

Of course it can be useful sometimes to delete your cookies. If you want to do that, then read our post on how to delete your cookies.

Got a cookie question? Leave us a comment below.

Google verify is an advanced webmaster tool that is now integrated into the WebEden website making system. We’ve released this following much hard work and thanks to lots of requests from you, the user.

Google Verify is an important way to let Google know about your website. It helps Google to find all the content on your website, and allows you to quickly update them when your website changes. If you use Google verify it also means that you get access to information that Google holds about your website. Once you know what they know about your website, you can take steps to change and improve that information. The ultimate goal, as ever, is to improve your position in the Search Engine Results page; and also to improve users experience on your website.

All users can now use Google Verify with their WebEden websites.

To add Google Verify to your site, please just follow the simple instructions below:

1.    Log in to your website
2.    Select “Admin” on the toolbar
3.    Visit the “Site Information” tab
4.    Click on the “Sign up for Google Webmaster Tools” button
5.    On the bottom of the Webmaster Tools panel click “Get your Google ID”
6.    Google should open in a new window and ask you to sign in
7.    You’ll be taken to the Google “Dashboard”
8.    Add your website address in blank field and click “Add Site”
9.    Look for the “Next step” box and select, “Verify Site”
10.    Go to the “Verification Method” drop down and select “Add a meta tag”
11.    Copy the code string e.g.: <meta name=”verify-v1″ content=”UqbdIVXyU8m8PIvMSJLj+W6bf5Sa4An1CZcxazTgafs=” />
12.    Return to your website and paste the code string into the blank field in the “Webmaster Tools” panel
13.    Click “OK”
14.    Click “OK” on “Admin” panel
15.    Your site will now have the Google Verification code added to the HTML

N.B. The code string given above (<meta name=”verify-v1″ content=”UqbdIVXyU8m8PIvMSJLj+W6bf5Sa4An1CZcxazTgafs=” />) is an example, please do not use this, it won’t work! You must register with Google and request your own

If you’re an advanced website builder, or you’re trying to become one, then try out Google Verify and see what it can show you. Leave us a comment and let us know how you get on.

Here in support at WebEden we get lots of support calls and emails with questions that we hadn’t even considered were relevant.

Why didn’t we consider them? Well the truth of the matter is that we made an assumption about the knowledge level of our customers. This came from the fact that we’ve all been working in the Internet Industry for the last 10 years, and in that time we’ve started to take lots for granted. What we should have been doing is looking at our service through the eyes of our customers.

So with that in mind, we’re going to use this category to explain a some of the Internet jargon that has evolved. We want to break it down in a really simple way, to make sure that as your website building gets more advanced, your knowledge grows too. If there’s anything in particular you’d like explained, leave a comment below.