JimWorld Gazette Issue #107 12/04/2000

JimWorld Gazette - Issue #107 - December 4, 2000

CONTENTS

• From Our Sponsor - Get The Coolest Web Address - .TV
  
• Make It Easy To Keep Your Products
  
• From Our Sponsor - PPCBidTracker.com
  
• Gazette World Conclusion
  
• Way Cool Hot Site - Jokes Central
  
• Finding Clues To Popular Keywords
  
• Grrrls On The Web? Oh No!
  
• Review: Build A Community Releases Major New Upgrades
  
• Snippets

Link to this issue of the Gazette as http://gazetteworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g107

FROM OUR SPONSOR

GET THE COOLEST WEB ADDRESS - .TV!

.tv is the domain of the future.

Click here and register your .tv Web address today.

< http://jimworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g107tv >

-- Jim Note: I've registered a couple of domain names at .tv. I like the .tv name because next to .com it is arguably the most easily remembered Top Level Domain of them all. To the TV generation, .tv is hard to forget.

My initial reaction was that .tv would work best for television or video related sites, but with some of the .tv domain names I've seen coming in my email, I have to admit that it makes it easy to remember.

The registration process was smooth and efficient and their online administration system leaves the control in the hands of the webmaster where it belongs.

MAKE IT EASY TO KEEP YOUR PRODUCTS

Let's face it. Every product has some problems. A certain percentage will get shipped without assembly instructions. Or they will be missing one part. Or the directions are just too hard to understand.

If you think those are the problems of the manufacturer and UPS, you are waaaay wrong.

They are your problem since you will be making the refund and losing a sale.

That's the main thing.

In the book "Assassins" they have a great phrase:

"The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing."

Read it aloud. The sentence actually works.

So why not invest a few hours to put some content on your site to assist people assemble and use your products? You know the problems better than anyone and can improve your return rate dramatically.

Lower returns = more profits.

FROM OUR SPONSOR

ADVERTISING ON PAY-PER-CLICK-SEARCH ENGINES?

With the recent Goto.com partnerships, pay-per-click advertising now reaches a HUGE audience.

But monitoring your bids can be a time-consuming manual task!

PPCBidTracker.com completely automates the bid tracking process across the major Pay-Per-Click engines!

Stop losing sales because you are finding out TODAY, what happened YESTERDAY!

24/7 keyword bid monitoring at PPCBidTracker.com.

SPECIAL Offer just for JimWorld Gazette readers: Receive your third month free, on a three-month service subscription!

Free month offer ends 12/18/00.

< http://jimworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g107bid >

----------

Take a good look at this new service. I know the people operating it and they know what it takes to manage PPC accounts. This service should be able to save you a ton of time and save you some money along the way. I have accounts at several PPC engines and I never seem to find the time to go around to each of them and figure out what I should do to keep the traffic flowing. I'll be using PPCBidTracker and will keep you informed of my results.

GAZETTE WORLD CONCLUSION

Picking up from where we left off last week, the new GazetteWorld archives were up and running using the WebTeacher database system, several past issues were loaded into the database, and I had installed a copy of the click tracking/URL shortening system to allow people to link to the individual issues using a very short URL instead of the long URL's common to database driven content publishing systems.

The obvious remaining step was to load the remainder of the 106 past issues of the Gazette. That has now been done.

However, there was much more left on my to-do list, which is now completed, and I want to finish telling you about them.

1. Printer friendly versions
   
   Each issue of the Gazette now has a Printer Friendly version, which does not include the graphics and color that appears on the archive versions. There are software scripts that will help implement this feature, but the easiest way was to simply save a copy of each issue without the page formatting, insert a black logo at the top and then to link to it from the database version of the issue.
   
   
2. HTML version to submit to search engines
   
   Since most search engine spiders are not able to index database generated pages, I needed a way to get all of the Gazette content into the search engines, draw the traffic to the spidered version and when the visitor clicked on any link, transport them to the database-driven portion of the main site.
   
   I simply saved each issue into a directory called "html/" making all of the links point to full URL's instead of relative to any one directory. Then I created one page with links to each of the HTML versions of the issues and submitted that hallway page to the search engines to be indexed.
   
   < http://www.gazetteworld.com/html/ >
   
   I have done no optimization for keyword performance until I see how the basic pages perform. I'll keep you posted.
   
   
3. Install links/forms to other services of JimWorld
   
   My final task was to integrate several of the existing services from JimWorld into the Gazette archives in order to keep visitors long enough to let them discover many of the other things JimWorld offers.
   
   I installed a search box for the JimWorld Meta Search, links to the JimWorld News Klatsch news service and a Gazette subscription link.
   
   Finally, I installed a button to "Recommend-It" which allows people to suggest the site to their friends and at the same time they are entered into a contest where they can win cash and prizes. It doesn't hurt that I also get paid every time someone uses the Recommend-It button. Free service and income? Hard to pass up.

So, there we are. GazetteWorld is done until I think up some more new stuff to do to it.

Drop in and look around
< http://gazetteworld.com/ >

WAY COOL HOT SITE

Jokes-Central.com
< http://jimworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g107joke >

Sometimes you run across a site that has put together a full serving of features to support the site's unique content.

In this case, the joke database is well organized and tastefully presented. I especially liked finding some more Blonde jokes that I could use at the dinner table with my blonde wife. I don't use them often as I don't especially like having her not talk to me, but there are times they just sneak their way into the conversation seemingly beyond my control.

Jokes-Central also offers jokes-by-email, chat, forums, browser based email accounts, an FAQ and a few other useful community building features. All very well presented and organized to make visitors feel welcome.

When you discover that the entire effort was put together by a 14 year old young man, it makes the future look gloomy for us old fogies.

Congratulations to our newest Way Cool Hot Site winner.

FINDING CLUES TO POPULAR KEYWORDS

This week I have another tip for you that will help you figure out more keywords that you should be targeting to get the maximum results from your search engine optimization efforts.

Start by opening your browser to this URL:

< http://jimworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g107hotbot >

You should now have the results of a HotBot search for "free web site templates" and the first thing you'll notice is that the number 1 listing is for the JimWorld site Free Site Templates, as it should be.

Now take a look at the terms below the red link for "REFINE YOUR SEARCH"

You'll see:

REFINE YOUR SEARCH
FREE   Web Page Templates   Free Web Site   Free Templates
Free Site   Web Site Templates   Template Web   Free Web Templates

These are called "clues" and they let you know what HotBot thinks are the most important additional keywords to help a searcher find answers if they are not found in the search for "free web site templates"

If HotBot thinks they are important, so should you. Research those words and target them for optimization.

Read the keywords from left to right, top to bottom. Start with the first word on the first line and move across to the last word on the right of the first
line before going to the second line. This tells you the most-to-least important of the keywords.

Now click on the suggestion for "Template Web" on the second line. This takes you to a search for "Template Web" which contains another set of suggestions for refining a search.

You'll notice a suggestion for "HTML Templates" which was not on the first suggestion list.

Follow the threads of HotBot's suggestions for a while and you will have developed a substantial list of important and productive keywords.

GRRRLS ON THE WEB? OH NO!

Who would have thought that (girls, ladies, women, females, Sheilas - choose one) would have taken over the Internet and huge portions of the computer industry in general? Doesn't anyone stay home and bake apple pies and get their nails done?

Seriously, now that I've offended everyone I can think of, the Gazette seems to run about 65% women on its subscriber list. I like that a lot.

When I asked for input on other online communities that would interest you, I got a great one in the mail. Be sure to check it out if for no other reason than it is a very hot looking site. Clean and to the point.

Seems like us (guys, men, gentlemen, dudes) should have an association like this as well. Maybe red on a black background with testosterone rollovers?

--

"Hi Jim,

I have been a subscriber of your newsletter for some time and truly enjoy it's mix of information and commentary. :-)

I wanted to make you aware of a new organization I have been instrumental in launching, DigitalEve,

< http://jimworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g107eve >

DigitalEve's mission is to provide a global technology forum for women as well as an educational platform to highlight women's achievements in the technology sector.

You have asked for information about different communities and we have already launched many chapters in the US as well as active chapters in Canada, the UK, Austria, and Hong Kong, among other locations. We are in the process of seeking out potential leaders for new chapters in other countries as well as in the US.

Thanks again for your attention and keep up the great newsletter. By the way, any further attention to the Mac platform will be greatly appreciated by me. :-)

----------

Stefani Twyford
DigitalEve Houston
< http://jimworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g107stef >
technology l creativity l community"

BUILD A COMMUNITY RELEASES MAJOR NEW UPGRADES

Version 4.0 of Ecreations Sotware's community building products represents a significant leap forward in terms of flexibility, stability and scalability. The entire suite is now MySQL-based and can (optionally) run under mod_perl, making it perfect for even the most demanding sites.

The Flagship product, CommunityWeaver, has gone through a complete rewrite. It now supports three interfaces: a near-WYSIWYG editor with 25 built-in website themes and an easy browser-based admin for adding your own themes.

Each member can add any of the following to their pages:

• Counters
  
• GuestBooks
  
• Polls
  
• Free4All Links
  
• Postcards
  
• Photo Gallery
  
• Search
  
• Directory
  
• Forums
  
• Form-to-Email

They can add as many as they like (subject to limits set by the administrator), to any pages they want.

For the more technically inclined users, they have included an advanced editor for those looking to edit the source HTML directly, and a built-in FTP server that allows users to alter their site through any ftp client. Please note that the FTP server requires that you have root access to your machine. As an added bonus, your URLs can now look like any of the following:

yoursite.com/username
yoursite.com/community/username
community.yoursite.com/username
username.yoursite.com
community.com/username (multiple domains)

CommunityForums has been rewritten based on user feedback and can now support massive forum sites. It has benne tested it with 35,000 posts and it ran almost as fast as with 1 post.

Auto-HomePage now supports a personal calendar and notepad, plus all the 'plugins' (My News, My Address Book, My Horoscope, My X of the Day, My Links, My Photo, My Hyperseek, My Gossamer Threads, My Forums, My ToDo List) which can be used on any page generated by the suite. Meaning you can now embed a Todo list in CommunityWeaver for example.

Auto-Clubs is now much more of a collaboration center. It has group/shared versions of almost all of Auto-HomePage's features plus a discussion forum and image gallery.
Auto-EmailPro now supports unlimited domains, runs on both shared and dedicated servers and supports every email format they could find. 4.0 has added email filters (both for the administrator and user) and an advanced spell checker with suggestions. It also now supports sending and receiving HTML and plain text email.

ECardsPro now has a see-as-you-go interface, supports any type of multimedia including Flash, QuickTime, MP3, Midi, Gif, Jpeg and more. You can now easily remove features like stamps, music, etc. that you don't need and customize the layout of the cards.

The staff at Build A Community has done an excellent job of expanding both the capacity and the feature list of their products. The prices are affordable when compared to any similar offering. I look forward to installing some of these services on JimWorld and offering them to our visitors.

As of December 1, 2000 they have announced a Holiday special for new orders. This is both to celebrate Christmas and the release of version 4.0.

< http://jimworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g107bld >

SNIPPETS

You now have until the 15th of December to submit your site to the LookSmart directory and save 30 bucks.

Their special discount for Gazeteers has proven so successful that they agreed to give us 2 extra weeks.

Submit by December 15th and save $30 on Express Submit!

< http://jimworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g107ls >

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Internet Marketing Strategy Day Conference
< http://jimworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g99imc >

It's time to make your reservations for the March, 2001 conference in Las Vegas. The conference organizers have gotten so much feedback from U.S. web professionals that being the smart business people they are, the first U.S. conference has been scheduled.

This conference is being jointly organized with our own Search Engine Forums. Come meet some of the moderators you've only known in the Forums.

The schedule has been expanded to a three-day event to allow time for several new presentation and workshop subjects.

Attendance will be limited to keep the conferences tightly focused and highly interactive, so don't procrastinate and expect to be able to get tickets any time you want.

This looks to be an early sell-out.

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In last week's article about database driven publishing and the unusable URL's they tend to generate, it was my intention to give Kudos to a site that does things right.

Oops. I hate when I do that.

WinMag.com does a very nice job. Look at the following URL. Short and usable. You can see that they break their URL's down by the year, month and day of the publication. In the following case the article in question is from July 1, 1999. That was the URL of the article when it initially was published and has remained there every since.

That is nice for the poor webmaster (me) who tries to keep his links working. The article is about VirtualPROMTE and what a wonderful community it is. Not an article I would want removed from their site just to save some disc space.

Short enough to work in any ezine, descriptive and permanent. It just doesn't get any better than this.

Do yours work this well? If not, you are losing traffic.

< http://www.winmag.com/library/1999/0701/sol0063.htm>

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Lycos Translations
< http://translate.lycos.com/ >

Have you tried the web page language translation services at Lycos lately?

No? Too bad. You missed it.

It's not there right now. The page says "Lycos Translation Service is
temporarily unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience."

Elingo, the provider of the translation service used by Lycos has closed up shop and moved on. Elingo was used by portals such as Terra, Lycos, and Yupi. Just another of the Dot Death players.

Sorry, but the announcement is available in English only.

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Online Privacy Laws Anticipated
< http://jimworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g107priv >

Members on both sides of the U.S. Congressional aisle have agreed 100% on one thing: they want to get reelected and the best way to do that is to pass a bunch of popular laws, in spite of the fact that they know little or nothing about what to put in those laws.

The front-runner for Worst Law Of 2001 will be a new Internet Privacy Law. Coming off of their huge success with the unusable COPA and COPPA laws, they intend to rise to new heights of silliness.

Stay tuned for more fun and games as Congress lays down technical specifications for the administration of data on web sites in spite of the fact that they have no idea what it takes to run a site nor even what data is.

If you have good ideas for features to put into the new law you could try sending them to your Congressperson. Unless you can include a count of how many votes each feature will earn them, they won't be interested, but it will make you feel like you actually have any impact on how the country is run.

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Calling All Programmers

SoftwareSolutions.Net has been providing high-quality custom software solutions to Internet related companies for over 4 years. They constantly receive requests for custom programming in PERL, JAVA, MySQL, C++, Delphi, VB, and the like. Many requests are for custom Internet related Windows desktop/client-side applications and many are for custom server-side systems.

In fact, they sometimes receive so many requests for custom programming that they have to turn many down due to a lack of qualified, independent programmers.

Several of the systems that drive JimWorld were developed by Software Solutions.

They are currently looking for highly-skilled, independent developers who are willing to accept special projects on a contract basis. If you are interested in such opportunities, submit your qualifications.

You'll get a steady flow of contract work.

< http://jimworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g107ss >

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Tutorial Index
< http://jimworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g107tut >

Just for the Techie crowd, TutorialIndex offers links to tutorials on programming, graphics programs, page editors and more. Absolutely worth a look and a bookmark. You just never know when you might need to learn something.

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All I Want....
< http://jimworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g107virs >

My wish for Christmas is... another virus scanner for my computer. You should be writing Santa for that as well.

Currently there are over 1,000 new viruses discovered every month. Many are easily spotted, but there are some that get in easily and lay low on your system doing little things like swapping digits in numbers in spreadsheets and such. That could be fatal.


I do all of the 'smart' things to avoid viruses. I never use Microsoft Outlook, the King Of Easily Infected Software. I run three different virus scanning software systems and I don't tell anyone (you included) what they are. I never open any attachment for Excel or Word because they can be diddled by a smart 7 year old. If I get an .exe or .vbs file by email, out it goes!

And still I don't feel safe. With over 3,000 emails coming in each day I get virus warnings at least 5 times daily.

What are you doing to protect yourself? Practicing Safe Email? Backing up your system each week to tape or CD's? Running at least 2 virus scanners daily?

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Got A Health Related Site?
< http://jimworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g107rx >

NewsRX.com has established a revenue sharing plan related to the sale of their extensive special reports on the health industry. Web site owners will receive 50% commission on all reports sold.

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Get Expert Advice
< http://jimworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g107xprt >

Another new site has opened to match people with questions and people with answers.

Becoming an "expert" on these types of sites is a great way to promote your web site and business. People will seek out experts that they have come to respect.

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.NU Is Running A Special On Renewals

On December 31, 2000, the standard renewal cost of a .NU Domain name will be increased from $45 currently to $60 for two years.

They are letting all of their customers know about this increase now so you can renew any .NU domain you have at the special price.

For a limited time only, they are offering a special 1-year renewal at only $30. This is only good through December 31st!

So, whether your web address expires next week, next month, or even next year now is the time to act.

Renew your .NU domain today by visiting:

< http://jimworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g107nu >