| LED Digest 2127: Good Books for Web Developers? |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. 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 .............................................. March 29, 2006 Issue #2127 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ======= NEW ==================== --== Good Books for Web Developers ==-- ~ AE Brantley "Can you recommend a good, yet easy to understand book for webmasters?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Duplicate Content ==-- ~ David Spahr "...move the obsolete domain and get Internic to point to it at that server..." ~ Ron Coble "You do not need a control panel to place an .htaccess..." ~ Reg Charie "Do a redirect at the registrar level." --== Verifying Site Traffic Claims ==-- ~ Dejan Bizinger "Different web statistics services often give different results." ~ Bob Gladstein "Keep in mind that 'traffic' in and of itself isn't really worth bragging about." ~ John Smart "Unique visitors on a traffic report is an educated guess." --== Error Pages ==-- ~ Michael Martinez "The search engines will follow old links forever." --== To Bounce or Not To Bounce ==-- ~ Michael Linehan "Two possibly useful steps to preventing spam..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Reciprocal Linking ==-- ~ Dirk Johnson =========== NEW ================================== From: AE Brantley Subject: Good Books for Webmasters? Can you recommend a good, yet easy to understand book for webmasters? I am one of the "ignorant" self-taught and need a good reference book. Thanks! AE Brantley ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: David Spahr Subject: Duplicate Content > ... we need to move our website to a new domain > name hosted elsewhere... we run the risk of the old > site and the new site being in Google's index at > the same time. How likely is it that we'll be judged > to have duplicate content in this scenario? - Melissa Rood, LED 2126 I'm curious about why you are changing the domain name. The one you have seems good. You could move the obsolete domain to your new host. Before you change over to the new domain, move the obsolete domain and get Internic to point to it at that server. Then strip out the content (so there is no duplication) and create the redirect there. Then put up your new site at the same time. You would need to run the old domain with redirect for a while until the indexes catch up and your customers have updated their bookmarks. It would cost a little bit extra to do but not much if you have chosen the right host. You could probably phase out the old domain (or figure out something interesting to do with it) in a few months. David Spahr http://www.antique-photography.com -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Ron Coble Subject: Duplicate content > ... our current host allows no access to > .htaccess files, no cgi-bin, no control panel, > etc. it's really basic webspace and HTML... - Melissa Rood, LED 2126 Hi Melissa, You do not need to have control panel access to place an .htaccess file on your site. You can FTP it to your site - I have done it many times: - Open Notepad - Put the 301 commands or whatever you want to do - Save it as htaccess.txt no period before it - Upload it to your root directory (where your HTML files are sitting) using your FTP program - Then using your FTP programs "Rename" option - rename it to htaccess by adding the period and deleting the .txt and Save it. Last, but not least, be sure to test it. Hope this helps. Ron Coble Coble International - International Marketing Services http://www.importexporthelp.com -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Reg Charie Subject: Duplicate content Melissa, Do a redirect at the registrar level. Registrars like GoDaddy allow you to setup permanent redirects. You can even "mask" the redirect so that people see the old domain name, not the new. (Not sure what effect this has on SE Listings, if any. I don't think it will matter as only visitors looking for the old site will be using this.) Thank You, Reg Charie www.dotcom-productions.com -------- new post - new topic --------- From: Dejan Bizinger Subject: Verifying claims > [Is it possible] to verify the figures when > folks "offer" great rates to advertise on > their websites, because they get 6,000 > visitors a day... How does one sift > through claims like that anyway? - Carrie MacKenzie, LED 2125 Carrie, it is a very good question! To get some orientation about popularity of certain site you can use 3 things: 1) Alexa rating - http://www.alexa.com 2) Google Page Rank checker http://www.rustybrick.com/pagerank-prediction.php http://www.mygooglepagerank.com/ 3) Link popularity checker - http://www.linkpopularity.com Beside that, ask them to tell you which web statistics service they use for their web site tracking. Different web statistics services often give different results. Many web statistics services and software especially Webalizer or similar can have public option so that anyone can see the results if it is enabled. Also, you can sign-up for some good, free statistics service like Statcounter or Sitemeter, make a project for web site you want to advertise on and ask them to put your code on their web site. If they don't want to do that it is most likely that they are not telling the truth. HTH, Best regards, Dejan Bizinger, Internet consultant http://www.emarketingblog.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Bob Gladstein Subject: Verifying claims Hi Carrie, Alexa figures won't tell you much, since they only count users with the Alexa toolbar enabled. If a site is going to make claims about traffic, the only reliable way for them to prove it is to give you access to their log files. Keep in mind that "traffic" in and of itself isn't really worth bragging about. If a site gets 10,000 visitors a day, but 98% of them hit the home page and leave within five seconds, I wouldn't consider that particularly impressive. What you really want to know is whether the site is respected and recommended by other sites within its niche. Bob Gladstein -------- new post - same topic -------- From: John Smart Subject: Verifying claims Unique visitors on a traffic report is an educated guess. Assume you use AOL dial up. (ugh!) If you visit my site, you will be a unique visitor. Hang up and dial in again, and unless you get the exact same connection to AOL, you will be another unique visitor. Let's assume you are in an office, with broadband going to several PC's - 4 people in the office could visit the site, and that would be one unique visitor. It is never more than a guess. What about cookies? I hear you ask (I have very good hearing!!) Well, that can help, and add to the confusion . What if you r visitor doesn't accept cookies? Then every visit will be unique! Unless you merge the two methods, and even then there is an element of chance involved. The only 'true' number is how many visitors, and get the best software you can to manage your stats. We use AW Stats - I really like it. We used to use Webtrends - but web trends got too big for there boots, if you ask me. Their reporting is awesome - their price structure is terrifying! If you have the money though - it is probably worth it - I loved it when we were signed up! John Smart, Technical Director InternetDesign.com - A Human Touch in a Digital World -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Michael Martinez Subject: Error pages > In the statistics of my site I see pages > that do not exist on the site any more. - Baruch Avraham, LED 2126 The search engines will follow old links forever. Somewhere on the Web are links to your dead pages. You probably won't be able to get them changed, unless they are on your own site. The more pages you move to new URLs, the greater this problem becomes. I use a lot of redirection on my sites to keep old URLs people link to from being a total waste. Michael Martinez "Cuando Maria canta, canta para mi" http://www.michael-martinez.com/ http://michael-martinez.blogspot.com/ -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Michael Linehan Subject: Bouncing > ... many spammers forge or pretend > to be a legitimate user. - Brian Rideout, LED 2124 Brian, I had the same problem for several years. Two possibly useful steps to preventing spam. 1. Disguise your email address so it isn't picked up by spam robots. You can get software to do this at (for example) versiontracker.com. So instead of having something like <.a xhref="mailto: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it "> in the code, you'll have a bunch of gobbledygook that means nothing to the robot - but that behaves just the same as a plain email link for a human. 2. Now that you have a encoded email that is protected, set your email program filters to automatically trash all others such as This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it , This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it , etc. --- in other words addresses that a spammer is just guessing at. Any legitimate user will have used your email link or phoned you. Other addresses can be trashed. Yes - you may filter out one or two users per ten thousand emails who just guessed your address - but better that than spending an hour a day filtering through 3,000 spam. And - sorry - once again we're having a spam discussion with contributors whose emails addresses are completely exposed in their text or in the HTML code. If you take the step of encoding your email addresses, or using a contact form that doesn't store your address in the code, I think you'll be pleased with the results. Michael Linehan, Marketing Alchemy www.marketing-alchemy.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Dirk Johnson Subject: Recip linking > There are people who claim to measure the > impact of linkage on search results, but I have > never seen any credible analyses. Not one. - Michael Martinez, LED 2122 All link analysis, public or private, is ultimately based on a limited sample, and is empirical and even anecdotal. It leaves room for all manner of opinion. Anyone can be "right", just by finding specific examples that fit their bias, and then reporting on it in some clever way. Broad conclusions and opinions about linking are often based on very narrow sampling, and those conclusions usually don't hold up. That's what is so frustrating about some of the SEO / linking forums, where supposedly there are "experts" sharing insights. Yet anyone with an axe to grind can say anything they like, with no requirement that it hold up to even cursory empirical analysis. That's where all of the various linking myths (and there are many) get started. Some of these forums are dominated by strongly opinionated individuals who shout down, insult and chase away anyone who might disagree with their theorems, and the bullies, by virtue of their familiarity and established relationships, often enjoy the support of the moderators. It's a waste of time to argue with these ideologues and to point out the blatant shortcomings of their theories. They're not listening. Not all linking forums are like this, but many are. >From this cauldron of bad advice, widely-distributed articles about linking tend to boil up to the surface and the myths earn an even larger stage. These bogus, unfounded articles about linking are now everywhere, and they keep coming on a regular basis. Much of what is written publicly about this subject, especially when it relates to gaming the search engines one way or another, fails miserably under close scrutiny. What to do? Objective people will skip the advice of "experts" and simply try to determine what has worked for other sites, and emulate it. The more results they look at, the better the correlation with what works. There is a convergence. There are undeniable common factors at play. The more situations that are reviewed objectively, the more that the trends reveal themselves. So it comes down to people making their own review of what they see and then build a strategy around it. Doing that makes sense, and it avoids the nonsense talk coming from the forums. When they do that, they'll find all kinds of linking methods at play. There is no one-size-fits-all. Some methods of linking carry higher risk than others. Some cost more than others. Some take longer to get the links. Some are less stable in terms of the link duration. Some provide more direct traffic. Each situation is unique. Choices must be made. My own advice to clients and LED readers has always been to deploy all of the legitimate linking methods that are available to them that fit their site and their budget. The most successful site owners use several methods of initiating links. That's just smart business. Some site owners can only afford to pursue one or two methods of earning links. When that's the case, then choosing the most effective method, for the least cost, is critical. It's not always the same method, either. Determining which method is used is what makes all of this very interesting. That's why taking bad advice based on bad analysis and ideology-driven opinion can be very costly. It can take legitimate options off the table. Frankly, that's what I like about this business. Site owners will make choices, and then see where the chips fall. Those who make the right choices will benefit. Best regards, Dirk Johnson, Partner - Operations DomainDrivers LLC www.domaindrivers.com www.linkstrategy.com ------------------------------------------------------- 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. "A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. This every sister of the Bene Gesserit knows." - Manual of Muad'Dib |
