In This Issue:
1. Web Development Priorities - Style vs. Substance
2. In the News
3. More News Headlines
4. This Week's Q&A
5. Wrapping It Up
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Web Development Priorities - Style vs. Substance
I had a meeting a little while back with a prospective client
who was interested in possibly hiring OWT to redesign and redevelop
their existing web site. One of the problems, I was told, was
that the existing site was too boring, too "static" --
not exciting enough, not flashy enough. The site, according to
the prospective clients, needed moving video or maybe a Flash
movie to "catch people's eyes." The prospective client
also mentioned the need for less text on the site.
Requests like that are a red flag to me, and prompted me to ask "How
important is it that people find your site in search engines?" The
quick answer was "Very important." So the conversation
turned immediately toward web development priorities. I explained
that Flash animation, videos, and especially reducing the amount
of text on the site are all potentially very search engine UNfriendly
things to do. I explained that the "Gee whiz" factor
is highly overrated, and how our design practice these days is
geared highly toward user-friendly and search engine-friendly web
sites, with a greater focus on substance over style.
And that's really the crux of modern web design -- substance
and style, and how you marry the two. Emphasizing substance
doesn't mean style is overlooked altogether -- a web site still
has to
look professional to earn trust from visitors. But it does
mean you accept one basic premise: the coolest-looking web site
isn't
worth a dime if people can't find it, and if they can't use
it once they do find it. There are a lot of businesses that don't
understand the need for user-friendly and search engine-friendly
design. That's the main reason we started this newsletter and
relaunched
OWTweb.com with new articles and resources about what works
today
for doing business online. It's time to start talking about
this in the open with everyone, not just in private meetings with
prospective clients.
Semi-related link: Professional Web Design 101: Introduction
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In The News
BREAKING NEWS: Just as we were about to hit SEND on this week's
newsletter, Yahoo has announced the URL where it will accept web
site submissions for possible inclusion in its new search engine.
The URL is:
http://submit.search.yahoo.com/
There are four links: the free one is the third on the list, "Free
URL submission." I just tried this out with the URL of a new
site that's not currently in Yahoo's new search engine. Once you
submit a site, you get the typical disclaimers:
"Please expect a delay of several weeks before your URL
is crawled," and "...we
do not add every submitted URL to our search index. Therefore
we cannot make predictions or guarantees about whether your URL
will
appear as a search result."
We'll see if this tool actually does anything, or if (like every
other free submit tool), it's a waste of time. I'm guessing the
latter, but since Yahoo is desperate to make a good impression
with its new search engine, it may be useful in the short term.
Should you use it? If your web site is already included in Yahoo,
I would ignore this.
Okay, now back to our regular "In The News" material.....
As it continues to roll out its own new search engine, Yahoo
will probably continue to take up most of the space in this
section of the newsletter.
Yahoo this week announced its new pay-for-inclusion (PFI) program,
which allows you to pay to have a web page (the fee covers
one page, not your entire site) included in Yahoo's index of
web
sites. Yahoo says one benefit is a more frequent "refresh" of
your paid-for pages -- meaning you can add new content to these
pages and get that content reflected more quickly in Yahoo's search
engine. In and of itself, that benefit may justify the costs for
some businesses. But I see a lot of problems with the PFI plan
as they've described it, too.
1. Yahoo promises that they are still focused on crawling the
entire web and adding sites for free, just as Google does.
But I wonder
what their motivation will be to crawl a company's entire site
for free once that company shows it's willing to pay to have
some of its pages listed? Why not hold off on adding other
pages for
free as way to get the company to pay for more inclusion?
2. Yahoo claims that paying to get in their index will not
get your site ranked any higher in the search results. In other
words,
paid-for pages will be treated the same as pages it finds during
the "free" crawl. That sounds good and it's the right
thing to say, but I don't know if I can suspend disbelief enough
to accept
the idea that Yahoo will treat non-paying customers the same
as paying customers. Why would they?
3. The PFI program is essentially advertising for your web
site. You pay to get your web page(s) seen, and you pay when
someone
clicks on your link. That's how search advertising works. The
FTC cracked down on search engines in 2002 for not adequately
labeling
paid listings. Yahoo has said it has no plans to label sites
that use PFI. I suspect that won't sit well with the FTC.
4. And what's worse about having to pay every time someone
clicks on your link is that Yahoo gives you no control over
where your
site appears. With other CPC advertising programs like Google's
AdWords or Overture's program, you can target when and where
your ad appears. Yahoo's PFI program offers none of that control,
and
you may end up paying for a lot of clicks from non-targeted
users.
5. What happens after you stop paying to have your page(s)
listed? Under Inktomi's old PFI program (and remember, Yahoo
now owns
Inktomi), many webmasters reported that their pages were dropped
altogether
soon after they stopped paying for inclusion, and Inktomi never "found" those
pages during a regular crawl of the Internet. In other words --
once you stopped paying, you were gone and had no chance of getting
back in because the crawler would ignore your site. Yahoo has emphasized
that this won't be the case with its program, and that if you stop
paying or never pay at all, your site will still be found during
its "free" crawl.
In the end, most of these issues can be overcome if Yahoo follows
through on its commitment to fully crawl the web for free,
adding web sites and pages to its index whether or not they're
paid
for. And for those listings that are paid for, it needs to
indicate as much in the search results. If they really intend
to compete
with Google, which was the stated goal when they announced
plans to develop their own search engine, these things are
a must.
The
playing field has to be level for companies that pay to get
in and those who don't.
PFI has been around for some time in various formats -- in
fact, Google has been the only search engine on the web that
wouldn't
accept payment to add a site to its index. The fact that Yahoo
has announced this program isn't particularly newsworthy, but
the way they plan to implement it is. It's so newsworthy, in
fact,
that Google co-founder Larry Page called Yahoo's PFI system
a "pretty
bad thing to do", according to the Associated Press. And the
AskJeeves search engine responded this week by announcing that
it is eliminating its pay-for-inclusion program.
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More News Headlines
Here are a few news headlines worth your time to read.
These are just some of the headlines we've posted
to OWTweb.com in recent
days.
Search guru sees multiple engines blooming
March 03, 2004 - InternetNews.com
The Google monopoly that people feared is over.
Search Engines vs. Web Directories
March 02, 2004 - OWT
The most confusing thing about learning the difference between
a search engine and a web directory is that the two are often
brother and sister at the same site.
Google's Promises for the Future
February 27, 2004 - WebProNews
Sites with improved user experience will rank higher in Google....
Cutts says to expect a lot of changes over the next 6
months.
More headlines: http://www.owtweb.com/news/
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This Week's Q&A
Hello Matt,
We own several domain names but have only one web site. We're
thinking about creating new web sites for each domain so that our
sites
have a better chance of being found in the search engine results.
Is this feasible? Karen
Hi Karen -- It's feasible, but only if you do it right. If you
plan to use more than one domain for your company, each domain
should have its own unique web site with unique content. If you
want to have one site/domain about your red widgets, and another
about your purple widgets, that would be okay as long as the
content on each site was unique. Kellogg's, for example, has
separate web
sites for each of its cereals, and that's okay because the content
is different.
What you DON'T want to do is have more than one site with the
same (or similar) content, nor do you want to have more than
one domain
pointing to a single web site. In both of these cases, a search
engine would consider you to be spamming their search results.
What good is it if five of the top ten listings point to the
same site, or to different sites that have the same content?
It may
be good for you (!), but it's not for the searcher and that's
why it's considered spam.
If you do have more than one domain, but only one web site, the
most search engine-friendly thing you can do is setup a "301
redirect" so that anyone typing in your 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.,
domain is automatically redirected to your main domain. Ask your
web host to do this for you.
(Have a question? Email questions@owtweb.com)
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Wrapping it Up
Before we go, a quick 'hello' to the new subscribers this week.
I see some of you work within the same companies as other subscribers,
which is great to see. Feel free to tell other co-workers and friends
about the newsletter and how to sign up. See you next week!
Thanks for reading,
Matt McGee
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