He asked me first of all about the footer links, so let’s look at those first. The question was about the links in the footer and how they are linked to php pages. The links look something like this: http://www.dougwead.com/index.php?page=videos

This isn’t really a problem, as those are actually static pages. Google will recognize the link, crawl and index it. These type links are typically used when you have a lot of pages that need the same or similar content, and you can pass keywords or commands through the ?page=XYZ command. I’ve done this on several sites myself. The problem comes in when the commands being passed aren’t needed (excessively compliated coding) or when the commands being used aren’t keyword relevant. At least make them keyword relevant, or don’t use them! So the verdit is in this case, the links at the top still link to regular .htm pages so just use those, don’t overcomplicate the site!

I noticed another BIG problem. None of the pictures on the site (and the site uses a lot of pictures) use the alt=”some text” functionality in the images. This is basic web design 101, and these guys missed it. Basically what this means is, when Google goes to crawl the page, and it sees a bunch of images, it can’t see what’s on the image. It just sees an image as “<img src=”img.jpg”> and that’s it. What’s the image about? that’s what the “alt” tag is for, it tells the search engine what that image is for.

So if you have a bunch of images without alt tags, it looks like a blank sheet of paper to Google. What good does that do you (especially if you use  alot of images)? None what so ever, it really hurts you.

Which brings me to my next point, the fact that the menu bar is all images and javascript rollover. Which 4 or 5 years ago was great! And it does look great. But now the same thing can be achieved in CSS. The advantage? Cleaner code, more cross-browser compatibility, and way better search engine ability to crawl the code and follow links. So if you find yourself using your main menu links as rollover javascript images (especially without alt tags), STOP! Just use CSS my friend, it’s really not that hard. And hey, everybody’s doing it

Those were the main flaws I saw with the site, overall it’s a nice site; anyone else have any suggestions? Write them in the comments and let’s see how it could be better improved!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Friday, Feb 13th 2009
With both President Obama and Congress urging the auto industry to go green, and $1,300 in available tax credits for the purchase of a green vehicle, consumer interest is at an all time high. But which car to buy? A team from Seattle will drive both the leading hybrid car and one of the new clean burning diesel cars 9,000 miles across the country to settle the score as part of the Portland to Portland Green Test Drive.

“It’s not just about finding out which car gets better fuel economy” says Ed Steenman, founder of Green Human and co-sponsor of the green P2P event “but which one is the better all around car to drive.” His team of green humans will put both cars to the test in all kinds of conditions, from the bitter cold of the Northeast winter, to the desert heat in the Southwest.
They’ll stop in places all over the country to talk about eco friendly cars, while interacting with local communities both in person and online with video, blogs, social networking. “We’ve got a team of cameras in the cars and we’ll be uploading and interacting with anyone and everyone who wants to be a part of this as we go” says John Polnik, the lead driver and co-producer of the mobile event. “I think this could be the first 9,000 mile test drive in history, and everyone’s invited along”.
Green Human has always had an interest in automotive technology, and with all the new developments in bio-fuels, electric, hybrid and clean diesel, “we couldn’t resist the opportunity to participate first hand in this unique event”. No matter which car comes out on top, in the end both will be put through the green ringer.
The clean burning VW Jetta TDI and Toyota Prius are scheduled to leave Portland, Maine on Tuesday February 17th and arrive in Portland, Oregon around March 5th. Monitor their progress and participate online at www.greenP2P.com, or just search greenP2P on any search engine.

Media: contact John Polnik 206.931.7639 or Ed Steenman at 425.445.3339 direct

TubeMogul did a study of real viewership on videos. The basis was, that YouTube counts a view as anyone who visits your video’s page, regardless of how much of the video they actually watch. This means they could not even be on the page long enough for the video to load up, and it still counts as a view. So how many real views do you get? Where do most viewers fall off?

TubeMogul recently acquired Illuminex, which allows them to have a YouTube Analytics -esque data analyzation of videos. All except for YouTube that is; however, many of the videos on the sites that were studied (they can’t tell us which ones were studied though) are also played on YouTube.

So what did the data tell them? Here’s the basics, and I’ll quote:

Most videos steadily lose viewers once “play” is clicked, with an average 10.39% of viewers clicking away after ten seconds and 53.56% leaving after one minute.

This brings up valuable knowledge and strategy, such as this:

On YouTube, where most overlay ads appear at about 10 seconds in, 10.39% of a video’s initial viewers are not likely seeing the ad.

Great information from a company that I use very often! They even sent me a free T-shirt!

Glorify Thy name
Originally written by Donna Adkins (1976)

Capo 1

Verse 1:
C         F         G              C
Father we love You, we worship and adore You
            F               G
Glorify Thy Name in all the earth

Chorus:
C           F     E           Am
Glorify Thy Name, Glorify Thy Name,
F           G               C
Glorify Thy Name in all the earth

Other Verses:
Jesus we love You...

Spriit we love You...

Silly girl can walk she just doesn’t want to, and here’s proof!

Sorry about the quality on this one… I didn’t have that great of signal so it didn’t transfer over the quickest, a short falling of Live mobile streaming video. But a minor one!

The site is acutally local for me, it looks like they’re advertising locally. Benson Nissan Cadillac here in town,  and they’ve done a great job of creating a welcoming splash page. They clain spartanburg auto loans with guaranteed approval for everyone.

Spartanburg auto loans aren’t easy to come by since there’s a lot of down economy going on here. The car business has definitely been one to feel the pain of the down economy, so you can realize why I was surprised to see Spartanburg auto loan being advertised!

Keep an eye out on this site! Spartanburg Auto Loan.

Well really, it seems like both.

In case you don’t know, SearchWiki’s purpose according to Google themselves is so that users can get a more personalized experience. They claim that since people often repeat searches multiple times (which they know because they collect information on our individual search habits), and Google’s search rankings are always changing, SearchWiki will make it easier for people to keep results they feel are most relevant to them at the top where they can find them.

In the latest eWeek I received, there was an interesting article about Google’s new search feature known as SearchWiki by Clint Boulton. It brought on an interesting perspective about what could be Google’s real motives behind SearchWiki.

Google, in the long run, wants to use SearchWiki… to gather more information from our searches

This was my suspision. But what is the information going to be used for? Re-ranking their already constantly changing search data? Advertising use? Google is very much in love with collecting personal use information from us– just download Google Desktop if you don’t already know. But what will SearchWiki information be used for?

Almost sounds more like Google “Bookmark” rather than a wiki.

And in many ways that’s a very practical way to look at SearchWiki. The thing that does make it like a wiki is the ability to comment on your own results. Yahoo! has done something similiar.

Which brings up the other, more interesting point about the intentions for SearchWiki: Competition.

Ultimately, Google has yet to devour their competition entirely. Google’s new browser, Chrome, is a sign that they’re not giving up their fight against Microsoft’s Live search it’s integration into IE.

That’s Google’s genius stroke; we believe SearchWiki is letting us control our search destiny, but Google keeps putting up more search ads in front of us. Google wants us to find what we’re looking for, and now it has provided a way to keep us in Google.com to do so.

This is a very interesting point, since Google is constantly trying to modify the way it ranks pages AND adsense ads on the search page to make a user experience so good, they wouldn’t want to use another search engine.

SearchWiki is another, more creative way to do just that.

It is possible the results of user input in SearchWiki will be used to re-rank and re-order search results within Google. However, the more likely, and more profitable reason Google has released this feature is they want to keep more traffic in Google than anywhere else. It gives the user a better experience, keeping them on Google more, and in return bringing in more AdSense dollars.

So, SEO people don’t be too alarmed just yet. My belief is that SearchWiki is more out to benefit Google with ad dollars rather than pagerank for other sites.

[See the best YouTube Video Marketing program on the net!]

Take, for example, the Big Three Automakers. Since Bush’s Treasury Secretary, working closely with the Pelosi/Reid/Dodd/Frank Congress opened the money spigots earlier this year, all sorts of companies have gotten in line for their cut, including the automakers. Why? Because they are on the verge of bankruptcy and they want to be rescued. Congress has already promised them $25 billion, but the question is whether the automakers and the public would be better served with congressional oversight of GM, Ford and Chrysler, or with the judicial oversight that would come with bankruptcy.

Read the rest of the story here…

November 16th

Welcome to @BrentDPayne, @DavidParton, @valeriatimeless

Yesterday

12:04am Posted a tweet on Twitter.

Hi new followers: @lxcoza 2:28am Posted a tweet on Twitter.

@SDEntrepreneur I’ve heard that too but never checked into them. Let me know if you get any luck with either them 2:46am Posted a tweet on Twitter.

GMail has some very interesting Beta features in Labs — http://tinyurl.com/6ftnwr 4:05am Posted a tweet on Twitter.

Hi new followers: @lehighvalleypa 4:07am Posted a tweet on Twitter.

ah… good Panera coffee and free wifi! 5:24am Posted a tweet on Twitter.

@dcmpthom How did your marketing plan go? 5:43am Posted a tweet on Twitter.

@wbryant got a Twitter Grade of 99/100 from @grader. See: http://twitter.grader.com/wbryant 8:05am Posted a tweet on Twitter.

Thanks for following: @BrianFanale, @wwillard, @ericmakesmusic, @SpringhouseEduc 4:04pm Posted a tweet on Twitter.

Thanks for following: @tpmwlxehxeh ]]> http://www.wpbryant.com/2008/11/daily-digest-for-2008-11-17/feed/