| LED Digest 1869: More than Meets the Eye |
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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 ............................................... September 15, 2004 Issue #1869 ............................................... .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Why the Rank? ==-- ~ Nitin Agarwal "...you will find hidden text at the top part of the page..." ~ Peter Warnock "There are a huge number of sites linking in to the domain." ~ Leon Simmons "...this website has been optimised with more guile than one might, on first sight, assume." --== The Future of SEO ==-- ~ Dirk Johnson "...money is not yet the deciding factor. It's more about using your wits." --== Alternative Browsers ==-- ~ Tom Aman "I suggest that we all take a different way of looking at the browser issue when designing sites." ~ Michael Linehan "It depends on the site." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Miva on Macs ==-- ~ Valerie Beeby --== StoreFront 6.0 ==-- ~ Richard Dudley ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Nitin Agarwal Subject: Why rank > My client is baffled, and so am I. Why does this site have > number 1 ranking in Google? www.olympus.net/personal/brewster . - Michael Linehan, LED 1867 > This page www.olympus.net/personal/brewster/About.html > is rich in content and uses correct optimization methods... - Donald Nelson, LED 1868 I do not think that this site is using "correct optimization methods". If you open the page and then press "control A", you will find hidden text at the top part of the page ("book design", "book designer"). Michael, I am not here to communicate the message that this is what you should also do. This page can rank high till this "hidden text" is recognized by Google. But you can use the similar top liner but which is visible. Though otherwise, I do not think it is well optimized for "book designer". In my eye, it is more optimized for "book designs" rather than "book designer". Just because the title says "book designer" heading says the same and also, it has home page has a high page rank, it is ranking high. Competition anyways is not high for this keyword. Hope that Helps. Thanks Nitin Agarwal, Internet Marketing Manager www.ishirInc.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Peter Warnock Subject: Why rank If you look at the source, there's more than meets the eye. View the page in Lynx and you'll see what Google sees. There are a huge number of sites linking in to the domain. Alexa reports 3,848. Many of them are search queries from sites like Yahoo, MSN, NY Times and a variety of high-ranking sites. "book designer" is the lead keyword phrase in the meta tags. Both the page content and the sites linking are relevant to the keywords. Peter Warnock Webstruction, LLC http://webstruction.com/ ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Leon Simmons Subject: Why rank Apart from the fact that virtually all of the Google competitive search results for the keyphrase "book designers" are not optimised for this keyword phrase, this particular website is using hidden text (same colour as background) to elevate its position in the search results. If you scroll down the page with the left hand button pressed down on the mouse, you will see how "design, book designer" and other relevant keyphrases, are positioned at the top of pages on this lady's website at the side and under the heading in an 8 point font. Each page of text has been carefully composed to include the targeted keyphrase so that they are read and indexed by the robots together with the title of the website. I notice that other pages on this website have actually got a Google page ranking of 5 -- http://www.olympus.net/personal/brewster/portfoliob.html and http://www.olympus.net/personal/brewster/. This means that other pages linked to these pages will be favoured in the Google search results. So this website has been optimised with more guile than one might, on first sight, assume. The problem is that if someone alerts Google to the abuse of their rules and guidelines this website may suddenly disappear! Regards Leon Simmons (Seo) Lookit-Up http://www.lookit-up.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Dirk Johnson Subject: The End of SEO? > ... in just a few short years, SEO will *not* be a > viable option for the vast majority of website owners. - David Yancey, LED 1851 David makes some interesting observations, many of which have been manifesting for several years. I would agree that the longer one waits to get serious about free search results, or any method of web marketing, the further behind they become. Those of us who have been at this for nearly a decade have established a "what works and what doesn't" knowledge base that has real tangible value. I see this with respect to linking all the time. The threshold to compete effectively for top position SERPs continues to climb. For old, well-established niche sites, many of the links they've acquired cannot be duplicated. The really savvy ones continue to add to their base, putting ever more distance between themselves and the pack. I reviewed a situation yesterday in which the threshold to compete effectively on Google would require about 500 links, just to begin reaching parity with the top 5 sites. That's a very formidable challenge. On the other hand, I don't think it is yet at the saturation level. I still see many situations where "doing the right things" can turn into first page SERP results rather quickly. But in a few years, as David argues, busting onto the first page of SERPs may become next to impossible for an upstart. Then watch domain name values rise accordingly. A site that indexes well for popular keywords will become quite valuable, and buying one will be the just about the only way to get page one SERPs. The value of well-indexed niche portals will begin to escalate, much like PPC bids have done. Late arrivals to web marketing are finding that the costs are higher and the learning curve is very steep. When I talk to site owners who are new to this world, they are often taken back by this condition. They've built a site, but not budgeted time, money and attitude for competitive site marketing. The "build it and nobody comes" syndrome is a shocker. They don't know what it was like to bid only 1 cent for keywords on GoTo. Those of us who remember those days have found alternatives to the PPC bidding wars. It's challenging out here. Those who paid attention, learned, applied that knowledge and paid their dues are winning this war. And money is not yet the deciding factor. It's more about using your wits. In the old days, it was hard to compete with the entrenched retailers of this world. They had the capital, the facilities, the process to dominate. The World Wide Web opened up a new distribution channel. Those who saw it as such, and applied themselves in a financially responsible manner (unlike the dot.bombs), have come a long way. They now stand to own some very valuable assets. In most cases, the top index positions for competitive keywords have been achieved with a lot of sweat equity and by investing in the right things, over several years. It's not dumb luck or random occurrence. It represents a commitment of time and money. People on the outside looking in often fail to understand this, and think that such positions are easily usurped with some quick patches and gamesmanship, at little cost. David Yancey is right. I am just putting a different foundation under his argument. Best regards, Dirk Johnson, Owner LinkStrategy.com http://www.linkstrategy.com djohnson, roiwebsites.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Tom Aman Subject: Alternative browsers > Why would I design for other browsers first when the > majority are using IE? I thought it made more sense > to design for the majority, and tweak for the minority. - Kathryn Martyn, LED 1867 > I agree that it makes much more sense to set up your web site so > that it works well in IE and then try to tweak it so that it works > well in other browsers as well. - Steven Rothberg, LED 1868 I suggest that we all take a different way of looking at the browser issue when designing sites. Most of the exploits involving browsers (viruses, trojans, etc.) are aimed at IE because it is used by the largest percentage of surfers (lastest issue of PC World reports the figure as 94%, down from a previous 95%). The creators of these malware items can get the biggest bang for their buck by targetting this broswer. So consider: By designing your site for IE and not making it so it works perfectly in other browsers, you are actively encouraging surfers to use IE. This makes you part of the problem because you discourage surfers from picking an alternative and safer browser. So a really good reason to make your site work with browsers other than IE is so that those of us concerned with security will be able to visit using a different browser (Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, ???). Tom Aman Aman Software http://www.cyberspyder.com amant, cyberspyder.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Michael Linehan Subject: Alternative browsers Proportion of platforms and browsers is not equal to overall market penetration. It depends on the site. I've seen my various clients' stats show anything from 1% being Mac users to 30% being Mac. An obvious factor is the product, but it's not always an easily discernible relationship. Michael Linehan, Marketing Alchemy ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Valerie Beeby Subject: Miva on Mac > I'd appreciate it if anyone out there using a Mac could take > a look (at http://www.chooseydiapers.com) and give me > some insight on code changes I could make. - Susan Reid-Pfau, LED 1868 I have the latest Mac Powerbook and Safari browser, and had a go with the tabs Susan says her Mac users have complained about. (The line of mauve rectangles above the navigation bar at the top of the index page.) I clicked on the name in the first tab but this produced no result. I clicked around for the hot spot, and eventually found it, but only right at the very bottom of the rectangle. A drop-down menu appeared - only to vanish again when I tried to click on one of the listed links. Only with persistent dragging, repeated clicking and a bit of language unsuitable for the nursery did I manage to visit one of the drop-down links. I have two suggestions: 1: The code gives an absolute position for the tabs. I'm not an expert, but I believe Mac screens are slightly different from PCs. I know it's old fashioned, but could you not just use a plain ordinary table for your row of tabs, with relative positioning? This might avoid anchoring the buttons to a misaligned spot determined by a fixed pixel count. 2: The navigation bar ("Store Front" "Account" etc.) is directly below the tabs. In fact, because the text on the last tab is cut off at the bottom, I suspect it's actually superimposed on the bottom of the tabs. This means the links are on top of one another too, so the browser is becoming confused as to whether the visitor is clicking on the drop-down menu or the navigation item. Could you not place the navigation bar above the tabs, so the drop-down menus can fall clear of other links? Valerie Beeby http://www.purple-owl.com/art-faces.html ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Richard Dudley Subject: Storefront > So I guess I am here with a warning to all. Storefront 6.0 may > or may not be a good shopping cart, but one thing that is for sure > is that it is not compatible with current sites, especially sites with > ASP pages. - Julie Linhart, LED 1868 Storefront 6.0 is an ASP.NET (written in VB.NET) based cart, while StoreFront 5.0 was a "classic" ASP cart, written in VBScript. These technologies are almost completely incompatible with one another, for reasons that have nothing to do with your site design or StoreFront in particular. Such is the case in upgrading any ASP site to ASP.NET, and LaGarde made no small mention of this fact then SF 6.0 was rolled out. > [My designer also] had trouble figuring out how > to integrate this cart with my current site. I can't say for sure, but it sounds like this programmer was not well versed in ASP.NET. For its standard layout, StoreFront uses standard user controls for its top / left / right / bottom navigation. It should have been very easy to take the top and left navigation from giftbasketboutique.com and replace the code in the top and left controls. However, giftbasketboutique.com is not a StoreFront powered site. This isn't a StoreFront problem, but more one of someone misrepresenting their credentials, or misunderstanding the task at hand. > ... their product would not automatically integrate with my site. I do not know of one cart, written in any language for any platform, that automatically integrates with a current site, especially a site that already has a cart integrated. Richard Dudley www.bloomeryweddings.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. 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