JimWorld Gazette Issue #38 01/23/1998

Gazette - Issue #38 - January 23, 1998

-- Housekeeping
-- New For You
-- Net Establishing Its Place In Ad World
-- Tips From The Hitman - Part XXII
-- Snippets
-- Lessons From Last Issue

Link to this issue of the Gazette as http://gazetteworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g38

HOUSEKEEPING

Blew me away! Got a message from the folks at Zenation. JimWorld made their Top 100 Sites of the Web list for the first time ever. I thought, cool. At least we made it. Probably # 99, but we made it. So I went to visit and guess what? #7! Coming in at number seven is way better that I expected. I was happy just to make the list.

Check out Zenation (and our listing) at <http://www.zenation.com/lolt.htm> This one is generating A LOT of traffic to the site. Thanks.

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(Second Notice - this notice will stay here until everybody has stuffed the ballot box!)

Time for the Gazeteers to saddle up and ride to victory once again!

> Congratulations!
>
> Your site (VirtualPROMOTE) has been selected as one of the
> 32 finalists in the annual Surfers Choice Site of The Year voting.

Voting is taking place at <http://surferschoice.trigger.net/vote.htm>

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Apparently, a lot of you liked the work Karen did on our new banners <http://jimworld.com/howtolink.html>

Karen <http://katekreates.com/> dropped me a note on Monday and asked me not to mention it again until she got caught up with the avalanche of work you guys signed up for.

OK, Karen. I won't mention it again. Wouldn't want you to get behind like the rest of us.

On LinkExchange I'm running the Meta Tags banner with a link directly to the Meta Tags page. It is working much better than the older generic ad, but it has only been a little over a week. I'll keep you posted.

NEW FOR YOU

A few weeks ago I ran across what I considered the best threaded discussion list package I had ever seen. The design was outstanding and clear. Most layouts make it either hard to tell what the discussions are about, or very hard to actually post something.

I liked it so well, (and it's FREE) I decided to use it to your advantage. I get so much mail about search engines from people needing help that I can no longer answer even a large portion of it. Now there is a better way.

Announcing the new Search Engine Forums! A separate forum for each of the major search engines and directories, plus one forum for all the others. The Forums can be reached at <http://searchengineforums.com/> You won't miss the graphic.

This is a place for you to get and give help with search engine problems. If you have a question, post it and someone will answer it. Usually, several people will answer it.

If you have expertise, help someone out with their problem. One of the first problems to be posted received a response that clearly showed that the person helping out had taken the time to actually visit the site in question and spent time getting to the bottom of the problem.

All of us on the Gazette staff will be spending as much time as we can answering questions in the Forums, but now you can get access to hundreds of real experts in search engine submission, and it's all free. From the mail I get, I know how many of you are more than willing to give of your expertise. This is a way to do that and help a lot of people in the process.

You won't find a better deal anywhere. Make these Forums really take off. Visit regularly and ask or answer something each visit. Only you can make this resource work. All I can do is plant the seeds. The real work is up to you.

The Forums are not a place to advertise your submission or promotion services or products. The are a place to exchange information. I you want to advertise, send me a note and I'll send you the rate card. I will delete all blatant commercials from the Forums, and repeated attempts to advertise will get the poster banned from participating in the Forums.

The email that I get requesting answers to search engine problems will now be getting an automatic response suggesting that the sender post the question to the Forums.

If these Forums do well, I will open several more on subjects like producing e-zines, general promotion ideas, linking, banner ads, e-commerce and others. It's up to you. If you want them, use them.

INTERNET ESTABLISHING ITS PLACE IN ADVERTISING WORLD

Sitting here writing the last little bit for the week during the Super Bowl has been interesting. If you had any doubts about the strides forward made by the Internet this year in our daily lives, the Super Bowl advertising should have woken you up.

Intel is running a vote on their site to determine which final commercial they show at the end of the game.

Superbowl.com is so busy with chatters you can't even get there.

AutoByTel run an ad that actually had some production value to it, unlike last year's that looked like it was made by a high school video class.

The big change this is year is evidence that the major ad agencies are catching on to the real power of the web. The major movies studios have had it figured out for a long time (in web years). Instead of producing additions to their web site for each movie, they produce entire web sites for each major production and create a happening. When they advertise, they don't advertise their corporate site but rather they promote the specific movie site.

Several products have been promoted this same way. Instead of sending everyone to their corporate site, they let the product shine in center stage with its own site.

While they just missed getting their commercial into the network in time to run during the Super Bowl , SmartDesk used this technique during their launch of WebSuite. It worked very well.

Instead of creating some pages as part of the SmartDesk corporate site to show off the capabilities of WebSuite, they created a complete site, with its own look, just for WebSuite. <http://www.smartdesk.com/websuite/home.html> The site was done from soup to nuts as if there were no SmartDesk corporate site <http://www.smartdesk.com/> This gave WebSuite its own identity, and additionally gave our dealers a complete retail site that they would brand and add to their online stores.

SmartDesk carried this theme though to the customer support phase by giving the WebSuite owners are their own complete site with its own look as well. <http://www.smartdesk.com/websuite/docs/> This, added to the two major upcoming additions to the Owner's area, an owners discussion list and several threaded forums, bring a sense of community to the WebSuite product.

The point of all this may seem a bit obscure, but the game is still going on. Finally, a good Super Bowl game! After living for 16 years in Denver, this is fun to watch.

Seriously, the point is just this: no matter how limited your resources, you have the same marketing tools available to you that the Big Boys use. While you may not be able to afford $1.3 million TV ads, that doesn't stop you from thinking in terms of campaigns and product identity. Make your products and services an Internet Happening. Put them center stage. If you think they are that important, others will as well.

TIPS FROM THE HITMAN XXII

As promised, I will cover HotBot this time around.

HotBot has grown in popularity, and has been selected as Editors Choice in many recent search engine comparisons. One of the most important improvements in my opinion is that HotBot is now indexing pages in a day or two most of the time. Why is this important? Well, it not only means that you get your listing in the public eye quickly, it also means you get very fast feedback on how your page did based on the page structure while your efforts are fresh in your mind. As those of you who have been having more success with Infoseek because of the quick feedback, now you can hone your skills quickly at HotBot as well. This feature, along with the growing popularity of HotBot as the Search Engine of Choice makes it one of my favorites.

HotBot uses all the items I have talked about in the general articles on improving position. By this I mean that the title meta tag keywords, meta description and use of keywords in the body of the document are all indexed and important.

Ho Bot does use the meta description in the listing if you use it in your page HTML. Keep the listing to about 200 characters or it will be cut off like . You get the idea.

Even though the title seems to have some importance in the listing position, HotBot is not as critical as say AltaVista where you do not see first page results without the keyword you are searching in the title. Most first page results at HotBot have the keyword in the title, but it is not unusual to see a page in the top ten that does not. I am inclined to include them in the title as most pages in the top positions do.

Stay away from frame pages, they just do not do well. If your page just has to be done in frames, make a special page just for HotBot that is not a frame page, otherwise you don't stand a chance.

HotBot is one of the search engines that does seem to index items that have been placed in comments tags. It is not unusual when examining the source code of the top pages for a keyword to find at least one that uses comment tag loaded up with keywords or phrases. This type of influence on the indexing is considered to be spamming by some, but I am not making a judgement, just an observation.

On close examination of many keywords and the top listing you are bound to find a few of what was described in the article by Planet Ocean Communications last week as Search Engine Entry Pages or Pointer Pages. Since such a good job was done with this subject by that article I will say no more than these pages often fair well and you can find all you need to know by referring to that article in the January 16th issue of the Gazette.

So to sum it up, use what you have learned to date regarding seeding your page from top to bottom with keywords, and give the page a shot, remember you will have rapid feedback. If you are not happy with the results on your first try, try the variations mentioned above.

Remember, the key to success is always to examine what works, and if you have a basic understanding of what to look for you can form your own plan of attack for the keywords that are important to you. Always examine the competition, take notes, and then build your page and go for it.

Hayden Mitchell
Web Themes
<http://www.webthemes.com>

SNIPPETS

One of my favorite sites for interactive creation of web graphics is 'going commercial.' PixelSight <http://www.pixelsight.com/> has been down for a while trying to make the conversion to a paid subscription model. Their notice estimates subscription fees at $48 for individuals and $99 for businesses.

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Got a page having anything to do with real estate? The Real Estate Links Page at <http://home.earthlink.net/~gelam/RealPage.html> gets good traffic and accepts free submissions for real estate related sites. Go get listed.

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Looking for the weirdest sites on the net. Submit yours if it is strange and unusual to 'The World of the Weird Wild Web': <http://users.skynet.be/sky88639>

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This just in from Edwin, our 'on shore leave' Gazette reporter:

I started a newsletter called 100 Days, 1000 Ways way back in the early part of 1997. After 3 very successful issues (1,500+ subscribers after the 3rd) I suddenly had to change jobs and my free time decreased to negligible amounts.

Now I have more time spare, and the newsletter will be reborn with a new name and a new site. There are only two pages working right now, but they are the key ones!

<http://www.pr2.com/> The main page of the site
<http://www.pr2.com/newsletter.htm>
The sign up page for the newsletter

I will be focusing very much on small business/personal web sites i.e. pinpointing promotion efforts that don't require much in the way of capital, nor an inordinate amount of time.

Keep up the great work, I STILL make the Gazette my only must-read promotion information.

Edwin Hayward, Tokyo, Japan
Internet Gold-Rush: <http://www.igoldrush.com/>
Missing Link: <http://www.igoldrush.com/missing/>

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There is an excellent Singapore search engine that accepts web site submissions for web sites that are either related to or originated from Singapore. The url is at <http://www.technofind.com.sg/> Visit even if your site doesn't fit to see what is happening in that part of the world.

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Bill Dunlap did some close looking at how the Internet is progressing in Europe during a trip there. You can read his observations at <http://www.euromktg.com/eng/ed/art/rep-eur6.html>

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As one who has gained a great deal of information from the Gazette, I thought I might return the favor and pass along some information regarding an excellent free resource for webmasters.

I believe I have found something that might be of great use to many of you who are using WebPage hosting services which don't offer logs. The resource is found at <http://www.bellacoola.com> and it is awesome (not to mention FREE). Right now it is in its beta stages and it works with JavaScript or SSI. They give you the code to enter in your pages (they call it a sniffer). This code generates WebPage logs which can be analyzed with a great log analysis software package called Hitlist (which is also absolutely free!!).

They provide a link to this site so you can download it. Then you just download your log file as often as you want and let Hitlist give you all of your statistics. It will tell you: Most requested pages, Most often exited pages, Number of Single Page Visits and which pages they were, Referring Pages, Path Visitors took through your site, Trend Analysis, Average Number of Page Views Per Visit, Total New/Returning Visitors and Much, Much More. All of these Analyses can be customized for whatever time frame you want and can exclude certain domains and pages. You won't believe what you see. You will even be able to track how well your newsgroup postings and posts to e-mail lists perform in terms of WebPages traffic. Determine which signature files perform the best. I'm telling you, you'll be amazed. And, believe it or not, I am only a satisfied user, I have no affiliation with BellaCoola whatsoever.

Michael Kaufman

----------- Synthetic Professionals-----------
E-mail: klawncare@juno.com >
"CHANGE YOUR THINKING, NOT YOUR OIL" Never Change Your Oil Again With AMSOIL Bypass Oil Filters FREE Calling Card For Visiting: <http://synthetic-pros.home.ml.org/>

---JIM--- Great tip and great sig file Michael.---

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"I'm offering a web award, called the Cranky Monkey <http://home.interlynx.net/~thanatos>. I figure the last thing the web needs is another award page, but what the heck. I wanted to be able to express my appreciation for some of the fine pages I've encountered.

Thanks for all your fantastic tips and hints. You've REALLY boosted visits to my site."

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The Ampersand Award <http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Cove/6530> They present their award to original and creative sites.

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There's a guy in his early 50's named Charlie and he's an avid golfer. Early last summer his eyesight started to go and he was have problems finding his drives.

He went to the Doctor and the Doc said he needed glasses. But Charlie said no way I can play golf with glasses on.

So the Doc recommended Charlie get a helper to find his balls on the course. Charlie asked the Doc if he know of any young kids. The Doc said no, but he did have a 90 year old patient he called "Eagle" because of his 20/20 vision. Charlie said "how much do I have to pay him"...the Doc said "Oh, Eagle doesn't need the money, he just wants something to do". Charlie said fine.

That weekend Charlie and Eagle headed out to the golf course. On the first hole Charlie's drive did a big hook to the left and headed into the woods. Charlie said "OK, Eagle did you see that one". Eagle said "Oh yeah". Charlie said "OK, where is it?"

Eagle said, "Saw the damn thing! Just can't remember where."

David Bancroft <http://www.focusa.com/>

LESSONS FROM LAST ISSUE

This came in as a result of an item in last week's Gazette. It has some lessons for us, so I'm running the message. Remember when you are trying to add your site to a directory, don't try to add something that doesn't fit. It just makes extra work to get rid of it and someday it'll be you having to do the extra work on your own site and wishing at 3 in the morning that people would follow the spirit of the submission process.

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Hi Jim

I would like to thank you for including my request for sites that would like to be included on my two links pages.

Including my request has taught me a few things which I hope will help me improve my site.

There are not any Gazette Subscribers in the Nottinghamshire UK area with interesting sites, as I have had no requests for sites to be listed on my page of 'Nottinghamshire Sites' at <http://notts.net/nottsusefull.html>
The word 'Community' has many meanings. The idea of my 'Community Sites Around the World' links page at <http://notts.net/community/> was to list other sites that are providing useful information and services to their local 'community'. I have had B&B's advertising themselves, Health product retailers and other such sites advertising their products trying to add themselves to the list. This is not the sort of site I was aiming at and therefor they have been removed.
'Automation' is not always the best way to do things. I requested that sites listed on the 'Community ....' page either had a reciprocal link to this page or duplicated the list on their site. To make it easier, a suggestion was made by one of the early sites listed that an email should be sent when a new site is added so that sites with their own list could update it. With the response from my request in this Gazette, people started complaining that they didn't like the idea of getting so many emails as they only intended on adding a reciprocal link. This has now been removed.

Greg Mathews

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Glad to see the Gazette is still powering on. I was motivated to put finger to keyboard this time because of your mention of a free email service. I would suggest that your readers could do worse than check out my Free Email Address Directory site at <http://www.igoldrush.com/email.htm>

Whether you are trying to find a free email provider, or alternatively to track down which addresses can be attributed to free email providers, it is a worthwhile visit as it contains information on over 100 companies and organizations offering free email. Somebody is bound to correct me ;-) but it is, as far as I know, the most complete roundup of free email accounts anywhere!

Now to something else... a bit of content to spruce up a tired site. There has been so much discussion about how to make use of the search engines to improve the ranking or visits of a site, but what about twisting things around a little... and using the millions of $ of content that leading search engines have accumulated to provide content for your site.

Especially for the smaller sites, this can be as easy as adding a search engine query form to your page. Check out the SearchEngines.Net list of search engine queries at <http://www.igoldrush.com/searchengines/> for connections to around 50 major search engines.

Edwin Hayward
Internet Goldrush<http://www.igoldrush.com>

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Jim,

In your last letter, you mentioned Internet Hoaxes. Here is the URL we use to check for Internet Hoaxes: <http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html> It mentions several similar fakes to "Join the Crew".

I hope this will be of interest. I just thought I'd pay a little of the helpware debt I owe.

James Rozee
Dungeon Crawl Software <http://www.dungeon-crawl.com/>

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Global Promote-Digest <http://www.globalpromote.com/list.html>

A forum for the discussion of issues relating to sales and marketing in the worldwide Internet marketplace. The issue of language, culture, currencies, payment mechanisms and trade barriers is especially keen in our consciousness, to make the world a truly single market that can be worked through the Internet.

Subscribe by sending a message to: join-global_promote@gs4.revnet.com>

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SiteShack at <http://www.siteshack.com> is open for submissions. This directory has both English and German versions. You can go back and update your own information whenever you want. Looks good too.

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If you haven't submitted to EuroSeek yet <http://www.euroseek.net> do it now. 40 languages and a simple submission process make it a must-do.

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From our friends down-under comes these three services you should know about:

Direct Find web Directory at <http://www.aaa.com.au/dir2/> with the Submit Page at http://www.aaa.com.au/dir2/add.shtml>

Also Webaholics - An Instant Hotlist to promote your new Site at <http://www.aaa.com.au/webaholics/index.shtml> with the Submit form at <http://www.aaa.com.au/webaholics/add.shtml>

and of Course Matilda (the search Engine)at <http://www.aaa.com.au> with the Linkform at <http://www.aaa.com.au/linkform.shtml>

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Got a gold site? Win an award just for golf sites at <http://www.kcdata.com/~xtech/gg.home.html>