By Simplifying The WEB SEO and SEM are two terms that are commonly bandied about by webmasters. Sometimes it seems as if the two terms are used almost interchangeably. But is there a difference, and if so, what is it? In fact, there is a difference. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It refers to anything you do to your page to make it more search engine friendly. SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. It forms a sort of umbrella term that can refer to anything you do to get your page ranked higher in search engines, from search engine optimization to requesting backlinks to submitting your URL to search engines. It's important to know the difference between the two when you're shopping for SEO or SEM services. If the company doesn't specify what services it offers as part of its "SEM Package," then don't hesitate to ask. And don't hand over any money until you know! Some companies may mean nothing more than submitting...

W3C is pleased to announce that registration is now open for the next edition of the most popular W3C online training course, Mobile Web 1: Best Practices . The 6-week course begins 30 April 2012. It will help Web designers and content producers who are already familiar with the desktop world to become familiar with the Web as delivered on mobile devices. It is based entirely on W3C standards, particularly the Mobile Web Best Practices. Along with the course description , read comments from past students and what they have achieved. An early bird rate of €195 is available until 23 April 2012; after that date the full price is €225 so register now

  Workshop on Linked Open Data and Multi­lingual­Web-LT Requirements , 11-13 June in Dublin, Ireland. Organized by the MultilingualWeb-LT Working Group, the purpose of this workshop is two-fold: first, to discuss the intersection between Linked Open Data and Multilingual Technologies, and second, to discuss Requirements of the W3C MultilingualWeb-LT Working Group . Participation is free. We welcome participation from both speakers and non-speaking attendees. However, whereas future MultilingualWeb workshops will continue the wide-ranging format of previous MultilingualWeb events, and will aim again at a larger audience, attendees for this workshop are required to participate actively in discussions and will need to submit a position statement for the workshop registration. There are limited spaces available. Learn more about Internationalization at W3C .

The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group has published an updated Last Call Working Draft of Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0 and a Working Draft of Implementing ATAG 2.0 . ATAG defines how authoring tools should help developers produce accessible web content that conforms to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. It also defines how to make authoring tools accessible so that people with disabilities can use them. Comment deadline is 5 June 2012. Learn more in ATAG 2.0 Last Call Working Draft published and read about the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) .

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of CSS Variables Module Level 1 . CSS is a language for describing the rendering of structured documents (such as HTML and XML) on screen, on paper, in speech, etc. This module contains the features of CSS level 3 relating to variables. It includes and extends the functionality of CSS level 2, which builds on CSS level 1. The main extensions compared to level 2 are the introduction of the variable as a new primitive value type that is accepted by all properties. Learn more about the Style Activity .

The Efficient XML Interchange Working Group has published a second Public Working Draft of Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Profile . This document describes a profile of the EXI 1.0 specification for devices with limited memory capacities. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity .

There are the following main conceptual differences between IIS URL rewriting and ASP.NET routing: URL rewriting is used to manipulate URL paths before the request is handled by the Web server. The URL rewriting module does not know which handler will eventually process the rewritten URL. In addition, the actual request handler might not know that the URL has been rewritten. ASP.NET routing is used to dispatch a request to a handler based on the requested URL path. As opposed to URL rewriting, the routing module knows about the handlers and selects the handler that should generate a response for the requested URL. You can think of ASP.NET routing as an advanced handler-mapping mechanism. In addition to these conceptual differences, there are the following functional differences between IIS URL rewriting and ASP.NET routing: The IIS URL Rewrite module can be used with any type of Web application, which includes ASP.NET, PHP, ASP, and static files. ASP.NET rou...

Reference articles: Tip/Trick: Url Rewriting with ASP.NET by Scott Guthrie - Examines four approaches: 1) Use Request.PathInfo Parameters Instead of QueryStrings; 2) Using an HttpModule to Perform URL Rewriting; 3) Using an HttpModule to Perform Extension-Less URL Rewriting with IIS7; 4) ISAPIRewrite to enable Extension-less URL Rewriting for IIS5 and IIS6; also discusses how to handle ASP.NET postbacks correctly with URL rewriting. URL Rewriting by Salman (CSharpFriends) - simple implementation of URL rewriting logic within the Application_BeginRequest() method of the Global.asax file. Search Engine Friendly URLs using ASP.NET (C#.NET) by Maziar Aflatoun (The UK Web Design Company) - similar to the above, but regular expression is used to match URLs. Rewrite.NET - A URL Rewriting Engine for .NET by Robert Charti...