| LED Digest 1984: The False Economy of DIY |
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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 21, 2005 Issue #1984 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== --== The False Economy of DIY ==-- ~ Michael Linehan "Do it yourself can sometimes be the worst kind of false economy." --== Web Analytics Packages ==-- ~ Renee Kennedy "Our company is currently looking into web analytics packages." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Site Design Theft ==-- ~ Bill Gursky "Merely sending them messages to take down their site isn't doing anything." ~ Charles Bennett "I also include a CC to Verisign, Google, Yahoo, AOL, MSN and Vivisimo." ~ Martha Retallick "Bad publicity can have quite a profound effect." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Learning HTML ==-- ~ Peter D'Aprix --== Dropped off Google ==-- ~ Michael Martinez ~ Mark Roberts ======= NEW ===================================== From: Michael Linehan Subject: False Economy This is peripherally connected to Claudia Lynn's post about posting content to her site herself, but is much more general. There is much an individual website owner can learn and do. I talk about my own work with my clients as a partnership, and there's a lot for them to do in that partnership. But there comes a point... What I'd like to call 'false economy' comes from thinking that the most important question is "How much does it cost?" I would respectfully suggest that this is completely the wrong question - for websites or any other marketing. The more useful question is, "How much can I expect (or know) it will make me? One client of mine attained astounding results by going a little further than average --- putting her over the edge to being booked months in advance and taking on two employees! Her investment above my average client to obtain these dramatically better than average returns --- a mere $500. She has made way, way more than her very moderate investment. So who cares if it costs $1,000 if it makes $5,000. As long as we're wise about it, investing in our companies will be worth it. "Do it yourself" can sometimes be the worst kind of false economy. Michael Linehan www.marketing-alchemy.com -------- new post - new topic ------- From: Renee Kennedy Subject: Web Analytics Our company is currently looking into web analytics packages. We're looking at Omniture, HBX (Webside Story), Web Trends, Urchin, Clicktracks and several other programs. I was wondering if anyone knows of any type of "consumer reports" that compares these programs. Or if anyone has any recommendations / testimonials or if you would shy away from a specific program and why. Thanks! Renee Kennedy www.e-healthcaresolutions.com ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Bill Gursky Subject: Design theft > ... I have an interesting case of a site I have designed > being completely ripped off. This new site - xtremeteengp.com > looks eerily similar to the Red Square Lounge site that I designed > (redsquarelounge.ca). - Andy Kale, LED 1982 Andy, While this hasn't happened directly to me, there are several steps you could take. You might have your attorney (or paralegal) draft a letter to the owner of this site and/host addressing the problem. You might try the court approach assuming you can prove the designs are yours. It will be important that you have all your development files on hand. It will also be important to show your site was in place before their site. It will also be important to note your (and your client's copyrights on said designs). Merely sending them messages to take down their site isn't doing anything. You might either suggest compensation for their action or threaten them (and be prepared to follow through) with civil action. Sending them emails is not enough. You need to send them certified mail showing in writing what they have done as well as what you want. I have a small company that both locates instances of Internet theft as well as follow up actions. I have done work for larger corporations which is why I am knowledgeable on this subject. How did you find out about their site? Most developers never have a clue as to what has been stolen by them. Bill Gursky Internet Foundation Systems -------- new post - same topic ------- From: Charles Bennett Subject: Design theft I also include a CC to Verisign, Google, Yahoo, AOL, MSN and Vivisimo. Whether they look at it or not, most website owners do not want to risk the chance of their site, user ID or actual name being banned or placed on a 'list'. If they are operating from home, and they own it, you can name it as a violator as well as it is being used for business purposes. (USA based) I am not a lawyer either, but the few times I have had problems and get a 'letter' from an attorney, my home and assets have been named. Many homeowner policies specifically exclude any liability coverage for web based business and real estate activity conducted from the residence unless there is a business policy rider. Charles Bennett -------- new post - same topic ------- From: Martha Retallick Subject: Design theft Andy Kale recently shared a tale of his site design being ripped off. Among other things, he said: > My client has sent them emails and left them messages > to take down their site, but he has not heard from them, > nor seen any action to change the design. Andy, speaking from the perspective of one who has been in the web design field for a decade, I can certainly relate. Although I have not experienced this problem (yet), I know others who have. Some tips: 1. Don't rely on sending e-mails to unscrupulous site owners. They'll delete those e-mails in a nanosecond. Notify them in writing. By certified mail or by overnight courier. 2. Find out who's hosting the site and let them know that they're hosting a site that has been stolen. Have your attorney contact them as well. If you're dealing with a web host that's on the up and up, that site will come down in a hurry. 3. Bad publicity can have quite a profound effect. You're doing the right thing by letting us LED-ers know what happened. Keep it up! Martha Retallick Western Sky Communications Design http://www.westernskycommunications.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Peter D'Aprix 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 Dear Claudia I have followed both your request and the responses to them. Like everything to do with the web, one answer does not even begin to cover such a question. It all depends what kind of a site you have, how much content needs changed on a regular basis and the nature of the content itself. I have a feeling that you did not intend to actually build a site from scratch yourself but rather wanted to just be able to update, delete and/or add content to existing pages. While I am in full agreement with the other posters who would discourage you from trying to create your own web site, updating content can be quite possible and not so hard. But in order not to have to learn how to build a full site, you should consider finding a web designer who can build or even transfer your current site (if you are happy with it) to a site structure (often PHP is used for this) that creates a user control panel that allows you to access your content in dynamically controlled blocks. If the content is set up in the same way for each item or section then the control panel will let you swap a photo, image, text, price etc. I met one PHP designer who made a site like this for an artist who wanted to add images as he painted them and remove images as he sold them. Apparently he was very happy with the results and it was not much harder than filling out forms when buying tickets from Travelocity and it was a fully custom site, not a template "cookie cutter" site. But the site has to be built that way in the first place. It is a little like a custom built "do it yourself" template site but it is built to your specification. If you need more than that, I agree with the others, that your time is worth more than that of your web site maintenance person. Peter D'Aprix peter, daprix.com -------- new post - new topic ------- From: Michael Martinez Subject: Google dropped > Well, if I am searching in Google, I would prefer the search > results to show fresh content, latest pages than the same > URLs and same pages listed in the top 10 as shown for > the keywords 2 months ago. This is not instability.... - Viggie Bala, LED 1981 Agreed. > But I am concerned on the decline in quality of search results. A > lot of new sites come up solely to display the Google adsense ads. In my current job, I use the Internet extensively to research companies. Google's database is the largest and I tend to find more data there than on Yahoo! But Yahoo!'s results are better organized. Google, right now, is particularly vulnerable to the kind of spam site you describe, and I find myself increasingly jumping to 2nd and 3rd pages in the results before I click on the first links. THAT is a serious issue, and I am seeing more evidence in the way of news stories about companies shifting their resources away from Google. > Google adsense helped many content only sites to monetize their > traffic, but now, some people take advantage of it and started > spamming the search results. Perhaps, time for Google to review > their adsense policy. It's not the AdSense program that is the problem. It's Google's new way of determining relevance to search queries. Hopefully, Google's engineers are aware of the problem and the depth of the penetration into their database and they are working on a solution. Michael Martinez http://www.michael-martinez.com/ -------- new post - same topic ------- From: Mark Roberts Subject: Google dropped > But I believe that frustrated Webmasters are now > being joined by frustrated searchers who are tired > of the instability and decline in quality of search results. - Michael Martinez, LED 1979 This discussion has been intriguing to me, and have raised a couple of issues that I have often tought about. I have a customer that is very much search engine placement conscious. He often calls me to tell me that he is now ranked 4 or 5. I then search and most often cannot even find the site. I have come to the (obvious) realization that search engine positioning is only relative to what the user is searching for. I usually have to call him back to ask just what keywords he was searching on. In many cases, they are not words that I, a casual user, would no even think of using as a search argument. In other words, for him, in his industry, these keywords may be obvious, but to his potential customers, it may not be so obvious. You could probably get any site to rank in the top five if you entered a particular keyword or search argument. The key here then (again obviously) is to determine what the USER is going to be searching on to find your product. When someone states that they are ranked on the first page of Google, maybe the next question should be... under what keyword or phrase? Guess what, when I search on my business name, I am ranked #1... does that mean that I have the perfect Google ranking? I also appreciate the comment that search engines are for the user (in the case of ecommerce, the buyer)...not the seller. They are geared (hopefully anyway) towards that end user. We need to make sure we orient our keywords and content toward what the user might be looking for, not what we want them to look for. Mark Roberts Roberts Computing Systems http://www.robertscomputing.com ------------------------------------------------------- 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Be true to your work, your word, and your friend." - Henry David Thoreau |
