How To Create Video Discovery Ads

The steps are much the same for Video Discovery ads, until the point you choose your ad format.

For Video Discovery ads:

You must choose a thumbnail for your ad – think about how this will serve as the ‘teaser’ for your ad on the networks that you select.
You will write ad copy to accompany your thumbnails – this text follows the same guidelines for Google AdWords text ads.
When a user clicks on your Discovery ad, you can choose to bring them to either the video’s watch page on YouTube or your YouTube Channel page – you cannot direct users to an external website.

It’s very important to remember your companion banner when creating your video ads. A companion banner is a clickable thumbnail image that accompanies a TrueView in-stream ad. On a YouTube watch page, it appears next to the ad, in the top right corner (on a desktop computer).

You can choose from an auto-generated companion banner or upload your own.
The technical specifications for companion banners that must be adhered to are:
Dimensions: 300×60 pixels.
Maximum file size: 150KB.

Our third video ad format is the Bumper ad, a short, non-skippable format that is no longer than 6 seconds. You will have to have a video already edited to the required length. You will also have to bid on a CPM basis for these ads as they are not view or click-based.
Like you did before, sign in to AdWords and follow the below steps:

Click the campaigns tab and create a standard video campaign for your bumper ads.
Create your first adgroup and select the video you uploaded for this ad and select the Bumper Ads format.
Next, set your budget. “Bidding” will be set to Maximum CPM because of the bumper format.
Choose your basic initial settings – networks, locations you want to target, the language of your customers, and any advanced settings.
Click Save and continue.

3 brands; X-box, La Mer and SurveyMonkey used bumper ads for different forms of storytelling, from remarketing to simple storytelling. Great examples of using short-form content to achieve your goals effectively.

X-box: Launch day of the X-box game Halo Wars 2, they invested heavily in remarketing with bumper ads

La Mer: Used bumper ads to efficiently drive awareness of the brand’s new makeup suite, with a bumper ad for each product of the suite.

SurveyMonkey: Used bumper ads to highlight the value and ease of its tool by messaging the main components of its platform: “creating surveys, collecting answers, and analyzing results”.

Advanced advertisers may choose to run a universal app campaign to promote their app across the web – but the solution is not as advanced as you may think once you already have an app live within the Play store.’

Create a universal app ad in your video campaign:

1. Sign into your AdWords account at https://adwords.google.com.
2. In the “Campaigns” tab, click +Campaign and select Universal App campaign.
3. Enter a campaign name. You might use a name that tells you this is an app installs campaign. The on-screen instructions will prompt you through the setup. The benefits of a Universal App Campaign is the wide variety and reach of this campaign which utilises a wide variety of creative assets.
4. Start by selecting the app you will be advertising from the drop-down menu, or “Add a new app” to enter a new one.
5. In the “Ads” section you can enter up to 4 individual lines of text, these will be rotated within your ads depending on the format being displayed
6. Upload your image assets, and be sure to remember:

You can include up to 20 image files with a max size of 150KB.
Landscape images are most relevant for native ad units while portrait orientation is most valuable for interstitial content, particularly on mobile.

7. You can also include up to 20 YouTube videos for use as ad creative – in addition to automatically generated videos
created by AdWords with assets from your app store listing
8. Choose any target locations or languages. Just note that AdWords won’t translate your ads so your text and creative will have to align with these settings
9. In “Campaign Optimization” choose to optimize for Installs (gathering new users) or In-app Actions (new users likely to undertake an action, such as a purchase or profile creation).
10.Set target bids and budget – projected install volume is available for Android apps when your Play and AdWords accounts are linked

Click “Save and Continue” to launch your campaigns.

Note: Android app installs will automatically be tracked in Google Ads.
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PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on an individual and corporate level, I will be very glad to do that because I have trained several individuals and groups and they are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include the staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.

I know you might agree with some of the points raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you can drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.

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Performing Advanced Targeting In Online Campaigns

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Here are some of the facts that you need to know about Advanced Targeting in Online Campaign. Observation is an optional feature recommended for advanced advertisers.

Use observations to get reports on certain criteria without restricting the reach of your ad group. This means that observations won’t change who can see your ads, or where they can show, but they do allow you to monitor how ads are performing on your selected placements, topics, or audiences while your campaign is running.
As well as this, observations show you how additional criteria perform when they fall within the scope of your existing targeting. You can then use this data help you optimize your campaigns, such as making bid adjustments or to create new ad groups with targeting criteria based on your observations.
Use observations when you don’t want to narrow your targeting any further but you want to see how certain targeting might perform within the criteria already set.

You can add observations by using the “Edit all targeting” page. You can also add an observation as you would add a targeting method except you will select to add it as an observation as opposed to a targeting method.

To apply targeting options, follow the below steps in your AdWords account:

In the page menu on the left, click on a targeting method (Keywords, Audiences, Topics, or Placements).
Click the plus (if you have no targeting yet) or pencil button (if you already have targeting) to edit.
Click ‘Select an ad group’, then choose an ad group from the list that appears.
For observations, click the ‘Add observations’ dropdown.
Select a method from the dropdown.
Select the criteria you’d like to add and click Done.
At the bottom of the page, click Save.

You can exclude specific demographics, audiences, remarketing lists, keywords, topics or placements from your campaign targeting to further refine where your ads show.
You can manage targeting exclusions within AdWords by:

Navigating to which targeting method you wish to exclude and apply exclusions at the campaign or adgroup level, per targeting method.

To exclude by Demographics:

Click the Demographics tab.
Click Gender, Age, or Parental status to select a demographic targeting method.
Click + Targeting.
Under “Campaign exclusions,” click the Add campaign exclusions dropdown menu, and then click Demographics.
Under “Demographics,” select the checkboxes of the specific demographics you want to exclude:
Gender
Age
Parental status

To exclude by Keywords:

Add negative keywords at the ad group or campaign level by clicking the +Keywords button above either table.
Use the drop-down to select the ad group or campaign to that you’d like to add negative keywords to.
Add one negative keyword per line in the text field.
To add broad match negative keywords, you’ll need to add the synonyms, singular version, plural version, and other variations such as cup, glass and glasses
To add a negative phrase match keyword, surround the term with quotation marks—for example, “wine bottle”
To add a negative exact match keyword, surround the term with brackets—for example, [bottle opener]

To exclude Topics:

Click either the “Add ad group exclusions” or “Add campaign exclusions” drop-down menu and select “Topics.”
Type a term or phrase in the search box to find a topic to exclude or click each topic to see the sub-topics you can select. Click add » next to the topics and sub-topics you’d like to exclude.

To exclude Placements:

Click either the “Add ad group exclusions” or “Add campaign exclusions” drop-down menu and select “Placements”
Type a placement in the box, entering just one placement per line. You can exclude up to 10,000 placements per campaign.

You can control the categories of content on which you show and the audiences which that content is suitable for, within the campaign settings in Google Ads:

Click the Settings tab.
Under “Campaign settings,” click “Content exclusions”.
In the new window, select the content exclusion that you want to apply to your ads. Note: Mature and unlabelled content is excluded from all campaigns by default.
Click Save.

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How To Do Audience Targeting In Video Ads

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In this article, I want to look at how to do Audience Targeting in Video Ads. I will be looking at targeting and bidding options and how we can use them to run the most efficient campaigns possible. In particular, we will look at:

1. On-Point Targeting
2. Right Person with Audience Targeting
3. Right Place with Contextual Targeting
4. Introducing Advanced Targeting
5. Refine further with Targeting Exclusions
6. Set up and Start Remarketing
7. Brilliant Bidding

Put very simply, targeting allows you to place your ad in front of the right people and on the right websites.
Targeting increases audience engagement by ensuring ads are displayed to the right users as often as possible. Accomplishing this reduces wasted spending on impressions or clicks and increases the likelihood campaigns will deliver a positive ROI.

You may choose to start your targeting strategy by using the Display Planner tool. This shows you the potential reach and cost of targeting ideas to help you plan your display and video campaigns.
It can be a good place to start when you begin running campaigns for the first time. You must be logged into Google Ads in order to use the Display Planner. See the link in the references below.
1. Navigate to the Display planner either via the link below or by clicking the wrench icon in Google Ads. Under ‘Planning’ click ‘Keyword Planner.
2. Here you have a number of options:

Search for targeting ideas using a website, phrase or category: This is the most widely used, as it gives you a multitude of targeting options based on the input of a broad sense of what type of targeting you are interested in.
Find top placements by location: This allows you to look at the top partner websites, YouTube channels, and videos by country.
Get inventory details for your targeting: This is useful if you know what targeting options you are going to go after, you can enter your targeting here and get a rough estimate of what volumes of impressions you have the opportunity to show for.
Get performance forecasts for your targeting: You can go one step further and input budgeting/CPV info to see what type of performance you can expect.

There are two distinct forms of targeting; Audience and Contextual. Think of it as the Who and the Where.

1. Audience: Who do you want to show your ad to?
Contextual: Where do you want your ad to be shown?

Audience targeting allows you to be more accurate when choosing who sees your ads.
In marketing and advertising, your audience is a particular group of consumers within the predetermined target market, identified as the targets or recipients for a particular advertisement or message.

Using audience targeting in AdWords is a way of segmenting your website’s users and reaching users around the web-based on their behaviour online and the signal these actions send about their likes, interests and purchase patterns.

Audience targeting takes a number of forms:

Demographic targeting: Allows you to reach people who are likely to be within the age, gender, parental status and income that you choose.
Affinity Audiences: Lifestyle and interest profiles based on a user’s browsing behaviour.
In-Market audiences: Users who are more likely to be in-market to purchase a specific product or service based on their browsing behaviour.
Re-marketing: Target users who have previously visited your site, or provided their email address to you.
Similar Audiences: Create mirror audiences based on your remarketing lists or customer email lists.

Demographic targeting

You can set and adjust demographic targeting for age, gender, parental status and household income (if info is known).
“Unknown” in AdWords refers to people whose age, gender, parental status, or household income have not been identified.
You should not exclude “Unknown” age and genders from targeting as they often represent a large number of users. It is important to note that the system can only target if this information is known. It can know this if, for example, someone is using Chrome and is logged into their Google account while browsing, or if they’re signed into a YouTube account, where they have given this information. Otherwise, the system will do a “best guess” based on browsing behaviour. To exclude this segment is to significantly restrict your reach.
People mostly fall into the “unknown category” for display, however, this is much more accurate for YouTube, and as such, it is not advised for Display campaigns. Change the default settings which is to target all demographics.

Affinity Audiences

If you’re familiar with TV audiences, you’re already familiar with the concept of an affinity audience.
Affinity audiences are good for brand awareness. It is the broadest audience targeting available and reaches people in the beginning of their buying journey.
When using affinity audience targeting, you are targeting people who have shown an affinity for your product or service in their internet behaviour – based on the content they interact with, past purchases and websites they frequently visit. You have options such as Beauty Junkies or Outdoor Enthusiasts for example.
You can also create Custom Affinity audiences by blending interests together for a specific cross-section of users, such as Travel Buffs who are also interested in Health & Fitness, to advertise Hiking Holidays too.

In-market audiences

When a user transitions from being interested in a subject to actively beginning their buying journey, they become in-market.
In-market audiences are good for reaching people who are in the middle to end of their buying cycle.
A user is counted as part of an in-market audience for 7-days, up to the point they make a purchase or stop showing any signals of purchase intent.
As a result of targeting people who are already actively shopping or searching for your product or service in such a short period of time, it means that the reach can be smaller compared to an affinity audience, however, it is far more targeted and dynamic in how users are constantly joining and leaving this audience.

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Unknown Facts About On-Page Optimization

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In the old days, many approached on-page optimization as simply keyword stuffing; that is, you mention the keywords you would like to rank for as many times within the content as possible. This made for a bad user and reading experience. These days on-page optimization includes smart keyword targeting, where keywords are mentioned in key elements while still providing a good user experience. This means that the reading experience needs to be good and also that your content satisfies what the user is actually looking for.

On-Page Optimization plays a significant role in the rankings process. Changes are made through a Content Management System, meaning a non-technical person should be able to do it. If you have a modern Content Management System like WordPress, it should be easy to target keywords in key elements. We’ll cover the key elements shortly but they include making images, headings, main body copy, meta description tags and title tags.

Time investment is split between up-front work and ongoing maintenance.

SEOptimer, Mozbar and SEO SiteCheckup are SEO tools that are all able to grab the important on-page elements from the HTML for a webpage. This is useful when we want to quickly review whether an existing page has been optimized or not. It also saves time in having to dig around in the source code.

Mozbar is a Chrome and Firefox extension created by Moz.com. It has more functionality in Chrome as do many other SEO browser extensions.

1) When installed, you can click the M icon in the top right of the browser so it is selected and turns blue (you can click it again to toggle it off when finished).
2) Then click the Page Analysis icon on the top left to inspect the most important on-page SEO elements.

Pre-click on-page optimization as the name suggests is optimizing for what’s visible to the user before they click on a result. This includes:

The title tag
The URL
The meta description

As you’d expect, part of this process involves encouraging the searcher to click on your listing, rather than the others.

Post-click on-page is everything the searcher sees after they click on a listing and when they visit your site. So this is what the visitor sees when they land on your webpage. It includes optimising keywords and the user intent of keywords into the main copy, headings, hyperlinks and images.

Before starting on-page optimization you need to decide what page you are optimizing and what keywords you wish to target. This requires keyword research and ideally prioritizing the keywords as we did in an earlier exercise. For the upcoming on-page optimization lessons, we’ll show examples of how you would optimize the snowboard sizing page.

Portent’s SERP Preview Tool is an excellent way of visually seeing what a Google search result would look like before you make the pre-click on-page optimization changes. This way you can make sure your snippets are the right length and that they look enticing for the user to click through.
Amazon is incredibly dominant in SEO and there are lots of reasons for this. They provide a great user experience on their site, have a big product range and have colossal domain authority. Although as we can see from the above slide, their title and meta description tags are a little on the long side and get truncated which isn’t ideal for click-throughs.

Aside from the main body copy, title tags are the single most important on-page element to get right. They are the first part of a listing a user sees after they make a search and search engines pay close attention to what words are provided which influences how well your web pages will rank.

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When You Should Use The Search Console

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This article talks about all that you need to know about how to use the Search Console.

Who Should now Use the Search Console ?

Anyone with a website! From generalist to specialist, from newbie to advanced, Search Console can help you.

A business owner who delegates. Even if you don’t think you know how to use Search Console, you should be aware of it and become familiar with the basics. You might hire your webmaster or a marketing specialist to help you set up your website with Search Console. In that case, you can work with that person to ensure you have access and control to all of the reports for your website. In addition, it’s a good idea to learn all you can about how your site is performing in search results so you can make important business decisions about your site.

SEO specialist or marketer. As someone focused on online marketing, Search Console will help you monitor your website traffic, optimize your ranking, and make informed decisions about the appearance of your site’s search results. You can use the information in the Search Console to influence technical decisions for the website and do sophisticated marketing analysis in conjunction with other Google tools like Analytics, Google Trends, and AdWords.

Site Administrator. As a site admin, you care about the healthy operation of your site. Search Console lets you easily monitor and in some cases resolve server errors, site load issues, and security issues like hacking and malware. You can also use it to ensure any site maintenance or adjustments you make happen smoothly with respect to search performance.

Web Developer. If you are creating the actual markup and/or code for your site, Search Console helps you monitor and resolve common issues with markup, such as errors in structured data.

App Developer. If you own an app, you want to see how mobile users find your app using Google Search. Search Console can help you integrate your app seamlessly with the website world.

Google Search Console
1. Verify as site owner (when no other site owners exist). Follow Google’s site verification process by acting as site owner e.g. uploading an HTML file to your site.
2. Ask a colleague to be added (when a site owner already exists). Find out who is the site owner and ask them to grant you Google Search Console access to a website.

Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing offers a similar product to the Search Console called Bing Webmaster Tools. Follow a similar process to the above.
The following is text is borrowed from the Google Search Console help pages and you can find a link in the references below.

Verify your site ownership
What is verification?
Verification is the process of proving that you own the site or app that you claim to own. We need to confirm ownership because once you are verified for a site or app you have access to its private Google Search data, which can affect how Google Search crawls it.
Verification associates a specific user with a specific property. Every Search Console property requires at least one verified owner, though it can have more.

Note that you could add any site or app as a property to Search Console, but until you verify ownership of it (or an owner grants you rights on it) you can’t use it in Search Console. For example, you could add www.wikipedia.org as a property to your Search Console account, but you wouldn’t be able to access it until a Wikipedia developer helped you prove ownership (or a Wikipedia Search Console property owner added you as a user to the Search Console property).

Verify a website
1. Either add a new site (see link in references) or click Manage Property > Verify this property on the Search Console home page next to the existing property that you want to verify.
2. Choose one of the verification methods listed below and follow the instructions. Not all verification methods are available for all properties; the verification page will list which methods are available and recommended for your site.
Verification methods include (more detail in the link in the references section):

HTML file upload
Domain name provider
HTML tag
Google Analytics tracking code
Google tag manager container snippet
Google sites
Blogger

Multiple people can add and verify a site separately, using the same or different methods. If you use the same method, just be sure that you don’t overwrite any verification tokens of any other owners.

Crawlability optimization steps

Minimise site errors
Use redirect wisely
Create and submit to date XML sitemap
Minimise duplicate content
Check for indexed pages

Minimize site errors: Site and URL errors can restrict access to useful pages and if too frequent, can lower the overall trust of a domain. In Google Search Console, you can find Site and URL errors under Crawl à Crawl Errors. This example shows a very high number of Not Found URL errors, so further investigations need to be made so the appropriate fixes can be put in place.

Use redirects wisely: if a URL has changed, redirects can be used to take the user or search engine to the right place and preserve the page’s trust and reputation, while avoiding URL errors.
There are three main types of redirects:

301, “Moved Permanently”—recommended for SEO. A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect which passes between 90-99% of link juice (ranking power) to the redirected page. 301 refers to the HTTP status code for this type of redirect. In most instances, the 301 redirect is the best method for implementing redirects on a website.
302, “Found” or “Moved Temporarily“. Some of Google’s employees have indicated that there are cases where 301s and 302s may be treated similarly, but our evidence suggests that the safest way to ensure search engines and browsers of all kinds give full credit is to use a 301 when permanently redirecting URLs.
Meta Refresh. Meta refreshes are a type of redirect executed on the page level rather than the server level. They are usually slower, and not a recommended SEO technique. They are most commonly associated with a five-second countdown with the text “If you are not redirected in five seconds, click here.” Meta refreshes do pass some link juice but are not recommended as an SEO tactic due to poor usability and the loss of link juice passed.

The most recommended redirect is the 301 redirect as this is thought to pass the most amount of reputation.

The majority of Content Management Systems (CMSs) allow non-technical people to implement redirects. WordPress is a popular CMS and the simplest way to create a redirect is by installing a redirect plugin. For some CMSs, you may need to get help from a technical person to help implement redirects.

1. Create your sitemap:
The most commonly used sitemap is the XML sitemap. This is designed for search engines, rather than people, and is one file that contains a collection or all of your web pages. While search engines predominately crawl web pages by following links from one web page to another, they also use XML sitemap for discovering pages. Most CMSs will automatically create an XML sitemap but you need to make sure this has been enabled.
If one exists, you can often find your XML sitemap at www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

What is a Search Console?

Google Search Console is a free service offered by Google that helps you monitor and maintain your site’s presence in Google Search results. You don’t have to sign up for Search Console for your site to be included in Google’s search results, but doing so can help you understand how Google views your site and optimize its performance in search results.

Why use Search Console?

Monitor your site’s performance in Google Search results:

Make sure that Google can access your content
Submit new content for crawling and remove content you don’t want to be shown in search results
Create and monitor the content that delivers visually engaging search results
Maintain your site with minimal disruption to search performance
Monitor and resolve malware or spam issues so your site stays clean
Discover how Google Search—and the world—sees your site:
Which queries caused your site to appear in search results?
Did some queries result in more traffic to your site than others?
Are your product prices, company contact info, or events highlighted in rich search results?
Which sites are linking to your website?
Is your mobile site performing well for visitors searching on mobile?

Submit your sitemap to Google:

There are two different ways to make your sitemap available to Google:
1.Submit your XML sitemap via Google Search Console – https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/sitemap-list
2.Insert the following line anywhere in your robots.txt file, specifying the path to your sitemap: Sitemap: http://example.com/sitemap_location.xml. Be very careful when making changes to the robots.txt file and always check with an expert if you are unsure as you can accidentally de-index useful pages.
Once you have submitted your XML sitemap to Google, you’ll be updated on how many of the submitted pages have been indexed. Your goal is to get all your useful pages indexed and aim for 95%+ of all pages. The example screenshot only has 12% of the submitted pages indexed which is not good and would need further investigation.

While a small amount of duplicate content is ok, search engines prefer unique content and may choose to not index content that it considers duplicate. Duplicate content can be identified through:
1.HTML improvements in Google Search Console where duplicate pages will be highlighted if they exist.
2. Copying an extract of text found (e.g. 10 words or so) in a web page and pasting it in quotes into a search engine. If multiple pages are shown in a search engine, this may be a sign of duplicate content. For each web page checked, you can repeat this process three times.

If you want to view what a webpage looked like the last time Google visited it and also when it happened, you can check Google’s cache of the page and this is the version stored in its index.

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How To Approach Writing Ads Effectively

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Here is how you can approach writing ads in terms of driving clicks from searchers:

Relevant: Consider the need state of the searcher and how this can be addressed by your product. What do they want to hear about your product to make your product seem more appealing than the competition based on their need state?
Attractive: Include keywords in the ad copy to increase perceived relevance in order to drive higher click-through rates
Directional: Consider offers and always include a CTA to direct their action towards your business objectives (conversions) post-click

This is an example of good copy elements to drive action.

Relevant to New York hotels – 500 hotels in New York NY
Attractive to book – because you have the Best Price Guarantee
CTA – the book is the first word of the meta description “Book your hotel in New York NY online”. That is telling you to take any action, to book.

A landing page is your website. You control this zone and should ensure its closely linked to your ads, keywords, and user intent with directional CTAs to drive towards business objectives
Good landing pages are related to what the searcher typed into Google, as well as the ad copy that they clicked. This increases the relevance of the search experience. If the relevance level is high, the searcher is more likely to engage with the page content
If you include CTAs, you can direct the searcher to take action on your website, this can be in the form of buying a product or filling out a contact form
You should take the entire search experience into account when choosing or designing landing pages for search campaigns

What are the considerations of a good landing page? Consider the search journey. To recap:

The user has a need
They look for solutions online
They click your ad as it’s closely aligned to their need
Next, they land on your website

The questions for landing pages are:

Does your landing page deliver on the promise of the ad and resolve their need state?
Is it aligned to the ad, i.e. relevant, attractive and directional?

For example, in the slide image, we can see a landing page that contains:

A.Product details to entice the searcher and quickly show how the product fits their needs
B.Details of how the product appeals to the searcher’s persona and motivations
C.A large clickable CTA to drive action
D.Appealing and aspirational imagery to quickly infer outcomes
The elements above can be distilled into what is known as conversion rate optimization. Conversion rate optimization is a process whereby pages are designed to drive as many valuable actions based on how people interact with the page and what they are likely to do. This includes device optimization where buttons are large on mobile-optimized sites so users can easily click them or use striking colours to highlight a particular area of the page (CTAs). It’s important to identify high-impact improvements and device considerations to drive better performance.

On mobile, the PPC ad is the first listing a searcher sees on the SERP
Searcher behaviour is different on mobile than on desktop devices. Mobile Navigation has to be simple and easy to manage with larger CTAs and readable font sizes for smaller screens
A further consideration is the type of traffic that mobile drives; if it is primarily researching traffic and not converting traffic (as is the case with many mobile websites), serving the right kind of content to give mobile searchers the information they require is the most effective way to drive value in your mobile traffic
AdWords takes into consideration how mobile-optimized your website is, i.e. is it responsive and designed with mobile in mind? This will ultimately affect your quality score for mobile traffic.

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Facts About Off-Page Optimization In SEO

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At its heart, off-page optimization is about building backlinks to your website and this practice is also known as link building. We do this because the higher quality backlinks you have from relevant websites, the more reputable your website is seen in your industry by search engines.
This is often the part that SEOs find tricky at first but with persistence and researching your competitors, it’s one of the ways to really significantly improve your SEO progress. You may not be able to directly control how external websites link to your site but you can influence them by creating great content and/or contacting them.

Off-page optimization requires some upfront work but is a more ongoing and never-ending activity. If you are at the top of your industry and stop acquiring backlinks, you may find that your competitors continue to build them and overtake you.

Open Site Explorer, Majestic SEO and Ahrefs are SEO tools that help when analysing both your own backlinks and competitors. They all offer a freemium model, which means you can get a free account and use some of the functionality for free.

A backlink is an incoming hyperlink from one web page to another website
One of your key goals as an SEO is to increase the number of backlinks to your site
The text within the backlink is called anchor text and some relevancy through the text is passed
A credible page with valuable content can earn dozens, hundreds and even thousands of backlinks

Not all backlinks are created evenly. Some will pass more ranking powers than others, which we will look

Search engines, especially Google, are getting very good at detecting whether a backlink should add to your website’s reputation or not. Here are three keys to look out for:

Topical backlinks that are relevant to your industry and are likely to bring in relevant referral traffic. So not only will you get an SEO boost but you’ll also get some great referral traffic.
High authority and reputable websites will pass high levels of reputation and we’ll soon discover how you can measure authority.
Authentic backlinks are earned on merit, rather than fake backlinks built purely for SEO. Search engines don’t like to be tricked and target sites building phoney links with a search engine penalty.

PageRank

“PageRank (PR) is an algorithm used by Google Search to rank websites in their search engine results. PageRank was named after Larry Page, one of the founders of Google. PageRank is a way of measuring the importance of website pages.

According to Google, PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is. The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites. It is not the only algorithm used by Google to order search engine results, but it is the first algorithm that was used by the company, and it is the best-known.”

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What You Need To Know About Search Engines

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In this article, I will try as much as possible all that you need to know about search engines. So, whether you are a content writer or just an ordinary user, I will keep you abreast of all the information that you need to know. Just relax and make sure that you read this article to the very end. Different search engines provide access to different audiences and user types e.g. Yahoo! users might be older or Bing users might use a specific type of mobile phone (e.g. Microsoft phones) as the default search engine is set to Bing.

This also varies in different locations, so your territorial targeting could influence which search engines to include in your media mix.

When you want your articles to rank, you need to think like your reader. You have to write with your audience in mind. You must write based on how you feel they will ask their question. Always start with your consumer and look at their consumer behaviour/purchase decision cycle. Here are some of what is going on in the mind of your readers when they are visiting the search engine page:

#1 Identify a need or want

Before your audience visits a website, they already have a need. In order to ensure that your website comes up when your customers come to search engines to satisfy a need, you need to make sure that you always write your article as if you are trying to answer a question. It is very important.

#2 Search for solutions

After your customers have identified a need, they will have to come online in order to look for a solution to their problem. Most times, when customers are looking for solutions. They will have to ask a question. The problem here is that most of the people that are using a search engine to look for the solution will never go beyond the first page in their search. That is why you have to ensure that your article dominates the first page on the search engine result page. Please note that immediately after your article presents itself, a prospect will try to establish contact with the organisation.

#3 Evaluate Alternatives

Once you have identified organisations that can provide the services that you need, the next thing is to look at other ways that your issues can be resolved. Also, it is expected that your solution provider will provide you with multiple options for you to choose from. You now have to choose the one that seemed best for you. At this stage too, it is expected that they will tell you the pros and cons of all the options that they have presented to you.

#4 Decide to purchase

after the options have been presented, you need to now choose the date that you are going to make a purchase. At this stage, the responsibility of following up on the prospect will now be handed over to the sales department of the organisation. It is the duty of the sales department to make the transaction happen at the end of the day. It is also at this stage that the organisation is supposed to reinforce some of the benefits that the prospect will derive from the transaction.

#5 Purchase

After the prospect has made a commitment to purchase the product, he now has to move to the stage of actual purchase. at this stage, the organisation has to make sure that all products are delivered up to expectations. They have to make sure that the product is delivered at the right place and at the right time. Doing this will boost the trust that the customer will have in the organisation.

#6 Post-purchase evaluation

After the customer might have purchased the product and used the product, he needs to do an evaluation. The evaluation will allow the customer to know whether the product has achieved its purpose or not. This will also allow both parties to make the necessary adjustments if the product has failed to achieve its goal in one way or the other.

Also, Search behaviour features in stages 2-6 of the purchase cycle make it a highly effective channel to tie in with naturalized purchase decision-making.

In addition, PPC began in the early 2000s as search engines became popular and as user habits, technology and business developed online. New features have been added to enrich the advertising formats but ultimately paid search consists of keywords, landing pages, and ad copy, and this has never changed.

Over the years new features and more advanced targeting options have been added to develop the AdWords suite beyond paid search ads. Now advertisers can run display, video, shopping and email ads through one advertising platform.

Reasons to use paid search include:

Meet & align with business objectives: bringing active consumers to your site
Quick access to the market: you can appear in the search results after just a few hours
Mobile position #1: the PPC ad is the first search result users see on a mobile
Additional advertising features: target specific locations and add ad extensions
Tracking: link to Google Analytics and monitor spending, and ROI on KPIs
Easily updated special offers/time-sensitive promotions: changes to copy are almost instant
Leverage buyer/search intent: consumers are actively looking for your keywords/product
Compete in the marketplace: stay up to speed with your competitors
Fill gaps in organic optimization: quickly add keywords that don’t rank in the organic channel

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Understanding SEO Action Plan For Content Writing

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Open Google Search Console (if you have access to it), and check the crawl errors report to see if you can see any site or URL errors. If there are URL errors, review what type of errors there are and whether they are for important web pages.

One of the most common types of errors is a “404 page not found”. This means that a URL used to exist but it doesn’t anymore. This could be that the page has been deleted or the URL has been changed. If the page has been deleted, sometimes it’s best to 301 redirect the old URL to the next most relevant page. Similarly, if a URL has been changed, the old URL should be 301 redirected to the new URL.

Soft 404 errors are strange because they often look like normal error pages, where a message says the page could not be found but rather than return a server response code of 404, they actually return a server response code of 200. A 200 response code tells search engines that everything is OK but in this case, it is contradicted by a page not being able to be found. The fix to this, it usually requires letting your web developer or technical person know and they can tweak the web server settings.

The best way to learn SEO is through practice and repetition. For this exercise, decide on a website that you wish to test out your on-page optimization skills on. Pick 10 topics/landing pages to research, then decide on their best keywords and then outline the key on-page optimization elements. The reference URL below will take you to a Google spreadsheet where you can follow the on-page optimization template.

From there, you can:

Download the spreadsheet (File à Download as), or
Make a copy (File à Make a copy..) which requires you to be signed in to a Google account

You can use Open Site Explorer to benchmark your website against competitors. If you haven’t used a Moz product before, create a free community account:

You will now need to benchmark a website against three of its top competitors for key Moz metrics. You only need to enter the homepage URL of each site to record the homepage Page Authority, Domain Authority and Root Domain Links.

Review to see how far or close your website is from the competition and gauge how much extra work is required for off-page optimization success. The higher each metric is, the more likely it is to perform for off-page optimization.

By changing the Inbound Links filter, you get a better idea of how the whole domain is performing, specifically for backlinks that can pass PageRank.
What to do:

Setting the Target to “this root domain” ensures backlinks are reported for the whole domain and not just the URL (e.g. homepage URL) that you enter
Setting the Link Source to “only external” ensures that you only get backlink information and filters out internal links
Setting the Link Type to “only follow” ensures that you’ll only see backlinks that actually pass PageRank and filter out those that do not

Then, review the incoming link and highlight the top three backlinks that you feel offer the most value.
When deciding on the best ones, bear in mind the page authority of each but also consider how relevant the backlinks are to the industry and whether they felt authentic or not.

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Amazing Blogging Success Tips From Fili Wiese

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This article talks about some amazing blogging success tips from SEO Expert, Search Brothers

#1 Attend SEO conferences

SEO is complex. Reducing it to just one piece of advice is challenging. If it were just this one SEO tip for beginners I will say attend as many industry conferences as possible and learn from the speakers’ expertise.

Picking and choosing between long-established and up-and-coming online marketing events aren’t easy either. Speaker line-up is a key criterion. Next to how prolific speakers are in terms of sharing with the community.

Some conferences such as SMX and BrightonSEO are safe bets. However, there are so many events at any given point in time. For a comprehensive overview, I recommend checking out Online Marketing Events.

If I may give a second piece of advice to SEO beginners, that would be to read as much as you can. Google Webmaster Central Blog and Search Engine Land are among my personal favorite sources to keep up to date.

#2 Site performance is almost everything

It’s neither recent nor surprising, yet true to be confirmed and reaffirmed on a regular basis: site performance is almost everything and even the best-optimized website will fail in a search unless the crawl budget is managed well.

On the first part, all that needs to be said is that all other factors are roughly equal Google always favours the faster website. Site performance is to be considered a business-critical top priority.
It also has a huge impact on crawl budget allocation and thereby on how much of the website can be crawled and how frequently. Which in turn is essential for success in Google Search and for conversion.

That ties in nicely into your first question, too. SEO beginners are well-advised to learn from site performance and technical SEO sessions delivered by expert speakers at international events.

Dan Taylor

Senior Consultant & Account Director at SALT.agency

#1 Don’t believe all the SEO tips you read

My main piece of advice would be to critique everything. If you read an article of a blog post explaining the advantages of X over Y, actively seek out the counter-argument for Y over X – regardless of who authored the piece and where it was published.

Whilst there is best practice, SEO is about the application of knowledge and expertise, and this is where most black hat/quick win techniques fall down as they can’t often be scaled to larger clients/larger clients won’t benefit from those techniques.

Just because something works for client A, it won’t necessarily work with client B or C, and this is where the application of knowledge, and knowing as many sides to an argument gives you the ability to be flexible and control discussions with various stakeholders. This makes you scalable and adaptable to multiple scenarios and challenges.

By being critical of everything, you can benefit your client(s) by learning how to apply SEO techniques to their business needs and tech stack and bring benefit in the long run and build a long-term relationship with the client.

#2 The importance of SEO business case

Explaining the business case of SEO, in my opinion, has become more prominent once again in recent months, especially when speaking to large and enterprise-level businesses.
There’s been a shift in the market over the past 12 months with more organizations taking SEO roles in-house, and the relationship with traditional full-service agencies changing.

The importance of being able to communicate the importance of SEO to a lot of non-technical stakeholders and being effectively able to show the added value of having an expert in the room is going to continue to be a trend in 2019 as the world faces a number of external uncertainties (US administration, Brexit, unrest in the EU), decision making processes on where to spend budget will be affected.

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Blogging Success Tips From Brent Custoras

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This article highlights some amazing Blogging Success Tips from Brent Csutoras, a Digital Marketing Consultant at BrentCsutoras.com

#1 Learn some basic coding

In 2019 and beyond, every SEO has to start gaining some level of familiarity with coding. Even Google has recently started recommending more companies focus on technical SEO and that means HTTPS, APIs, Schema, Pagespeed, Mobile Friendly… all of which really require some level of coding experience to truly understand, direct, and implement.

Even if you are not the implementer, you need to be able to understand when things don’t work and how to make them work.

#2 Find content that works and make it better

Google, and other search engines, do not want all your content. In fact, they probably want about 5% to 10% of what we are giving them.

If you were to check your analytics, you would likely see that less than 10% of your content or products are responsible for about 100% of your traffic, sales, and conversions. Even if you have an e-commerce site, you are likely to see that your highest traffic and conversion pages are category pages and not individual products.

Focus on select, high-quality content, that assists a user through their education, conversion or buying process.

Doug Cunnington

Founder of Niche Site Project

1. Adapt to the changes

Be flexible and adaptable. I’m cheating with this answer because I suggest that a person that’s new to a field like SEO should be willing to adapt to a changing landscape so that’ll apply to many areas.
SEO moves fast, and since a Google algorithm update can make traffic grow or nose dive, an SEO beginner should be ready to go with the flow and be eager to learn and test.

On a secondary level, an SEO beginner can make money in several ways. The options can be overwhelming once you develop a core set of skills. That said, you can adapt your skills of SEO to other areas.

For example, if you start with affiliate sites, you may discover that you prefer to help small, local businesses. So you can shift from one business model to another (affiliate marketing to local SEO), using your general SEO skills.

2. Keyword Golden Ratio

The Keyword Golden Ratio is the best way to find ultra-long-tail keywords that are under-served on the internet. The Keyword Golden Ratio is a keyword research concept I developed after combining ideas from some very smart people.

The idea is simple, but I made the formula accessible by making it simple and nearly foolproof.
It’s a data-driven way to find keywords that you can rank for in the top 25 results in Google, usually within hours after the page is indexed.

The ratio is this:
The number of Google results that have the keyword phrase in the title divided by the local monthly search volume, where the LMS is less than 250.

If the KGR is less than 0.25, then you should rank in the top 100 when your page is indexed.
You should still rank in the top 250 when the KGR is between 0.25 and 1. And it should be pretty fast.

It works for any industry or niche, and I get emails every week about people seeing success with the KGR.

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Amazing Blogging Success Tip From Elise Dopson

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This article highlights some amazing blogging success tips from Freelance marketing writer, EliseDopson.co.uk

#1 Focus on quality content

My best advice would be to start creating awesome content. There are hundreds of ranking factors in Google’s algorithm and most SEO beginners head towards backlinks as their first step. But, that’s a problem because people are unlikely to link to a low-quality, SEO-poor website.

You need solid content to prove your expertise, build your authority, and give other publishers a reason to link to you. Do that by following Moz’s 10x framework and promoting your content like crazy. Make sure it gives a good user experience, has fast loading times, and is optimized for SEO. The backlinks will come naturally!

#2 Show your expertise

Google released an algorithm update (referred to as the “medic” update), and their guidelines had a huge focus on “E-A-T” content (which stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness).
A great workaround for meeting that criteria, without investing in new content, is to update forgotten pages on your website–including author bio, about, contact and homepages. Give them a refresh with new, keyword-optimized content and you’ll soon be seen as more of an expert than a site that doesn’t.

Will O’Hara

SEO Director at MediaCom North

#1 Get your hands dirty

It’s very hard to pick just one thing – but if this is advice and not a skill I’d say that it’s important to do your own testing and research. There are plenty of people publishing findings online and they can certainly be a useful starter – but nothing beats getting your hands dirty and running tests yourself.
You may find something unusual you can discuss with the wider community (which is kind of a second piece of advice I’ve squeezed in there) which can also help further your understanding of the topic in question.

#2 Experiment with internal links

Internal linking – is not something I’ve learned or really re-learned, but it’s something that continues to surprise me. It can be so powerful if done right – especially if you have an established and trusted site.

Adding links to a page with few can see it rocket upwards for targeted phrases – so it’s often one of those killer tactics…both low friction and high impact. Linked back to point 1 – testing is key here, there’s never an exact way to do this and every site is different.

I’ve worked with a client where 5 internal links had the desired effect, and another where 10k seemed to do the trick.

RElATED Consecration. RCCG Sunday School Manual.

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Blogging Success Tips from Tim Soulo

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Here are some of the Blogging Success Tips from Tim Soulo, the Chief Marketing Officer at Ahrefs

#1 Don’t get caught in the “infinite learning” loop

The best piece of advice to an SEO beginner would be: “Pick a few keywords and try to rank for them.”
I see that a lot of people get caught in the “infinite learning” loop and try to find that “new hot SEO strategy” that will help them outrank their competitors.
While in fact, the basic principles of SEO could not be more straightforward:

Blogging Success Tips from Tim Soulo

Pick a keyword/topic that has a nice search traffic potential
Create a page that would address that topic in a way that would satisfy potential searchers
Get other websites to link to that page.

That’s it!
But once you try to actually do it, you’ll find a lot of little things that you’ll need to learn and master before you’ll get your pages to the top of Google.

#2 Don’t rely on the search volume too much

My last “aha moment” was when I realized that the search volume of a single keyword isn’t really indicative of the total search traffic that you will get if you rank for it.

Think about it, when we do keyword research we look at search volumes of individual keywords, but when a page ranks at the top of Google, it doesn’t rank just for one single keyword – it will additionally rank for a ton of variations.

So these days I don’t rely on the search volume of keywords too much, I always study the top-ranking pages for my desired keywords and look at how much search traffic these pages are getting in total (from all the keywords that they rank for).

Robbie Richards

SEO Specialist, RobbieRichards.com

#1 Learn by doing and find a mentor

As a beginner in SEO, it’s easy to get bogged down by all the advice floating around online. You end up spending hours and hours reading, listening, and watching everything there is to know about SEO, instead of actually doing it.

I found myself in the same boat about 6 years ago when I got into SEO. It wasn’t until I bought a domain, set up a simple WordPress site, and start implementing that I began to quickly build my skillset.

Long story short, one of the best SEO tips I can give to a beginner is to set up a sandbox site and start applying as they learn to figure out for themselves what works and what doesn’t.

Another thing I strongly recommend is finding someone who has had a lot of success in SEO and asking them to be a mentor. This is something else that really helped me build confidence, and stay excited about what I was doing. Having an expert sound bound is invaluable when you are starting out.

#2 Work with existing assets

Always go back to the fundamentals. I’ve been able to generate some great results for clients recently just by going back and working on the “foundational” elements – internal linking, on-page etc.

On top of that, don’t jump straight into creating new content or building new links, always work with and leverage the assets you have on hand for the fastest gains.

One simple strategy is identifying all the existing content with decent rankings that with a simple relaunch could jump up several spots and generate an immediate uptick in traffic. I cover my process for this in great detail in this organic traffic guide.

RElATED Consecration. RCCG Sunday School Manual.

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Blogging Success Tips From Steven van Vessum

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Here are some of the Blogging Success Tips from Steven van Vessum

VP of Community at ContentKing

#1 Be critical about everything

Be critical about everything you read and everything people say. Ask other SEOs to back up their SEO tips and claims with data and sources, or at the very least explain why they think something is true or false and what thought process they went through.

There’s a massive amount of information on SEO out there, but it’s hard to filter out the bad stuff.

#2 Google algo focused on search intent

The fact that several of the Google updates we’ve seen since August 1st are about changes to better match search results with user intent.

It makes total sense and aligns with what I’ve seen in the sites that I’m managing the SEO for and other SEO experts have confirmed seeing the same thing. Of course, I asked them to back it up with data 😉

Jimmy Rodriguez

Chief Operating Officer at 3dcart

#1 Focus on the right keywords

When we first started our SEO efforts we went after every keyword out there that had a decent search volume. What we found pretty quickly is that it wasn’t as much about the search volume as it is about intent.

We noticed that some keywords that would bring a ton of traffic, wouldn’t bring in a lot of business, while others didn’t bring in a lot of traffic, and were responsible for bringing in a lot of business. This made us realize that we needed to refocus our content campaign on “revenue keywords.” Just getting traffic wasn’t going to do, we needed to target keywords that have the highest potential of bringing revenue in order to see an ROI on our SEO efforts.

Many new websites make this mistake. So my advice would be to pinpoint the queries that are used by customers in your industry that are at the tail end of the shopping process and do this early on. This will give you the revenue boost necessary at the beginning stages so that you can use those gains to reinvest in a more aggressive content marketing/SEO campaign.

#2 Clean up your internal link profile

My last SEO “aha” moment was the influence your internal link profile has on your search engine rankings. Recently we decided to clean up our SEO top to bottom, and part of that effort was cleaning up our internal link profile.

What we did was finding a set of keywords for each page and didn’t deviate from the specified anchor text, to make sure we are consistent with the information that is pointing to that particular page. Within a few weeks of doing this, we found our rankings increasing for each of those pages, specifically for those target keywords. Normally internal linking is seen as a small factor, but it had a huge impact on our website rankings.

Andy Crestodina

Co-Founder / Chief Marketing Officer at Orbit Media Studios

1. Be the best among the best

If you haven’t created one of the top 10 best pieces of content on your topic, don’t expect to rank on page one.

You should believe in your content that much. Of course, making a great page is critical, but insufficient. You still need to do the SEO basics. Each of these aligns with a key search ranking factor.

Validate that you have a chance for ranking for your target keyphrase (competition and authority)
Use the target phrase and the semantically related phrases in the usual ways (keywords and relevance)
Format the content so it’s scannable, visual and keeps visitors on the page after they click (user-interaction signals)

So yes, optimize your content for search, but don’t expect any results unless you’re ready to stand up and make the case that your page is better than all the others.
If you do that, the search engines are trying to help you. If you don’t do that, the search engines are trying to stop you.

2. Write less. Rewrite more.

Write less. Rewrite more. That was a revelation for me. After many years of creating new content, I finally realized that I had a lot of URLs that were credible, but the content was old. So I started rewriting old articles and the results have been great.

I watch to see which posts are declining in rank, which posts almost rank high and which posts have a lot of inbound links. Then I review them for quality. If any of these are less than amazing, I rewrite them. Then I watch the rank climb. Works like a charm.

I’m not the only one who has discovered this trick. Our annual blogger survey found that 38% of content creators are updating older articles. And those that do are twice as likely to report “strong results” from their blogs.

RElATED Consecration. RCCG Sunday School Manual.

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Electronic Payment Concepts: The Five Modes

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In my previous articles, I talked about some of the factors to consider when you need to design e-commerce websites. In this article, I want to look at the five modes of electronic payment concepts. Follow me as we are going to be looking at that in this article.

What is an electronic payment?

Electronic payment facilitates payments over the internet. It allows the user who is located on one side of the internet to make payment to another user who is located on another part of the globe to make payment without having to visit the user’s office.

There are some benefits that are associated with electronic payments. Some of these benefits include:

#1 Improve security

With electronic payment and considering some of the modes that are adopted by some of the websites, it is very easy to make payments without compromising the security of your data. For instance, when you are using PayPal, you can actually make a payment with your email address without releasing your card information to third parties.

#2 Increase efficiency

Without the idea of using electronic payment, it would be seemingly difficult for e-commerce websites to function. Even, companies that are not online-based are embracing the use of electronic payment in order to increase payment options. The electronic payment provides an alternative for organizations to receive payments for products and services. It makes organizations more efficient.

#3 Improve customer convenience

In addition, electronic payment also goes a long way in improving customers’ convenience. Gone are those days when you would expect customers to visit your office before they can have access to your products and services. Electronic payment will allow customers to pay for products and services without leaving the convenience of their homes.

The five modes…

Here are the five modes of electronic payments…

#1 Electronic Fund Transfer

This is a computer and internet-based method to instruct financial institutions to transfer money from one account to another account. This is always done in a matter of minutes no matter the location of the recipient of such fund.

#2 Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

Electronic Data Interchange is a set of standards for structuring the information that is to be electronically exchanged between and within businesses, organizations, government entities, and other groups.

An EDI message contains a string of data elements, each of which represents a singular fact, such as a price and product model number, and is separated by a delimiter.

#3 Internet Open Trading Protocol

This is an interoperable framework for Internet commerce that makes all electronic purchase transactions consistent for customers, merchants, and other involved parties, regardless of the payment system.

#4 Secure Electronic Transaction (SET)

This is a set of communication protocols for securing financial transactions over the internet. This uses Data Encryption Standard and RSA encryption mechanism to encrypt sensitive financial information during transmission.

#6 3-D Secure

This provides an additional layer of security during online credit and debit card transactions by authenticating a cardholder’s identity at the time of purchase.

This is adopted by Visa, Mastercard and Mastercard SecureCode, JCB international as JSecure and American Express as SafeKey.

RElATED Consecration. RCCG Sunday School Manual.

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How Nigerian Scam Yahoo Yahoo Works

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Before I start writing this article, here is a disclaimer. I am not writing this article to rubbish Nigeria as a country and I am not a Yahoo Boy and I will never in my wildest dream support their nefarious activities. I just wanted ordinary Nigerians and all my esteemed followers outside Nigeria to learn.

When we all understand how they work and think, we will be able to know how to stop them and not fall victim to their nefarious activities. Therefore, in this article, I will be talking about how the Nigerian Scam, also known as Yahoo Yahoo works. It is called a Nigerian Scam because it originated from Nigeria. The beauty of it is that it is not only Nigerian citizens that are adopting these methods of scamming people. Some other nations have embraced it.

A Nigeria Scam is a form of advanced payment of money or money transfer. The scam is called Nigeria scam because it started in Nigeria but it can come from anywhere in the world.

Using this scam, the scammer contacts you by sending an email and offering you a share in a large sum of money. They might say that they want to transfer the money which was trapped during a civil war to your bank account.

They may also cite various reasons such as massive inheritance problems, government restrictions, or taxes in the scammer country among other reasons.
The scammer now asked you to pay money or give them your bank details to help them transfer the money. Here is a typical example:

From: Mr Wong Du

Seoul, South Korea.

I will introduce myself. I am Mr Wong Du a banker working in a bank in South Korea. Until now, I am the Account Officer to most of South Korea government accounts and I have since discovered that most of the account is a dormant account with a lot of money in the account. On further interrogation, I found out that one particular account belongs to the former president of South Korean from 1963-1979 and this particular account has a deposit of $48million with no next of kin.

My proposal is that since I am an account officer and the money of the account is dormant and there is no next of kin obviously the account owner the former president of South Korea has died a long time ago, that you should provide an account for the money to be transferred.

The money that is floating in the bank right now is $48million and this is what I want to transfer to your account for our mutual benefits.

Please if this is okay by you I will advise that you contact me through my direct email address.

Please this transaction should be kept confidential. For your assistance as the account owner, we shall share the money on an equal basis.

Your reply will be appreciated.

Thank you.

Wong Du.

Action Point
PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on an individual and corporate level, I will be very glad to do that because I have trained several individuals and groups and they are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.

I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you can drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.

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Network Communications Protocols For Cyber Security: The Facts

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Simply having a wired or wireless physical connection between end devices is not enough to enable communication. For communication to occur, devices must know “how” to communicate. Communication, whether face-to-face or over a network, is governed by rules called protocols. These protocols are specific to the type of communication method occurring.

For example, consider two people communicating face-to-face. Prior to communicating, they must agree on how to communicate. If the communication is using voice, they must first agree on the language. Next, when they have a message to share, they must be able to format that message in a way that is understandable. For example, if someone uses the English language, but has poor sentence structure, the message can easily be misunderstood.

Similarly, network protocols specify many features of network communication, as shown in the figure.

Network Protocols

Network protocols provide the means for computers to communicate on networks. Network protocols dictate the message encoding, formatting, encapsulation, size, timing, and delivery options. Networking protocols define a common format and set of rules for exchanging messages between devices. Some common networking protocols are Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), and Internet Protocol (IP). As a cybersecurity analyst, you must be very familiar with the structure of protocol data and how the protocols function in network communications.
Note: IP in this course refers to both the IPv4 and IPv6 protocols. IPv6 is the most recent version of IP and will eventually replace the more common IPv4.

The TCP/IP Protocol Suite

Today, the TCP/IP protocol suite includes many protocols and continues to evolve to support new services. Some of the more popular ones are shown in the figure.

TCP/IP is the protocol suite used by the internet and the networks of today. TCP/IP has two important aspects for vendors and manufacturers:

Open standard protocol suite – This means it is freely available to the public and can be used by any vendor on their hardware or in their software.
Standards-based protocol suite – This means it has been endorsed by the networking industry and approved by a standards organization. This ensures that products from different manufacturers can interoperate successfully.

Click each button for a brief description of protocols at each layer.

Application Layer

Transport layer

Internet Layer

Network Access Layer

Application Layer
Name System

DNS – Domain Name System. Translates domain names such as cisco.com, into IP addresses.

Host Config

DHCPv4 – Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv4. A DHCPv4 server dynamically assigns IPv4 addressing information to DHCPv4 clients at start-up and allows the addresses to be re-used when no longer needed.
DHCPv6 – Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6. DHCPv6 is similar to DHCPv4. A DHCPv6 server dynamically assigns IPv6 addressing information to DHCPv6 clients at start-up.
SLAAC – Stateless Address Autoconfiguration. A method that allows a device to obtain its IPv6 addressing information without using a DHCPv6 server.

SMTP – Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. Enables clients to send email to a mail server and enables servers to send email to other servers.
POP3 – Post Office Protocol version 3. Enables clients to retrieve email from a mail server and download the email to the client’s local mail application.
IMAP – Internet Message Access Protocol. Enables clients to access email stored on a mail server as well as maintaining email on the server.

File Transfer

FTP – File Transfer Protocol. Sets the rules that enable a user on one host to access and transfer files to and from another host over a network. FTP is a reliable, connection-oriented, and acknowledged file delivery protocol.
SFTP – SSH File Transfer Protocol. As an extension to Secure Shell (SSH) protocol, SFTP can be used to establish a secure file transfer session in which the file transfer is encrypted. SSH is a method for secure remote login that is typically used for accessing the command line of a device.
TFTP – Trivial File Transfer Protocol. A simple, connectionless file transfer protocol with best-effort, unacknowledged file delivery. It uses less overhead than FTP.

Web and Web Service

HTTP – Hypertext Transfer Protocol. A set of rules for exchanging text, graphic images, sound, video, and other multimedia files on the World Wide Web.
HTTPS – HTTP Secure. A secure form of HTTP that encrypts the data that is exchanged over the World Wide Web.
REST – Representational State Transfer. A web service that uses application programming interfaces (APIs) and HTTP requests to create web applications.

Transport layer

Connection-Oriented

TCP – Transmission Control Protocol. Enables reliable communication between processes running on separate hosts and provides reliable, acknowledged transmissions that confirm successful delivery.

Connectionless

UDP – User Datagram Protocol. Enables a process running on one host to send packets to a process running on another host. However, UDP does not confirm successful datagram transmission.

Internet Layer

Internet Protocol

IPv4 – Internet Protocol version 4. Receives message segments from the transport layer, packages messages into packets, and addresses packets for end-to-end delivery over a network. IPv4 uses a 32-bit address.
IPv6 – IP version 6. Similar to IPv4 but uses a 128-bit address.
NAT – Network Address Translation. Translates IPv4 addresses from a private network into globally unique public IPv4 addresses.

Messaging

ICMPv4 – Internet Control Message Protocol for IPv4. Provides feedback from a destination host to a source host about errors in packet delivery.
ICMPv6 – ICMP for IPv6. Similar functionality to ICMPv4 but is used for IPv6 packets.
ICMPv6 ND – ICMPv6 Neighbor Discovery. Includes four protocol messages that are used for address resolution and duplicate address detection.

Routing Protocols

OSPF – Open Shortest Path First. Link-state routing protocol that uses a hierarchical design based on areas. OSPF is an open standard interior routing protocol.
EIGRP – EIGRP – Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol. An open standard routing protocol developed by Cisco that uses a composite metric based on bandwidth, delay, load and reliability.
BGP – Border Gateway Protocol. An open standard exterior gateway routing protocol used between Internet Service Providers (ISPs). BGP is also commonly used between ISPs and their large private clients to exchange routing information.

Network Access Layer

Address Resolution

ARP – Address Resolution Protocol. Provides dynamic address mapping between an IPv4 address and a hardware address.Note: You may see other documentation state that ARP operates at the Internet Layer (OSI Layer 3). However, in this course we state that ARP operates at the Network Access layer (OSI Layer 2) because it’s primary purpose is the discover the MAC address of the destination. A MAC address is a Layer 2 address.

Data Link Protocols

Ethernet – Defines the rules for wiring and signaling standards of the network access layer.
WLAN – Wireless Local Area Network. Defines the rules for wireless signaling across the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radio frequencies.

Message Formatting and Encapsulation

When a message is sent from source to destination, it must use a specific format or structure. Message formats depend on the type of message and the channel that is used to deliver the message.

Analogy
A common example of requiring the correct format in human communications is when sending a letter. Click Play in the figure to view an animation of formatting and encapsulating a letter.
An envelope has the address of the sender and receiver, each located at the proper place on the envelope. If the destination address and formatting are not correct, the letter is not delivered.
The process of placing one message format (the letter) inside another message format (the envelope) is called encapsulation. De-encapsulation occurs when the process is reversed by the recipient and the letter is removed from the envelope.

Message Size

Another rule of communication is message size.

Analogy
Click Play in the figure to view an animation of message size in face-to-face communications.
When people communicate with each other, the messages that they send are usually broken into smaller parts or sentences. These sentences are limited in size to what the receiving person can process at one time, as shown in the figure. It also makes it easier for the receiver to read and comprehend.

Message Timing

Message timing is also very important in network communications. Message timing includes the following:

Flow Control – This is the process of managing the rate of data transmission. Flow control defines how much information can be sent and the speed at which it can be delivered. For example, if one person speaks too quickly, it may be difficult for the receiver to hear and understand the message. In network communication, there are network protocols used by the source and destination devices to negotiate and manage the flow of information.
Response Timeout – If a person asks a question and does not hear a response within an acceptable amount of time, the person assumes that no answer is coming and reacts accordingly. The person may repeat the question or instead, may go on with the conversation. Hosts on the network use network protocols that specify how long to wait for responses and what action to take if a response timeout occurs.
Access method – This determines when someone can send a message. Click Play in the figure to see an animation of two people talking at the same time, then a “collision of information” occurs, and it is necessary for the two to back off and start again. Likewise, when a device wants to transmit on a wireless LAN, it is necessary for the WLAN network interface card (NIC) to determine whether the wireless medium is available.

Unicast, Multicast, and Broadcast

A message can be delivered in different ways. Sometimes, a person wants to communicate information to a single individual. At other times, the person may need to send information to a group of people at the same time, or even to all people in the same area.
Hosts on a network use similar delivery options to communicate. These methods of communication are called unicast, multicast, and broadcast.

Unicast

Multicast

Broadcast

A one-to-one delivery option is referred to as a unicast, meaning there is only a single destination for the message.

The Benefits of Using a Layered Model

You cannot actually watch real packets travel across a real network the way you can watch the components of a car being put together on an assembly line. so, it helps to have a way of thinking about a network so that you can imagine what is happening. A model is useful in these situations.
Complex concepts such as how a network operates can be difficult to explain and understand. For this reason, a layered model is used to modularize the operations of a network into manageable layers.
These are the benefits of using a layered model to describe network protocols and operations:

Assisting in protocol design because protocols that operate at a specific layer have defined information that they act upon and a defined interface to the layers above and below
Fostering competition because products from different vendors can work together
Preventing technology or capability changes in one layer from affecting other layers above and below
Providing a common language to describe networking functions and capabilities

As shown in the figure, there are two-layered models that are used to describe network operations:

Open System Interconnection (OSI) Reference Model
TCP/IP Reference Model

The OSI Reference Model

The OSI reference model provides an extensive list of functions and services that can occur at each layer. This type of model provides consistency within all types of network protocols and services by describing what must be done at a particular layer, but not prescribing how it should be accomplished.
It also describes the interaction of each layer with the layers directly above and below.

The TCP/IP protocols discussed in this course are structured around both the OSI and TCP/IP models. The table shows details about each layer of the OSI model. The functionality of each layer and the relationship between layers will become more evident throughout this course as the protocols are discussed in more detail.

OSI Model Layer	Description
7 – Application	The application layer contains protocols used for process-to-process communications.
6 – Presentation	The presentation layer provides for common representation of the data transferred between application layer services.
5 – Session	The session layer provides services to the presentation layer to organize its dialogue and to manage data exchange.
4 – Transport	The transport layer defines services to segment, transfer, and reassemble the data for individual communications between the end devices.
3 – Network	The network layer provides services to exchange the individual pieces of data over the network between identified end devices.
2 – Data Link	The data link layer protocols describe methods for exchanging data frames between devices over a common media
1 – Physical	The physical layer protocols describe the mechanical, electrical, functional, and procedural means to activate, maintain, and de-activate physical connections for a bit transmission to and from a network device.

Note: Whereas the TCP/IP model layers are referred to only by name, the seven OSI model layers are more often referred to by number rather than by name. For instance, the physical layer is referred to as Layer 1 of the OSI model, the data link layer is Layer 2, and so on.

The TCP/IP Protocol Model

The TCP/IP protocol model for internetwork communications was created in the early 1970s and is sometimes referred to as the internet model. This type of model closely matches the structure of a particular protocol suite. The TCP/IP model is a protocol model because it describes the functions that occur at each layer of protocols within the TCP/IP suite. TCP/IP is also used as a reference model. The table shows details about each layer of the OSI model.

TCP/IP Model Layer	Description
4 – Application	Represents data to the user, plus encoding and dialog control.
3 – Transport	Supports communication between various devices across diverse networks.
2 – Internet	Determines the best path through the network.
1 – Network Access	Controls the hardware devices and media that make up the network.

The definitions of the standard and the TCP/IP protocols are discussed in a public forum and defined in a publicly available set of IETF request for comment (RFC) documents. An RFC is authored by networking engineers and sent to other IETF members for comments.

Facts About Network Communication Process

Networks of Many Sizes

First and foremost, networks come in all sizes. They range from simple networks that consist of two computers to networks connecting millions of devices. Simple home networks let you share resources, such as printers, documents, pictures, and music, among a few local end devices. In this article, I want to discuss some facts about a network communication process.

Small office and home office (SOHO) networks allow people to work from home or a remote office. Many self-employed workers use these types of networks to advertise and sell products, order supplies and communicate with customers.
Businesses and large organizations use networks to provide consolidation, storage, and access to information on network servers. Networks provide email, instant messaging, and collaboration among employees. Many organizations use their network’s connection to the internet to provide products and services to customers.
The internet is the largest network in existence. In fact, the term internet means a “network of networks”. It is a collection of interconnected private and public networks.
In small businesses and homes, many computers function as both servers and clients on the network. This type of network is called a peer-to-peer network.

Small Home Networks

Small home networks connect a few computers to each other and to the internet.

Client-Server Communications

All computers that are connected to a network and that participate directly in network communication are classified as hosts. Hosts are also called end devices, endpoints, or nodes. Much of the interaction between end devices is client-server traffic. For example, when you access a web page on the internet, your web browser (the client) is accessing a server. When you send an email message, your email client will connect to an email server.

Servers are simply computers with specialized software. This software enables servers to provide information to other end devices on the network. A server can be single-purpose, providing only one service, such as web pages. A server can be multipurpose, providing a variety of services such as web pages, email, and file transfers.

Client computers have software installed, such as web browsers, email clients, and file transfers applications. This software enables them to request and display the information obtained from the server. A single computer can also run multiple types of client software. For example, a user can check email and view a web page while listening to the internet radio.

File Server – The file server stores corporate and user files in a central location.
Web Server – The web server runs web server software that allows many computers to access web pages.
Email Server – The email server runs email server software that enables emails to be sent and received.

The File Server stores corporate and user files in a central location. The client devices access these files with client software such as Windows Explorer.
The Web Server runs web server software and clients use their browser software, such as Windows Microsoft Edge, to access web pages on the server.
The Email Server runs email server software and clients use their mail client software, such as Microsoft Outlook, to access email on the server.

Typical Sessions

A typical network user at school, at home, or in the office, will normally use some type of computing device to establish many connections with network servers. Those servers could be located in the same room or around the world. Let’s look at a few typical network communication sessions.

Student

Terry is a high school student whose school has recently started a “bring your own device” (BYOD) program. Students are encouraged to use their cell phones or other devices such as tablets or laptops to access learning resources. Terry has just been given an assignment in language arts class to research the effects of World War I on the literature and art of the time. She enters the search terms she has chosen into a search engine app that she has opened on her cell phone.

Terry has connected her phone to the school Wi-Fi network. Her search is submitted from her phone to the school network wirelessly. Before her search can be sent, the data must be addressed so that it can find its way back to Terry. Her search terms are then represented as a string of binary data that has been encoded into radio waves. Her search string is then converted to electrical signals that travel on the school’s wired network until they reach the place at which the school’s network connects to the Internet Service Provider’s (ISP) network. A combination of technologies takes Terry’s search to the search engine website.

For example, Terry’s data flow with the data of thousands of other users along with a fibre-optic network that connects Terry’s ISP with several other ISPs, including the ISP that is used by the search engine company. Eventually, Terry’s search string enters the search engine company’s website and is processed by its powerful servers. The results are then encoded and addressed to Terry’s school and her device.
All of these transitions and connections happen in a fraction of a second, and Terry has started on her path to learning about her subject.

Gamer

Michelle loves computer games. She has a powerful gaming console that she uses to play games against other players, watch movies, and play music. Michelle connects her game console directly to her network with a copper network cable.

Michelle’s network, like many home networks, connects to an ISP using a router and a cable modem. These devices allow Michelle’s home network to connect to a cable TV network that belongs to Michelle’s ISP. The cable wires for Michelle’s neighbourhood all connect to a central point on a telephone pole and then connect to a fibre-optic network. This fibre-optic network connects many neighbourhoods that are served by Michelle’s ISP.

All those fibre-optic cables connect to telecommunications services that provide access to high-capacity connections. These connections allow thousands of users in homes, government offices, and businesses to connect to internet destinations around the world.

Michelle has connected her game console to a company that hosts a very popular online game. Michelle is registered with the company, and its servers keep track of Michelle’s scores, experiences, and game assets. Michelle’s actions in her game become data that is sent to the gamer network. Michelle’s moves are broken up into groups of binary data that each consists of a string of zeros and ones. Information that identifies Michelle, the game she is playing, and Michelle’s network location are added to the game data. The pieces of data that represent Michelle’s gameplay are sent at high speed to the game provider’s network. The results are returned to Michelle in the form of graphics and sounds.

All of this happens so quickly that Michelle can compete with hundreds of other gamers in real-time.

Surgeon

Dr Ismael Awad is an oncologist who performs surgery on cancer patients. He frequently needs to consult with radiologists and other specialists on patient cases. The hospital that Dr Awad works for subscribes to a special service called a cloud. The cloud allows medical data, including patient x-rays and MRIs to be stored in a central location that is accessed over the internet. In this way, the hospital does not need to manage paper patient records and X-ray films.

When a patient has an X-ray taken, the image is digitized as computer data. The X-ray is then prepared by hospital computers to be sent to the medical cloud service. Because security is very important when working with medical data, the hospital uses network services that encrypt the image data and patient information. This encrypted data cannot be intercepted and read as it travels across the internet to the cloud service provider’s data centres. The data is addressed so that it can be routed to the cloud provider’s data centre to reach the correct services that provide storage and retrieval of high-resolution digital images.

Dr. Awad and the patient’s care team can connect to this special service, meet with other doctors in audio conferences and discuss patient records to decide on the best treatment that can be provided to the patient. Dr Awad can work with specialists from diverse locations to view the medical images and other patient data and discuss the case.

All of this interaction is digital and takes place using networked services that are provided by the medical cloud service.

Tracing the Path

We tend to think about the data networks we use in our daily lives as we think about driving a car. We do not really care what happens in the engine as long as the car takes us where we want to go. However, just like a car’s mechanic knows the details of how a car operates, cybersecurity analysts need to have a deep understanding of how networks operate.

When we connect to a website to read social media or shop, we seldom care about how our data gets to the website and how data from the website gets to us. We are not aware of the many technologies that enable us to use the internet. A combination of copper and fibre-optic cables that go over land and under the ocean carry data traffic. High-speed wireless and satellite technologies are also used. These connections connect telecommunications facilities and internet service providers (ISP) that are distributed throughout the world, as shown in the figure.

These global Tier 1 and Tier 2 ISPs connect portions of the internet together, usually through an Internet Exchange Point (IXP). Larger networks will connect to Tier 2 networks through a Point of Presence (PoP), which is usually a location in the building where physical connections to the ISP are made. The Tier 3 ISPs connect homes and businesses to the internet.

Because of different relationships between ISPs and telecommunications companies, traffic from a computer to an internet server can take many paths. The traffic of a user in one country can take a very indirect path to reach its destination. The traffic might first travel from the local ISP to a facility that has connections to many other ISPs. A user’s internet traffic can go many hundreds of miles in one direction only to be routed in a completely different direction to reach its destination. Some of the traffic can take certain routes to reach the destination, and then take completely different routes to return.

Cybersecurity analysts must be able to determine the origin of traffic that enters the network and the destination of traffic that leaves it. Understanding the path that network traffic takes is essential to this.

Action Point
PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on an individual and corporate level, I will be very glad to do that because I have trainned several individuals and groups and they are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trainned include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.

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Data Encapsulation In Networking: Highlighting The Facts

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Knowing the OSI reference model and the TCP/IP protocol model will come in handy when you learn about how data is encapsulated as it moves across a network. It is not as simple as a physical letter being sent through the mail system. In this article, I will be talking about some of the facts that you need to know about data encapsulation in Networking.

In theory, a single communication, such as a video or an email message with many large attachments, could be sent across a network from a source to a destination as one massive, uninterrupted stream of bits.

However, this would create problems for other devices needing to use the same communication channels or links.

These large streams of data would result in significant delays. Further, if any link in the interconnected network infrastructure failed during the transmission, the complete message would be lost and would have to be retransmitted in full.

A better approach is to divide the data into smaller, more manageable pieces to send over the network. Segmentation is the process of dividing a stream of data into smaller units for transmissions over the network. Segmentation is necessary because data networks use the TCP/IP protocol suite to send data in individual IP packets. Each packet is sent separately, similar to sending a long letter as a series of individual postcards. Packets containing segments for the same destination can be sent over different paths.

This leads to segmenting messages having two primary benefits:

Increases speed – Because a large data stream is segmented into packets, large amounts of data can be sent over the network without tying up a communications link. This allows many different conversations to be interleaved on the network called multiplexing.
Increases efficiency – If a single segment fails to reach its destination due to a failure in the network or network congestion, only that segment needs to be retransmitted instead of resending the entire data stream.

Sequencing

The challenge to using segmentation and multiplexing to transmit messages across a network is the level of complexity that is added to the process. Imagine if you had to send a 100-page letter, but each envelope could only hold one page. Therefore, 100 envelopes would be required, and each envelope would need to be addressed individually. It is possible that the 100-page letter in 100 different envelopes arrives out-of-order. Consequently, the information in the envelope would need to include a sequence number to ensure that the receiver could reassemble the pages in the proper order.

In network communications, each segment of the message must go through a similar process to ensure that it gets to the correct destination and can be reassembled into the content of the original message, as shown in the figure. TCP is responsible for sequencing the individual segments.

Protocol Data Units

As application data is passed down the protocol stack on its way to being transmitted across the network media, various protocol information is added at each level. This is known as the encapsulation process.
Note: Although the UDP PDU is called a datagram, IP packets are sometimes also referred to as IP datagrams.

The form that a piece of data takes at any layer is called a protocol data unit (PDU). During encapsulation, each succeeding layer encapsulates the PDU that it receives from the layer above in accordance with the protocol being used. At each stage of the process, a PDU has a different name to reflect its new functions. Although there is no universal naming convention for PDUs, in this course, the PDUs are named according to the protocols of the TCP/IP suite. The PDUs for each form of data is shown in the figure.

Three Addresses

Network protocols require that addresses be used for network communication. Addressing is used by the client to send requests and other data to a server. The server uses the client’s address to return the requested data to the client that requested it.

The OSI transport, network, and data link layers all use addressing in some form. The transport layer uses protocol addresses in the form of port numbers to identify network applications that should handle client and server data. The network layer specifies addresses that identify the networks that clients and servers are attached to and the clients and servers themselves. Finally, the data link layer specifies the devices on the local LAN that should handle data frames. All three addresses are required for client-server communication, as shown in the figure.

Encapsulation Example

When messages are being sent on a network, the encapsulation process works from top to bottom. At each layer, the upper layer information is considered data within the encapsulated protocol. For example, the TCP segment is considered data within the IP packet.
You saw this animation previously in this module. This time, click Play and focus on the encapsulation process as a web server sends a web page to a web client.

De-encapsulation Example

This process is reversed at the receiving host and is known as de-encapsulation. De-encapsulation is the process used by a receiving device to remove one or more of the protocol headers. The data is de-encapsulated as it moves up the stack toward the end-user application.
You saw this animation previously in this module. This time, click Play and focus on the de-encapsulation process.

Understanding Ethernet Encapsulation In Networking

Ethernet Encapsulation

Ethernet and wireless LANs (WLANs) are the two most commonly deployed LAN technologies. Unlike wireless, Ethernet uses wired communications, including twisted pair, fibre-optic links, and coaxial cables. In this article, we are going to talk about ethernet encapsulation in networking.

Ethernet operates in the data link layer and the physical layer. It is a family of networking technologies defined in the IEEE 802.2 and 802.3 standards. Ethernet supports the following data bandwidths:

10 Mbps
100 Mbps
1000 Mbps (1 Gbps)
10,000 Mbps (10 Gbps)
40,000 Mbps (40 Gbps)
100,000 Mbps (100 Gbps)

As shown in the figure, Ethernet standards define both the Layer 2 protocols and the Layer 1 technologies.

Ethernet and the OSI Modes

Ethernet Frame Fields

The minimum Ethernet frame size is 64 bytes and the maximum is 1518 bytes. This includes all bytes from the destination MAC address field through the frame check sequence (FCS) field. The preamble field is not included when describing the size of the frame.

Any frame less than 64 bytes in length is considered a “collision fragment” or “runt frame” and is automatically discarded by receiving stations. Frames with more than 1500 bytes of data are considered “jumbo” or “baby giant frames”.

If the size of a transmitted frame is less than the minimum, or greater than the maximum, the receiving device drops the frame. Dropped frames are likely to be the result of collisions or other unwanted signals. They are considered invalid. However, the Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet interfaces of some Cisco Catalyst switches can be configured to support larger jumbo frames.

Ethernet Frame Fields


Field	Description
Preamble and Start Frame Delimiter Fields	The Preamble (7 bytes) and Start Frame Delimiter (SFD), also called the Start of Frame (1 byte), fields are used for synchronization between the sending and receiving devices. These first eight bytes of the frame are used to get the attention of the receiving nodes. Essentially, the first few bytes tell the receivers to get ready to receive a new frame.
Destination MAC Address Field	This 6-byte field is the identifier for the intended recipient. As you will recall, this address is used by Layer 2 to assist devices in determining if a frame is addressed to them. The address in the frame is compared to the MAC address in the device. If there is a match, the device accepts the frame. Can be a unicast, multicast or broadcast address.
Source MAC Address Field	This 6-byte field identifies the originating NIC or interface of the frame. A source MAC address can only be a unicast address.
Type / Length	This 2-byte field identifies the upper layer protocol encapsulated in the Ethernet frame. Common values are, in hexadecimal, 0x800 for IPv4, 0x86DD for IPv6 and 0x806 for ARP. Note: You may also see this field referred to as EtherType, Type, or Length.
Data Field	This field (46 – 1500 bytes) contains the encapsulated data from a higher layer, which is a generic Layer 3 PDU, or more commonly, an IPv4 packet. All frames must be at least 64 bytes long. If a small packet is encapsulated, additional bits called a pad are used to increase the size of the frame to this minimum size.
Frame Check Sequence Field	The Frame Check Sequence (FCS) field (4 bytes) is used to detect errors in a frame. It uses a cyclic redundancy check (CRC). The sending device includes the results of a CRC in the FCS field of the frame. The receiving device receives the frame and generates a CRC to look for errors. If the calculations match, no error occurred. Calculations that do not match are an indication that the data has changed; therefore, the frame is dropped. A change in the data could be the result of a disruption of the electrical signals that represent the bits.

MAC Address Format

Decimal and Binary Equivalents of 0 to F Hexadecimal

An Ethernet MAC address is a 48-bit binary value expressed as 12 hexadecimal digits (4 bits per hexadecimal digit). Hexadecimal digits use the numbers 0 to 9 and the letters A to F. The figure shows the equivalent decimal and hexadecimal values for binary 0000 to 1111. Hexadecimal is commonly used to represent binary data. IPv6 addresses are another example of hexadecimal addressing.

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MAC Addresses And IP Addresses: Highlighting The Facts

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In my previous article, I have talked much about how data travels across the network. In this article, I want to talk more about MAC addresses and IP Addresses. Follow me as we will look at that in this article. There are two primary addresses assigned to a device on an Ethernet LAN:

Physical address (the MAC address) – This is used for Ethernet NIC to Ethernet NIC communications on the same network.
The logical address (the IP address) – This is used to send the packet from the original source to the final destination.

IP addresses are used to identify the address of the original source device and the final destination device. The destination IP address may be on the same IP network as the source or maybe on a remote network.
Note: Most applications use DNS (Domain Name System) to determine the IP address when given a domain name such as www.cisco.com. DNS is discussed in a later module.
Ethernet MAC addresses have different purposes. These addresses are used to deliver the data link frame with the encapsulated IP packet from one NIC to another NIC on the same network. If the destination IP address is on the same network, the destination MAC address will be that of the destination device.

The figure shows the Ethernet MAC addresses and IP addresses for PC-A sending an IP packet to the file server on the same network.
The Layer 2 Ethernet frame contains:

Destination MAC address – This is the MAC address of the file server’s Ethernet NIC.
Source MAC address – This is the MAC address of PC-A’s Ethernet NIC.

The Layer 3 IP packet contains:

Source IP address – This is the IP address of the original source, PC-A.
Destination IP address – This is the IP address of the final destination, the file server.

Communicating on a Local Network

Destination on Remote Network

When the destination IP address is on a remote network, the destination MAC address will be the address of the host’s default gateway. The default gateway address is the address of the router’s NIC, as shown in the figure. Using a postal analogy, this would be similar to a person taking a letter to their local post office. They only need to leave the letter at the post office. It then becomes the responsibility of the post office to forward the letter towards its final destination.

The figure shows the Ethernet MAC addresses and IPv4 addresses for PC-A. It is sending an IP packet to a file server on a remote network. Routers examine the destination IPv4 address to determine the best path to forward the IPv4 packet. This is similar to how the postal service forwards mail based on the address of the recipient.

When the router receives the Ethernet frame, it de-encapsulates the Layer 2 information. Using the destination IP address, it determines the next-hop device and then encapsulates the IP packet in a new data link frame for the outgoing interface. Along with each link in a path, an IP packet is encapsulated in a frame specific to the particular data link technology associated with that link, such as Ethernet. If the next-hop device is the final destination, the destination MAC address will be that of the device’s Ethernet NIC.

How are the IPv4 addresses of the IPv4 packets in a data flow associated with the MAC addresses on each link along the path to the destination? This is done through a process called Address Resolution Protocol (ARP).

Using Ping And Traceroute Utilities

Ping-Test Connectivity

In my previous article, you were introduced to the ping and traceroute (tracert) tools. In this topic, you will learn about the situations in which each tool is used, and how to use them. Ping is an IPv4 and IPv6 testing utility that uses ICMP echo request and echo reply messages to test connectivity between hosts. In this article, we will talk about ways of using ping and traceroute utilities.

To test connectivity to another host on a network, an echo request is sent to the host address using the ping command. If the host at the specified address receives the echo request, it responds with an echo reply. As each echo reply is received, ping provides feedback on the time between when the request was sent and when the reply was received.

This can be a measure of network performance.
Ping has a timeout value for the reply. If a reply is not received within the timeout, ping provides a message indicating that a response was not received. This may indicate that there is a problem, but could also indicate that security features blocking ping messages have been enabled on the network. It is common for the first ping to timeout if address resolution (ARP or ND) needs to be performed before sending the ICMP Echo Request.

After all the requests are sent, the ping utility provides a summary that includes the success rate and average round-trip time to the destination.
Type of connectivity tests performed with ping include the following:

Pinging the local loopback
Pinging the default gateway
Pinging the remote host

Ping the Loopback

Ping can be used to test the internal configuration of IPv4 or IPv6 on the localhost. To perform this test, ping the local loopback address of 127.0.0.1 for IPv4 (::1 for IPv6).

A response from 127.0.0.1 for IPv4, or::1 for IPv6, indicates that IP is properly installed on the host. This response comes from the network layer. This response is not, however, an indication that the addresses, masks, or gateways are properly configured. Nor does it indicate anything about the status of the lower layer of the network stack. This simply tests IP down through the network layer of IP. An error message indicates that TCP/IP is not operational on the host.

Ping the Default Gateway

You can also use ping to test the ability of a host to communicate on the local network. This is generally done by pinging the IP address of the default gateway of the host. A successful ping to the default gateway indicates that the host and the router interface serving as the default gateway are both operating on the local network.

For this test, the default gateway address is most often used because the router is normally always operational. If the default gateway address does not respond, a ping can be sent to the IP address of another host on the local network that is known to be operational.

If either the default gateway or another host responds, then the local host can successfully communicate over the local network. If the default gateway does not respond but another host does, this could indicate a problem with the router interface serving as the default gateway.
One possibility is that the wrong default gateway address has been configured on the host. Another possibility is that the router interface may be fully operational but have security applied to it that prevents it from processing or responding to ping requests.

Ping a Remote Host

Ping can also be used to test the ability of localhost to communicate across an internetwork. The local host can ping an operational IPv4 host of a remote network, as shown in the figure. The router uses its IP routing table to forward the packets.

If this ping is successful, the operation of a large piece of the internetwork can be verified. A successful ping across the internetwork confirms communication on the local network, the operation of the router serving as the default gateway, and the operation of all other routers that might be in the path between the local network and the network of the remote host.

Additionally, the functionality of the remote host can be verified. If the remote host could not communicate outside of its local network, it would not have responded.

Note: Many network administrators limit or prohibit the entry of ICMP messages into the corporate network; therefore, the lack of a ping response could be due to security restrictions.

Traceroute – Test the Path

Ping is used to test connectivity between two hosts but does not provide information about the details of devices between the hosts. Traceroute (tracert) is a utility that generates a list of hops that were successfully reached along the path. This list can provide important verification and troubleshooting information. If the data reaches the destination, then the trace lists the interface of every router in the path between the hosts. If the data fails at some hop along the way, the address of the last router that responded to the trace can provide an indication of where the problem or security restrictions are found.

Round Trip Time (RTT)
Using traceroute provides round-trip time for each hop along the path and indicates if a hop fails to respond. The round-trip time is the time a packet takes to reach the remote host and for the response from the host to return. An asterisk (*) is used to indicate a lost or unreplied packet.

This information can be used to locate a problematic router in the path or may indicate that the router is configured not to reply. If the display shows high response times or data losses from a particular hop, this is an indication that the resources of the router or its connections may be overused.

IPv4 TTL and IPv6 Hop Limit
Traceroute makes use of a function of the TTL field in IPv4 and the Hop Limit field in IPv6 in the Layer 3 headers, along with the ICMP Time Exceeded message.
Play the animation in the figure to see how the traceroute takes advantage of TTL.

The first sequence of messages sent from traceroute will have a TTL field value of 1. This causes the TTL to time out the IPv4 packet at the first router. This router then responds with an ICMPv4 Time Exceeded message. Traceroute now has the address of the first hop.

Traceroute then progressively increments the TTL field (2, 3, 4…) for each sequence of messages. This provides the trace with the address of each hop as the packets time out further down the path. The TTL field continues to be increased until the destination is reached, or it is incremented to a predefined maximum.

After the final destination is reached, the host responds with either an ICMP Port Unreachable message or an ICMP Echo Reply message instead of the ICMP Time Exceeded message.

ICMP Packet Format

ICMP is encapsulated directly into IP packets. In this sense, it is almost like a transport layer protocol, because it is encapsulated into a packet, however, it is considered to be a Layer 3 protocol. ICMP acts as a data payload within the IP packet. It has a special header data field, as shown in the figure.
ICMP uses message codes to differentiate between different types of ICMP messages. These are some common message codes:

0 – Echo reply (response to a ping)
3 – Destination Unreachable
5 – Redirect (use another route to your destination)
8 – Echo request (for ping)
11 – Time Exceeded (TTL became 0)

As you will see later in the course, a cybersecurity analyst knows that the optional ICMP payload field can be used in an attack vector to exfiltrate data.

Understanding Internet Control Message Protocol

Although IP is only a best-effort protocol, the TCP/IP suite does provide for messages to be sent in the event of certain errors. These messages are sent using the services of ICMP. The purpose of these messages is to provide feedback about issues related to the processing of IP packets under certain conditions, not to make IP reliable. ICMP messages are not required and are often not allowed within a network for security reasons.

ICMP is available for both IPv4 and IPv6. ICMPv4 is the messaging protocol for IPv4. ICMPv6 provides these same services for IPv6 but includes additional functionality. In this course, the term ICMP will be used when referring to both ICMPv4 and ICMPv6.

The types of ICMP messages and the reasons why they are sent are extensive. We will discuss some of the more common messages.
ICMP messages common to both ICMPv4 and ICMPv6 include:

Host confirmation
Destination or Service Unreachable
Time exceeded
Route redirection

Host Confirmation

An ICMP Echo Message can be used to determine if a host is operational. The local host sends an ICMP Echo Request to a host. If the host is available, the destination host responds with an Echo Reply. Click Play in the figure to see an animation of the ICMP Echo Request/Echo Reply. This use of the ICMP Echo messages is the basis of the ping utility.

Destination or Service Unreachable
When a host or gateway receives a packet that it cannot deliver, it can use an ICMP Destination Unreachable message to notify the source that the destination or service is unreachable. The message will include a code that indicates why the packet could not be delivered.
These are some of the Destination Unreachable codes for ICMPv4:

0 – Net unreachable
1 – Host unreachable
2 – Protocol unreachable
3 – Port unreachable

Note: ICMPv6 has similar but slightly different codes for Destination Unreachable messages.

Time Exceeded

An ICMPv4 Time Exceeded message is used by a router to indicate that a packet cannot be forwarded because the Time to Live (TTL) field of the packet was decremented to 0. If a router receives a packet and decrements the TTL field in the IPv4 packet to zero, it discards the packet and sends a Time Exceeded message to the source host.
ICMPv6 also sends a Time Exceeded message if the router cannot forward an IPv6 packet because the packet has expired. IPv6 does not have a TTL field. It uses the hop limit field to determine if the packet has expired.

ICMPv6 RS and RA Messages

The informational and error messages found in ICMPv6 are very similar to the control and error messages implemented by ICMPv4. However, ICMPv6 has new features and improved functionality not found in ICMPv4. ICMPv6 messages are encapsulated in IPv6.
ICMPv6 includes four new protocols as part of the Neighbor Discovery Protocol (ND or NDP).
Messaging between an IPv6 router and an IPv6 device:

Router Solicitation (RS) message
Router Advertisement (RA) message

Messaging between IPv6 devices:

Neighbour Solicitation (NS) message
Neighbour Advertisement (NA) message

Router Solicitation

Address Resolution

Duplicate Address Detection (DAD)

RA messages are sent by routers to provide addressing information to hosts using Stateless Address Autoconfiguration (SLAAC). The RA message can include addressing information for the host such as the prefix, prefix length, DNS address, and domain name. A router will send an RA message periodically or in response to an RS message. A host using SLAAC will set its default gateway to the link-local address of the router that sent the RA.
When a host is configured to obtain its addressing information automatically using SLAAC, the host will send an RS message to the router requesting an RA message.

The Need For IPv6 Network Addressing

IPv6 is designed to be the successor to IPv4. IPv6 has a larger 128-bit address space, providing 340 undecillion (i.e., 340 followed by 36 zeroes) possible addresses. However, IPv6 is more than just larger addresses. In this article, I want to discuss the need for IPv6 Network Addressing.

When the IETF began its development of a successor to IPv4, it used this opportunity to fix the limitations of IPv4 and include enhancements. One example is Internet Control Message Protocol version 6 (ICMPv6), which includes address resolution and address autoconfiguration not found in ICMP for IPv4 (ICMPv4).

The depletion of IPv4 address space has been the motivating factor for moving to IPv6. As Africa, Asia and other areas of the world become more connected to the internet, there are not enough IPv4 addresses to accommodate this growth. As shown in the figure, four out of the five RIRs have run out of IPv4 addresses.

RIR IPv4 Exhaustion Dates

IPv4 has a theoretical maximum of 4.3 billion addresses. Private addresses in combination with Network Address Translation (NAT) have been instrumental in slowing the depletion of IPv4 address space. However, NAT is problematic for many applications, creates latency, and has limitations that severely impede peer-to-peer communications.

With the ever-increasing number of mobile devices, mobile providers have been leading the way with the transition to IPv6. The top two mobile providers in the United States report that over 90% of their traffic is over IPv6.

Most top ISPs and content providers such as YouTube, Facebook, and NetFlix, have also made the transition. Many companies like Microsoft, Facebook, and LinkedIn are transitioning to IPv6-only internally. In 2018, broadband ISP Comcast reported deployment of over 65% and British Sky Broadcasting over 86%.

Internet of Things
The internet of today is significantly different from the internet of past decades. The internet of today is more than email, web pages, and file transfers between computers. The evolving internet is becoming an Internet of Things (IoT). No longer will the only devices accessing the internet be computers, tablets, and smartphones. The sensor-equipped, internet-ready devices of tomorrow will include everything from automobiles and biomedical devices, to household appliances and natural ecosystems.
With an increasing Internet population, a limited IPv4 address space, issues with NAT and the IoT, the time has come to begin the transition to IPv6.

IPv6 Addressing Formats

The first step to learning about IPv6 in networks is to understand the way an IPv6 address is written and formatted. IPv6 addresses are much larger than IPv4 addresses, which is why we are unlikely to run out of them.

IPv6 addresses are 128 bits in length and written as a string of hexadecimal values. Every four bits is represented by a single hexadecimal digit; for a total of 32 hexadecimal values, as shown in the figure. IPv6 addresses are not case-sensitive and can be written in either lowercase or uppercase.

16-bit Segments or Hextets

Preferred Format

The previous figure also shows that the preferred format for writing an IPv6 address is x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x, with each “x” consisting of four hexadecimal values. The term octet refers to the eight bits of an IPv4 address. In IPv6, a hextet is the unofficial term used to refer to a segment of 16 bits, or four hexadecimal values. Each “x” is a single hextet which is 16 bits or four hexadecimal digits.

Preferred format means that you write IPv6 address using all 32 hexadecimal digits. It does not necessarily mean that it is the ideal method for representing the IPv6 address. In this module, you will see two rules that help to reduce the number of digits needed to represent an IPv6 address.
These are examples of IPv6 addresses in the preferred format.

2001 : 0db8 : 0000 : 1111 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000: 0200
2001 : 0db8 : 0000 : 00a3 : abcd : 0000 : 0000: 1234
2001 : 0db8 : 000a : 0001 : c012 : 9aff : fe9a: 19ac
2001 : 0db8 : aaaa : 0001 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000: 0000
fe80 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0123 : 4567 : 89ab: cdef
fe80 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000: 0001
fe80 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : c012 : 9aff : fe9a: 19ac
fe80 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0123 : 4567 : 89ab: cdef
0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000: 0001
0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000: 0000

Rule 1 – Omit Leading Zeros

The first rule to help reduce the notation of IPv6 addresses is to omit any leading 0s (zeros) in any hextet. Here are four examples of ways to omit leading zeros:

01ab can be represented as 1ab
09f0 can be represented as 9f0
0a00 can be represented as a00
00ab can be represented as ab

This rule only applies to leading 0s, NOT to trailing 0s, otherwise the address would be ambiguous. For example, the hextet “abc” could be either “0abc” or “abc0”, but these do not represent the same value.


Type	Format
Preferred	2001 : 0db8 : 0000 : 1111 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0200
No leading 0s	2001 : db8 : 0 : 1111 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 200


Preferred	2001 : 0db8 : 0000 : 00a3 : ab00 : 0ab0 : 00ab : 1234
No leading 0s	2001 : db8 : 0 : a3 : ab00 : ab0 : ab : 1234


Preferred	2001 : 0db8 : 000a : 0001 : c012 : 90ff : fe90 : 0001
No leading 0s	2001 : db8 : a : 1 : c012 : 90ff : fe90 : 1


Preferred	2001 : 0db8 : aaaa : 0001 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000
No leading 0s	2001 : db8 : aaaa : 1 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 0


Preferred	fe80 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0123 : 4567 : 89ab : cdef
No leading 0s	fe80 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 123 : 4567 : 89ab : cdef


Preferred	fe80 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0001
No leading 0s	fe80 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 1


Preferred	0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0001
No leading 0s	0 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 1


Preferred	0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000
No leading 0s	0 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 0

Rule 2- Double Colon

The second rule to help reduce the notation of IPv6 addresses is that a double colon (::) can replace any single, contiguous string of one or more 16-bit hextets consisting of all zeros. For example, 2001:db8:cafe:1:0:0:0:1 (leading 0s omitted) could be represented as 2001:db8:cafe:1::1. The double colon (::) is used in place of the three all-0 hextets (0:0:0).

The double colon (::) can only be used once within an address, otherwise there would be more than one possible resulting address. When used with the omitting leading 0s technique, the notation of IPv6 address can often be greatly reduced. This is commonly known as the compressed format.

Here is an example of the incorrect use of the double colon: 2001:db8::abcd::1234.
The double colon is used twice in the example above. Here are the possible expansions of this incorrect compressed format address:

2001:db8::abcd:0000:0000:1234
2001:db8::abcd:0000:0000:0000:1234
2001:db8:0000:abcd::1234
2001:db8:0000:0000:abcd::1234

If an address has more than one contiguous string of all-0 hextets, best practice is to use the double colon (::) on the longest string. If the strings are equal, the first string should use the double colon (::).


Type	Format
Preferred	2001 : 0db8 : 0000 : 1111 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0200
Compressed/spaces	2001 : db8 : 0 : 1111 : : 200
Compressed	2001:db8:0:1111::200

Preferred	2001 : 0db8 : 0000 : 0000 : ab00 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000
Compressed/spaces	2001 : db8 : 0 : 0 : ab00 ::
Compressed	2001:db8:0:0:ab00::

Preferred	2001 : 0db8 : aaaa : 0001 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000
Compressed/spaces	2001 : db8 : aaaa : 1 ::
Compressed	2001:db8:aaaa:1::

Preferred	fe80 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0123 : 4567 : 89ab : cdef
Compressed/spaces	fe80 : : 123 : 4567 : 89ab : cdef
Compressed	fe80::123:4567:89ab:cdef

Preferred	fe80 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0001
Compressed/spaces	fe80 : : 1
Compressed	fe80::0

Preferred	0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0001
Compressed/spaces	:: 1
Compressed	::1

Preferred	0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000 : 0000
Compressed/spaces	::
Compressed	::

IPv6 Prefix Length

The prefix, or network portion, of an IPv4 address can be identified by a dotted-decimal subnet mask or prefix length (slash notation). For example, an IPv4 address of 192.168.1.10 with dotted-decimal subnet mask 255.255.255.0 is equivalent to 192.168.1.10/24.

In IPv4 the /24 is called the prefix. In IPv6 it is called the prefix length. IPv6 does not use the dotted-decimal subnet mask notation. Like IPv4, the prefix length is represented in slash notation and is used to indicate the network portion of an IPv6 address.

The prefix length can range from 0 to 128. The recommended IPv6 prefix length for LANs and most other types of networks is /64, as shown in the figure.

IPv6 Prefix Length

It is strongly recommended to use a 64-bit Interface ID for most networks. This is because stateless address autoconfiguration (SLAAC) uses 64 bits for the Interface ID. It also makes subnetting easier to create and manage.

How Router Makes Host Forwarding Decision

With both IPv4 and IPv6, packets are always created at the source host. The source host must be able to direct the packet to the destination host. To do this, host end devices create their own routing table. This topic discusses how end devices use routing tables. In this article, I want to talk about how router makes host forwarding decisions.

Another role of the network layer is to direct packets between hosts. A host can send a packet to the following:

Itself – A host can ping itself by sending a packet to a special IPv4 address of 127.0.0.1 or an IPv6 address ::/1, which is referred to as the loopback interface. Pinging the loopback interface tests the TCP/IP protocol stack on the host.
Local host – This is a destination host that is on the same local network as the sending host. The source and destination hosts share the same network address.
Remote host – This is a destination host on a remote network. The source and destination hosts do not share the same network address.

The figure illustrates PC1 connecting to a local host on the same network, and to a remote host located on another network.

Whether a packet is destined for a local host or a remote host is determined by the source end device. The source end device determines whether the destination IP address is on the same network that the source device itself is on. The method of determination varies by IP version:

In IPv4 – The source device uses its own subnet mask along with its own IPv4 address and the destination IPv4 address to make this determination.
In IPv6 – The local router advertises the local network address (prefix) to all devices on the network.

In a home or business network, you may have several wired and wireless devices interconnected together using an intermediary device, such as a LAN switch or a wireless access point (WAP). This intermediary device provides interconnections between local hosts on the local network. Local hosts can reach each other and share information without the need for any additional devices.

If a host is sending a packet to a device that is configured with the same IP network as the host device, the packet is simply forwarded out of the host interface, through the intermediary device, and to the destination device directly.

Of course, in most situations we want our devices to be able to connect beyond the local network segment, such as out to other homes, businesses, and the internet. Devices that are beyond the local network segment are known as remote hosts.

When a source device sends a packet to a remote destination device, then the help of routers and routing is needed. Routing is the process of identifying the best path to a destination. The router connected to the local network segment is referred to as the default gateway.

Default Gateway

The default gateway is the network device (i.e., router or Layer 3 switch) that can route traffic to other networks. If you use the analogy that a network is like a room, then the default gateway is like a doorway. If you want to get to another room or network you need to find the doorway.
On a network, a default gateway is usually a router with these features:

It has a local IP address in the same address range as other hosts on the local network.
It can accept data into the local network and forward data out of the local network.
It routes traffic to other networks.

A default gateway is required to send traffic outside of the local network. Traffic cannot be forwarded outside the local network if there is no default gateway, the default gateway address is not configured, or the default gateway is down.

A Host Routes to the Default Gateway

A host routing table will typically include a default gateway. In IPv4, the host receives the IPv4 address of the default gateway either dynamically from Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) or configured manually. In IPv6, the router advertises the default gateway address or the host can be configured manually.

In the figure, PC1 and PC2 are configured with the IPv4 address of 192.168.10.1 as the default gateway.

Having a default gateway configured creates a default route in the routing table of the PC. A default route is the route or pathway your computer will take when it tries to contact a remote network.
Both PC1 and PC2 will have a default route to send all traffic destined to remote networks to R1.

Host Routing Tables

On a Windows host, the route print or netstat -r command can be used to display the host routing table. Both commands generate the same output. The output may seem overwhelming at first, but is fairly simple to understand.

The figure displays a sample topology and the output generated by the netstat –r command.

IPv4 Routing Table for PC1

C:\Users\PC1> netstat -r
(output omitted)
IPv4 Route Table
===========================================================================
Active Routes:
Network Destination         Netmask       Gateway       Interface    Metric
          0.0.0.0           0.0.0.0   192.168.10.1   192.168.10.10       25
        127.0.0.0         255.0.0.0       On-link        127.0.0.1      306
        127.0.0.1   255.255.255.255       On-link        127.0.0.1      306
  127.255.255.255   255.255.255.255       On-link        127.0.0.1      306
     192.168.10.0     255.255.255.0       On-link    192.168.10.10      281
    192.168.10.10   255.255.255.255       On-link    192.168.10.10      281
   192.168.10.255   255.255.255.255       On-link    192.168.10.10      281
        224.0.0.0         240.0.0.0       On-link        127.0.0.1      306
        224.0.0.0         240.0.0.0       On-link    192.168.10.10      281
  255.255.255.255   255.255.255.255       On-link        127.0.0.1      306
  255.255.255.255   255.255.255.255       On-link    192.168.10.10      281
(output omitted)

Note: The output only displays the IPv4 route table.
Entering the netstat -r command or the equivalent route print command displays three sections related to the current TCP/IP network connections:

Interface List – Lists the Media Access Control (MAC) address and assigned interface number of every network-capable interface on the host, including Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth adapters.
IPv4 Route Table – Lists all known IPv4 routes, including direct connections, local network, and local default routes.
IPv6 Route Table – Lists all known IPv6 routes, including direct connections, local network, and local default routes.

Action Point
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Address Resolution Protocol: How It Works

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If your network is using the IPv4 communications protocol, the Address Resolution Protocol, or ARP, is what you need to map IPv4 addresses to MAC addresses. This topic explains how ARP works.

Every IP device on an Ethernet network has a unique Ethernet MAC address. When a device sends an Ethernet Layer 2 frame, it contains these two addresses:

Destination MAC address – The Ethernet MAC address of the destination device on the same local network segment. If the destination host is on another network, then the destination address in the frame would be that of the default gateway (i.e., router).
Source MAC address – The MAC address of the Ethernet NIC on the source host.

The figure illustrates the problem when sending a frame to another host on the same segment on an IPv4 network.

To send a packet to another host on the same local IPv4 network, a host must know the IPv4 address and the MAC address of the destination device. Device destination IPv4 addresses are either known or resolved by device name. However, MAC addresses must be discovered.

A device uses Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) to determine the destination MAC address of a local device when it knows its IPv4 address.
ARP provides two basic functions:

Resolving IPv4 addresses to MAC addresses
Maintaining a table of IPv4 to MAC address mappings

]

ARP Functions

When a packet is sent to the data link layer to be encapsulated into an Ethernet frame, the device refers to a table in its memory to find the MAC address that is mapped to the IPv4 address. This table is stored temporarily in RAM memory and called the ARP table or the ARP cache.

The sending device will search its ARP table for a destination IPv4 address and a corresponding MAC address.

If the packet’s destination IPv4 address is on the same network as the source IPv4 address, the device will search the ARP table for the destination IPv4 address.
If the destination IPv4 address is on a different network than the source IPv4 address, the device will search the ARP table for the IPv4 address of the default gateway.

In both cases, the search is for an IPv4 address and a corresponding MAC address for the device.

Each entry, or row, of the ARP table binds an IPv4 address with a MAC address. We call the relationship between the two values a map. This simply means that you can locate an IPv4 address in the table and discover the corresponding MAC address. The ARP table temporarily saves (caches) the mapping for the devices on the LAN.
If the device locates the IPv4 address, its corresponding MAC address is used as the destination MAC address in the frame. If there is no entry is found, then the device sends an ARP request.

ARP Request

An ARP request is sent when a device needs to determine the MAC address that is associated with an IPv4 address, and it does not have an entry for the IPv4 address in its ARP table.

ARP messages are encapsulated directly within an Ethernet frame. There is no IPv4 header. The ARP request is encapsulated in an Ethernet frame using the following header information:

Destination MAC address – This is a broadcast address FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF requiring all Ethernet NICs on the LAN to accept and process the ARP request.
Source MAC address – This is MAC address of the sender of the ARP request.
Type – ARP messages have a type field of 0x806. This informs the receiving NIC that the data portion of the frame needs to be passed to the ARP process.

Because ARP requests are broadcasts, they are flooded out all ports by the switch, except the receiving port. All Ethernet NICs on the LAN process broadcasts and must deliver the ARP request to its operating system for processing. Every device must process the ARP request to see if the target IPv4 address matches its own. A router will not forward broadcasts out other interfaces.

Only one device on the LAN will have an IPv4 address that matches the target IPv4 address in the ARP request. All other devices will not reply.
Click Play in the figure to view a demonstration of an ARP request for a destination IPv4 address that is on the local network.

ARP Operation – ARP Reply

Only the device with the target IPv4 address associated with the ARP request will respond with an ARP reply. The ARP reply is encapsulated in an Ethernet frame using the following header information:

Destination MAC address – This is the MAC address of the sender of the ARP request.
Source MAC address – This is the MAC address of the sender of the ARP reply.
Type – ARP messages have a type field of 0x806. This informs the receiving NIC that the data portion of the frame needs to be passed to the ARP process.

Only the device that originally sent the ARP request will receive the unicast ARP reply. After the ARP reply is received, the device will add the IPv4 address and the corresponding MAC address to its ARP table. Packets destined for that IPv4 address can now be encapsulated in frames using its corresponding MAC address.
If no device responds to the ARP request, the packet is dropped because a frame cannot be created.
Entries in the ARP table are time stamped. If a device does not receive a frame from a particular device before the timestamp expires, the entry for this device is removed from the ARP table.
Additionally, static map entries can be entered in an ARP table, but this is rarely done. Static ARP table entries do not expire over time and must be manually removed.
Note: IPv6 uses a similar process to ARP for IPv4, known as ICMPv6 Neighbor Discovery (ND). IPv6 uses neighbour solicitation and neighbour advertisement messages, similar to IPv4 ARP requests and ARP replies.

ARP Role in Remote Communication

When the destination IPv4 address is not on the same network as the source IPv4 address, the source device needs to send the frame to its default gateway. This is the interface of the local router. Whenever a source device has a packet with an IPv4 address on another network, it will encapsulate that packet in a frame using the destination MAC address of the router.
The IPv4 address of the default gateway is stored in the IPv4 configuration of the hosts. When a host creates a packet for a destination, it compares the destination IPv4 address and its own IPv4 address to determine if the two IPv4 addresses are located on the same Layer 3 network. If the destination host is not on its same network, the source checks its ARP table for an entry with the IPv4 address of the default gateway. If there is not an entry, it uses the ARP process to determine the MAC address of the default gateway.
Click Play to view a demonstration of an ARP request and ARP reply associated with the default gateway.

Removing Entries from an ARP Table

For each device, an ARP cache timer removes ARP entries that have not been used for a specified period of time. The times differ depending on the operating system of the device. For example, newer Windows operating systems store ARP table entries between 15 and 45 seconds, as illustrated in the figure.

ACBR1S1G0/0/0

192.168.1.110/24
MAC 00-0A192.168.1.120/24
MAC 00-0B192.168.1.50/24
MAC 00-0C192.168.1.1/24
MAC 00-0DI will remove this ARP entry if I have not used it within 15 to 45 seconds.InternetNote: MAC addresses are shortened for demonstration purposes.

PC A’s ARP Cache
IPv4 Address	MAC Address
192.168.1.1	00:0D

Commands may also be used to manually remove some or all of the entries in the ARP table. After an entry has been removed, the process for sending an ARP request and receiving an ARP reply must occur again to enter the map in the ARP table.

ARP Tables on Networking Devices

On a Cisco router, the show ip arp command is used to display the ARP table, as shown in the figure.

R1# show ip arp
Protocol  Address          Age (min)  Hardware Addr   Type   Interface
Internet  192.168.10.1            -   a0e0.af0d.e140  ARPA   GigabitEthernet0/0/0
Internet  209.165.200.225         -   a0e0.af0d.e141  ARPA   GigabitEthernet0/0/1
Internet  209.165.200.226         1   a03d.6fe1.9d91  ARPA   GigabitEthernet0/0/1
R1#

On a Windows 10 PC, the arp –a command is used to display the ARP table, as shown in the figure.

C:\Users\PC> arp -a
Interface: 192.168.1.124 --- 0x10
  Internet Address      Physical Address      Type
  192.168.1.1           c8-d7-19-cc-a0-86     dynamic
  192.168.1.101         08-3e-0c-f5-f7-77     dynamic
  192.168.1.110         08-3e-0c-f5-f7-56     dynamic
  192.168.1.112         ac-b3-13-4a-bd-d0     dynamic
  192.168.1.117         08-3e-0c-f5-f7-5c     dynamic
  192.168.1.126         24-77-03-45-5d-c4     dynamic
  192.168.1.146         94-57-a5-0c-5b-02     dynamic
  192.168.1.255         ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff     static
  224.0.0.22            01-00-5e-00-00-16     static
  224.0.0.251           01-00-5e-00-00-fb     static
  239.255.255.250       01-00-5e-7f-ff-fa     static
  255.255.255.255       ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff     static
C:\Users\PC>