| LED Digest 2389: New Trends in Checkouts |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom www.GetWebContent.com/LED : the LED's Key Sponsor The Web's Most Experienced SEO Content Providers. ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. April 16, 2007 Issue no. 2389 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== <Moderator Comment> --== New Trends in Checkouts ==-- ~ Roy Williams "[Sites] who do this must lose *lots* of business. I've 'backed out' of a few sites now." --== The Blogspot Spam Epidemic ==-- ~ James Miller "Blogspot.com is quickly becoming a favourite hosting site for the spammers..." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Tuning Drupal for SEO ==-- ~ Nathan Holley "Downsides are in how it handles duplicate content..." --== Designing for a Target Audience ==-- ~ Francisco Becerra "Look at this great information from Joe Hallock regarding color preferences..." --== Google Ranking Factors ==-- ~ Michael Martinez "Google ranks results on the basis of *relevance,* not PageRank." --== SEO Standards [was: HTML Standards...] ==-- ~ Al Toman "In its simplest form, the discussion about standards is just that." ========== NEW =================================== <Moderator Comment> Greetings LEDer, I hope you noticed there wasn't an issue last Friday :-) I took a break, and it felt good! Actually I was traveling and just didn't have the energy to put an issue together, and with a lack of posts it made it easy to skip. If you've been holding out on a post, send it in now. It's a great time - there's not a lot of activity. Hope it's a productive week! Adam Comment? ----------------- From: Roy Williams Subject: Online Purchasing Barriers I've noticed a 'new' trend in checkouts these days. It seems that you can't complete the transaction without registering an e-mail and a password. OK, you have to give an e-mail in order to be contacted, but I feel that being forced to register a password is a step too far. Many shops don't give you the option to by-pass this. A recent experience was VERY frustrating. I bought a DVD from a website and, thinking that it was probably the only time I'd ever go there, I put in a 'rubbish' password that I immediately forgot. Some time later, someone asked me to get another DVD from the same site. This is quite specialised stuff (NOT porn!), so I had to return to the website, which gave me a choice. I could either set up a new account, or put in my e-mail and password. I opted for the new account (not knowing the password) and filled in the form. When I tried to submit it, the site told me that it already knew my e-mail, and asked me for my password. I thought, I'd just go back to the 'details' form and put in a different e-mail. When I got back to the form, it told me that my zip code was wrong, because the form had defaulted to USA as the country and I'm in the UK. By now I was pretty cross, so I fired off an e-mail to the company with my name and address, credit card number and order. Not very secure, but at least I'll get what I want. This is NOT the way to carry on. PLEASE, all designers reading this take note. This website and others who do this (I had a similar experience buying some cuff-links) must lose LOTS of business. I've 'backed out' of a few sites now. I have a similar moan about 'verified by Visa' and other security measures that make life difficult. I already have a big file full of passwords and logins, and have had to resort to carrying a bit of paper with PIN numbers for credit cards. This is MADNESS. The folks at PayPal are laughing all the way to the financial service... My wife has just set up a PayPal account because she's fed up with all this 'security'. Real gone, Roy Williams Nervous Records www.nervous.co.uk Comment? -------- new post - new topic -------- From: James Miller Subject: Blogspot Spam Epidemic This has just been posted on the SPAM-L list. Perhaps it's another reason to go to WordPress. ---------------------- "Blogspot.com is quickly becoming a favourite hosting site for the spammers; about 20% of the blogspot.com URLs coming through our mailserver recently are spam. "Worse, Google (owner of blogspot.com) ignores email-based spam complaints and refuses to accept Spamcop reports. You're supposed to VISIT THE SPAMMER'S SITE and flag it as in violation; once enough people have flagged the site Google will supposedly take it down. Doesn't seem to be working very well - less than 10% of the spammer sites are taken down within 2 days so these are essentially guaranteed to stay up long enough for the spammer to get his results. "The porn spammers are setting the sites up so they immediately redirect to the real porn site, or at least something outside of Blogspot. You could turn off Javascript and avoid the redirect but then of course you couldn't flag the blog, so it is *impossible* to even follow Google's instructions for reporting the site." Source: http://www.claws-and-paws.com/spam-l/spam-l.html ---------------------- James Miller Daisy Analysis: www.daisy.co.uk Comment? ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Nathan Holley Subject: Drupal SEO > What are Drupal's benefits? What are its flaws in > regards to SEO? What tips might you have to offer? - Brent Franson, LED Digest 2388 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1791/55/ Well, the benefits are it's free and it's open source. If you have the team behind it, Drupal can power very sophisticated and massive sites. It's got a nice interface and makes team content managing very easy. Downsides are in how it handles duplicate content because like most content management systems it creates multiple versions of the same pages, since in reality no "pages" ever actually exist. Your tips were really good. I don't have a whole lot to add, except for one piece of advice. That's just to stay away from Drupal, Joomla, and most every other CMS out there unless you have ambitions to really dial things in with customization. Even then, what you'll end up with is a different CMS based on Drupal or Joomla, because you won't be able to benefit from the many patches and improved releases that are continually released. I like building sites with open source tools like these (and Wordpress makes a fine CMS too), but I know how to do things right and many people don't. Be careful because they're powerful but also kinda kludgy sometimes. For instance, Joomla will create huge amounts of duplicate content with its frontpage, actually a component within the system. You have to do some clever rewriting to avoid problems. Drupal's not nearly as bad, but still leaves a lot to be desired. There's not a whole lot of specifics here, sorry - but Brent gave us that anyway. Just be sure you really need such a tool before deciding - usually sites can get by pretty well with static pages. Just my change for the pot... Nathan Holley Comment? ============ Sponsor Message =========== Now you got 'em, what are you gonna do with 'em? Surfers, that is. They're at your site, but is your copy ready? Is it powerful enough to convert casual visitors into free-spending customers? At http://www.GetWebContent.com/LED we first write "sell" copy that makes you money and your website sticky. Then we SEO it to make sure it gets read. ============ Sponsor Message =========== -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Francisco Becerra Subject: Targeted design > I'm starting to do research on how to select the proper > web colors, font, size etc., to match specific target audiences... > I'm really having difficulty finding good solid information. - Liz Ross, LED Digest 2386 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1789/55/ Look at this great information from Joe Hallock regarding color preferences: ---------------------- "According to Britannica, the most important aspect of color in daily life is probably the one that is least defined and most variable. It involves aesthetic and psychological responses to color and influences art, fashion, commerce, and even physical and emotional sensations... "The last part of the color psychology section will focus on time, length, and weight estimations by humans under the influence of different colors... red light is likely to be a factor in overestimating time. Conversely, green and blue tend to be a factor in time being underestimated. By this thinking, cool hues might be the best where routine and monotonous tasks are performed, such as in offices and factories. Warm hues would be suitable for living rooms, restaurants and cocktail lounges -- where time in apparent "slow motion" might be more pleasurable..." Source: http://www.joehallock.com/edu/COM498/preferences.html ---------------------- Francisco Becerra clinicamariangela.com Comment? -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Michael Martinez Subject: Ranking factors > The secret to Google's ranking formula is basic in > understanding. The search engine is prioritizing sites > based on how important they seem to a particular topic. > To Google, a site's importance is demonstrated by > how many other important web sites link to a given > page on your web site. - Angela Charles, quoted in LED Digest 2386 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1789/55/ That's simply not true and never has been. Google ranks results on the basis of RELEVANCE, not PageRank. As has been pointed out by many observers through the years, a page with low PageRank can easily out perform a page with high PageRank in Google's search results. Google determines relevance on the basis of a combination of on-page and off-page factors. It scores all the occurrences of the words in the user's query according to those factors. The PageRank scores are combined with the relevance scores but PageRank rarely makes much of a difference. The chief reason why people who rank through links are able to do so is that the links pass enough anchor text (containing the query terms) to the page that the page is basically spammed to the top of the search results. Regardless of whether you put your keyword on your page 100 times or in link anchor text 100 times, the repetition and emphasis given to the words determines which pages rank first. Sometimes PageRank can alter that outcome, but most of the time it doesn't. Michael Martinez http://www.michael-martinez.com/ Comment? -------- new post - new topic --------- From: Al Toman Subject: Standards and SEO > Not knocking standards, they're great and all, but they > have no real merit in SEO. Time to move on! - Nathan Holley > ... people are talking about two different things: W3C > standards for HTML and XHTML, and accessibility standards. > I don't personally believe either one has anything to do > with search engine rankings - Bob Gladstein [both posts from LED Digest 2382 http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1785/55/ ] The discussion about standards has nothing to do with html, xhtml, seo, ranking, or green eggs and ham! In its simplest form, the discussion about standards is just that. Are you a high standards individual or are you a low standards individual? If I'm in business, do I want to place my business web site in the hands of a no-standards web page optimizer or do I hire a high-standards web page optimizer? In reading just the LED Digest, forgetting about all those other billions of forums, it appears that the majority of business website CUSTOMERS are seeking HIGH-STANDARDS web page optimizers (and not finding any). Further, in reading the LED Digest, forgetting about all those other billions of forums, it appears that the majority of SEO (if you will) expend more time and energy proclaiming why they, themselves, are not high-standard material! It would appear to me that a more positive sell is, "We SEO (if you will) follow the highest standards on the World Wide Web~!" But that's me. And, yes, am lookin' for a <highest standards> SEO (if you will). Know of any? Clients asks me over and over again to fix their web sites. After looking at the source code, I'd rather experience GROUND ZERO than attempt to fix their web sites. After thousands of dollars later, the clients possess high standard web sites. I realize that this doesn't relate to ranking. However, let me ask you what is more important, A) ranking or B) client's money in client's pocket? I'm sure prospective clients would like to know your answer. Al Toman high standards web design Comment? ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by GetWebContent.com The Web's Most Experienced SEO Content Providers. Free no-obligation proposal: http://GetWebContent.com/LED The Archives: http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/126/120/ Subscribe: http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/52/77/ Unsubscribe, Change Email, or Hold / Resume Delivery: http://www.led-digest.com/content/category/4/17/86/ (c) Copyright 1995-2007 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Language can only deal meaningfully with a special, restricted segment of reality. The rest, and it is presumably the much larger part, is silence." - George Steiner |
