http://www.tropicalwebworks.org Warm breezes, sunshine, and random thoughts Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:03:35 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en This month I, along with thousands of other eBay affiliates, have been busy little bees converting all of our eBay affiliate links to use the new eBay IDs and format, thanks to eBay's announcement that they were leaving Commission Junction and taking their affiliate program in-house. I've been seeing great commissions ... http://www.tropicalwebworks.org/2008/04/10/ebay-and-linkbaiting/ It's very satisfying to spend a great deal of time developing a new site from scratch for a client, taking pains to ensure that the site is search-engine friendly, and then to see that site do well in the search engines after launch. But it's also surprisingly satisfying to spend a ... http://www.tropicalwebworks.org/2008/03/28/minor-seo-changes-major-seo-effect-on-a-minor-site/ Apparently I'm part of a small minority of web developers who believe that the developer has a level of professional responsibility toward the client, regardless of whether the client knows, understands, or requests same. I'm currently participating in a discussion on the SitePoint forums in which the topic of discussion is ... http://www.tropicalwebworks.org/2008/03/14/ethics-and-web-design-the-professional-responsibility-of-the-web-designer/ Daily newspapers have been fighting decreasing readership and falling subscriptions for at least a couple of decades now. More and more, newspapers are putting their content online. For that I salute them. But the web is now about 15 years old, and I wonder why so many newspapers still don't manage ... http://www.tropicalwebworks.org/2008/03/12/the-news-online-usability-is-lacking/ A page that's about everything isn't about anything. Read my explanation here. http://www.tropicalwebworks.org/2008/03/06/my-new-seo-principle/ Sometimes, one of my clients wants or needs a blog. And the question always arises, should they use one of the free hosted blogging platforms, such as Typepad or Blogger, or should they use WordPress and host it on their own site? I generally recommend that they use WordPress and host ... http://www.tropicalwebworks.org/2008/01/12/wordpress-vs-blogger/ "We had to destroy the village in order to save it, sir!" That was basically the response of Network Solutions when it was caught with its hand in the cookie jar, registering domains for themselves that people had looked up in their whois registry. NetSol basically defended their contemptible practice by ... http://www.tropicalwebworks.org/2008/01/11/network-solutions-caught-front-running/ I recently had 2 diametrically opposite experiences with phishing. In the world of the Internet, "phishing" is when some entity (a scammer) -- typically, a website or e-mail sender -- pretends to be some organization that a user has a relationship with, and attempts to entice the user into providing ... http://www.tropicalwebworks.org/2008/01/05/phishing-and-phishing-detection/ I recently subscribed to a satellite tv package when I upgraded my DSL account -- and I instantly got hooked on that adorable Animal Planet show "Meerkat Manor." Just in time for the season ending. :( Then I started watching Orangutan Island, and while watching the 2nd episode I idly ... http://www.tropicalwebworks.org/2007/12/02/forums-or-fora-for-you-latin-geeks/ Poor hosting companies waste time and cost money. I needed to set up a MySQL database for a client recently. The client hosts their website with a large and well-known hosting company, which advertises MySQL available with all hosting packages. It should have taken just a few minutes to create the ... http://www.tropicalwebworks.org/2007/10/16/bad-hosting/ The amount of misinformation out there on the web is almost enough to make a person crazy. I ran across a few statements today that were so baldly wrong that I have to correct them here. A provider of real estate web sites wrote: "We do not use a system that allows ... http://www.tropicalwebworks.org/2007/10/01/search-engine-misinformation/ So I got a gentle tweak from Zack Katkin at Unique ID Web Design because I haven't blogged in a while. I've been busy working on projects for clients, but I know that's no excuse. I'm breaking the Golden Rule of Blogging, which I drill into my clients when they ... http://www.tropicalwebworks.org/2007/09/26/crawlability-web-design-and-seo/ The infamous Google spam czar Matt Cutts has fired another round at honest webmasters just trying to go about their daily work. In a recent blog post, He invited readers to report web sites buying or selling links that are not using the ridiculous nofollow tag on those links. Read: ... http://www.tropicalwebworks.org/2007/04/25/no-nofollow-nosnitching/ 1. Multiple Campaigns First thing: You want to create multiple campaigns, with each campaign focused around a particular product, category or topic. For example, you could create Campaign A for Product A, Campaign B for Product B, and so forth. But you might also benefit by creating a campaign about Hot ... http://www.tropicalwebworks.org/2007/04/13/eight-tips-every-adwords-advertiser-should-know/ Does your host or website developer do these things? Developing a new web site -- or re-developing an old one, for that matter -- typically involves consulting with the client to determine the site's target audience and primary objective, creating an attractive and functional design, turning the design into properly coded, ... http://www.tropicalwebworks.org/2007/03/20/pre-launch-steps-for-your-site/ I noticed that my web site development site got a visit by someone who found it in a search for "hank hill quotations." I haven't put any effort at all into optimizing the site for that search term, so naturally I got curious and had to check it out. It ... http://www.tropicalwebworks.org/2007/03/11/a-search-engine-experiment/ I've never liked to use the term "web site designer" in reference to what I do. Yes, I "design" web sites, but the word design seems to suggest, to many people, strictly "visual design." I tend to prefer developer, because effective web site development must encompass much more than merely ... http://www.tropicalwebworks.org/2007/02/03/dont-judge-a-book-by-its-pretty-face/ Many, many computer users use "search" exclusively as their primary means of navigation. What I mean by this is that a user, let's call her Pam, wants to go to a particular web site that she knows of and is familiar with. Pamela knows the domain of the site. But ... http://www.tropicalwebworks.org/2007/02/03/do-you-own-the-1-serp-for-your-domain-name/ Microsoft is the master, but many, many programmers and software development companies are guilty. I can't count the number of times I've had the most meaningless error messages pop up on my computer screen. What set me off this morning? A client sent me a Word file. A simple, one-page Word ... http://www.tropicalwebworks.org/2007/01/23/dumb-error-messages/ Many of my clients already have an existing web site when they contact me. Often they're unhappy with their site's visual design, or its functionality, or its performance in the search engines. I hate -- I really hate -- telling a potential client that their site needs to be completely ... http://www.tropicalwebworks.org/2007/01/19/can-your-site-be-tweaked/