| LED Digest 1510: Keeping Web Sites Secret |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest ................................................. February 4, 2003 Issue #1510 ................................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Google Toobar ==-- ~ Craig Fifield "It goes further than the toolbar..." ~ John Smart "Should I make sure that I visit my page most days?" --== Darwin and the World Wide Web ==-- ~ Mark Laing "...we have begun showing set package prices...on our site." ~ Chuck Hiatt "Good web work is becoming a commodity service." ~ Steven Rothberg "Call your local high school, two year school or four year school..." ===== GEEK TIPS ================== --== Site Search ==-- ~ Howard Brereton ~ Stephen Mareches ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Yahoo & Inktomi ==-- ~ Dr Amit Chatterjee ~ Peter Warnock ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Craig Fifield Subject: Google toolbar Hi Everyone, > [We've] been seeing brand-new sites mysteriously > wind up in Google... It's gotta be the Google Toolbar > that's reporting back to Google. - Lorelle Smith, LED 1509 I thought I'd add to Lorelle's post on the Google toolbar. It goes further than the toolbar. Here's what Google says on the issue: --------------- "It is almost impossible to keep a web server secret by not publishing any links to it. As soon as someone follows a link from your "secret" server to another web server, it is likely that your "secret" URL is in the referrer tag, and it can be stored and possibly published by the other web server in its referrer log." --------------- This means that if you click a link from your secret site to another site Google can find your link in the other site's referrer log (if is crawlable), or their own if you linked to Google from your secret site. On top of that, and someone can correct me if I'm wrong here, I believe that your browser will sometimes incorrectly pass a referrer even when you leave your secret site by typing a new URL in your address bar, which can result in your site being found without clicking any links to another site. In general, the only way you can be sure an engine won't index your site is to disallow indexing with robots.txt, or meta no index no follow. More on both of these can be found at: http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/exclusion.html#meta Hope this helps! Take care, Craig Fifield Search Engine Optimization Tips http://www.submit-it.com/subopt.htm ------- new post - same topic ------- From: John Smart Subject: Google toolbar Now this is interesting. Not only do I have the Google bar installed on every PC in the office, and on my notebook, I also have it installed on every computer belonging to my family. A lot of them did look at the pictures (you know how it is - family are always impressed - bung 6 pictures in a table and everyone goes to look and say what a great job it is. If only I could get paying clients like that!) and Google now knows that. Given that Google appears to be the engine of preference at the moment, should we use this in our promotional ranking battles? Should I make sure that I visit my page most days? And should I take to voting for it? Obviously I wouldn't want to spam it - and I am sure that Google looks for numerous votes from one IP on a site that gets no / few votes from others. But with that in mind, it could still be a useful tool. If I were of a nasty mindset, I may wonder if it would be worth visiting my competitors sites, and voting in a negative manner. (Please don't do this to me!! I have no intention of attacking anyone's rating - if I were going to, I would not mention it here - but it is an interesting thought). John Smart, Technical Director InternetDesign.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Mark Laing Subject: Re: Darwin and the World Wide Web > We have tried giving package solutions in the past, > but the end price invariably differs from the original > quote, so what's the point. - Roland Matzke, LED 1509 I know exactly where Roland is coming from. Unfortunately, we live in a world of supermarkets and fast food... and many customers expect creative services to be priced like cans of soup or a double hamburger with bacon and cheese. We find that this is especially true when dealing with clients who have stumbled across our site while surfing the net. Years ago, if a potential client got hold of us, it was because they had to look for us in the yellow pages under graphic design or writing services and phone us. We got a few calls from the general public, but most of queries were from corporate or small business clients with at least some idea as to how the creative process works. Now, we get plenty of requests for quotes that I suspect are less than serious, just because it is so much easier to send off an e-mail or fill in a quote form (as opposed to talking to a person over the phone). Having said that, and being fully aware that package prices have their pitfalls, we have begun showing set package prices for print newsletters and e-newsletters on our site. When contacted, we establish detailed criteria for these prices. We are finding that by showing a pricing structure up front, we are eliminating many queries from folks who want a website or newsletter produced for 'under $100, and within 24 hours.' Mark Laing Graphicsandwords graphicsandwords.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Chuck Hiatt Subject: Darwin I too am a small business owner with significant web needs. I had a webmaster on staff and all of the stuff that goes along with it. Six months ago I discovered www.elance.com . Since then, I have fired the web guy, outsourced all of my web work and have had incredible results! Not only am I saving the employee costs associated with a webmaster, but my sales have increased 247% in the last 2 quarters. There is a tremendous amount of talent in the world. I have awarded jobs to small and large companies from Slovakia, Romania, Russia, Thailand and and Brazil. All have exceeded my expectations and cost a fraction of what an American web developer would charge. Good web work is becoming a commodity service. Take advantage of it. Chuck Hiatt Import Group, LLC ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Steven Rothberg Subject: Darwin Vicki Lambert posted a comment that it was so difficult for her to find someone who would be willing to create a web site for her small business that she put off getting a web site. That's a real shame, because she could have had a great site created by someone who was eager for the work and would not have charged much, if anything. Where do you find such people? Call your local high school, two year school or four year school and ask to speak to someone in their career services office. While many might be concerned about the quality that they would receive from a 17 year old high school student or 20 year old college student, the reality is that these people will be screened by the career service office and will likely have built many sites for themselves that are far more sophisticated that what a typical small business needs, so they have the skills. They also have the desire because this generation is very savvy about what it takes to advance their career. Unlike previous generations that were willing to accept any job because they had come to expect that they had to pay their dues, this generation grew up in a period with incredibly low unemployment so they're used to be able to find a job that interests them. As a result, they have much better experience and direction than previous generations did at the same age. On a monthly basis, our career site is used by 400,000 job hunting students and recent graduates and the employers who want to hire them. It generates four million page views and went live in 1996. Who created it? A 17 year old high school student who worked part-time maintaining our small office network. When designing our site, he used the lessons that he had learned when he had created a database-driven hobby site that panned other sites. He was thrilled to have the chance to create a real site, and understood that it would be a tremendous stepping stone toward becoming a full-time webmaster. A year later, he realized his goal. At the age of 24, he's now married, has a kid, owns a house and pays his bills through his work as a web design consultant. I gave him the chance not because he needed it or because I felt that I owed it to him or society, but because he could do the work that I wanted, when I wanted, and how I wanted. Steven Rothberg http://www.collegerecruiter.com ===== GEEK TIPS =================================== From: Howard Brereton Subject: Site search > I have been trying to find a good site search > engine for a large web site... Does anyone > have any suggestions? - Niki Mcelroy, LED 1508 I use the Ksearch1.4 program for a search of my site archives... It happily and quickly searches thousands of pages and is totally configurable. See it operating on our site at www.typicallyspanish.com/archive.html You can download it from www.kscripts.com ..and what's more, it's free! Howard Brereton Spain's Leading Search Engine and Directory www.typicallyspanish.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Stephen Mareches Subject: Site search Nick: We needed a large site search capability on DoctorsForPain.com and utilized the Search Page component in FrontPage 2000. Some web hosting companies will charge a nominal fee to set this feature up, but I can tell you if you're want something that will find detailed information on your site this little guy works very nicely. There are several configurations to choose from when setting up the search criteria. Very similar to what search engines were back in '93 when web sites were a white page with blue hyperlinks. Simple but effective. Stephen Mareches, Web Consultant Sophia Solutions www.sophiasolutions.net ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Dr Amit Chatterjee Subject: Yahoo Inktomi Hi LEDers, > Also, where are the "Web Matches" coming from? > ... is it safe to bet that the "Web Matches" will be coming > from the Inktomi database? - John Richardson, LED 1509 To the best of my knowledge, "Web Matches" at Yahoo! have been coming from Google, for some time now. Yahoo! has its own directory, but Google uses the DMOZ directory. It would be of interest to know if there has been a change in the same. It may be of interest to members that we are a four-year-old site and have never paid for submission or for SEO. However, for the last three years we have consistently ranked #1 at both Google and at Yahoo! for the phrase "medical transcription India" - that is what 90% of our new users use to search. Regards, Maj (Dr) Amit Chatterjee, SM http://www.mtindia.org/ ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Peter Warnock Subject: Yahoo Inktomi The Inktomi program is the best investment I've made to date. You only need to submit your index; the engines will spider the rest. It's shows up in MSN within two days. It takes a couple of weeks to work it's way into the others. Peter Warnock webstruction.com ------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1995-2003 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it." - Thomas Jefferson |
