| LED Digest 1857: The Failure of Directories, also Old School |
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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 adam,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ................................................ August 18, 2004 Issue #1857 ................................................ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== --== Natural Search ==-- ~ Bob Sheridan "...I noticed in the last couple of days that the sites that bumped mine down are nothing special..." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== The Future of SEO ==-- ~ Pat McCarthy "Essentially, the directory model for finding content has already failed." ~ James Miller "I have a lot of friends, who say to me that they want a web site." --== The Oldest of the Old School? ==-- ~ Minnie Aldinger "I think we put our web site up about 9-10 years ago." ~ Bob Wakfer "When I registered that domain my ISP did it as part of my dialup service and there was no charge..." ~ Dejan Bizinger "It is very interesting how much things are changed in the Internet business for only 10 years." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Custom URL Error Pages for Browsers? ==-- ~ Paul Bedford ~ Charles Miesel ======== NEW ===================================== From: Bob Sheridan Subject: Natural search placement - MSN & Google Hello fellow LED readers: This is my first post so please be gentle. I own a software company called RestaurantPlus that makes and sells point of sale (POS) software primarily to the restaurant industry. Most of my sales leads are generated from potential customers using MSN, Google, etc. to "search" using keywords like "restaurant software, restaurant POS software, point of sale restaurant software, etc." I designed and built my website using FrontPage and later added a shopping cart. Over several years time, I have enjoyed being in the top 10 rankings with MSN (for most of my keywords) and I used to place fairly high with Google (until the last several months). My site gets a considerable amount of hits per month (over 1,000) and I have been getting a high percentage of people downloading free demo software from my website on a daily basis. (I am relunctant to give exact numbers in case my competitors also read the LED digest)! Over the year's I have read much about maximing a website's chances of getting ranked in the top 10 and have had a fair amount of success in getting a decent ranking. However, recently I have slipped down a few spots with MSN (example keyword: restaurant software, I moved from #2 to #6), and where I used to place in the top 10 for "restaurant software" I can no longer find "where" I am placed. I do use overture's PPC but purposely have limited my budget until I release a new software vesion in a couple of weeks. Like others, I am convinced that there is rampant "abuse" by competitors clicking on the top spots in order to use up their budgets. One of my competitors was paying US$10 per for the top spot with Overture under "restaurant software" and could only maintain the spot for about 10 days each month. Anyway, I noticed in the last couple of days that the 4 sites that "bumped" mine down are nothing special (one has nothing at all to do with restaurant software) so I am wondering if any of you SEO Guru's knows what the heck is going on with MSN's browser? Is there a way to "contact" the company that runs MSN (is it Microsoft)? Unfortunately I changed the "title" of my home page to RestaurantPlus Home Page while working on a page change and published it without realizing I hadn't fixed it. Then I got "spidered" and the title is showing on MSN (maybe that's why my site placement went down a bit). Does anyone know how long it takes to get spidered again by MSN? It seems like my previous changes stayed unchanged for almost a full year. I have pretty much stopped trying to understand Google. Can anyone take a look at my website and suggest how it might be better optimized for Google's natural search? Thanks, Bob Sheridan, President RestaurantPlus Corp www.restaurantplus.com bsheridan, restaurantplus.com ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Pat McCarthy Subject: Future of SEO David Yancey [issue 1851] does bring up some good points, however I think his faith in an upcoming switch of focus away from crawler engines towards paid directories might not be as likely as he thinks. Essentially, the directory model for finding content has already failed. Many of the problems can be seen at the well-known at Yahoo and DMOZ. While neither is really a failure, they both fail to deliver a lot of relevant content and are really not even used by real people to find web sites anymore. Their problems tend to hold true for smaller topic-specific directories as well. Let's take a look at the main problems with directories both big and small. 1. It's hard to get a site listed in a directory. Since these directories don't crawl, they rely on the site owner submitting their own site, usually through some cumbersome process. The majority of web sites aren't being submitted to directories... This problem would hold true with topic-specific focused directories as well. They are even more obscure and less known. This means a directory is ALWAYS going to lack a great deal of content it should be covering, no matter how narrow or broad it's topic may be. 2. Directories take longer to find the information you seek. Which is quicker, typing in a query in Google and clicking on one of the top few results, or clicking five layers deep into a directory hoping you're looking in the right categories? One might argue you can just search the directory's contents to speed things up. Well how is that really different than searching using a crawler engine? The directory will need some sort of algorithm to rank it's own results, and it will be searching a much smaller subset of pages than Google would. Try searching DMOZ or the Yahoo Directory and comparing the results to Google. You may get less "spam" type results in the directory, but I bet you'll find plenty of Google results that are valid that aren't in the directory. So accessing what you want is either slower, or incomplete. No thanks. 3. Maintaining a directory is harder. Category structures need to be managed, sites need to be moved when they change focus, or they just die altogether and need to be removed. A crawler can manage which sites are living and dead and doesn't need to worry about the structure and location of where sites fit in a taxonomy. 4. Last but not least, David suggests these focused directories will not be free and will either be PPC or paid for inclusion. That automatically eliminates a HUGE subset of content. The only sites that would pay to be listed are commercial web sites. A lot of the value in the web is from educational sites, non-profits, hobby sites, and personal sites that will never pay to be included in a directory, and might not even submit to a free directory. Many of the things I'm looking for on the web don't fit into the realm of a commercial site. I know David is saying crawlers will still exist, but I'm still left wondering at this point why I'd stop using a crawler in favor of a paid directory? Is there really any valid reason? The only thing I can think of is that crawler engines just get have more spammy results in them, but they're actually improving on this front every day, and I rarely ever have failed to find what I'm looking for using Google. Pat McCarthy Palo Alto Software http://www.paloalto.com/ ------- new post - same topic --------- From: James Miller Subject: Future of SEO > Good SEO = Good Website Usability = Good business ROI. > Any organization that is serious about their website ROI should > be looking at the whole thing as an integrated package, not > a gaggle of different vendors around the same table. - Kevin Jackson, LED 1856 Well said! Kevin! I have a lot of friends, who say to me that they want a web site. Typically, they are small businesses that are very much local. They are the sort of people like furniture makers, specialist surveyors etc., who usually don't sell product over the Internet, but want to get phoned up for a quotation. I always tell them that all they need is a single page with a decent photo, mission statement, their address, phone number and if they do it properly their e-mail address. Because the search criteria put in by possible clients for these people is something like "Furniture maker Cambridge", then there is probably only ten or twelve anyway! It is very much sadness that a lot of these spend a thousand pounds or so, on an over the top completely useless web site that gets them little or no business! James Miller Daisy Analysis www.daisy.co.uk james, daisy.co.uk ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Minnie Aldinger Subject: Old school > So now, who knows of anyone that has been around since > before October 1994? Can I claim to be the oldest pure play? - Brad Waller, LED 1855 While I didn't have my own domain name, I think we put our web site up about 9-10 years ago. Going to try and check my records for the exact month. When we first did it everyone thought I was crazy as my business wasn't one they figured would make any money with a web presence. Minnie Aldinger H.L. Supply Co. www.hansons.net hansons, succeed.net ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Bob Wakfer Subject: Old school Well Brad I can't claim to be older than you, but we registered www.compar.com on "Creation Date: 13-aug-1995". So we are nine years old. When I registered that domain my ISP did it for me as part of my dialup service and there was no charge, either to have him do it, or as a registration fee. Talk about the good old days! Regards, Bob Wakfer Computer Partners http://www.compar.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Dejan Bizinger Subject: The Oldest of the Old School? > So now, who knows of anyone that has been > around since before October 1994? - Brad Waller, LED 1855 When we are talking about Internet business, 1994 is the same like '80s for computer business. It is very interesting how much things are changed in the Internet business for only 10 years. It is not easy to list Internet companies which started their businesses before October 1994. I know that the company Tenagra at www.tenagra.com (now ADASTRO) has been around since before October 1994. CEO Cliff Kurtzman has made successful Internet marketing company and this company is widely-known in the marketing and advertising business because of their very quality Online-Ads (O-A) Digest. In fact, LED and O-A Digest are the best email discussion for me. Before, there were more quality lists like Adventive lists and I-Advertising but they are not published anymore. Also, one big (if not the biggest) Internet company Yahoo, Inc has started their business in 1994. but I can't say for sure whether it was before October 1994. There are some other companies that was founded in 1994, like Netscape but it was after October. But, my opinion is that the most important question is: "Which Internet company is the most profitable?" Best regards, Dejan Bizinger, Web Producer & Consultant http://www.bizinger.biz ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Paul Bedford Subject: URL errors > Occasionally... my fingers run slower than my brain and I type > an error into the address bar of my browser (I.E.6.0) and wind > up being redirected to some scummy page run by SearchWebNow... > Is there any way that I can get rid of it and designate my own > page...? - Jim Gatton, LED 1856 It sounds like it is one of the lop.com gang which often installs using ActiveX with a lot of the free MP3 finder type things. Removal instructions can be found at http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/lop.html Regards, Paul Bedford ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Charles Miesel Subject: URL errors I forgot whether SearchWebNow is an ActiveX component or Browser Plug-in but with my current security settings I do get asked if I want to make "scumwaresearch.com" my homepage. Now when I was infected I needed to use Norton's to get rid of it (at several levels). You may also try an entry in your HOSTS file such as I used when Verisign attempted to monopolize the entire internets 'PAGE NOT FOUND' system: 127.0.0.1 sitefinder.verisign.com .. just change to the offending site and you will not land on such, it will redirect to your own machine. Charles Miesel http://simply-better-hosting.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "As your wedding ring wears, You'll wear off your cares." - Thomas Fuller, 1642 |
