LED Digest 2162: Cookies?

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List Moderator: Published by:

Adam Audette LED Digest

adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com

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May 17, 2006 Issue no. 2162

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.....IN THIS DIGEST.....

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

--== Cookies? ==--

~ Tim Mullein

"Is that an old fear with no validation now?"

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

--== Google Search Refinements ==--

~ Derek Andrews

"Definitely an improvement for the searcher

trying to get information..."

--== Re-Design Tips ==--

~ Bill Rice

"You need to be careful whenever you redesign

a site that you are doing it for the right reasons."

~ Shari Thurow

"Above all, hire a professional usability consultant..."

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

~ Fernando Bergamaschi

"Spam or advertising?"

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

--== Google Ban Checker ==--

~ Mike Banks Valentine

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

From: Tim Mullein
Subject: Cookies

I searched the LED and found nothing on cookies. I am considering
adding a third party PayPal shopping cart which uses cookies on a
new site http://hometapestry.com.

Is there a drawback to cookies? and How many people actually turn
cookies off? Is that an old fear with no validation now?

Thank you LED and thank you LED'ers for your help.

Tim Mullein

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

From: Derek Andrews
Subject: Google search

Thanks to Beth Earle [issue 2161] for the heads up about Googles new
"more:" operator. It looks very interesting and could be a boon to
the searcher looking for good information from non-commercial
sources. It seems to be driven by Google Co-op:

http://www.google.com/coop

For the medical examples Beth cited, it seems to group the suggested
refinements as either Condition Information, Audience and
Information Type. You will find these and other labels on this page
of the co-op:

http://www.google.com/coop/topic?cx=health_devel

I didn't see any refinements on the 'recipes' search that Beth
mentioned, so I tried this Google search:

recipes more:medical_authorities

It showed 7 relevant results, and from sites that are mainly
non-commercial. The main commercial content on the page is the
sponsored links via Adwords.

As a further hint to how this works, the refined results have an
extra line attached for each result, ie:

Labeled Medical author... For patients Professionals by NLM CDC

showing what the page was labeled as, and who labeled it. Further
searches show some results pages that include a mixture of labeled
and unlabeled results.

What does this all mean for the future? Definitely an improvement
for the searcher trying to get information rather than sales
pitches. This may encourage more people to use web search to find
information. I know I sometimes give up trying to find good
information on some subjects. For the website owner it may seem like
a ploy to get you to spend money on Adwords, but don't forget the
user is still going to see a page of regular results first.

Derek Andrews, woodturner
http://www.seafoamwoodturning.com
http://chipshop.blogspot.com - a blog for my customers

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

From: William Rice
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,

You need to be careful whenever you redesign a site that you are
doing it for the right reasons. Just be cause you see it everyday
for a long time and are growing sick of it, does not mean it is not
still an effective site. Only when a site's design becomes dated and
your credibility is at risk or you need to add additional content
should you consider a redesign.

One thing you might want to do before redesigning your site is
submit the existing site to the Web Marketing Association's
WebAwards (www.enter-webawards.org). The Award program will provide
you valuable feedback on your current site and point to the areas
were you may wish to improve. The Webaward judges look for seven
criteria for a successful Website including design, copywriting,
interactivity, use of technology, innovation, and ease of use. The
judges often leave valuable comments on what they liked and disliked
about your site. You will also receive quantitative scores
benchmarked to the average scores of your industry so you can see
how you stack up to sites that are important to you.

The deadline to enter the 2006 WebAwards is May 31st.

Bill Rice
FamilycookbookProject.com

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

From: Shari Thurow
Subject: Design Tips

Hi all-

This is in response to Robert Joy's post in LED #2160 regarding Web
site design tips, especially search-engine friendly design tips. I
would like to put in my 2 cents.

In his post, Mr. Joy stated:

> I'd like to redesign my website but am concerned
> as I'm number one in most major search engines...

Okay, I want to make something perfectly clear to Mr. Joy and anyone
out there who makes or hears this type of business goal. It is 100
percent unrealistic. No Web site is in the #1 position in all of the
major search engines all of the time. No search engine optimizer
(SEO) can make that type of guarantee, and I don't care about how
confident they are in their SEO skills. SEOs do not control the
search engines. The search engines ultimately control which sites
have top positions.

So everyone, spread the word. This is an unrealistic expectation.
Stop having unrealistic expectations (it makes you a complete target
for "black-hat" or unethical SEO firms) and be realistic.

That being said, any site can have qualified search engine traffic
and a great ROI without having any #1 positions. One business goal
should be receiving qualified search engine traffic. If positioning
is so important to you, then buy ads. There's your guarantee for
search engine visibility.

So tips. The #1 design tip I can think of is not to design your
entire site in Flash. I can see using Flash (appropriately) on this
type of site, but it doesn't mean the entire site should be designed
in Flash.

I hate to sound stereotypical, but you should probably design the
site with a feminine appeal. You will need to use graphic images, so
don't listen to anyone who says you must do a text-only navigation.
A site like this will probably do better with a combination
text/graphics navigation. Feminine fonts are not typically default
fonts on most computers.

Above all, hire a professional usability consultant who understands
search. I have seen the horrendous categorization and navigation
schemes that Web developers and self-proclaimed search-friendly Web
designers come up with. (Shudder.) It's really important to have an
intuitive information architecture as the base, and an interface
that accurately reflects that information architecture. Once a Web
site has a strong foundation, it is relatively easy to maintain
qualified traffic and ROI. But you have to spend the time and the
money on getting a solid information architecture and interface.

That's my 2 cents. Good luck on your project!

Sincerely,

Shari Thurow, Webmaster/Marketing Director

Grantastic Designs, Inc.
http://www.grantasticdesigns.com/tips.html

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

From: Fernando Bergamaschi
Subject: Spam or Advertising?

[Re: Repeat Emails]

Spam or Advertising?

For me Spam is when you send a lot of similar emails at the same
time. If you send the same email to the same client with a few days
of interval this is advertising. We are using a media with its own
characteristics. Most of the time people do not look an email today
but will look tomorrow.

Internet is a fantastic medium to do a lot of things including sales.

Some emails that I receive I really like them, some I do not. But
that do not makes me mad. Some "prima donas" are like ex smokers
that can not see a smoke far away. I sand emails weekly or in ten
days interval and do not consider me a spamer. I sell my product.
Who do not like rain should stay inside home or just email me to be
removed. I agree with Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian that repeated emails
worked BETTER.

Fernando Bergamaschi
http://www.photoindustrial.com/

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

From: Mike Banks Valentine
Subject: Google checker

> ... 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
- Richard Dudley, LED 2161

There is no need at all for a "Google Checker" software application
to see if your site is banned. All you need to do to find out, not
only if you are indexed by Google, but how many pages from your site
they know about, is to use the query operator "site:www.foo.com" -
(remove quotes) replacing "foo" with your domain name.

It isn't surprising that a software application was developed to
perform a simple domain search because so few people are aware of
these powerful search operators offered by Google. A list of special
search operators is available at:

http://www.google.com/help/operators.html

If you simply visit the "Advanced Search" page at Google and fill in
the proper boxes, they'll form many of the special queries for you:

http://www.google.com/advanced_search

> 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.

If you think you are possibly linked to banned domains, then you
probably fell for one of those ridiculous linking campaigns pushed
by link sellers or linking software that links indiscriminately to
anyone who links to you. Don't link to anyone if they are not a
customer, a testimonial or an informational site relevant and useful
to your own site visitors.

If anyone emails you asking for a link, visit their site to see if
it is useful and relevant to your site visitors. Make sure they are
not competitors and see if they are included in Google using that
"site" query and while you are at it, check them with a "link" query
if you consider giving them that link. If they have useful and
relevant links, have good PageRank and could be useful to your
visitors without competing with you, go ahead and link to them.

I've got a page at my site with my linking policy on it - basically
it says I don't link to anyone unless they provide a useful article,
whitepaper or some other valuable content for my site.

http://website101.com/NO-reciprocal-linking.html

Once most people hear that, they inevitably drop the request for a
link from me. If they respond with an article that fits my site -
I'll usually post it and link to them. Nobody gets something for
nothing. If the article or report they provide is not useful to my
visitors or is simply a sales letter for their product, then they
don't get a link either.

ALL outbound links you place on your site should be visited manually
- by you - before linking to them to check for value and relevance
to your site visitors. If you suspect they may be banned from
Google, use the "site" query operator on their domain name - if they
don't show up in Google results (using the "site" query operator)
with at least one page, then they are banned.

If that site is not a client or a relevant related business that is
useful to your site visitors and you haven't visited to check that
value - why are you linking to them? Of course some worthwhile
domains you've linked to in the past may be sold or may have expired
when the company owning the domain went out of business and if you
have hundreds of pages with outbound links on old pages. This
feature of that software app may be useful. Dead links are harmful
to your ranking. I may try it myself for this feature.

Mike Banks Valentine
http://seoptimism.com

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"We should not complain about impermanence,

because without impermanence, nothing is possible."

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