In my opinion, ugly sites can perform very well, and there are a number of factors that can contribute to that:
First, ugly sites are often sites that were originally built back in the 1990s by some business owner who had no web design sense or technical knowledge but wanted to promote his business online. (more…)
So I have — er, had — this client. Let’s call him Mr. X. I didn’t design his website originally; I inherited him from a colleague who had designed it and was hosting it, and who wanted to get out of the business altogether. The colleague had Mr. X’s domain registered in his own account, and he transferred the domain to me. So I was hosting Mr. X’s site (at a very reasonable cost), and a couple of times Mr. X contacted me to make minor updates to his site, which I did. Other than billing him quarterly for his hosting and annually for his domain renewal, and those couple of minor updates, I didn’t have any other contact with Mr. X.
Next thing I know, Mr. X calls me to tell me that he’s hired someone else to develop a new site for him, (more…)
Once again, I’m trying to help a client track down and gain control of their domain. A couple of years ago, they hired someone to develop their web site for them. He registered their domain in his name, and he apparently renewed it a year ago. But now he’s disappeared and they can’t locate him. None of their contact info for him reaches him. Their domain is on the verge of expiring, but they can’t find the previous developer to get him to renew it, nor can they renew it themselves. (more…)
One of my clients (who has a very successful and busy site) recently asked me about selling text links on his site. He had been approached by someone (apparently a link broker) who was wanting to place a collection of links in the footer, sitewide. My client was asking me about format and location, but I didn’t even address those questions. I told him that before he decided to proceed down that path, he needed to know about Google’s stance on paid links and the nofollow tag. (more…)