| LED Digest 1981: Does Ugly HTML Break Browsers? |
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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 .............................................. June 14, 2005 Issue #1981 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== --== Ugly HTML ==-- ~ John Barendrecht "Has anyone found any browsers that can't handle 'not pretty to look at' HTML?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Dropped off Google ==-- ~ Mike Banks Valentine "...this has nothing to do with ranking!" ~ Shari Thurow "Still, I let the search engines know every link farm I discover." ~ John Arrowsmith "Over the past week every search engine referral has been from Google." --== Credit Card Processing ==-- ~ Philip Scriver "I am still looking for a processor that doesn't cost me an arm and a leg..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Learning HTML - Updating Content ==-- ~ Stephen Mareches ~ Ian Dickson ======== NEW ==================================== From: John Barendrecht Subject: Ugly HTML A few issues ago, we had a discussion on the merits of clean HTML code for search engines and in case others wanted to peek at your code. When I upload my code, I remove all white space and most comments in both HTML and .js files. This saves about 20% to 50% on file size. I don't think SE spiders have a problem with this, as they come around for thousands of visits per month and I rank quite well on some keywords. I know there is more I can do to clean up and make it W3C compliant. I got used to small file size when we were coding for 4K PROMS and you'd never use a whole byte (8 bits) when 5 bits would store your variable. Has anyone found any browsers that can't handle "not pretty to look at" HTML? Even the external js files are one continuous line. Short of installing every version of browser known to mankind, is there any way to test if certain browsers have a problem? I am also thinking of sending compressed (gzip) html files to browsers than can handle it. Has anyone tried this? Bandwidth is not an issue as we have plenty to spare. However, speed is always an issue. Best regards, John Barendrecht http://www.iefit.com/ ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Mike Banks Valentine Subject: Google dropped I'm always fascinated when discussions of search engines seem to focus excessively on ranking of a particular site in the search engines without looking at the corresponding information about referred traffic delivered to the site for the targeted keyword phrase from any of those search engines ever being taken into account. Everyone who looks at their rankings without looking at how much traffic is referred and DELIVERED to your site through those rankings is missing the most important part of the story! When you check your site traffic statistics for where visitors are coming from and in what numbers, for which keyword searches and from WHICH search engines, you will be astonished to see that things you think are important are sometimes not so important. I've struggle for years to gain top rankings for "Small Business Ecommerce" and have achieved #1 at Google #5 at MSN and #13 at Yahoo (as of this writing). But guess what? Nobody searches for that phrase in significant enough numbers to deliver any traffic from it! I'm not saying that this was wasted effort, because in the over 1000 pages at WebSite101 we have enough related phrases that the targeted phrase contributes to the ranking of hundreds of related pages. "Open Source Ecommerce" gets huge traffic for one single page, ranked at # 29 in Yahoo, #7 at MSN and #1 in Google (as of this writing). But the really interesting thing is that even on phrases that rank equally well across all three major engines, Google delivers referred traffic at the rate of 65% compared to MSN at less than 1% and Yahoo at about 5% of all referred search engine traffic. In NO case does Yahoo or MSN refer clickthroughs at higher than 10% of all referred traffic. Referred traffic being visitors that clicked on your link from those search engines. This is true both in individual instances for specific keywords and cumulatively for all referred traffic. Hear this very clearly - this has nothing to do with ranking! There are dozens of search phrases that visitors have searched on all three of those engines that deliver traffic to my site that I can't find my own site for in the top 100 results at any search engine. In every case, Google delivers more than twice the traffic for every keyword combination than does MSN or Yahoo!. In many cases, I rank HIGHER on both Yahoo and MSN for many of those phrases, yet Google delivers far more referred traffic for those phrases. If your referred traffic from top rankings at MSN and Yahoo send you no traffic, why be concerned that you rank well there? This exact scenario has played out across dozens of client sites I've reviewed traffic statistics for. No matter how the site is structured, no matter how many pages they have, no matter what keywords they are targeting. Search engine referred traffic from Google is ALWAYS at least 2 times higher than the other two and very often as much as 10 times. If we ranked engines, NOT on how many searches are performed, but on how much traffic they refer, then Google would be more than twice as highly ranked in all cases. If Google disappeared tomorrow, there would be some dramatically reduced visitor numbers for ALL sites across the web. We would, every single one of us, lose over half of our (organic) search engine referred traffic. Look at your traffic statistics for natural search engine referred traffic (not PPC) volume and which keywords currently working to deliver that traffic as far more important than your ranking on those search engines. Mike Banks Valentine http://www.website101.com/ ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Shari Thurow Subject: Google dropped This is in response to the thread in LED #1978 and #1979 regarding Google traffic. Some of my colleagues have already posted on this topic. Every spider-based search engine has a duplicate, or dupe, filter. What search engines try to do is to present the most relevant (and have the most high-quality links pointing to) page in the search results. From a searcher standpoint, no one wants to see the same content delivered over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. (Get my point?) In an effort to reduce duplicate content, Google software engineers have stated publicly that they will try and determine the Web page that users prefer the most (usually through high-quality link development), and relegate the other duplicate pages to lower positions OR eliminate the duplicate pages completely. As to what constitutes duplicate content? No search engine will give you a percentage as to what constitutes duplicate content. I understand why. An unethical search engine marketer can easily exploit that. For example, if a software engineer states that 70% duplicate content is not acceptable, the search engine marketer will make 69% duplicate content and state, "Hey, I was just following YOUR guidelines." When the reality is that the unethical search engine marketer is building content purely for search engine positioning. Which is spam. Additionally, this whole "best" link development can also be exploited. Quite frankly, I am getting really tired of discovering all the link farms that contribute to the link development of many sites, even the big-brand sites. Still, I let the search engines know every link farm I discover. If spammers are going to exploit my search experience, they get what they deserve. That being said, be careful who labels themselves "ethical" search engine marketers. I view keyword-stuffed doorway pages from self-proclaimed "ethical" search engine marketing firms all the time. You would be amazed at the firms who have knowingly (and probably unknowingly) spammed the search engines. Best wishes, Shari Thurow http://www.searchenginesbook.com/ ------- new post - same topic ------- From: John Arrowsmith Subject: Google dropped Generally, the search engines finding UK Rock Challenge are roughly Google 68%, Yahoo 27%, the rest hardly anywhere. Over the past week, Yahoo appears nowhere - every search engine referral has been from Google. Strange old world, ain't it ... John the OAP :)) Volunteer Website Provider & Editor for http://www.rockchallenge.co.uk ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Philip Scriver Subject: Credit cards > UK Rates - I pay 2.00% on credit cards, 18 pence > per transaction on debit cards. The process is > Card Holder Not Present... - Paul Harris, LED 1980 Paul (Harris) can you give me a link to the credit card company you are using. I am STILL looking for a processor that doesn't cost me an arm and a leg when I process a credit card booking AND a leg and an arm every month for the privilege. I have used PayPal for 7 years and NEVER had a chargeback but constantly looking for a better merchant account more user friendly that accepts tour operators. Philip Scriver Explore Britain http://xplorebritain.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Stephen Mareches Subject: HTML > I have relied on my webmaster for years to post new information > on my website... I want to learn how to do this myself. - Claudia Lynn, LED 1980 Claudia, This sounds like a good place to put together some dynamic content for you. Your webmaster could build a page or set of pages that pull their information from a database. Then with a simple form you can enter your subject, text, author and date information. Once the form has been submitted your new article is listed on your articles index page and has been made available for your very next visitor. I've used this solution for several clients who want to be able to update their site's content without having to request edits or more pages. And in the long run it's a much more economical solution because there are no fees involved to add new content once things are set up. With an index page that lists your article titles, your password protected form for creating new ones and your article display page you'll have the ability to display an endless number of articles with just those pages. Stephen Mareches, Web Consultant Sophia Solutions www.sophiasolutions.net -------- new post - same topic ------- From: Ian Dickson Subject: HTML I don't know how much you pay your webmaster, but having had a quick look at the site and I think that you'd benefit from getting a basic Teach Yourself HTML book, and a free HTML Editor (there are many). But do the basic exercises in Notepad - it will help you learn. Essentially your site is a very basic one - text, links, pics and doesn't need any rocket science. In a very short time (days) you'll be able to DIY and probably get a much better site (in weeks). For the record, I did my first site in 4 days from scratch in early 1995. I had never used anything more complex than Word before (and I still can't even do tables properly in that!) Cheers Ian Dickson ------------------------------------------------------- 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "The whole world steps aside for the man who knows where he is going." -Anon. |
