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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
<http://www.techdirect.com> - <mailto:IBIZ@techdirect.com>
Number 6
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TOPICS
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Topic 1: Search Engine Update
Many web site owners are discouraged that they don't rank at the
top of EACH search engine. You are not alone.
A report by Search Engine Showdown, which reviews and compares
the search features and database scope of the Internet search
engines, reports that they performed four generic searches on the top
four search engines and got 440 hits, 220 of which were
unique. Of those, only twelve pages were found by all four of the
search engines.
Several major search engines have restructured their interface and
added new features and functionality to their service. Here's an update
on four major search engines.
InfoSeek -- <http://www.infoseek.com>
On Oct. 20, 1997, Infoseek announced the addition of Intelligent
Web Channels to its search engine capabilities. According to
Infoseek President and CEO Harry Motor, "Intelligent Web channels
completely integrate superior search results with relevant
content, products, services and communities. Just providing
results to a search is no longer enough."
Infoseek has added 15 channels that bring together the *best*
topical information, services, products and communities on the
Web. Each intelligent channel delivers the most comprehensive,
timely material available on the Internet, including up-to-the-
minute editorial content, personalized news headlines, live sports
scores and stock quotes.
Infoseek now uses a *results clustering* technology that rolls up
all the pages within a site that match your query into a single
entry and will eliminate multiple entries for a single web site.
Can you and I get listed in their channel section? Their official
statement is "each channel contains content, information, products
and services that are hand-picked by Infoseek's editorial staff
and supplied by best-of-class partners." They have signed
contracts with 50 content and service providers to date.
Excite & Webcrawler
Excite <http://www.excite.com>
WebCrawler <http://www.webcrawler.com> (Excite owns WebCrawler.)
In September, WebCrawler announced 15 topic-based channels plus
the ability for customers to customize their own channel-
WebCrawler's My Page. In addition, WebCrawler is offering free
email, instant messaging applications, chat and bulletin boards.
This basically makes WebCrawler a free online service, similar to
the initiative recently undertaken by Excite.
In June, WebCrawler introduced Shortcuts to search results pages.
On the search results page, the left column shows the results of
your search and the right column is devoted to shortcuts which are
other sources of information on the search topic.
Their guide section reviews sites but seems to be limited to the
biggest content sites for that topic.
Lycos -- <http://www.lycos.com>
Lycos rolled out its attempt to establish itself as an online
community on October 8, 1997. New features include the Lycos
Personal Guide, Lycos Chat, BBS, Email, Web Tour, and Community
Guides.
The Lycos Personal Guide is configured to deliver the user news,
weather, stock quotes and Web site reviews. It is designed for
the community of Lycos users and tailored to the individual's
preferences.
LycosChat and BBS contain a full schedule of moderated events,
buddy lists, bulletin board discussion groups and a unique WebTour
feature. Lycos Email is a permanent, free e-mail address that can
be accessed regardless of your location. Your email address can be
targeted to your affinity group: doctor.com, engineer.com, etc.
Click on PERSONALIZE to create a Personal Web Guide. The only
demographic information you must provide is name, birth date,
gender, and zip code. Choose the topics that you would like on
your page from the list that follows.
A Community Guide is a list of the Web pages which best match the
targeted topic of that Guide. When you visit a recommended
web page, a Community Guide toolbar is at hand in case you want to
tell Lycos - and other explorers like you -- whether or not you
like the page, and think it should be in the guide. It takes only
a single click of your mouse to give the thumbs-up (or down) on a
Web site and become a Community Guider yourself.
Lycos tallies the ratings given by Guiders like you and sorts each
Community Guide's list of recommended Web sites accordingly,
updating the listing several times a day. Meanwhile, their
Web spider is always searching for new documents that are most
like the highest-ranked Web pages in each Community Guide. In
effect, your votes train the spider to find increasingly better
Web sites for the Community Guide.
So what does this mean to you?
Many web site owners have reported that traffic has dropped off
since the introduction of Web Channels. If you don't qualify as a
"high quality content" site, then be sure to seek reciprocal links
to the sites that do. Web surfers do not always take the time to
fine-tune their search skills. While the regular search
capabilities still exist, they may opt for the easy way out and
seek their information the easy way-spoon fed by channels.
Topic 2: Webrings
What is a Webring?
WebRings can be an effetive way to bring new visitors to your web
site. A Webring is collection of web sites that share a common
interest or similar content matter and organized into a circular
ring. Each page in a ring has links which let visitors move to an
adjacent site on the ring, or hop to a random site. webrings let
web visitors quickly & reliably find sites with related subjects.
Due to their navigation abilities, webrings can be considered an
alternate way to navigate the net in subject-specific areas.
Examples include, small business, travel, real estate, graphics,
etc. If you cannot find a ring to suit you, you can start your
own.
There is no charge for joining a ring. Once you apply to the
RingMaster for entry into the ring, you insert HTML code into your
web page. The code refers to a CGI/PERL script that runs on the
Ring's Server and organizes it's structure. Once the code is in
place, it allows you to go to the Previous or Next site in the
ring, Skip the next 5 or go to a Random site in the ring.
Considerations
Webrings can be an effective traffic builder. A poorly managed and
maintained webring, however, can actually detract from your site.
Consider these points before signing up:
- Visit the majority of Web sites in the ring. Are these sites
representative of the quality of Web site your business wants
to be associated with?
- Are the web sites active (not dead links)? Visitors will
quickly move on if they encounter dead links (sites not found.)
- Look out for any rings that include multi-level marketing (MLM)
or sexually explicit material.
- You've worked hard to promote your site and increase your
business. Will participation in the ring just help your
prospects find your competitor?
Finding Webrings
RingWorld <http://www.ringworld.com>
An online collection of approximately 15,000 active webrings
(representing about 250,000 sites).
RingSurf <http://www.ringsurf.com>
The Rail <http://www.therail.com/cgi-bin/station>
Currently has about 2,700 web site members. Unlike webrings, The
Rail can shuffle the order that members fall in the ring,
guaranteeing a varied surfing experience. Another difference is
that The Rail sites are reviewed before they are accepted for
membership.
Webrings Emerge as an Alternative to Search Engines:
<http://www.webweek.com/1997/10/20/markcomm/19971020-webrings.html>
Topic 3: Refine Your Internet Skills
During the holidays take some time to fine-tune your Internet
skills. The following is a list of links that can assist you in
mining the Internet more effectively.
ZDNet's Basic Surfing Tips
<http://www.zdnet.com/yil/content/surfschool/howto/basic/basictoc.html>
ZDNet's WebSearch User
<http://www.zdnet.com/products/searchuser.html>
University at Albany Libraries Internet Tutorials
<http://www.albany.edu/library/internet/>
Direct Search
A Directory of links to search interfaces that are not easily
searchable from general search tool such as AltaVista, Hotbot, and
Infoseek.
<http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/direct.htm>
Internets
Provides the Web's largest collection of direct links to on-line
databases:
<http://www.internets.com/>
Free Internet research course by Forefront - Subscribe to
ForeFront's no-cost Internet Research Course by email and get
valuable information:
<http://www.ffg.com/courses/internetresearch.htm>
Windweaver's search links has all kinds of search sites and
helpful information:
<http://www.windweaver.com/searchlinks.htm#Specialized>
Delphi's Internet Glossary
Get definitions for most Internet terms.
<http://www.delphi.com/navnet/faq/glossary.html>
Once you find information, how do you evaluate the quality of the
resource?
* Evaluating Internet Research Sources at
<http://www.sccu.edu/faculty/R_Harris/evalu8it.htm>
* Evaluation of Information Sources at
<http://www.vuw.ac.nz/~agsmith/evaln/evaln.htm>
* Bibliography on Evaluating Internet Resources at
<http://refserver.lib.vt.edu/libinst/critTHINK.HTM>
ZDNet University
ZDNet University <http://www.zdu.com> offers Internet-based
courses for $4.95 plus the cost of the book. Departments include:
Programming, Databases, Networking, Business, Webmaster, Design,
Netuser and Desktop.
Course Catalog at <http://www.zdu.com/zdu/catalog/catalog.htm>
Topic 4: Misc. Tips
Tip 1: Eudora Newsletter: Eudora News
If you are a *registered* user of Eudora Pro or Eudora Light, you
will want to read Eudora News: The Official Eudora Software User's
Newsletter. Online version is at:
<http://www.eudora.com/newsletter/vol_01/>
Good articles on using filters; and the difference between
Forward, Redirect and Turbo Redirect.
Tip 2: Finding Lost Web Sites
Websitz.Com Do you have part of a Web site address but not the entire URL or
company name? Here is a site that can help you locate the site
that you seek.
<http://www.websitez.com>
Tip 3: Fighting SPAM
Unsolicited bulk e-mail, commonly called "spam", has lately become
an extraordinary nuisance. Spam as such is not illegal (yet).
The contents of some actual spam messages, however, may violate a
state or federal law. Other spam messages may violate the
spammer's contract with his or her Internet Service Provider, or
else cause enough harm to a third party to warrant a civil
lawsuit. No legal action will be taken against a spammer,
however, unless someone reports the problem.
Review of the legal issues by Michael W. Carroll
<http://server.Berkeley.EDU/BTLJ/articles/11-2/carroll.html>
Compendium of proposed federal and state spam laws
<http://www.tigerden.com/junkmail/laws.html>
Comparison of proposed federal spam laws, including text
<http://www.junkemail.org/bills/>
Spam court cases
<http://www.jmls.edu/cyber/cases/spam.html>
The Coalition Against Unsolited Commercial Email
CAUCE is a group of Internet users who are fed up with spam and
have formed a coalition to promote legislation which would outlaw
UCE.
<http://www.cauce.org/>
Those Bulk Email Blues
<http://www.imc.org/bulk-email.html>
Yahoo's guide to anti-spam software
<http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Communications_
and_Networking/Electronic_Mail/Junk_Email/Software>
[Note: Due to its length, you will need to cut-n-paste the above link.]
whois -- for recovering (potentially forged) information on a
domain
<http://www.interlog.com/~patrick/cgi/whois.cgi>
<http://rs.internic.net/cgi-bin/whois>
nslookup -- for looking up the real IP address of a domain name
<http://www.interlog.com/~patrick/cgi/nslookup.cgi>
traceroute -- unix program for finding a spammer's upstream ISPs
<http://www.boardwatch.com/isp/trace.htm>
Tip 4: Ecommerce Tips
More and more virtual web hosting companies are providing
e-commerce solutions for their customer base to cut the cost of
creating an e-commerce-enabled web site. Previously, your web
designer had to scour the literature to decipher the entire
process. Now, hosting companies are providing these services as
part of their service plan. Many companies have created an
e-commerce solution that combines the entire range of
options:
- Secure server (SSL) services.
- Shopping cart software on their servers. Basically the user
pays a monthly fee for use of the software. Since they are
"renting" the software there are no upgrade fees. Another
advantage is that the hosing company may offer support on the
shopping cart product.
- Centralized support for a credit card system such as Cyber Cash.
- Online verification of a credit card as the order is placed.
The current statistics support the lack of e-commerce-enabled Web
sites today. In an article entitled "Web sites still just
brochures", the following were stated as the most popular uses for
a Web site:
- Corporate image-building (48 percent)
- Product information (39 percent)
- Advertising specific products (34 percent)
- Consumer feedback (16 percent)
- Collaboration with trading partners (10 percent), and
- Online shopping (3 percent) were at the bottom of the list.
While online shopping is underdeveloped today, e-commerce hosting
operations will open up online shopping to a larger percentage of
Web site owners-not just the big companies with big money to
spend.
Tend the Store for World Wide Orders explains how you can use
Viaweb, which hosts an electronic mall and a real-time virtual-
storefront builder called Live Store 3.0 to build a storefront.
Using your browser (no extra software) you can build a store in
one afternoon, complete with pictures, secure transactions, and
sales-tracking.
<http://www.zdnet.com/products/content/articles/199709/commerce.tend/>
Tip 5: Improve Your Business Plan
The U.S. Small Business Administration is a terrific resource for
any small business in the U.S., whether the business is already
established or if it is still just a concept. The SBA Web site,
at <http://www.sbaonline.sba.gov/>,
provides a gateway to many of the Agency's resources.
SBA, The Business Plan Roadmap to Success 1997
A Tutorial and Self-paced Activity --Download or View a Text
Version
<http://www.sbaonline.sba.gov/starting/businessplan.html>
The Interactive Business Planner assists you in creating a 3-year
business plan.
<http://www.demo.sierrasys.com:5555/>
Newbase Media, the online resource centre for business opportunity
and business connections, dedicated to entrepreneurs, investors
and small business operators. This unique web site contains
1000's of professionally created Business Plans and Support
Software, invaluable business and consumer How-To Guides, and the
most commonly used Legal Forms and Business Letters. All available
for immediate downloading FREE!
<http://www.newbase.com/>
If you need statistics for your business plan, try Newsworks.
NewsWorks lets you search for articles in over 130 of America's
biggest newspapers. Click on "Your Home Site" and designate a
newspaper as your home site.
<http://www.newsworks.com/>
Tip 6: Places to Be Found
New sites for free listings:
Business Seek
<http://www.businesseek.com/>
New Quest City - National Business Directory
<http://www.newquestcity.com/dir.htm>
Shop Internet
If you sell a product or service, be sure you are registered at
Shop Internet. <http://www.ro.com/ShopInternet/>
Classifieds2000
This classified ad directory is featured on Lycos, InfoSeek,
Excite and WebCrawler. Give it a test drive. I was pleasantly
surprised. <http://www.classifieds2000.com>
About Our Sponsor
Tech Direct provides professional
Web Site Design, Web Site Marketing & Consulting,
Newsletters and Marketing Communications services
at an affordable price.
Website: <http://www.techdirect.com>
Email: <mailto:sales@techdirect.com>
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