June 22, 2005
In
This Issue:
1. A (Windows) Web Designer's Toolbox
2. In the News - Google eyeing Paypal, Yahoo and
MSN news
3. More News Headlines
4. This Week's Q&A - URL-only in SERPs
5. Wrapping It Up
_________________
A (Windows) Web Designer's Toolbox
I've used a Mac all my life (well, since I first
laid eyes on a personal computer at about the
age of 10), and have no plans to ever switch to
a PC. And this is all fine and good in the web
development and design world, because Macs are
very popular in this industry. I have all the
software and hardware options I could ever want,
and the Mac development community is vibrant enough
that there's a built-in community of supporters
when help is needed. It works for me.
Of course, in the general population Windows'
machines still dominate. And so, most of the hosting
clients we have who design their own sites are
also on a PC. And when they call for help locating
a certain type of software to fill a specific
need on their site, I'm quite often helpless.
"You're looking for a good FTP client for
the PC? No, sorry. I don't know of any off hand."
But now I do, thanks to what appears to be an
excellent article just posted to Digital Web Magazine
by Brian Reindel. It's a list of (mostly) free
tools and programs that the author promises will
make your web designing and webmastering easier.
Web
Designer’s FREElance Toolbox for Windows
If any of you Windows users in Net Gains Readerville
have any feedback on the software Mr. Reindel
suggests -- maybe you have something different
you like better than what he suggests -- send
me an email. Likewise, if you're a Mac user, I'm
curious to know what essential tools would go
in your Mac-based webmaster's toolbox? Sounds
like an article worth writing.
_________________
In The News
Google eyeing Paypal?
The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend
that Google is planning to start an online payment
service that will compete with Paypal. If you
use eBay or other online auctions, you're familiar
with Paypal. It also offers payment services for
traditional web sites, which is where I think
Google would aim such a service -- as another
tool for webmasters and web site owners. A couple
bits of info. that support the WSJ article: Google
registered the googlemoney.com domain last Christmas,
and more recently filed paperwork to form the
Google Payment Corporation in California. Google
CEO Eric Schmidt confirmed today that they are
working on a payment service, but not one that's
designed to compete with Paypal.
Yahoo updates its index
Yahoo announced on Monday that another index update
was underway, but there's no indication how long
it would last. My quick check of a couple client
sites indicates some pages moving up since last
week, some moving down, but in neither case are
the changes dramatic.
Yahoo adds Subscriptions
Yahoo last week introduced a beta of its new Yahoo
Subscriptions Service. It's a way to search for
content from database services and web sites whose
content is typically not available to regular
searchers. An example would be ConsumerReports.org,
which only allows content to be seen by paid subscribers.
With Yahoo's service, that won't change -- you'll
be able to see what ConsumerReports.org (and others)
have available, but payment or subscriptions will
still be required.
Yahoo
Search Subscriptions (beta)
MSN adds local search
Following in the footsteps of Google, Yahoo, Ask,
etc., MSN Search has finally added a "local"
search option. It's available right from the main
MSN Search page, and provides exactly what you'd
expect -- maps, business listings, directions,
etc. And much like Google Maps, it also offers
a satellite view, as well.
_________________
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.
Google
vs Yahoo: Clash of cultures
June 20, 2005 - News.com
As the two giants tussle for domination of online
advertising dollars, it's increasingly clear that
this tug-of-war is really a test of what kind
of corporate culture an Internet company needs.
Local
taxation of online sales: Only a matter of time?
June 17, 2005 - E-Commerce Times
AdWords
site targeting option launches
June 17, 2005 - ClickZ.com
Google has officially unveiled a new AdWords feature
that allows the targeting of ads by site.
More headlines: http://www.owtweb.com/news/
_________________
This Week's Q&A
Matt,
Our web site is listed in Google but all they
show is our domain name, which is linked to our
site. In other words, they don't show the title
or name of our site, and there's also no description
snippet below. All you see is the URL linked to
our site. What's going on? Can we change something
on our web site to fix this?
Dan
Hi Dan --
Thanks for the email. What you're seeing is not
uncommon. This happens when Google has indexed
a page, but hasn't crawled it yet. In other words,
it knows the page address (the URL), but the spider
hasn't crawled the page yet to learn the <title>,
the description, the content, and everything else
it can learn about the page. Since it knows the
page exists, but doesn't know what's on it, only
the URL gets shown in the SERPs. This happens
most frequently with new pages. And there's nothing
you can do on your end, other than perhaps hope
that your page acquires some more inbound links
which will encourage Google to crawl the page
more quickly.
(Have a question? Email questions@owtweb.com)
_________________
Wrapping it Up
This is pretty funny. It's a Flash movie with
sound, so be warned if you work in a quiet office.
"A
song about Google."
Thanks for reading,
Matt McGee
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