| LED Digest 2424: SEO Idiots Ruining the Web |
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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. www.SEOToolSet.com/training/ : the LED's Premier Sponsor Bruce Clay's Search Engine Optimization Training & Certification ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. June 6, 2007 Issue no. 2424 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Can SEO Become Obsolete? ==-- ~ Nathan Holley "Idiot SEOs are some of the smartest people doing marketing on the Web..." --== Webmaster Rates ==-- ~ Eva Rosenberg "...excuse me if I get annoyed when it comes to the maintenance question." ~ Adam Boettiger "It really depends on how you define 'maintenance'..." ~ GJ Berg "I've been pretty satisfied with Ready Hosting..." --== Delivery of Confirmation Emails ==-- ~ John Brumage "Possibly you inherited a blacklisted IP address..." ~ Adam Boettiger "ISPs use different server-side filters of spam." ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Nathan Holley Subject: SEO becoming obsolete I speak bluntly at times, but only when it's warranted. This is one of those times. > Though I have to admit that I am dying to get > rid of these idiot SEOs who do nothing but degrade > the search usability experience and only chase rankings. - Shari Thurow, LED Digest 2423 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1827/55/ What is the "search usability experience" you speak of? It sounds magical and wonderful, with a perfect goodness implicit. It is all that is right and holy and just in a world peckered with nasty "idiot SEOs" degrading search. Please. Idiot SEOs are some of the smartest people doing marketing on the Web, Shari. People that can rank sites in competitive areas using legitimate techniques are not degrading the search usability experience; that means nothing. You are setting arbitrary standards by projecting your own insecurities and idealogies onto the industry at large. Your post is doing the list no favors, and it's not winning you any friends. > I don't think my graduate schools would accept my > research if SEO were becoming obsolete, and I would > not be teaching it at a bunch of universities (as a > guest lecturer) in the fall. Appeal to authority all you want, your entire post is fallacious. > Search is a subset of usability. The sooner everyone > accepts it and sees it, the easier it will be for everyone > to optimize their sites. No it's not. Search is a subset of many things. Here are some: - Usability - Marketing - Commerce - Social Networking - File Sharing There are many others. Search can be a subset of whatever it needs to be. Your argument fails because you are too firm and rigid. Keeping an open mind is essential when working on the Web. How can you grow in such a mutable environment if you maintain such recalcitrant viewpoints? And how does accepting that search = usability make it easier for everyone to optimize their sites? Should we all have sites like Jakob Nielsen and do SEO the exact same way, thus creating a non-competitive eutopia of search engine equality? Where Google alone decides relevance, and we just fill out the form-based approach? The Web (and search) is never going to be what any of us wants it to be. It's going to be what it is. You can either accept that or continue to fight against it. It's an open market, a free market, and anything goes. No one decides what is right or wrong, only what works and what doesn't. The best SEO idiots, as you call them, are blackhats who play against Google's agenda and make loads of money; they play by their own rules and pay for the consequences of riskier plots. But they also reap the rewards. Nathan Holley Comment? -------- new post - new topic --------- From: Eva Rosenberg Subject: Webmaster rates > What is a fair price to charge as a monthly retainer > fee to maintain a small-medium size website; What > is a fair "hourly rate" to charge... - Bob Sheridan, LED Digest 2423 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1827/55/ Hi Bob, Let answer some of your questions. 1) Low-cost hosting with support in the US. www.WebWizards.net - Rob Marlbrough, Jr. in San Diego, CA has been a member of the Audette communities since the beginning. Prices are excellent. You will find what you need. He and a small team provide support themselves. 2) Fee to maintain a website? In general, designed properly so the owner / members can access templates to upload the routine pages, there should be no need for support. The editor of each section should be able to simply click on a template and paste in a WYSIWIG page - and be done. Tools like Joomla and Drupal, once set up, should make that easy. (Note: I just hired someone to design a site with those parameters. Instead of being done in about a week, it took him three months. And I was shocked to learn that instead of using one of the tools above that I'd asked him to use, he'd coded each page by hand and there were no templates for me to use. _I_ would have to edit index pages or add new pages by hand-coding OR have to request that _HE_ put up all the new pages. This was specifically contrary to our original discussion. And instead of getting a dynamic, easy to operate site, I got static pages creating clunky directories. So, excuse me if I get annoyed when it comes to the maintenance question.) Of course, Bob, you're probably the one uploading the pages in the first place. So what's a reasonable price? Frankly, that's up to you. What is YOUR time worth, since you're the one who's going to do it. What do you want to receive to devote your time to do this? That's the reasonable price. Nothing anyone else suggests will matter, if the number the suggest is too low for your reality. Reasonable prices range from $10 - $200 per hour, depending on the level of expertise. Reasonable monthly maintenance will range from $50 - $1,000 per month, depending on the amount of work needed. When I had paid webmasters for TaxMama.com, I generally paid them between a base of $500 - $1,000, plus extra for non-routine projects. Seriously, though Bob, charging $19.95 per month for hosting and maintenance, if you're putting up the pages and doing back-ups and have to be there 24/7 in case the site goes down or the server goes down (if you're hosting it on your server) is not reasonable. a) Don't host it on your own server. You don't want to be responsible for any missed back-ups. b) Charge at least $50 for support and maintenance. Enjoy! Best wishes Eva Rosenberg Your TaxMama - www.TaxMama.com & www.TaxQuips.com Comment? -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Adam Boettiger Subject: Re: Website Maintenance Rates > What is a fair price to charge as a monthly retainer > fee to maintain a small-medium size website; - Bob Sheridan, LED Digest 2423 It really depends on how you define "maintenance", Bob. Image changes? Text changes? Scripting? Layout? If minor edits you can probably connect with someone willing to do contract maintenance on retainer at $25 /hr for perhaps a minimum of $100-$200 /month. If you're talking about adding pages, changing the navigation of the site, scripting or image-editing / cleanup, you may be better off separating the two needs, having a webmaster on retainer for small changes and doing the larger ones on a project basis with someone skilled in the area of need. In general a "fair" rate for a good coder is around $75 /hour. For $25 /hour you're looking at offshore coders or college students. > What is a fair "hourly rate" to charge for converting > the website, adding new features, etc. above and > beyond the monthly maintenance; I wouldn't do it on an hourly basis. Outline the needs, wrap up the changes into a project and bid the project with payment terms of 1/3 up front, 1/3 at the 50% milestone and 1/3 on completion and delivery. Hourly is okay for maintenance, but not for projects with clear deliverables. > Also, can anyone recommend a reliable web > hosting company that doesn't use non-support hacks... http://www.pair.com/ http://www.dreamhost.com/ Hope this helps. Feel free to contact me off-list with any followups. Adam Boettiger Internet Marketing Consultant Background: http://www.adamboettiger.com/docs/Adam_Boettiger.pdf Comment? -------- new post - same topic --------- From: GJ Berg Subject: Hosting Bob Sheridan was asking for a web hosting site under $20 /month. I've been pretty satisfied with Ready Hosting (http://readyhosting.com/). They've expanded to 24/7 tech support, and 80% of the time I'm getting a good response on my issues. They have a flat $99 /year rate which should supply enough disk space and bandwidth for the small / medium user. (Additional domain hostings are only $49/year.) They've merged with a few companies over the years and recently upgraded their servers. WIth the exception of a few multi-hour glitches, I've had 99%+ up time in the past five years or so. GJ Berg Comment? ============ Sponsor Message =========== Would you write your own Super Bowl commercial? Or would you hire a professional ad copywriter? Guess what? Your website copy is your Super Bowl spot, your best shot at winning new business. GetWebContent.com is the web's premier provider of "Super Bowl-winning" web copy. When words are king, visit GetWebContent.com, the King of Words. http://GetWebContent.com/LED ============ Sponsor Message =========== -------- new post - new topic --------- From: John Brumage Subject: Email delivery > Problem is... when the [confirmation] emails > actually get in, they go to the bulk / spam mail > folders. Any ideas why this is happening? - Ivan Jimenez, LED Digest 2423 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1827/55/ Possibly you inherited a blacklisted IP address when you first set up your server at rackshack. There are several test sites for this. A Google of: "test for blacklisted ip addresses" (without quotes) shows several services, some free, for example: www.mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx If you find your address listed, you might ask for a "virgin" chunk of addresses. John Brumage Disco Legend Zeke Comment? -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Adam Boettiger Subject: Email delivery Ivan, It is unclear from your post whether you are speaking of email that your company sends out or email that your company is receiving from others. ISPs use different server-side filters of spam. That's why something Gmail may classify as spam may not be by your VPS at Servint. In the Servint CPANEL, check your settings to make sure you have server side spam filtering turned off. If it is turned on, also review the rules you have set. Servint has server-side filtering that inserts a line into the header of a message and what may be happening is your email client is reading that line and classifying it as spam. If the email you are sending is being classified as spam, there are many areas online where you can check your IP address to see if it is blacklisted and/or what filters may have it listed. If you continue to have problems, your first contact should be http://flow-to.com/email/LED.1181101777lcmuwg4.mth (Servint Support). They are very responsive. I have an account there myself. Adam Boettiger 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 SEOToolSet.com Bruce Clay's Search Engine Optimization Training & Certification Join the certified SEO directory: www.SEOToolSet.com/training/ 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Thinking: The talking of the soul with itself." - Plato |
