| LED Digest 2315: A Simple Email Trick |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Registration 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 .............................................. December 28, 2006 Issue no. 2315 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== The Email Crisis ==-- ~ Kevin Houston "I have come up with a simple javascript work around to fool email harvestors." --== Simplicity is Overrated ==-- ~ Jean-Jacques Joseph "Just a reminder..." ~ Salem Kashou "If you know customers, you will know what they appreciate." ~ Jerry Harvey "Complexity and usability are not mutually exclusive." --== Site Critique [was: Simplicity...] ==-- ~ Renee Kennedy "I'm still on 600 x 800 resolution and this site didn't fit on my screen..." --== Google on Linking ==-- ~ Michael Martinez "Reciprocation in itself is not a bad thing." --== New Years Thanks & Goals ==-- ~ David Spahr "...here's a fruit cake recipe that will help take the stress out..." ~ Al Toman "9. Promote 'intelligent' search." ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Kevin Houston Subject: Simple Javascript Email Obfuscator (one-click) Hello LEDers, I have come up with a simple javascript workaround to fool email harvestors. This is by no means fool-proof, nor is it guaranteed to work in any browser except IE (For those who need more complex code, please contact me at the email address below) The original mailto: link uses an obfuscated loopback address, so that any simple-minded bots will email themselves. Do not change the 2130706433 (but feel free to change the 'admin' to postmaster' or something) Also, in the title, you will need to replace the @ with å (some harvestors simply scan for @s and then scrape the text around it. In order to write the å - hold down the alt key on your keyboard, and quickly type 134 using the numpad (using the upper row numbers may not work) then let go of the alt key. <a xhref="mailto:admin@2130706433" onclick="Javascript: this.href= Good luck - I would be interested to hear feedback from anyone using this. But remember, you get what you pay for. ;) Kevin Houston Liberty Computer Services -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Jean-Jacques Joseph Subject: Simplicity > [Don Norman] argues what consumers (of widgets, > of websites) really want is lots of fancy functions - even > while touting that simplicity is desirable. - Nathan Holley, LED Digest 2312 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1417/55/ Just a reminder: http://www.fourmilab.com over 20 million visitors a year over 180 million pages view a year Look like amateurish from the mid 90's JJ -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Salem Kashou Subject: Simplicity Technophiles typically enjoy all the bells and horns when referring to new merchandise. It makes for good conversation among a certain peer group. Car people also enjoy jargon-heavy discourse when a get-together occurs. These people have purchased a product, and they own it, can brag about it, and can tell their friends about all the neat features and bennies. But, websites are visited by a wide variety of guests that don't own the site, but are simply browsing. Only target marketing can help determine if your visitors appreciate simple or rich layouts, designs, or whatever the heck this subject is about. If you know customers, you will know what they appreciate. That's all. If its a research site, text only is very smart, no flash. If its a Disney site, load with moving graphics. Happy New Year! Salem Kashou, Marketing Manager Kangaroo Brands, Inc. www.kangaroobrands.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Jerry Harvey Subject: Simplicity Once again, Shari Thurow seems more interested in posting about her own accomplishments and misses Dr. Norman's argument completely. Complexity and usability are not mutually exclusive. People want more features (complexity). Marketers want to give them more features because it makes the product more desirable. Adding features gives a product a greater perceived value, and the user a greater sense of control. At the same time, those features must be easy to use (usability). Testing is performed to ensure that features are usable. Usability professionals are quick to distinguish the difference between focus groups, where people talk about products, and usability testing, where people are given specific tasks to accomplish. Dr. Norman's article didn't make any mention of websites, however, if you think of a website as a product then his principles make perfect sense. Jerry Harvey FiveTone Online Boutique www.fivetone.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Renee Kennedy Subject: Site Re-design Critique [was: Simplicity] > I'm going to go out on a limb to provide an example, > that being my company's own just-redesigned and > just-relaunched web site, found at pilotfishseo.com - Beth Earle, LED Digest 2314 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1430/55/ Beth & all, I took a look at this site: http://www.pilotfishseo.com. Yeah it's slick - but I'm still on 600 x 800 resolution and this site didn't fit on my screen - that to me is more annoying than any navigation issue ever could be. I'm not adverse to looking around for stuff on a site that loads quickly and is easy to bop around on, but when I have to use my horizontal scroll bar - that's a site I don't spend more than 4 seconds on. You may say - well, it's time to get updated and get a better monitor - oh do I wish I could! I work for an international company with offices all over the world and about 50,000 employees. One part of my job as a web marketing specialist is to research advertising opportunities, programs we might want to get involved in, or software purchases. Why would an SEO business want to alienate someone like me right off the bat? Just thought I'd throw that out there. Renee Kennedy -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Michael Martinez Subject: Reciprocal Linking from an SEO perspective With all the discussion about reciprocal linking lately, I thought I would add something to LED's comments. Reciprocation in itself is not a bad thing. The search engines see it all the time, and earlier this year a technical paper ( http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/cache/papers...pdf -- this is a .PDF file ) titled "Site Level Noise Removal for Search Engines" provided a simple algorithm any search engine could be using to identify all reciprocal links between two hosts (which I'll loosely define as either a distinct domain or sub-domain). What we call reciprocation they call "site level mutual reinforcement relations". My guess is that Google has probably been using this method to identify reciprocal link patterns for at least two years. Maybe longer. It WILL identify virtually all reciprocal HTML links between two sites. Nonetheless, though I no longer participate in organized reciprocation, the sites in my network openly reciprocate with each other without penalty. In ways they have not fully disclosed, one or more of the major search engines attempt to filter out some reciprocal links. The question is, which links don't help? We can make some educated guesses. For example, a lot of people are now buzzing about "relevant links", though few people have tried to explain what they think a relevant link is. Many people imply they only exchange links within their verticals or industries. I don't believe that is what the search engines care about. They are looking at on-page content first when they determine relevance for queries, so why not look at on-page content when determining relevance between linked pages? But relevance doesn't always matter. CNN can link out to an obscure Web site as an aside in an article and that site gets some juice. Why? Or, rather, why don't all sites pass juice like CNN? Because some sites have been caught linking out in ways search engines disapprove of. Or for other reasons the links don't pass value. Maybe they are using "nofollow". So, you can get links from relevant content that don't pass juice. If search engine optimization is the only reason you're trying to get links, you're doomed because you have no way of knowing in advance which links will help you. Still, a link that doesn't pass value in a search engine may still send you traffic. And such links may still help get your site crawled. It's not all about search engine rankings. But it shouldn't all be about search engines anyway. Besides relevance and value, there are the issues of trust. "nofollow" is the Webmaster's way of saying, "I don't trust the site I am linking to enough to recommend it". But search engines may not trust a page for other reasons. For example, earlier this year Matt Cutts wrote on his blog (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/indexing-timeline/) that "sites that fit 'no pages in Bigdaddy' criteria were sites where our algorithms had very low trust in the inlinks or the outlinks of that site." Who you link to helps the search engines determine whether you're linking out naturally or just trying to build up your link popularity. I have seen evidence that Google has been evaluating outbound links for years. I believe that with the Bigdaddy update they upgraded their evaluation of outbound links considerably. A natural concern many people have is whether they may get into trouble for link arrangements that make good business sense regardless of the possible influence such links may have on search engines. In my new blog, I wrote about what I call "Semi-natural linkage" ( http://seo-theory.blogspot.com...topic-for-seos-in.html ) earlier this month. I think the search engineers are aware of these types of relationships and I don't believe they want to devalue them. I see no evidence of intentional, across-the-board devaluation of trust in Semi-natural linkage. Well, all that is to say that I don't think reciprocal linking is dead. And, strangely enough, the Google blog post that started the whole fuss didn't even mention reciprocal links. I think that organized reciprocal linkage has been under very close scrutiny for several years. I think that sites which put up links pages probably don't pass much value -- if any -- through those pages. But I think that natural, business sensible reciprocation is acepted because it's neither abusive nor designed to game search engines. I think that most reciprocal link efforts made today are in vain because they follow the traditional model of adding a link to your reciprocal links page. If you're going to seek reciprocal links, you should seek links that are naturally compelling for people who would want to visit your site. Whether you seek them out yourself or sign up for a service should not matter. But if you sell golf clubs and you reciprocate with a ring tones affiliate site, think long and hard before you stand up at an SEO conference and ask Matt Cutts why your rankings suck. Michael Martinez http://seo-theory.blogspot.com/ -------- new post - new topic -------- From: David Spahr Subject: help take the stress out With the holidays coming, here's a fruit cake recipe that will help take the stress out of this normally stressful time. Ingredients: 1 cup of water 1 cup of sugar 4 large eggs 2 cups dried fruit 1 tsp. salt 1 cup brown sugar 3 ounces lemon juice 1 cup of nuts 1 gallon of Absolute Vodka First, sample the vodka to check for freshness. Take a large bowl. Check the vodka again to be sure it is of the highest quality. Pour 1 level cup of the vodka and drink it. Repeat. Repeat again. Turn on the electric mixer, beat 1 cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add water, eggs and 1 tsp. sugar and beat again. Make surr the vodca is still OK. Cry another tup. Turn off mixers. Chuck in the cup of dried fruitt or something. Mix on the turner. If the fried druit gets struck on the beaterers, pry it loose with a drewscriver. Sample the vodka to check for tonsistancity. Next, sniff 2 cups of salt. Or something. Who cares? Check the vodka. Now sniff the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one Table. Spoon. Of sugar or something. Whatever. Grease the oven. Turn the cake ttin 350 degrees. Don't forget to beat off the turner. Whip the bowl out the window. Check the vidka again. Go to bed. Who the hell likes fruitcake anyway David Spahr Stereoviews.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Al Toman Subject: Thanks and goals #1 New Year's Resolution: Work harder, really hard at givin' Adam guy a harder time in 2007. :-) Thanks & Goals: #1 ... and thank the Adam guy for his time and true dedication to the LED-Digest. #2 Make new acquaintances at the LED and continue sharing W.W.W. experiences. #3 Actually apply (or test and report) this good information made available on LED-Digest.com. #4 Raise enough cash as a result of this and buy an Ad spot from the Adam guy on the LED-Digest. #5 See a rock-solid SEO (if you will) Goodie List develop on the LED Digest. It will be a FIRST on the W.W.W., to date. Give new webmasters-enterpreneurs a reliable, trustworthy platform to find rock-solid info on this daunting subject. #6 Learn W.W.W. marketing on the LED-Digest which for me is more difficult than winning the $135 million lottery without buying a ticket whilst hanging 100 feet over NYC, blindfolded, with all appendages in shackles, spinning on two concentric hoolah-hoops ... and making it to target.com before it closes. #7 See web masters actually apply and promulgate (true) anti-spam email addresses and contact forms. We've only over 40 billion more web pages to go~! Piece of cake. #8 Bring the W.W.W. back to sanity or at least half way or at least part way or at least think about it. #9 Promote "intelligent" search. #10 Continue to teach our youngsters, up-and-coming, inspired, future web masters and enterpreneurs, "if they gonna doo it, doo it rite"; follow good web design and web marketing practices and step out from the other 500 million plus web masters. #11 Try to remember to take out the trash before the wifey has to remind me ... again (good luck). HaPpY New Year, 2007, Al Toman studio9.ws ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2006 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up -- they have no holidays." - Henny Youngman |
