| LED Digest 2620: Link Rot on the Web |
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The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom http://www.AudetteMedia.com : the LED's Publisher Boutique Internet Marketing: SEO, SEM, Social Media http://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 .............................................. April 8, 2008 Issue no. 2620 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== --== Link Rot ==-- ~ Tom Aman "Link checking is something like HTML standards." --== Why Plan? ==-- ~ Michael Linehan "...the chances of success are enormously increased by following and implementing a plan." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Anti-Spam Company Spamming ==-- ~ Greg Robbins "I think I now have a clearer idea of where I draw the line, although there is still a grey area." ~ Al Toman "Let's turn CAPTCHA (well written captcha) into a marketing schema." ========= NEW ===================================== From: Tom Aman Subject: Link Rot [was: Anti-spam] > As far as your concrete example goes, yes > it is both UCE and SPAM. One test is > simple: What is your motivation for sending > such an email? Is it to rid the world of > link rot, or sell a product? Perhaps it's > both? - Chris Nielsen, LED 2619 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/2034/190/ Yes, it is both. Linkrot is a significant problem on the Internet. It is the main reason I initially created my program. It seems that almost invariably, when I am doing research, one or two key links that I would really like to visit will return the dreaded "404 Not Found" error. One of the big problems with SPAM is the difficulty of getting full agreement on its definition. Bear in mind that using UCE as I described in my example does not involve sending massive amounts of email or huge mailing lists. It also does not violate my ISP's TOS where the prohibition is basically against sending to large mailing lists, opt-in or not. It involves checking a sample portion of a site, then if, and only if, problems are found, sending 1 email to the individual indicated on the site who is responsible for site maintenance (or completing a contact form provided on the site for reporting site problems). On a good day that might involve sending as many as 5 emails to individuals - one per site. Most days it will only involve 2 or 3. So let's just agree to disagree on what constitutes SPAM. As for Linkrot: Based on research done in 1998, about 6% of links on the Internet were broken. My own more recent small sample (36 sites checked) indicates that about 3% of links are broken. Some sites, like Wikpedia (at 10%) and many university type sites (the .edu group) or news sites where links point to offsite pages on current topics experience significantly higher rates. 3% may not sound insignificant but even a small site can easily have 1000 links so 3% means that 30 of those would be broken. The problem is that, in a great many (most?) cases, once a site is built and works, nobody considers routine link checking to ensure that everything continues to work to be part of a regular maintenance activity. It should be. It should also be part of any SEO program - nothing will make a surfer leave a site faster (or possibly deter a search engine spider quicker) than 2 or 3 broken links that should have led to whatever the surfer wanted to see (or to a site section the owner wanted to have spidered). CSS has only added to this problem since CSS can include URL links to various resources. The most common is to background images or to other CSS files (via @import). Very often if the resource is not found, it is not readily apparent as the page still displays but it may well be missing some key formatting elements or even content. The problem usually occurs because the resource was there when the page was designed then at some later time someone deleted the item or renamed the file or moved it, not realizing it was required by a CSS entry. Link checking is something like HTML standards. Very few seem to validate their sites against standards or even care if they adhere to a standard. The prevailing attitude seems to be "as long as it works, who cares?" I was somewhat surprised by the lack of comment / discussion that resulted from Will Bontrager's "Unattainable Standards" post in LED 2612 http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/2027/190/ (thanks for that post, Will). If you care about the future of your site, you should go back and check it out. When IE8 is finally released and becomes the popular browser (and used by default with default settings by many people because it comes with the system or because the automatic Windows update upgraded from IE7), will your site end up badly broken? Tom Aman Aman Software http://www.cyberspyder.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Michael Linehan Subject: Why Plan? Optimization is great. Search engines are great. Networking is great. But for the most return today, you must do more than just have a website and optimize it. You can no longer just throw up a site, submit to Google, and sit back while the clients come. For maximum success, you must plan effectively - what to do, how to talk most effectively to *your* markets, what complementary marketing you will integrate with your website efforts, and so on. You can refine and strengthen your overall marketing plan, and then define how best to construct and use your website within that. Just a few of the points you need to think about are: - Who are you selling to? - Do they already use a product or service like yours? How do you know? - If so, how are you going to win them over? - If not, how can you persuade them that what you offer is something of vital importance to them? - What is the most information they want? E.g. it’s NOT the ‘History of the Company’ that we so often see leading off a website menu! - What tone of language will they most respond to? Corporate? Folks next door? Scientific expertise? - A website can be just a brochure — useful for background information when you refer people to it. Or it can be everything to your business, both the most important marketing tool and your only sales channel. Where on that spectrum should you locate your site? You can readily see that these are important and powerful questions — and these are only a few of the centrally important points that need to be considered. You can dramatically increase the power of your website by thoroughly examining such considerations — in other words thoroughly *planning* what you are doing. And since most of your competitors likely have not and will never carry out such planning, to do so gives you immediate and ongoing competitive advantage. If you want to climb Everest, or become a national-level athlete, brain surgeon or concert violist, you would start with a plan. We can readily see, in these cases, that the chances of success are enormously increased by following and implementing a plan. The same is true in business, and the same is true with your website. Michael Linehan, Marketing Alchemy www.marketing-alchemy.com ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Greg Robbins Subject: Anti-spam I'm sure I posted something almost identical to LED a few years ago - someone had contacted me because (they said) they had found certain broken links (or something similar) on my website. It had been 'spotted' by their robot and they had contacted me. At the time everyone came down very heavily on it being SPAM. I wasn't 100% sure, but didn't follow up the offer as the consensus was that what was being offered was generally available and if people responded there would be dozens of similar offers every day. For whatever it is worth, I think I now have a clearer idea of where I draw the line, although there is still a grey area. If someone has been to one of my sites and noticed something, or if it occurs to them that they may be able to interest me in something, then it is okay for them to contact me. After all, if I have put a link on the site saying 'any comments about the site, please email me', then that's got to be reasonable. That's the point of some of the sites and any one-one request should be okay - I don't have to respond. On the other hand, if anyone has got a list of emails with me on it, or set up a programme to scrape addresses or auto-troll sites and serve up standard emails 'hey, we can submit your site to 37 million search engines and spam them all', then whether it is called SPAM or UCE it's not okay. The grey area for me is where I'm asked to submit to new directories - I don't know if these are all spammy link farms or if there are a few little guys trying to turn an honest dollar. Some requests have seemed appropriate, but most I ignore. Just my perspective - I don't buy anything from the spam, though, that's a given. Greg Robbins www.greentrad.org.uk -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Al Toman Subject: spamalot I'd like to address this spam debate/discussion on the LED Digest from the marketing point of view as well as from the "just do it" perspective. We all know that marketing and doing it takes a lot of work, so, if anyone is interested in "easy, simple, fast, sitting on your duff is a blast", my contribution to this discussion is of no value to you. So Brotha and Sista Arthurs, let's begone to the Spamalot! > ... all SPAM is *NOT* UCE (because it is > not commercial) but a great deal of it is > *UBE* - Tom Aman, LED 2617 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/2032/190/ Once again we are caught up in definitions. Because the Internet is a social place, everyone has their own spin on what words (like spam) mean. Personally, I prefer the traditional dictionary definitions, premised on origin and language. The foremost definition of SPAM is a trademark meat product and I know someone who would like to keep it that way, SPAM, inc. The originator of the term "spam" is JD Falk, its use specific to Usernet (ref: http://www.cybernothing.org/faqs/net-abuse-faq.html). Falk calls for email sender authentication in his association with CAUCE (ref: http://www.cauce.org/authors/2-JD-Falk). If you are a Citizen of the United States, then, your tax dollars embrace the FTC definition or take on the word "spam": ---------------- "[to] receive lots of junk email messages from people you don't know ... ... marketers are increasingly using email messages to pitch their products and services. ... ... unsolicited commercial email - also known as "spam" ... ... deceptive commercial email ... ... deceptive email ..." (ref: http://www.ftc.gov/spam/) ---------------- Did you notice why you shouldn't trust those who are Ms. Managing your tax dollars? They turned spam into "deceptive email" propagated by "marketers". Hey! Isn't that YOU!?! Thank Gawd for a Government to spam things up! Hey. It's better then the "F" word. But technically, YOU ARE the Government. Not a good feeling, is it? Anyway, spam.org keeps it simple, "spam, or junk e-mail on the internet" (ref: http://www.spam.org/). The question in definition becomes more complicated in the fact that one person's junk is another person's treasure. We can sit here and debate what is and what isn't until we are blue in the face (or is it red!?!). The fact remains, that junk exists in space, at the bottom of the ocean, in our snail-mail boxes, in our telephone voice mails, on our fax machines, in our email in-boxes, on blogs, in forums, in guest books, on MySpace, on FaceBook, and Al Gore will tell you that it exists in the air that you and I breathe. Junk email, or whatever you wish to call it, is a terribly expensive problem and it is very complicated. You can choose to promolgate junk or you can choose not to. You may benefit from junking things up, however, sickness catches up with you, if you're already dead and buried by then, then your offspring is paying for your junk. That brings us up to Mr. Barendrecht's post. > ... if you find a solution for a Windows > server (not using PHP), I would be > interested to hear about it (Mr. Barendrecht, LED Digest #2617). What? A Windows server can't handle PHP? Gimme a break! Change servers or write them a note. Windows is chosen by windows exclusive folk. That's cool. Why? I have no idea. But I'm cool with it. If you do not like PHP (sniff, sniff) then do javascript or flash or subscribe to a service such that Mr. Bontrager offers. There ARE solutions right now! JUST DO IT~! Mr. Barendrecht, your contact web page is a glorious heaven for spammers! Don't wait. Fix it tonight! Turn it into a living hell~! People who retain yahoo, gmail, hotmail, aol mail, or whatever mail have options. There are solutions to bringing these web mails into your email client. I'll tell you about them in my newly written ebook about properly scripting email addresses and form-mail on web pages. It costs $9.95 in pdf format, however, I'm considering it free to LEDers and LURKers. It should be out soon. I'm still chewing on it. We'll see. I have accounts with Yahoo and MSN (hotmail) from days of olde as "backup" accounts and to see "what goes" in these accounts. These accounts are filthy junk. Yes. There are filters, however, the idea behind FIGHT spam or ANTI-spam is to catch spam before it becomes spam. Well, once it hits the inbox spam filter, the junk has already done its damage! To people who retain these email addresses, get real, get on the Internet, and do us all a favor. Yeah, like that will ever happen. Elephants will learn how to paint before people will learn how to become intelligent. Oh! Elephants already know how to paint! Too late, folks! We're losing the "smartz" battle. My contention is, is that if people don't learn (or ask how) to use their computers in relation to the Internet, then, most likely, they shouldn't be anywhere near the Internet. As well, service providers of these email accounts should provide upfront, very clear instructions as how to manage these email accounts. Otherwise, they too have NO BUSINESS to be on the Internet. Good-bye AOL and YAHOO and MSN and GOOGLE. Like THAT will ever happen in a "social community" environment. We fine folk have to live with these junkies. Ironically, the junkies live in the finer homes! That's the way social is. Maybe junk email IS all about money and not about humans!?! Which takes us to Mr. Bontrager's post: > To me, it is inconsiderate to ask someone > to prove they're human before accepting > their communication - Will Bontrager, LED 2614 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/2029/190/ Somehow, I've noticed a ton more stuff on the Internet (and off the Internet) to be MUCH MORE de-humanizing and inconsiderate. Remember. The elephants are painting. That means that if you don't TELL the humans that you are testing to see if they are human, they won't know. Yesh? So, shhhhh! Let's bring it home, Mr. Bontrager. For example, I can say that providing an anti-spam service is inconsiderate. Personally, I like things in "my domain" in "my control". So kindly provide the server side script, as well. Luckily, this is just a "for example". I'm not interested in your script. However, I respect the service in the fact that it is JUST DOING IT. Kudos~! Let's turn CAPTCHA (well written captcha) into a marketing schema. Since we are NOT going to tell humans the inhumane purpose (rolling eyes) of using captcha, we can tell them that by entering these numbers, they have a chance to WIN A FREE iPOD if their number matches (post a number on the web page)! The qualifier being that they are potential customers commenting about the purchase, whatever, of an item being offered on the web site, yadda, yadda. This excludes the vendors and others using your form-mail. Yes. CAPTCHA is an effective tool. It is NOT inconsiderate. Humans are inconsiderate. USE IT! Okay. So, I'm not a marketer. However, well written CAPTCHA can be turned into a marketing tool, as well. Isn't that why we are here, on the LED Digest, to learn about marketing on the Internet? Humans LOVE to scratch, scritch, and scruntch lottery tickets! Humans will LOVE to enter 6 digits into a CAPTCHA to (never) win an iPOD. On the other hand, the elephants are too busy creating Monets. So there! CAPTCHA fits right up the humans' .... alley. Al Toman Web Design Your Business http://studio9.ws (c) Copyright 1995-2008 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "I am only one, But still I am one. I cannot do everything, But still I can do something; And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do." - Edward Everett Hale |
