by WebKeyDesign | Mar 2, 2006 | Google Bits
Forget Web 2.0, the real talk on the Internet right now has to do with Google’s massive datacenter changes, nicknamed by almost everyone as “Big Daddy”. Instead of just a normal pagerank update that everyone can see in their Google Toolbar, Big Daddy is essentially an update of everything Google, according to most industry insiders.
Google is testing a new data center infrastructure, a feat much bigger and comprehensive than an algorithm change. Dubbed “Big Daddy†both in the search marketing blogs and forums and by the friendly folks at Google, this new data center—still in shakedown mode—will reportedly add new ground-level capabilities into the Google search function and drive those powers deep into all the algorithms with which Google searches, studies and indexes the Web.
The more apparant thing that most webmasters will notice as Big Daddy rolls out is Google’s new spider. Looking over your logs in February you might notice this:
Agent:Mozilla/5.0 (compatible;Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)
Google’s new bot is based on Mozilla code and so all that work you did on making your site more open standards friendly should pay off, especially if you check your site with Firefox or any other Mozilla based browser.
For a while now webmasters have been noticing the aggressiveness of Google’s new search bot, and in case you decided to discourage Googlebot 2.1, you probably should think about reversing this action quickly. The notion is that Google now uses this new bot first to spider sites. If you send Googlebot 2.1 away, Google will stop sending any other bots to your site period!
All this means that Google is stepping up and upgrading their datacenters to meet the challenges of newer competitors like MSN and Yahoo.
by WebKeyDesign | Feb 22, 2006 | Web Site Basics
In Finding Deleted Domains, I talked about using WhoIs.net to search for expired domains, but this is not exactly the best way to get a valueable domain. For a high quality domain, you probably have to go with one the auction services, like Snap.com. You should be prepared to pay more as the bidding process can be quite costly, but cheaper than directly dealing with a domain owner who wants thousands of dollars for their domain name.
Before jumping in with the bidding process, read How to Snatch an Expiring Domain, which is a thorough and interesting look into the way registrars are retaining deleted domains and making it harder for the rest of us to actually catch an expired domain.
by WebKeyDesign | Feb 21, 2006 | SEO
If you have not checked your Google PageRank yet, you might want to take a look and see if it has changed at all for you. You can use Web Site Metrics Tool to check your pagerank across multiple data centers.
Our current pagerank is between 4 and 5 depending on the data center.
There is also this Big Daddy Dance Tool, that checks just those specific data centers.
by WebKeyDesign | Feb 17, 2006 | News & Trends
As a webmaster one of the issues I am faced with is online privacy. Popular media would have you believe that it needs to be protected, but no one really defines what IT really is. At the most basic level, online privacy means that personal identifiable information must not be logged, stored, or distributed. As a webmaster and owner of a web site, tracking my site’s traffic is very important. A server’s access logs can only track an IP address and some information in regards to the browser that a person used to access the site. Although an IP address can lead back to an ISP, without that ISP’s willing cooperation (and access to their logs), a webmaster cannot really track the actual computer, let alone the person who actually visited their site. An IP address alone narrows down perhaps what ISP was used, but after that, the bread crumbs stop.
Losing Your Privacy
Many sites implement cookies, which allow the site to store and retrieve information from your computer. This information is usually basic login information or in the case of forums, what posts you have read or responded to. Marketing companies love cookies because they can use them to build profiles of what sites you like to visit and what interests you. They use this information to sell you more products and to figure out what party candidate you most likely would vote for. If you think this is invading your privacy, consider your ATM card which not only identifies you personally every time you use it, but can be used to track your whereabouts, based on where you used it last!
Today’s sites no longer ask you to store cookies for them, they simply do it. Most Terms of Service Agreements, (you know those pages you never read on any sites you go to), will always include some sort of consent statement. It usually states that by using services on their site, you are consenting to the site storing or even divulging some of the personal information that they will be tracking. Many sites, even commercial ones, will market out your email address and reward your consent with spam email for months to come.
One-Click eCommerce
Enter the single click web site, which revolutionized internet shopping by allowing site users to click once to purchase an item and not even have to enter any credit card information, because the site already had everything on file for you. Convenience led to massive privacy invasion with your consent of course. A worse case scenario is that perhaps your favorite online store messed up their accounting and charged you less for a purchase, and three months later they decide to correct their mistake and automatically charge your credit card. Of course you could complain and try to save yourself the charges, but all of this requires time, time which costs you too. In the end you have given up significant control for the convenience of one-click shopping.
One Profile Passport
If one-click was not enough, Microsoft (along with other companies) really want to implement a single profile database, where multiple sites can share your account information and implement one-click purchasing across multiple sites. A massive database such as this would not only be able to track more of your purchases, but it would be a goldmine for marketing companies who want to flood your email, your regular mail, and phone with offers. And all you need to do is consent by clicking OK to the agreement and you are in!
Business Versus Consumers
As a business, any marketing information that you can get for free is valuable. The conflict really comes down to the desire of businesses to compete for your business, and your desire to be left alone and remain anonymous. Every time you purchase anything, you relinquish some of your privacy, in order to attain goods or services. In the real world, this does not matter as much, because most of the time you can use your judgment to size up a business, because you are physically looking at a person. I can stand eye to eye with my mechanic and tell by his posture and facial expression if he is being honest with me, but I can’t do that with a web site. Web sites don’t have a tone of voice, don’t sweat, and definitely don’t shake your hand to seal the deal. Consumers are at a disadvantage and companies know this.
Open And Honest Web Sites
Even if site users are at a disadvantage, there are some things that you can check for before willingly giving your business to any site.
Shipping Costs Hidden: If a site will not tell you exactly what your purchase costs to ship before you agree to input your credit card information, then that site is not worth doing business with. eCommerce is about comparison shopping, if you can’t compare total prices, then that site’s owner does not understand the Internet at all.
Physical Address?: Any site that wants your money needs to divulge its physical location of its owners. Good sites not only tell you where their main office is, but where you need to return items to and give you multiple ways to reach them, including a phone number.
Niche Stores: Some online stores will not be very fancy, but if they specialize in something, then their products are usually the best, and they will have plenty of positive reviews from other sites. If they don’t have the best products and there are not any reviews, shop elsewhere.
Emails: The best marketing for any business is a satisfied customer. Great businesses don’t email you or automatically sign you up for annoying newsletters. If they have newsletters they will let you know about them, but leave it up to you to join in the conversation. If you start getting spam email right after you bought something from a new site, then most likely that site sold your email address and does not value you as a customer.
Protecting Your Privacy
In the online world, privacy is really a choice you have to make. It is almost currency itself. If you choose to squander it by signing up on a new site or by getting a great deal on an MP3 player, than that is your choice. You should however use your best judgment before making such decisions and decide if the web site is really valuing you as a client.
by WebKeyDesign | Feb 16, 2006 | WebKeyDesign
This week I had to sit down and take care of my tax filing for the year and one of the things that I put down is my computer. I sit in front of computers all day long, that at this point, they are like my car. I hardly can see myself living without one. But what I really started thinking about was what would be the best computer for web design, since WebKeyDesign is now a huge part of my life.
MacOS Versus Windows
Without a doubt I am a huge Macintosh proponent. I absolutely love my 15 inch Powerbook and think it is the best computer I have ever used. However not everyone is the same and not everyone wants to make such a big investment. If you are really serious about web design, I am going to recommend that you have both a Macintosh and a Windows PC. If you can swing it, you might also consider a home test server with Linux + Apache + MySQL + PHP setup. The linux server will be great to test out new projects before you actually implement them on your hosting server.
For most web design, if you absolutely are going to have one computer, I would recommend a Macintosh. The Powerbook or iBook will give you portability and the ability to do graphics work as well. If most of your web design is code based though, like PHP, Perl, or any other scripting language, I would probably choose a standard PC laptop like a Leveno Thinkpad. Although there are great text editors on the OS X platform, your options on Windows are more and more varied. Portability aside, you could probably do well with a nice desktop. Whatever you decide, make sure your main computer has a large monitor size. Something higher than 1024 is a must for today’s web work.
A Windows PC is what I use to check sites once they are up and running. Even though by now IE 6 is the most hated browser, you still need to check your site on it. There are tons of small utilities that are available on Windows that you can use for web design and maintenance. Yes, I know many of these apps really are bad, but sometimes you find a few that are worth using Windows for.
The Portable Web Server
MacOS X has Apache server already included, but you may find that messing up your main computer is not worth the trouble. If you already have the Windows computer, then you can also use that to run a test setup of Apache. My personal favorite is EasyPHP, which runs as a private server on Windows, only accessible to the local machine user. This is a great way of testing your site’s files before uploading them to your hosting account. If you have a third machine, you could probably run full blown Linux with Apache and have your own web server for testing.
