I-BIZ TIPS - Monthly E-Mail Newsletter
*Providing Tips on Making the Internet Work for your Business*
A Free Service of Tech Direct, Inc. – Ruth Rainey, Editor
Number 4
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Topic 3: Tips
Topic 1: Search Engines: How Many Is Enough?
Every Internet marketer has their list of top 100, 200, 250, 500
plus search engines. Many sell a service that lists your company
in these engines. How many search engines should you be listed
in and which ones?
When you register a new domain you will receive numerous messages
from Web marketers offering to list your Web site in hundreds of
Web resources for approximately $50. It’s a real temptation to
risk the $50 to get what appears to be a great deal of exposure
but is that what you are really getting? Here are some
guidelines to evaluate if you really gain anything from these
types of direct e-mail offers.
1. Remember that most Web marketers believe that 90% of your
traffic will come from the top 8 to 10 search engines.
2. After the top 8 to 10 search engines, name recognition falls
off rapidly. While most people can recall Yahoo!, Excite,
AltaVista and WebCrawler, most surfers need prompting to
get beyond these initial resources.
Both Netscape Navigator (Choose Directory / Internet Search
from the menu bar) and Microsoft Internet Explorer (just
click the Search button on the menu bar) provide *search
resource* pages for their Web visitors. Even though these
resources pay money to be listed here, they are
important resources to be listed in simply because thousands
of users utilize them each day. For the month of August,
Microsoft’s home page received 12 million hits and Netscape’s
home page received 10.8 million hits.
3. What types of resources are included in the list of sites and
do they target business or personal sites? Business sites
should be listed where business users frequent, not on
personal page Cool Lists.
4. Offers of hundreds of directories for about $50 are handled
by automated submission robots that submit standard
information to each site without the opportunity to customize
the submittal for each resource. Since the process is
automated the robot does not know if and when a problem is
encountered with the submittal. Most automated submittal
services only work with a one-page submittal form. If the
engine has a multi-page submittal form the submittal will not
go through. These services recreate the engines’ submittal
forms. If the engine changes their form and the automated
robot doesn’t, your submittal will also be rejected.
5. Most automated submittal services do not submit to vertical
market resources. Vertical market resources are extremely
important as they reach your target market. You must invest
time (or money) into locating these resources but it is worth
it due to greater exposure by a targeted group. Some
vertical market resources will also sell enhanced listings to
make your entry more prominent. Make sure the resource has
traffic and is actively marketing itself before you invest
money into advertising with them. Keep an eye out for their
domain name in the Reverse Domain section of your server log
files.
Now let’s get back to the original question of how many resources
you should you be listed in. Truthfully, there is no correlation
between the number of engines/resources you are listed in and the
number of visitors that come to your site. It is better to be in
50-100 quality and well-targeted resources than 500 untargeted
resources. You can be listed in 20 resources with the right
keywords, description and message and get all of the qualified
visitors you need. Conversely, you can be listed in 500 engines
with the wrong keywords and not get many qualified visitors.
This brings up another topic that you should consider: Once you
get a visitor, *Are you delivering the content that will keep a
visitor at your site?* This will be the lead story for our next
issue of I-BIZ TIPS. If you have successes, failures or
questions in this area, send us an email to:
<owner-IBIZ@techdirect.com>.
Topic 2: Aggressive Marketing or Trademark Infringement
If your meta tags include trademarked products or company names,
you may be guilty of trademark infringement.
In a recent WEBWEEK article *Trademark Battles Simmer Behind
Sites: Companies stick competitors’ names in source code,* it
was reported that a lawsuit has been filed over the use of
Oppedahl & Larson's trademark in the meta tags of another
company's web page. The law firm of Oppedahl & Larson has gone
after several companies that used its name within its meta tags.
After searching for their keywords Oppedahl found several sites
consistently showing up in the search results. Oppedahl found no
evidence of their name being used in the context of the pages but
found the names *Oppedahl* and *Larson* repeated eight times in
the META keywords on several of the company’s pages. Oppedahl
made screen prints of the offending source code and filed a
complaint against the offenders in U.S. District Court in
Colorado alleging unfair competition, trademark infringement, and
dilution of trademark. The offending companies have removed the
code but Oppedahl is seeking further legal remedies.
This is the first case filed over trademark violation from META
information so there aren’t any legal precedents. As a Web site
owner you should be forewarned and aware that this practice is
gaining visibility by corporate legal departments and should be
avoided. If fear of a lawsuit isn’t a deterrent, perhaps the
knowledge that search engines may ban your Web site entries due
to this practice.
Does this mean that you cannot mention your competitors on your
web site? No, if you are using a competitor’s product or service
in an informative way, such as a product comparison, that is
acceptable. It becomes unacceptable when you include their
keywords repeatedly in your META tags and DO NOT include any
mention of them in your text. If you are using meta tags to
deceive your visitors you might be at risk.
Oppedahl & Larson Complaint
Civil Action No. 97-Z-1592, July 23, 1997
http://www.patents.com/ac/complain.sht
The actual complaint, along with examples of the pages and
their listings in AltaVista.
Trademark Battles Simmer Behind Sites
Web Week, Aug. 25, 1997
<http://www.webweek.com/current/news/19970825-battles.html>
Keywords said to violate trademark
News.com, Aug. 27, 1997
<http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,13799,00.html>
Topic 3: Tips
Tip 1: Search Engine Update.
Both the Netscape and Microsoft Search Pages mention AOL NetFind
and Search.Com in their search engine list.
AOL NetFind -- Add your entry at
<http://www.aol.com/netfind/info/addurl.html>
C/NET’s Search.Com. Search.Com does not take submittals
directly. It uses the Lycos search engine and if you are in
Lycos you should show up in Search.Com. Try to improve your
position in Lycos.
The Net Guide category is difficult as they typically consist of
reviewed Web sites. If you have great content, submit your site.
Inclusion in a Guide will greatly increase traffic.
Yellow Pages and White Pages Directories are useful for finding
addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. Business related
Yellow Pages use keyword searches and can be very useful in
finding companies within specified states in a certain category.
GTE Super Pages <http://superpages.gte.net>
On’Village <http://www.onvillage.com>
WhoWhere? <http://www.whowhere.com>
InfoSpace <http://www.infospace.com>
Big Book <http://www.bigbook.com>
The OpenText search engine is still down. Since it’s content has
not been updated and it appears to have stopped advertising, we
have stopped making submittals to OpenText.
Consider these two new search engines for a possible listing:
* Northern Lights <http://www.nlsearch.com>
* Planet Search <http://www.planetsearch.com>
Tip 2: Navigating a Web page with Short-Cut Keys
- To Go Home hold down CTRL while typing Home. You will go to
the top of a Web page.
- To go to the end of a Web page, hold down CTRL while typing
End.
- To scroll down the page one screen at a time hold down CTRL
and type the Page Down key.
- To scroll up the page one screen at a time Hold down CTRL and
type the Page Up key.
Tip 3: Learn More about Electronic Commerce
More and more is being written about the future of electronic
commerce on the Web. C/NET has a great series of articles
covering e-commerce. If e-commerce may be in your future Web
site plans start your research now.
20 Questions About E-Commerce
C/NET asks 20 key questions about e-commerce, from "What is it?"
to "What stands in its way?" and provides the answers to each.
<http://www.cnet.com/Content/Features/Techno/Ecommerce20/?dd>
Tip 4: WebTV Design Elements
As WebTV becomes more popular it is important that your Web site
looks good on this new interface as well as across all browser
platforms. Read the Web TV Network Style and HTM guide:
<http://webtv.net/primetime/>.
Tip 5: Most-Used Web Sites for August
RelevantKnowledge’s <http://www.relevantknowledge.com) top Web
sites for August, ranked by number of visitors:
1. Yahoo 14.8 million
2. Microsoft 12.0 million
3. Netscape 10.8 million
4. America Online 8.3 million
5. Infoseek 7.9 million
6. Excite 7.6 million
7. Geocities 7.1 million
8. MSN 6.2 million
9. Lycos 4.9 million
10. AltaVista 4.7 million
Tip 6: Changing Your Initial Web Page
Browser manufactures set the default setting in their browser to
load their home page when the browser is launched. Did you know
that you can change this default to your favorite Web site?
Netscape Navigator:
- Choose Options / General Preferences from the menu bar.
- Click on the Appearance tab
- Under *Browser Starts with* click on *Home Page Location* so
that the radio button is blackened.
- Then type the URL beginning with http:// into the text entry
box.
Microsoft Internet Explorer:
- Choose View / Options from the menu bar.
- Click on the Navigation tab
- Under *Customize Address*, type the URL beginning with http://
into the text entry box.
Topic 4: What You Really Learn from Your Server Log Files
If your business is using a virtual Web Hosting service to host
your Web site, ask for access to your Server Log Files. Service
providers run software programs on the Web hosting server that
track the number of files that are downloaded from your Web site
and the size of each of those files.
Most people believe that the server logs give them a *Hit Count*
for their Web site. This is partially true and may be determined
by the type of software that your server runs.
If you are using Free Server log files your report will vary
according by ISP. Typically, it is safe to say that these logs
will show two things: the number of files requested and the
number of bytes that were transmitted as a result of loading your
pages. Many ISPs charge you for higher levels of usage so it is
important to monitor this number when you are getting close.
The number of files requested is deceptive since it includes all
types of files: HTML, graphics, audio, video, etc.
My service provider uses a program called wwwstat-1.0. It
creates a rather lengthy log file that is broken down into 5
areas:
- Daily Transmission Statistics. The number of files and bytes
sent. Many providers charge an extra fee if you transmit more
than the maximum number of bytes for your account type.
Unless you have unusually high traffic, this isn’t a problem.
- Hourly Transmission Statistics. While this information still
deals with bytes and number of requests, I use it to determine
when the busiest times are at my Web site. 11:00 a.m. through
9:00 p.m. seems to be the busiest times on my Web site.
- Total Transfers by Client Domain. This shows which
countries visitors are coming from and how much traffic comes
from .com (commercial), edu (educational), gov (U.S.
Government), mil (U.S. Military), net (network), org
(Non-profit organization) and how many the server couldn’t
resolve.
- Total Transfers by Reversed Domain. This section shows
where hits are coming from. Look to see which search engines
are generating the most traffic.
- Total Transfers from each Archive Section. This section lists
each HTML document and each graphic, video, audio, etc. file
that is stored on the server and the number of times it was
requested. Pay attention to the number of requests for each
page. Each page on your Web site has a file name which
displays in the location box of Netscape and Explorer’s
Address box. This tells you which of your pages are visited
most often. Note, however, that if you look at the number of
requests for a particular page you have no way of knowing how
many unique visitors viewed the page and how many times
someone hit the reload or refresh button.
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