All Forums

Server Monitoring Scripts

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 23:23:57 -0500

I am looking to monitor a few servers for uptime. Anyone know of a good script / service, and evern better, anyone have any experience?

Sites Reposting Our Pdf Documents

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:01:45 -0500

Although I've noticed it now and then, I am now seeing a flurry of sites with names like "P D F zone" and "free P D F" reposting our documents and datasheets. They are frequently surrounded by a cacophony of nearly random keyword blocks, tag clouds, links, adsense, etc.

I have to shrug and go on, since I know there is nothing I can do about this from a practical point of view. Who knows ... maybe someone somewhere will find out about us completely by random chance through one of these. Though I suspect Google gives these sites no visibility once they're revealed.

I have two questions, both facetious and serious at once: 1. Do these people really make any money? 2. If they're that smart, can't they get meaningful jobs?

(I'm trying to remember a classic putdown, I think from the movie All About Eve, in which Eve (or another character) tells a reviewer that she always considered him to be an intelligent person, and it was a shame he couldn't find a more dignified job.)

And I suppose maybe someone here is involved in this or something like it. Apologies in advance if you are ... I'm just really really perplexed ... and more than a bit frustrated sorting through Google alerts for legitimate uses of our brand name.

Www.skintactix.com

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:43:58 -0500

Hello,

I am new to this forum but have really enjoyed the ideas of many of the contributors. I thinks it's time to get feedback on my site. Let me know what you think.

I have made some changes over the last year to help drive sales and traffic. Any ideas are much appreciated.

Thanks,

Ryan

www.skintactix.com

New Design Prototype

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:26:48 -0500

Ok, i was trying to take the design and change it to go in a new and more ergonomic direction, but i feel that i have failed. I love the menu, but the rest of the page doesn�t really seem to flow with it, and so i just wanted to know what others think. The design is based off of the main website�s design direction:

http://seo.ionisis.com

Thanx!

Www.chicagolandoutdoormovies.com

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:14:10 -0500

First things first a link to my site: www.ChicagolandOutdoorMovies.com.

So I've had my site up, in various forms since, approximately July of 2009. Originally it was thrown together, quickly, when I mid-year decided to start my own business. I made a lot of mistakes in the early stages and have slowly gotten myself to the point at which I am at now, a site I'm semi happy with.

I'm guessing that the changes I've made over the last 6ish months, some major redesigns, haven't helped my PR or rankings. With that said the site as it stands will hopefully stay as it is with only the addition of new pages, articles, and media (both video and photo). But as it stands this is my site, for good or bad.

I've tried to learn some of the basics of design, css, html, seo, etc and apply them as well as I can. However I'm sure there are area that could be improved upon or that may or may not work.

I currently list my Facebook fan page and twitter page and have been trying to engage folks to join one or both. I'd like this as a way to keep them engaged with the business obviously but also to try and determine if what I have is effective at making them interested in the services or utilizing my service. All normal things I'm guessing but is what I'm doing effective or should I look at doing something else?

Lots of questions and I apologize if I should have started smaller but I wanted to get as much detail into my opening post as possible. I appreciate you taking the time to read this, look at my site, and I look forward to your replies.

Chris dePaola

Why Would I Wnat Php Instead Of Html

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:37:47 -0500

I am using XSitePro 2, and I can have either html pages or php, why would I want one versus the other? Thanks for any help you can share.

Better Site Planning Leads To Better Site Creation?

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 13:45:54 -0500

About a year ago I heard about an online game that was/is in production and was invited to participate in a testing phase of it. I'm not much for online games but given the particular topic (Stargate) I definitely shared an interest.

I registered a domain, set up the hosting/server/etc., and started communicating with some people who shared similar Stargate type interests about creating a website for the online Stargate community.

The purpose in the website is to serve as a central location for the "guilds"/"clans" (called "commands" in the Stargate games) and for the "alliances" (combined groups of those "commands"). Basically, a social network kind of website that focuses on the formed groups and forming of groups within the Stargate games.

The primary feature of the site is to offer directories, or listings, of the groups so that they can more easily recruit prospective new members. Additional site features are part of the plans for incorporating into the site.

Here's a list of the 9 main sections of the site:
* News (possibly blog-based for main site news; plus syndication for news from similar sites)
* Directories (for the 1st game) (database?)
* Directories (for the 2nd game) (database?)
* Chat (IRC, TeamSpeak, and Meebo)
* Forums (considering phpbb3 at the moment)
* Wiki (any wiki app, it'll be a basic section, nothing fancy)
* Gallery (maybe coppermine, but open alternatives)
* Info (basic information page, contacts, etc.)
* Links (to major websites affiliated with Stargate & these 2 online games)

The problem we experienced with the site planning and preparation process was a bit of double-edged sword. On one side, we had plenty of time to get things sorted out (considering the release date of the games has been a very very long time in waiting). That has given us ample time to establish specifics of site structure and content. And so, we discussed all kinds of ideas. On the other side, we had plenty of time to get things sorted out. That has given us ample opportunities to actually create the web pages for the website. And as such, given those opportunities, the volunteer group never actually created a single page.

Given the volunteer nature of the site - and it's being driven with a purpose of "of the people, by the people, and for the people of the Stargate community" - and the state of the online game(s) basically being put on hold... the site creation status basically ended up also being put on hold.

Originally, there was only one online game in production. Recently, a second game was announced (I believe it is to help collect funding to finish the first game). The game production company stated that the game will be released in the first quarter of 2010, which by my assumption is by March. That gave cause for a reawakening of the website creation process. So I have been attempting to revitalize the group, only hoping that pages will actually be created for the site.

Now, I feel like our previous attempt - last year - consisted of over planning, which ultimately resulted in zero pages being created for the site. There has been a sort of facelift in the planning process, I'm trying to implement a more active and hopefully more motivating approach toward the volunteer group physically creating the web pages for the site. I don't think one can really over plan something as long as they actually live up to their planning and actually create what they say they're going to create.

I'd say that more is not better. That might be a commonly mixed up interpretation of how planning a site plays out. The more planning there is, well, it can just lead into endless discussions not entirely unlike that of some planning committee from the bureaucratic bunch of Vogons of Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

Perhaps better is achieving balance between what is planned and what is physically done. So along with our redoing our entire site infrastructure, we've also devised a fresh task list. The list has already been revised. At first it included the "directories" (possibly requiring databases?) but we found out that there wasn't much help available from the volunteers in the realm of mysql or similar. So, we re-tasked the task list basically, and now the easiest pages are at the top of the list, if just for allowing us to get something created.

At the moment a friend of mine - the first "in person" person I know to participate in this seemingly massive project (everyone else in the volunteer group has been online-only, from across the world) - anyway, my friend said she could take a look at creating a "framework" (I think that's the word she used) for the site. That would be a wonderful step forward. Though she works with building professional websites at her job, so I'm not sure how much time she'll have for this. Either way, I'm waiting patiently (and excitedly!) to see what she comes up with.

My part thus far with the site has included a lot of creative input, wrangling together a team of Stargate fans who are interested in volunteering to help realize this website, I've been done some work with the server-side of things (setting up subdomains/accounts/etc.), and more recently... I made a weak attempt at creating the actual "registration forms" that will be used on the "directories" sections of the site. I cheated though, I used phpform.org to help me out. The forms still need revising though, some code stuff that is beyond me. (I'm not versed in html, php, etc. coding/scripting. I'm a professional musician, so that's where my talent goes.)

Long message, sorry about that. Ultimately, I'm hoping to just... well... get this website created so it can be officially "launched". The game production company even said they'd announce the website on their website when we're online.

Here is a link to a very simple group of pages that describe the site intentions:
http://sites.google.com/site/commandcentersite/

Does anybody have any input, suggestions, recommendations, advice, ideas to help with things?

Thank you!

Are No Follow Link Worth Less..?

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:52:37 -0500

I am little confused here.Google says it does not pass any value to no follow links but I have too many no follow links and my website still getting good rank.So what is truth..?

Web Page Looks Bigger On A Different Machine : Please Help.

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 12:21:32 -0500

Hello all,
quick question. I have created a small web site. All static. no dynamic content. I validated the pages and they are all fine. The web site looks perfect on my safari browser, firefox and internet explorer. It looks good on many other machines. but some machines (windows), I tried my web page on IE, and it looked very big. I had to scroll from one end to another. Have no idea why it happened. Also, I have lots of

's which I have used and the outer div is centered in the middle, so everything looks centered. I have done that by using CSS :
#container{
position: relative;
margin-left:auto;
margin-right:auto;
width: 1200px;
height:926px;
}

Looks perfect in my machine (MAC), but the browser where the page looks big, when I try to change the resolution to small or view the web page small, the page moves to left and does not remain centered. I dont even know if its a problem with my CSS or HTML. Do you guys have any idea's? Please let me know cause this is the only bug thats remaining.
Thanks in advance.

Articles And Seo

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:06:36 -0500

Hi

I recently came across a web based article program that lets me take one article, modify it so it is 3 unique articles and from there anywhere from 700 to 6000 unique article are created. The system will then submitt the articles to hundreds of article sites and blogs based on the keywords I designate.

Each article has a resource box with links to the site that I want to promote.

Article site like ezinearticles.com and technorati aren't in the system they recommend those be posted individually.

I have test the system with 5 articles so far and I'am seeing a few articles make it page 1 of google for some of them.

My questions is will this help the website's that the article's are linked to? I know if the article where all the same then it would but with the article spinning site it changes it enough I hope.

Does any one have experience with this?

Modal Quotes And The Usability Of Usability Forums

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:16:00 -0500

I'm used to the quote behavior from other forums. You highlight the text you want to quote, then you click the quote button, and (if there's text highlighted) the proper markup brackets the passage.

So what's with the modal quote box?

Slogan For A Business

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:23:50 -0500

Hey , I'm trying to come up with a slogan for my hookah website.

I'm debating what to choose. Honestly our strength is our customer service, but these days everyone writes "Best Customer Service" on their slogan. So much that it makes them look unreal. So I'm afraid if i put something like "No customers left behind" it would sound too generic and no one will believe it.

my second choice was to write a slogan about hookah itself.

the third choice is something about fast delivery.

what are your thoughts?

Turning Off Personalized Search?

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:44:34 -0500

So Google's personalized search has gotten a whole a lot smarter as of recent. This makes it harder and harder to track SERPS for a given datacenter. I use three browsers FF, IE and Chome and stay logged out of Google accounts when testing SERPS, but personalized search follows across browsers now. Maybe they are tracking IP's instead of cookies? Isn't there some URL parameter that you can use to disable personalized search?

Old Link Buys Come Back To Haunt You?

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:05:20 -0500

I have an established ecommerce retail site that has good content depth, traffic and repeat customers. The site is going on 6 years old and early on I bought a few quality (but obviously paid) links. When Google officially banned this in 2007 I stopped buying them immediately, but didn't cancel all of my existing placements.

Has anyone had any experience with this coming back to bite?

Buying Old Domain

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 21:44:32 -0500

Is it safe and a good option to buy old domain for page ranking?

Javascript/adobe Problem

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 06:42:42 -0500

Hello,
I have installed the latest adobe flash player and all that. and i have javascript turned on and everything .. but websites that need it such as youtube wont let me because they say i need the latest adobe flashplayer which when i dowload i get the 'completion video' so i presume it has downloaded yet it still doesn't work ... can anyone help me please!!

Google Doesn't Like Too Much Youtube Embedding?

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:26:48 -0500

I run a blog for a friend and he often embeds YouTube. Today I noticed that now rather than playing the video in the site it automatically redirects to YouTube. e.g. http://www.steveshowposse.com/news/the-mag...ds-tindersticks

tested on another site with Youtube embedded and this does not happen.

Any ideas why? Does Youtube not like a lot of embedding?

Css Help Background

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 18:46:39 -0500

Hi my friends

friends have a site I'm developing but I'm having problems with CSS, because we still have not mastered this language too. the error is as follows:

I created a background for the index, and the other pages I want to use a different background, but when I DREANWEAVER the program and try to put another background he just changing all the pages, incluive page index ...

I tried this ... but I could not ... example:

In the index, you give an ID to the BODY, eg 'index'
...

and the style sheet, create the rules as follows:
body (background: url (bgpadrao.jpg) body # index (background: url (bgindex.jpg)

I am offering part of my site the link below:
www.prointerativasolucoes.com/test

Jeovan

How Many Words?

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:27:14 -0400

OK, for some reason, I guess I read it somewhere, I though for SEO a good length for an article was about 600 words.

Also, a pal (successful aff chap) told me that the ideal length to increase conversions is 250 words (based on someone else's research).

I had been keeping new articles short.

But (big butt)

Just looked at my most popular articles in the SE's and they are all in the range 800-1500 words.

Got me thinking:

1. maybe many recent articles need beefing up
2. is there an ideal length?
3. why did I drink so much Rioca on a Tuesday night?

Developing Requirements Documentation[

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:58:15 -0500

The folks at WebproNews did a great job on this video Developing Requirements Documentation.

I had mentioned this in a talk at SMX East last year and was literally pounded on my folks afterwards for more information, as well as cheered on for even noting the importance of requirements gathering.

I need to get to writing up more about the topic and teaching how to do this on a budget.

Is Here Correct Place To Ask Where I Can Download Free Images To Use In My Site?

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:50:04 -0500

hi everyone,

I am trying to create some kind of logo for my dating site but I am very bad in designing it by myself..

I was wondering if you guys know any place where I can get free images to use? paid images would be fine too but if there are free ones, Id rather take a look at them first before buying any.

I appreciate any help

Thanks everyone

[edited site link, as per house rules. KKB]

Pagination & Seo Impact

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:04:26 -0500

Hi,

I'm looking for some advice on which way I should implement a site containing 10,000+ pages. Essentially the site will provide page by page access to books which are yearly volumes going back 100 years.

With my developer hat on, I'm thinking I could just have one page and use parameters to determine the content, for example:

book.php?year=1945&page=2

Or I could generate a webpage for each page, along the lines of:

book_year_1945_page_2.php

I could also generate pages within subdirectories split by year, similar to this:

year1945/page_2.php

Is there any difference from an SEO point of view of either of these approaches, or is there another way of structuring the URL's that I should consider?

I would add that other than the first page of each book, all pages are heavily text based and certainly unique pages.

Many thanks

How Do You Find A Niche At Social Networking Sites

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:58:17 -0500

Is there a tool to find hubs or a site that searches all the web 2.0 sites
like facebook,digg,myspace for finding other affiliate marketers profiles.

Voting For Semmys Ends Jan 29

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:53:04 -0500

The 2009 SEMMYS honors the best articles found by the SEMMY folks for 2009.

You have until end of day 1/29 to vote or comment on your choices.

QUOTE

Nomination Categories

* SEO
* PPC
* Small Business
* Local Search
* Google
* Blogs & Blogging
* Link Building
* Social Media
* Analytics
* Search Tech
* Rants
* Online Marketing / General
* Reputation Management
* Viral Marketing
* News & Announcements
* Design & Usability
* Industry
* Copywriting

Google Wave

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:45:28 -0500

Google Wave was touted as being what email would be if it were invented today. I don't know if that's necessarily true, but in any case, Wave has its good points and its bad. Its most obvious use is that of collaboration amongst groups of people, especially those working on a document together. However, other use cases are popping up and I thought this would be a good place for people to jot down ideas for using it.

The one use case I've found for it lately is that of collaborating with my family on things that need to be done/bought before Christmas (gifts/food/etc). We're keeping lists via Wave and we can all edit it as needed. It's working well for us.

Of course, one of the biggest drawbacks of Wave so far is that it's not yet ubiquitous, but Google is rapidly expanding its invite system. With that noted, I have some invites I can share with some of you here, if anyone would like one. Simply let me know which google email to send it to (yes, it needs to be a google account email, so a gmail address would work). I'll give 'em out until I run out.

So, either ask for an invite in this thread or share a good use case for Wave.

How do you envision using Wave?

Lots Of Mobile Web Design Questions

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 22:28:57 -0500

I'm looking for information about how to make a site mobile friendly in the best possible way. At the very least, it's past time that I learned to make a good mobile stylesheet!

I have questions and hunches to go with my lack of experience.

- Page load should be fast -- how lightweight is light enough?

- Relative widths (100%) or pixels?
- Are certain things more likely to give wonky results - floats, margins, whatever?

- How different are the various mobile browsers?
- How many of them are there that I should be testing for?
- Is there a list somewhere of their various quirks?
- Are displays different on different phones that use the same browser?
- How hard is it to make a design that works for all?

- Are visible skiplinks more important for mobiles?

- How is user behavior effected by the fact that real reading is a pain on a mobile?
- It makes sense to me that easy social media & email-it-to links would be important, to mark posts for later reading and take advantage of any viral properties the content may have. I usually put that stuff at the bottom of an article, but should these go higher up in the text for mobiles, maybe right under a blog post title?
- I think the same sort of thing may be true for ecommerce. Those who want to bookmark & view later should be able to do so easily. Those who have come back for purchase should be able to skip straight to "buy now."

- I'm guessing that people are more likely to get lost, because it's harder to see what's there. Maybe people who know the site from large screen would have an easier time getting around in a mobile version if it has a look and layout that is similar to the full size version.
- Any tips for accomplishing this with minimum page load and maximum readability?

I'm looking forward to your input.

Website Review...!

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:13:56 -0500

Hi Guys,

How can i improve my toronto apartments rent website. I would like if you people can give ideas for toronto apartments rent website.How can i make my toronto apartments rent website more professional

please look at http://www.4rentgta.com

Adding Content

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:03:00 -0500

Helllo Everyone,

My site is very small right now..maybe four of five pages. However, I've been working on a fair amount of content for it offline. I was wondering if there was on optimum way to add content? Should you put it all up at one time, is it better to add it on a regular basis over time, or does it make any difference at all?

Thanks,

Walter

Should I Nofollow Links To My Own Spares And Finished Goods Database Pages?

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 11:58:49 -0500

I have affiliate relationships with companies that give me access to their datafeed of products and another relationship where a major spares company has created a skinned version of their spares site for me.

I've long since made all links to these sites or individual items nofollow and even put a noindex instruction in robots.txt to prevent spidering of my affiliate's database of products.

But recently I've started to wonder if this is what I should be doing or not because presumably it means none of these products are ever likely to come up in search engines yet my sites rank highly for related terms. I'm confused as to whether I should be trying to prevent search engines seeing these products which people may be searching for or not.

Google Slams Seo And Web Designers From Local Serps

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:34:15 -0500

As if Google isn't already infuriating us, here's their latest bit of "no evil":

Where Did SEO's Go

Google Removes SEOs

QUOTE

Google has decided to intentionally not show a local pack for queries that are related to SEO or web design

Noindex/nofollow On All Cart/checkout Pages?

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:27:45 -0500

Hello,

I read this article, Secure Pages, Shopping Carts and Duplicate Content, by Michael Gray in December. He wrote:

Use a �noindex/nofollow� meta tag on all of your cart/checkout pages.

But I'm wondering, can a search engine spider even get to these pages? Just like a spider can't fill out forms, and can't use a pull-down menu, the only way for a SE spider to get to these pages of my website is to add something to the cart. So, should I really be doing this?

Thanks.

Risa

Which Domain Extensions Should I Register?

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:24:04 -0500

Hello,

For my e-commerce site, I have registered the .com, .net, and .org extensions for my domain name. Should I be registering more?

Thanks.

Risa

What Is Database Marketing?

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 04:58:58 -0500

Is it just maintaining a database of clients and using that to send marketing materials?

It is mentioned a in a job description.

Do you think that gaining a Marketing qualification (not a bog one, maybe a 1 year course etc.) would help me land a job in SEO/SEM?

Consultants, How Do You Handle Ranking?

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 18:00:38 -0500

Given the current state of the art, in the first pitch to a prospective client, how do you talk about page ranking? Given Google's increased customization of search results, how do you talk about benchmarking and measuring progress against a benchmark?

Reason I ask: I'm sitting in on a series of proposals currently. There are two typical approaches:

- A few days or hours ahead of time, the consultant asks for the keywords the prospect wants to target and their competitors. The consultant runs a report and uses it to show where the company currently ranks and proposes some areas where he/she can help make progress.

- The consultant gives you a straight pitch on services. These seem to be "high end" consultants who charge premium rates and who are straightforward in stating that they do this to avoid prospects who simply want free consulting in the guise of a proposal.

Both seem very problematic to me. In the first case, you can't guarantee specific results in terms of ranking (of course, we show you the door if you guarantee we'll be no. 1 in three weeks), and even speculating on results can come back to haunt you. On the other hand, some execs won't give you money w/o some concrete and measurable yardstick.

Or course the real benchmark is conversions, not page rank, and I think none of us have to be convinced of that and can rehearse all the reasons why. But page rank is "easy" to understand, and many execs who don't know SEO are going to fixate on that as something fundamental that they expect the consultant to address in a concrete way.

Anyway, I'd appreciate your thoughts on how you position page rank and what you think a thoughtful and reasonable prospective client should reasonably hold you to in terms of results.

Related question: If you were to categorize how much effort you would spend on optimizing in-page factors and link building, what would the ratio be? I saw someone pitch "50 50" -- disappointingly high for the boss, and disappointingly low for me.

In case it helps, this concerns SEO for a B2B software company, selling deeply nerdy solutions in the five to seven figure range.

If any of this involves revealing competitive practices, I understand.

Lose Anchor Effect If There Is A Redirect?

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:38:55 -0500

ON site I put in some great anchor text for the link to my website.
I noticed they do a redirect to their site before it goes out to mine.

Is it safe to say all that great anchor text if flushed down the toilet with that redirect?

Do Utm Tagged Links For Google Analytics Pass Pagerank?

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:43:12 -0500

Hi there.

Link tagging is when you add various ?variable=value parameters to the link you use in an email newsletter, a banner ad or AdWords (which are autotagged now). The variables are campaign names, source, medium and others, which lets you track ROI of your non-indexable campaigns with Google Analytics. (Learn more about link tagging for Google Analytics here.)

Naturally, if you place such a link on your site as an internal link, it'll be considered as a different URL and will have its own link value.

The question I have is, since Google knows it's a Google link and knows the original URL (by stripping the tags), does it pass link value to the original URL? In theory, Google is able to do it, but practically, they might've not implemented this in the algorithm yet.

Do you have any knowledge/experience with this?

Thank you.

3 Months Passed Pr Still Zero...

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:42:30 -0500

Hi everyone,

I am a newbie and I am glad to find this site!

I have created a dating site (I know many dating sites out there already) completely by myself from scratch and now its been running for about 3 months.

Problem is whatever user that I have so far (~3500) have come from google adwords and if I stop running adwords, everything stops too, no new users and etc..

The site is:

http://www.meetplenty.com

Is there anything that I should do? I wish I get some suggestions since I really dont have a fortune to spend for advertising

Cheers!
Mike

Facebook: Group Question

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:14:39 -0500

Is there a way to belong to a group, but not receive emails from them? thanks.

Usability

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 19:40:01 -0500

I am looking to see how I can make this site better. http://preforeclosuretours.com/

Http://www.kindofshiny.com

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:24:10 -0500

Hello,

I have been reading many of the posts here and have found some useful information. People here seem to be very knowledgeable and willing to give advice, so I thought I would add my site for review.

My site is a free online dating site. I know I am in a full market, but I have my own twist that I think is beneficial and different enough. As a result I created this site.

Is there anything I can change to improve this site and generate more traffic?

PS. I am in the process of using the W3C validator on my site. On the index page, it shows a few errors which are related to links to my forum.

Thank you.

http://www.kindofshiny.com

Our Nexus One Has Arrived

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:50:02 -0500

Hi Everybody!

If you're feeling curious about Google's Nexus One, I thought I'd mention that ours has just arrived!

This is a very big deal for Solas Web Design, and a decision made after much discussion with our colleagues in Local. Mobile is getting bigger every day and because of our interest in Local, we've got to get into it now. Such an exciting day for us!

View To Advertising On Our Website

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:00:05 -0500

Hi,

We have been approached by a well known car insurance website about the possibility of advertising on our website. Our site gets about 3.500 car related searches a month and suspect this is why they are interested! Please see their email below:

Hi, I would like to enquire into advertising on your website. .... .com has one of the most comprehensive car insurance panels in the UK and as such I think that an advert on your site would benefit both us and your visitors. If this is something of interest, please e-mail me your advertising rates and options. Many thanks and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

We have not gone down this route before, with not one advertiser on the site on the 6 years or so that the site has been running so we do not know where to start!

Any help appreciated,
Jged

How To Handle Totally Rude People

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:17:34 -0400

This is a topic I've often wanted to bring up here at Cre8 for community input. Nearly all of you have blogs or blog somewhere. And, all of you have seen nasty fireworks ignite in the comments section of blog posts.

Disagreement is healthy and part of discussion. One can often learn more from disagreement than from perfect accord. The way we handle this at Cre8asite is a thing of beauty, I think, with few if any hard feelings.

But what about out there in the wider word where people leave comments including this kind of disrespectful language:

You don't know what you're talking about.

Really? You really think that?

Yah, right.

This is total b.s., nonsense, twaddle, etc.

In face-to-face conversation, these types of unsociable remarks would doubtless cause the person on the receiving end to feel attacked, belittled, annoyed or any number of other unpleasant feelings arising from a basic lack of respect and good manners on the part of the speaker. Who knows, perhaps a fist fight breaks out? Or a divorce ensues...

But what about when it's on the web, and you're put on the spot being faced with trying to come up with a reasoned response to someone who opens their comment with, "you don't know what you're talking about." Even if you DON'T know what you're talking about, my sense is that civilized people find less loaded ways to express that.

How do you do it? How do you come off looking collected and professional in responding. Do you not respond and risk looking like you are hiding from the barbarians , do you ignore their comment because it doesn't deserve a response, do you answer in an ingratiating manner (that you hate putting on) that you truly value their (rude) comment and then go pound your pillow?

I'd love to know!

Bottom Of Page Footer Links

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:18:29 -0500

I'm noticing more and more sites putting links on the bottom of the page, in what from a design perspective appears to be a footer.

For example, seomoz.org draws a very distinct visual boundary at the bottom of the page, and then in what is visually the "footer" provides columns of categorized links. On the one hand, it could just be for usability -- once you know it's there, it's very handy to know you can scroll down to jump laterally around the site, from the forums to the SEO tools section. Is there an SEO benefit as well? It looks like a mini sitemap, and yet I've been told that a link to a sitemap should appear only on the home page; that putting a link to your sitemap on every page dilutes your ability to point to the quality pages on your site through links.

Thoughts?

Photo Isn't Appearing On My Internet Site?

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:49:13 -0500

Hi Everyone,

I'm having trouble with a certain photo on my site. It doesn't seem to want to "show" itself on the internet.

I've been working on this for hours and hours and I can't figure what I'm doing wrong. I've added the code below and I've also added my site below as well.

When you click on the photo it's saying the album does not exist but that simply isn't the case. I know it exists.

Also, the photos right below the "X" imaged are appearing fine and all are working but this code and the "album that does not exists" code are the same. I've added the image code below. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone!

http://mainstreetautos.com/2002-ford-windstar-lx.html

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

This is the image code that isn't working.

QUOTE

>>>>>>>>>>

target="_blank">
src="http://www.pixagogo.com/S5xJcYevc-xOU87nFGGuq5hdmN2fud7ReXKx9I7rNn-jD77wF8HVtBMeh0Oi982gf7U6TnJUA77lzVt-Sn3o17KEfRL3iV6!aeRL4uDwpiqbOKOeKQKJJrEOAWszhe3WOR/NissanSentraGXE1997_001jpg" />

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

This is the some of code that is working.

QUOTE

qze4cstoDuHKEFzXD3zFwbg/2002FordWindstarLX_001.jpg'>

Need Advise With Review On Usability

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 07:07:40 -0500

Hi,
In fact this is a project I already started work on, and already gave recommendation for improvement. The site is op/ed commentary hub on politics, economy, environment etc.

In my initial audit I used many of the things I learned from the Cre8asite community - for which I'm very grateful , but any additional bits of advice will make the picture more clear.

Ok, the site is http://www.project-syndicate.org .

In my audit is mentioned:
- the lack of copy to catch attention and make clear what is the site about to newcomers ( huge bounce rates ! )
- the lack of semantics/structured code ( no good h1 etc ) - that goes more on a technical SEO
- problems with comment system ( blank page after commenting )
- no links on some important areas ( for example the scrolling text on top that says "new iphone app" and the "well hidden" app link down there )
- eye tracking "heatmaps" that show where attention goes and how the site can be rearranged.
- the hover on top images is confusing, while one tries to reach the link on the left one often crosses the small image bellow and it's changes
Well, few more but that's enough

Thank you!

Buying Link? Is It A Good Idea?

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 10:38:22 -0500

Hi,

I was wondering if it is good to buy links from sites like TexlinkAds.com or to just advertise on adwords?

How do you guys bring potential users to your site?

[edited link drop and request for site review. See Website Hospital for proper site review requests. KKB)

Review

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 09:42:32 -0500

I am new to wordpress and thesis, but it is so fun, and user friendly, and the community is amazing. OK, I am in the industry of real estate, so this means I see things differently than people not in our industry, so I would honestly enjoy some fresh new eyes to look into the site and concept. preforeclosuretours.com Remember I am brand new into the world of blogging. Thank you for any of your help that you can give me.

Http://www.promatching.com/

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:46:24 -0500

Our fairly new dating site has been showing some good ratings in terms of rankings recently, considering the time it took to design the whole site. I am looking to make more improvements so that it looks more appealing to the potential daters. The name of the site is:

http://www.promatching.com/

Although, it went through many revisions and rigorous programming in the past few months, I am looking for any kind of feedback on how to make it better from search engine and visitors point of view.

Thanks in Advance!

If You Had To Pick 6 Web 2.0 Sites For Seo & Ranking In Google Which One Would You Pick

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:50:09 -0500

I'm trying to get a site indexed & in the top ten in google &
I don't want to waste my time on sites that do not help get a
site ranked.

I know sites like digg,squidoo,hubpages are the major ones
which one would be the best to concentrate on.