| LED Digest 1973: Keywords a Gamble |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest post, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. May 24, 2005 Issue #1973 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== --== PHP & SQL ==-- ~ Wanda Gersheid "Do search engines read it with a difference?" --== Keyword Liability ==-- ~ John Smart "This raises many questions..." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Site Quality & Customer Confidence ==-- ~ Steve Pronger "...98% of the surfing population don't even know there is 'code'.." ~ Chad Black "You can be correct, or you can go to the bank." --== Problems with Web Design ==-- ~ Sheryl Coppenger "...we are already paying royalties on all blank media..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== The Incredible Disappearing Ezine ==-- ~ Malcolm Bailey ~ Veronica Yuill ======== NEW ===================================== From: Wanda Gersheid Subject: Newsletters, HTML, SQL, PHP, RSS Hi All, I've relied on LED Digest heavily, and have built a small niche-market commercial website over the last five years that consistently ranks high on Google for its specific niche keyword, and is full of text content and information. (Thanks LED!) I've had a 1500 subscriber emailing list on top of that, but I have been sensing that its functionality is dying and I think RSS might fill my needs there. Now, while I can type basic HTML code almost as fast as I can type, (though I usually tweak nested tables in Composer) this has also kept my website a bit in the dark ages and I'm getting more and more feedback that customers are beginning to be turned off by its dated look and feel and limited usefulness. Its useful to ME, as they buy, but the shopping cart and clickable links are the limts of its interactivity. I never went in for flash entryways or bells and whistles, and I believe that has contributed to my search engine rankings. But I've recently had more than one younger consumer extolling the virtues of PHP and SQL and pointing me toward moving to a centralized ecommerce solution that provides my users with... among other things they've asked for... language customization of the site, their own niche-targeted photo galleries, forums, events databases and other user utilities. They seem to want more user-oriented utilities that involves them; blogs for example. I can see how that can enhance my ecommerce end. What I want to ask LED readers about, is their experience with PHP and SQL, (what I so far know next to nothing about) and if anyone has noticed a difference in rankings after evolving a website into those types of formats. What are the feelings about providing content that is called up through databases, rather than through plain old HTML? Do search engines read it with a difference? I hate to lose my ranking, and LED digest readers' opinions are going to mean a great deal of difference in whether I stick with plain HTML code (with a pasted javascript here and there), or move along. Wanda Gersheid -------- new post - new topic -------- From: John Smart Subject: Another twist on online marketing In the May 9, 2005 edition of Advertising Age there is an article on page 36 entitled "Keywords have become gamble for marketers". Some extracts are included below: ------------------------ "Google derives more than 95% of its revenue from selling keywords... "In the past, Google policed the sale of keywords to avoid claims of infringement that might result from someone buying a trademarked term. Then, in 2004, however, Google effectively abandoned its clearance process - creating a truly free market, but one that is also open to mischief. "On March 30, a Californian federal court refused to dismiss a suit by American Blind for trademark infringement, unfair competition and related actions against Google and other Search-Engine Marketers (SEMs). American Blind, whose primary market is online sales of blinds and window treatments, is challenging the sale of its trademarks to competitors as keywords that direct web browsers to the competitor rather than American Blind." ------------------------ The article continues counting many European cases against Google and others, pointing out that the European courts are falling on the side of the trademark holder. The article, whilst being an opinion article not a news article, was well researched. It certainly showed no bias for or against Google, the courts, or the Trademark holders. This raises many questions, including: 1. Should it be Google's problem? Surely is an advertiser is breaking a trademark, it is the advertiser who is at fault. If the courts agree that the advertiser is in error, then Google should have to drop the advert, but how can they be expected to police it? 2. If the target of the lawsuit is not the advertiser, but the carrier of the adverts (Google, in this case) where does that put site owners who carry Google's adverts? Think about this. If you carried a feed from the "Men who think women should live in the kitchen" web site, you would expect hassle from the more balanced people out there. If the feed started to incite violence, you would expect to face legal, if not criminal charges. But you would know from the start that you are dealing with controversial content. Carrying Google ads, you would not expect anything controversial, certainly nothing that could come back to you for damages. 3. If this is applied to paid for commercials, how long before it passes on to free listings? Given that America is the home of the lawsuit, it won't be long before some hot-shot attorney tries to make his or her name taking 250 web sites to court in one afternoon. If that happens, and if Google are included, will this bring an end to free listings in search engines? And if so, does that mean that all online marketing will be paid for? I grant you that #3 is extreme. I cannot see it happening. At least, not for a couple of years. But it is a viable chain of events, one that could move the Internet to a whole new level. I saw the new StarWars movie this morning (No, really, I am not a nerd!). As I read that article after seeing the movie. All I could hear in my head was Yoda saying "A dark place, this is leading us to". John Smart, Technical Director InternetDesign.com - A Human Touch in a Digital World ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Steve Pronger Subject: Quality of code > I'm wondering how many people, like me, look > at a site's code before doing business with them? - Nancy Cardinali, LED 1972 People who look at code on a website are people who write code, and to whom, such things are important. The remaining 98% of the surfing population don't even know there is "code" behind the website they are viewing. Nor do they care. They only care about the information that is being communicated to them and whether that information provides the solutions they were seeking. Steve Pronger http://www.stevepronger.com -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Chad Black Subject: Quality of code > I'm wondering how many people, like me, look > at a site's code before doing business with them? - Nancy Cardinali, LED 1972 This is in response to the above statement, and not the person who wrote it or her site. It is about sales. How many people that are buying products on line know how to look at the code? If you are on Amazon or Ebay are you opening up their code? I do not think the average person knows how or cares. A designer such as yourself or most of the people on this list do. The average person knows if there is a problem with their charge card, they do not have to pay. The average person committing fraud also knows this and knows the risk is on the merchant not the customer. I am not a designer or webmaster. I belong to this list as I get ideas. My site(s) were created with a plug & play program no longer made (PageMill). Compared to a professional's site, it is very amateurish. It is plain old bloated HTML code. No RSS, Flash, CSS, cookies or anything else. Poorly done home photographs. Hosted by Pair and not down for more than a few minutes in four years. Americart takes care of my credit card details and there has never been a compromise. You could take my entire site on your laptop and run it from anywhere in the world with a dial up. If you only know how to turn on the laptop, I could have you running it in a day or two at most. I can turn it over to anyone. A US Fortune 100 company tried to buy it last year. It may break one million dollars in sales this year. If not, it will be very close if I can keep up. All this for a one man business working from home selling hard goods. Purchase have been made by every form of law enforcement, government, Whitehouse, military, Hollywood, magazines, newspapers, professional sports players, little old ladies with their first free AOL account, eBay resellers, you name it. Only once has a person written to say they were afraid to buy online because they feared the site was not secure. I explained when it changes from http to https the s stood for secure. They had no idea what I was talking about. I am sure I have lost plenty of sales to expert coders that have laughed and said 'this guy is a joke! No way he's getting my card numbers!' and clicked on to another site with expertly coded pages. To each their own. There was someone else that clicked on right after he clicked off. My point is, if you are selling, your game is sales not coding. If you are coding, it is not the same as sales. Professional sales deal with four buying personalities. It is difficult to adapt your sales page to sell to each one. IA is not that good with sales. With question and answers it is. But even then, the result is only based on the answer given and you can skew with that. A lot of 'buyers' are turned off by fancy corporate flashy websites. People under estimate the buying power of someone on a satellite, ship to shore, cell or dial up paid by the minute. At this moment I am in the process of helping a man on his way home from Iraq aboard a ship get engaged. He's buying a $2,000 ring, I'm shooting images of it and sending them to him so he sees the ring before she does. I'm overnighting the ring and his proposal to her for him. All this from a ship thousands of miles out to sea. Another site full of flashy coding kept crashing. Mine is simple and does not. I've talked with his bank, his credit card company and his card processor to verify the validity. I am confident enough to ship out a $2,000 item. Try that with a corporate site. Eloquently flowery text, sells to one personality. That is the small percentage of four. A site with normal grammar, a few typos and misteakenly spelled words reaches the larger group of four. You can be correct, or you can go to the bank. You can sell toilet paper or Rolls Royce. You can target the largest group with disposable cash or the one you are trying to sell now. Chad Black my site is not important.com -------- new post - new topic --------- From: Sheryl Coppenger Subject: Web design > DVD piracy is rampant, music piracy is rampant... I > never understood why the public is so "Anti-protect" this > stuff... they need realize the lost revenues equate to > economic damage to themselves or their future / children. - Rick Gortatowsky, LED 1971 I don't commit piracy, but I certainly understand why the public is "so 'Anti-protect'". As a systems administrator, I've dealt with various protection attempts for 20 years. They prevent legal copying as well as illegal, and the "protected" CDs won't work in all players. A while back, one type of protection scheme actually broke computer CD drives when people tried to listen to CDs in their computers. As in permanently broken, you have to buy a new drive. And post-Digital Millenium Copyright Act, I attended several conferences in which legitimate researchers withdrew their papers because of fear of prosecution. Plus, people naturally object to the companies doing an end-run around rights already established in court. We have a right to make backup copies of our CD or tapes in case they get damaged. We have a right to time-shift programs for viewing later. But the movie and music companies are trying to force the public to buy extra media, extra viewings, etc., by taking away the ability to make legitimate copies. Keep in mind that we are already paying royalties on all blank media thanks to the Audio Home Recording Act. In return for the right to make backup copies of our (legally purchased) CD and such, we are paying a royalty to record companies on all of our recordable media -- even if we just use it to backup our computer files or record our cousin's wedding. The corporations are trying to have it both ways. And IMO we all should be angry about that. See http://www.toad.com/gnu/whatswrong.html http://snipurl.com/f3mr [bookofhook.com] http://news.com.com/2100-1023-801582.html?legacy=cnet Sheryl Coppenger ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Malcolm Bailey Subject: Disappearing email > I converted my e-zine to an HTML format... - Martha Retallick, LED 1971 Martha then went on to report that some subscribers were having nothing show up when attempting to view her email. An initial review of her source code (assuming the hosted version is the same as that she sent out?) shows an external link to a CSS file contained in the head that will be stripped out by many email clients. She also has a section of javascript at the end which will be removed from the majority of users systems. I've not tested the email extensively but I would suspect these to be contributing factors in the "Disappearing-email"... One thing that not enough people seem to be aware of, and if you take anything away from this post it should be: (In caps so people scan reading get the message!) HTML EMAILS ARE NOT THE SAME AS WEB PAGES. THEY NEED MORE TESTING, ONCE SENT IT IS TOO LATE! As part of our work we regularly develop and send HTML emails (often with embedded video, but that's another story...) for our clients to lists in the magnitude of hundreds thousand (yes, all are genuine subscribers that are registered and have most definitely opted-in before anyone flames me ;-) Because we are dealing with such massive send-outs we obviously need a very rigorous testing procedure spanning a 6 page check-list that we have developed over 4-5 years of email creation and fulfillment. The 2 key differences with emails and web pages are: 1. You cannot guarantee ANY external content will be loaded in. 2. You have far more than 3 or 4 browsers to test for if sending to a large list. You need to test for Internet Explorer in yahoo, hotmail, GMail, lycos, AOL online + half a dozen other popular web accounts that all handle email differently. You then need to test the same for other browsers. Then test Outlook (all recent versions), Outlook Express, Lotus Notes (especially if targeting corporate accounts), Thunderbird & a few other systems. Then you need to test on a Mac... OK, so this is far too much testing for your average webmaster so I'd recommend you'll cover most bases by checking your email in free accounts available from Yahoo, Hotmail, GMail, AOL (all using IE & Firefox) and finally check in Outlook /Outlook Express. If it displays fine in all of these you'll be ok 99% of the time. Below I've picked a few random, but useful items from our check-list to help fellow LED reader's... * Using different doctypes will display different alignments in some browsers and web clients. * Does your HTML display correctly if you remove the opening body tag and everything before it? (This is mercilessly stripped by hotmail) * All Javascript & Active X controls (inc flash and Java) will just be removed by most email clients for security reasons (you may even get security errors if you include these.) * Do any of your Urls contain the keyword "head" anywhere? e.g. "http://www.someurl.com/images/header.jpg" Lycos email removes all HEAD instances contained anywhere inside a tag, so the above would actually be converted to http://www.someurl.com/images/er.jpg * Table background colours should be specified in every table cell as a bgcolor="#FFFFFF" attribute and not via CSS. These are just a few of the intricacies we've discovered over the years, and most shouldn't be worried about too much for general email sends, but please, please test your emails in several clients to check they view correctly before you send them! And then of course you may have trouble getting all this through spam filters, but that's another post ;-) Kind regards, Malcolm Bailey www.aethon.co.uk ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Veronica Yuill Subject: Disappearing email Welcome to the brave new world of HTML email, Martha! You may remember when I-Sales, I-Design etc. switched to HTML format. Despite carefully constructed HTML and extensive testing with different email clients, we were still deluged with complaints of blank emails, garbled layout etc. I seem to remember the most persistent problem was with Hotmail users, who all received blank emails. The only solution seemed to be for them to use a different address, or switch to the text version :-( This experience is one reason why I remain extremely wary of HTML email! Regards Veronica Yuill Archetype Information Technology Ltd http://www.archetype-it.com/english/ Dynamic websites for fast-moving businesses ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2005 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath..." - John Keats |
