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List Moderator:                     Published by:
Adam Audette                          LED Digest
adam, led-digest.com     http://www.led-digest.com
..............................................
May 16, 2006                        Issue no. 2161
..............................................



            .....IN THIS DIGEST.....


====== NEW =====================

        --== Google Search Refinements ==--

                ~ Beth Earle
"...I just noticed an interesting development..."


==== CONTINUING =================

        --== Re-Design Tips ==--

                ~ Mike Banks Valentine
"...consider making new pages rather than
changing the existing pages."

        --== Repeat Emails to a Customer List? ==--

                ~ Tom Aman
"In the case of a price reduction offer, I can
understand a second notice..."

                ~ R. Neilson
"I personally hate the repeated e-mails."


==== BILLBOARD ===================

        --== Google Ban Checker ==--
                ~ Richard Dudley


========== NEW ===================================

From: Beth Ann Earle
Subject: Google Refinement?

With apologies to everyone who's sick of Googliness, I just noticed
an interesting development that seemed worth sharing with all of you:

* A search for "recipes" (
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=recipes ) calls up a results
page that offers two dropdown boxes (cuisine and main ingredient) at
the top to allow you to further refine your search.

* A search for "toothache" (
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=toothache ) calls up a results
page that offers eight text links (including "treatment," "for
patients" and "from medical authorities") at the top to allow you to
further refine your search.

It seems to work for a variety of human ailments (head ache, warts,
back pain, heart attack (but not coronary disease), spina bifida,
erectile dysfunction, burns -- but not other injuries like sprained
ankles or a broken neck). We hadn't noticed the refinement option
last week when checking medical conditions; today was the first day
we noticed it.

We also searched today for other topics (pets, sports, movies,
animal maladies, mold stains, rusty bumpers, among others) but
didn't find an offer for refinement on any of those.

Don't know exactly what this bodes for searchers or those wanting to
be searched, but it's intriguing, to say the least.

Take care,

Beth Earle
www.pilotfishseo.com


======== CONTINUING ===============================

From: Mike Banks Valentine
Subject: Design tips

> I'd like to redesign my website but am concerned as
> I'm number one in most major search engines and
> get 2500 visitors a day, plus sell many books daily.
        - Robert Joy, LED 2160

Robert,

Using the "site:www.weddingsweddings.com" query - Google shows that
they know about 65 pages at your site. Whatever you do, keep your
existing filenames for all of those pages and don't remove that
existing content. If you must remove any of the previous pages, be
sure that you implement a 301 permanent redirect to send the search
engine spiders as well as visitors who may find those previous links
in search engine results pages.

Instructive article at:
http://www.gnc-web-creations.com/301-redirect.htm

You might also consider adjusting your title tags (without dropping
your existing keywords from those tags) if you want to rank for
anything OTHER than Wedding Ceremonies - as that is the same title
tag on almost every page of your site. Keeping the existing body
text would be wise as well. If you must re-write it extensively,
consider making new pages rather than changing the existing pages.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

If you don't want those old (existing) pages visible - just don't
link to them from your new menu - but do keep them on a sitemap
linked from your index page. You appear not to have a sitemap
currently.

I'm currently working to recover rankings for a client that had
about the same number of pages, but their re-design dropped
two-thirds of those pages entirely. The method I used to save the
rankings was simply to take previous text from the old design and
paste it into the new design template and apply the old filenames to
60 pages - then write title tags which reflected the content on each
page.

If that content had been unavailable, I would have proposed that we
add 50 pages or so of text - but writing the content over again
would be vastly more expensive than using the existing - already
ranking text in the new design template.

I was just contacted last week by a web design company that was
doing a redesign of a well ranking site and didn't want to lose
ranking. Apparently it is time for lots of re-design and spring
cleaning of tired and musty sites - just don't can your old text and
be certain to keep your old filenames in that cleanup. I wrote an
article on this in October of 2004 which I constantly refer people
to who ask about SEO and site redesign.

http://www.website101.com/arch/archive155.html

Good luck with your re-design and continued good ranking!

Mike Banks Valentine
http://seoptimism.com


-------- new post - new topic --------

From: Tom Aman
Subject: Repeat emails

> I wish someone had asked this question in
> my early online marketing days... Because
> when I started testing it years later, I discovered
> almost accidentally that repeated emails
> worked BETTER.
        - Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian, LED 2159

It sounds to me a lot like a convoluted argument to justify sending
SPAM because that is what SPAMMERS do - send essentially the same
information to the same people over and over.  If you do that, you
are a SPAMMER, even if your list is opt-in.  The reason that SPAM
continues to be a problem is that, if you send a message to a lot of
people, there are usually some who will respond.  Send the same
message again to the same list and there are usually a few more who
will respond.  So SPAMMERS keep SPAMMING.  Yes Dr. Mani
Sivasubramanian, "repeated emails worked better", that is the basis
for a most SPAM.

I notice on the doctor's site (http://www.opti-biz.com/), in the
fine print at the bottom of the page (the stuff that most people
won't see or bother to read), it says "Clicking on ANY form
indicates your approval to receive further information about home
business optimization from Opti-Biz.com, 95, 13th Street, Chennai,
TN 60040."  Sounds to me like a thinly veiled excuse to send SPAM
since anyone who leaves an email address will get "further
information" - registering for the "10 Free Reports" requires
"clicking on a form" - that is a really sneaky approach to creating
an "opt-in" list because most who click will not realize they are
opting in.

Unless it is a really unusual offer that you are sending to your
opt-in list, then sending the same message a second time, even with
an "in case you missed it the first time" comment at the beginning,
is an insult to your customers.  You are inferring that they must be
stupid because they didn't take advantage of your offer the first
time or possibly that you are really, really, really desperate for
sales.  There may be the occasional exception but not many - for
example, a limited time price reduction (sale, clearance, etc.) may
call for an initial email offer to advertise the sale followed up by
*one* additional notice just before the price reduction is to expire
so anyone who intended to buy at the reduced prices is warned that
the sale is about to end.

In reference to the initial post that started this discussion, if
the initial email to an opt-in list did not get a good response,
then take a look at that email - it may not be doing a good selling
job or the offer may not really be of much interest.

As a customer, if I was interested, I would usually have responded
the first time.  Since I didn't, I am not interested.  In the case
of a price reduction offer, I can understand (and appreciate) a
second notice that the price reduction is about to end.  But I do
not appreciate the same offer made over and over.

There are two opt-in lists that I used to belong to but they started
flogging the same thing on a repeated basis.  Both lists were from
large, very legitimate companies.  Yes, the offer was good and I
read it the first time.  I was not interested then so what makes
them think I would be interested now?  The emails were usually
different in format or content detail, but it was still the same
offer repeated over and over, about once a week.  All it did was
become annoying.  It also made me start to think that these
companies must be absolutely desperate for sales since I would have
them expected them to know better than to keep sending the same
offer over and over.  Anyway, I have removed myself from both lists.

Tom Aman

Aman Software
http://www.cyberspyder.com


-------- new post - same topic --------

From: R. Neilson
Subject: Repeat emails

I personally hate the repeated e-mails.  If I didn't want to answer
the first one I sure don't want a second one that is the same.  I
usually will classify those that send them as spam and refuse all
future e-mails.  Thus you totally lose me as a potential customer.

R. Neilson

H. L. Supply
www.hansons.net


==== BILLBOARD ===================================

From: Richard Dudley
Subject: Google Ban Checker

I haven't tested this out yet, but I saw this on a blog:

--------------------
"... a free Windows app that will take a list of web sites and see
if they're indexed by Google. On top of that, it will crawl your
site(s) and check all of your outbound links to see if you're
linking to any sites banned by Google, which can damage
your pagerank."

http://snipurl.com/qiuy  [downloadsquad.com]
--------------------

Richard Dudley


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