Web Page Titles/Names

If you are using one of the latest browsers on your PC, or browse the web on a mobile device, it is very likely that you don’t even see the name of the page your current browser window is displaying.

Why?

Web page titles and even their filenames are important assists in helping your site’s web pages search. By providing a unique title and name that reflects the content found on that particular document, you are providing more meta data to the search engines. If your title/name meta data are accurate for each page, this optimizes search. And we optimize the ability for searching the page, we optimize search for the entire website.

I would think that by optimizing search, the search engines might even be more likely to rank your site’s page higher in the search results. This is the general idea behind Search Engine Optimization (SEO), providing optimized data to enhance your listing’s rankings in the search engine results (often referred to as SERP for your ‘Search Engine Ranking Position’ or ‘Search Engine Results Positioning’).

Yet as I surf the web, it seems to me that more and more I am running across pages that are completely untitled, or all the pages in a website share the company name, or are simply titled and named inappropriately (home, page 1, page 2, page 3…). I have even seen many that are labelled “Untitled”, which seems to be the default name that WYSIWYG web page editors use.

But if you look at how we use the web nowadays, it doesn’t seem unrealistic that this is so unimportant to so many. People in the know understand fully how important these names and titles can be when it comes to optimizing search, because these particular fields, even the filename, are concise representations of what might be found on that page, and therefore, words that appear there, as well as are repeated elsewhere throughout the description, headings, content and image descriptions (maybe even in the image file names), are given more importance in search.

Because the title and name of a page usually use concise wording, even most of the very basic search algorithms place even more importance on the few words found here. And when there are fewer words used, their importance is greater for each word there, because importance is less spread-out when they are concise, as opposed to a certain importance spread between more of them.

That, by the way, is how some SEO professionals think, and I completely disagree, that using more key search words is good.  It is much better to be concise and concentrate on the keywords and terms that are your focus.  These can be underlined with synonyms and such in the content, but to stuff keywords in a title or filename, even in a description or keywords list (within meta tags) is just not a good idea.  But that is a different subject, overusing names and titles.  I just want to encourage their practical use, and even all of the major search engines like to see this, too.  It’s called paying attention to the details.

Of course, any modern advanced search technology uses much more refined algorithms, but it always starts right there, with each page’s own name and title. Why do so many overlook them and their importance to search?

My answer is that the new modern web browsers are making it less important.

When I am browsing the web on my PC these days, I am in productivity/creativity mode, and I usually only have a single web browser window open. But that one browser window is full of tabs showing all sorts of different webpages for all the different online projects I am working on.

Often, I have a tab open for the font creation tool I am currently utilizing. Another for each of my different hosting accounts I manage. Another for my WordPress blog, one tab for Blogger and yet another for Tumblr. I usually always have my Twitter and Facebook accounts readily available, as well.

On top of that I will have the websites open that I am working on, and the next ones I want to touch-up, as well. Because we can do that with modern browsers on a fairly recent machine that has some processing power and enough memory.

So, what do I see as the title of each page in these tabbed windows? Well, since the current open tab is not enhanced above the individual tabs (as it should be) in Chrome or FireFox, I see:

[In] [In] [W] [S-] [Pr] [H] [H] [Sh] [D] [g] [W] [Bl] [T]…

Reduced size screen snapshot of my browser tabs. Chrome shows a letter, maybe 2. FireFox shows a word, maybe 2 short ones. But both are ignoring the current active title, as well as all the others.

It is the modern web browser that is masking how important those Titles are!

If the title of the page isn’t even displayed in the current active browser window, this is a huge burden in educating users the importance of the proper use of the HTML title tag. Especially when Google is declaring that what is the most important thing to it is that their search results are reflecting what the visitor actually sees and is presented with upon arrival to that document.

Isn’t Google itself devaluating these titles in Chrome?

Interestingly enough, your PC or Mac web browser’s address bar is still there by default and yet most users and even many webmasters are ignoring its importance. Site administrators, owners and webmasters ignore it with non-related domain name choices and even more poorly thought-out directory organization and file naming conventions.

However, the issue does not stop there. Because screen space is so important on smart phones and handheld devices, the page title doesn’t appear unless we are switching between different page views. In fact, the web browser’s address bar disappears as soon as we scroll down the page a little. That said, as soon as we start scrolling up, it will reappear, reaffirming its importance to navigation. But I honestly don’t think that anyone understands that importance, because I find myself frustrated not having a gadget that represents the browser bar there for me to tap and access.

My differences in UI (user interface) design vary greatly from the mobile plaftform, though. I believe in visual clues that allow navigation. Unfortunately, the mobile UI is very unfriendly in this respect. So although you do have elderly people adopting smart phones, I find them even more frustrated with the expected UI experience because they are expecting a GUI and not the touch motion technology that mobile users have to learn.

Nevertheless, despite the challenges of humans interacting with mobile device interfaces, it remains clear that Google’s Chrome and Mozilla’s FireFox are abandoning the display of the all important web page title unless you actually look for it. So now is it becoming just meta data?

I have to ask myself why, and I really do think that they too, are sick of seeing unused or inappropriate HTML document titles. Since the webmastering public at large doesn’t use the title tags correctly, why should they even display them, I suppose?

But doesn’t this start down a new slippery slope where we don’t even worry about our page titles because they are so out-of-sight and therefore out-of-mind?

Or are they actually going to give SEO professionals a reason to stick around because as always, all they have ever done is tackle the obvious that a newbie webmaster or newbie web designer without a clue would miss?

Nevertheless, despite their somewhat inappropriate disappearing act from the full view of the global world wide web community, web page titles and names do have a proven impact on assisting search. So it is then obvious that these things really do require your attention when designing a website, setting up a new page, posting a new blog entry, etc…

Just remember that each name and title reinforces the key search words/terms, advertising copy and even the brands themselves that are represented on these pages and it all makes common sense, doesn’t it?

In example…   If you are creating a page about the different kinds of rodent traps, you might want to name your web page HTML file as “rodent-traps.html” and title it “Rodent Traps for the Home”.  Then, on that page you would discuss the different kind of traps available for different kinds of rodents.  Use head tags to identify different kinds of content.  Then, you will link to pages about particular traps or brands… so maybe you have another page discussing Rat Traps at “rat-traps.html” and it may discuss the differences between poison traps, concussion traps and sticky traps, then each of those may point to reviews on particular brands of traps at other pages showcasing those brands or products.

I can go into more detail, but to me this is all common sense.  Of course, I am a well educated web designer, as well as an artist.  I’m supposed to understand this stuff.  But not all webmasters do, and so that’s why I want to reintroduce some of these common sense practices to the world, because when a page title or name disappears, we think about these little beginning design touches a lot less, and yet they are very important to the grand scheme of search.

I don’t preach Search Engine Optimization (SEO), I preach search optimization (which has a better effect on SERP because you eliminate the worry).

Yahoo!’s Domainapalooza

Yahoo has decided to release some of its premium domain names to the public through an auction at Sedo…

Yahoo!’s Domainapalooza …(This link was updated on November 16th, 2013)

This premium domain name portfolio auction started today, November 14th, and runs to November 21st, 2013.  Although there are quite a few names that I feel are not very good (especially for the reserve price indicated), there are some great domains in the bunch…

• AV.com
• WebServer.com
• Sandwich.com
• Sled.com
• VoiceMail.com
• Crackers.com
• Freeby.com/.net
• BlogsPort.com (or brand it as BlogSport.com)

Now, please note that the above is merely a sampling of some of the best domain names in the Yahoo Domainapalooza premium domain portfolio auction.  But that portfolio is listing over 500 names on its first day, and Yahoo! also indicates that it will also be adding even more domain names throughout the auction.

Can you walk away with a great brandable domain name that you could develop into a profitable website or business?  Very likely, considering the quality of some of these names.  Especially with names that have an excellent second meaning.  For instance, even though winter is coming and sled would make a great name to sell winter snow sleds, “sled” is often how I refer to older muscle cars that had great power but lacked the handling of a sports car.  These beasts will never have sports car handling because they double as grocery-getters and transportation to work.  And if you are into muscle cars like I am you would see the opportunity in that street rod slang name.

As of this writing, there are 517 domain names available for auction and with Yahoo planning to add even more this may become the most watched premium domain name portfolio auction in history.

Happy domaining!  I hope there will be many domainers taking advantage of this opportunity to add to their portfolio and domainate the market with domainating names.  😉

Yahoo!’s Domainapalooza …(This link was updated on November 16th, 2013)

-Doug
…”Domainating”
(I’m going back to check out that list!)

Theme Upgrade Crap

The theme for this blog, Andreas04, was upgraded to “Able”. I personally think that Able is crap and is the absolute kind of theme I am trying to avoid, one that lacks creativity of any sort.

To that end I have been strained trying to find a new theme. Which also keeps me from posting anything new, because I arrive at my dashboard and am presented with a problem indicating that my theme won’t work well, or might not even be around, for much longer. hence I go look for themes and get lost in a sespool of muck & mire.

Still In Recovery

I have been spending a great deal of time recovering from 2 things… a physical ailment where I actually tore something within my inner hip/pelvis region when I tripped over a “safety guard” while working the freight at Kohl’s, and the second being that I still have not reinstated all of my online properties after my high speed web hosting reseller account (which was so expensive that I couldn’t resell it) was finally cancelled on February 14th of this year.

The Injury:

Although I had recovered well and felt good when I went back to work after over a week off and taking Advil every day, soon after the tolls of the graveyard shift and the constant physical labor of unloading and replenishing freight was wearing on me.  I plan on going back to see the doctor because now my hip makes popping or clicking sounds in my normal day-to-day routine when I’m not working.  This is often accompanied with a shooting pain, but sometimes it is more noise. But I still haven’t recovered from taking the one week off after I had the injury.  I am really hurting financially because work was already slow and my domain/hosting sales also slow-up in the summer. I admit I am feeling pretty frail now, these days.

The Websites:

Only a handful of websites remain offline currently, these are mostly my general subject directories.  One that remains up and online (after recovering it) is Hyperlink Directory.  Because of complications with the databases of other directories, I will be using the Hyperlink Directory database to form the start of my other directories which were previously phpLinkDirectories (Worthful Index & Reciprocate Links!, which are currently parked until I have some extra time to get them online).

Some of the other directories I ran seemed to be running on what might be considered insecure directory software, so I am leaving those offline until I can find a migration path.  Since phpLD doesn’t support directory database migration, I am looking to other software solutions.

In the meantime, I have not only continued recovering the websites and intellectual properties that went down in flames due to my expensive web hosting issues, I’ve also been making those recovered websites better, as well as continuing to build my empire of websites and brands. One example is that I setup Font-Journal on Domain Hostmaster hosting and I am also trying to keep it updated as I have a whole bunch more fonts to upload (the list is quite long).

I also setup Glossary Index, which is a handy little dictionary word lookup utility site with live feedback as you type in your word.

I have established a couple more pin-up beauty sites honoring and celebrating the unsurpassed beauty of women. These are both on Tumblr, Top Hot Girls seems the most popular. I don’t know if it is the monochromatic style or simply that I have been lucky to find some shots of very precious beauties in this format, but Super Elegance is one of my favorites. To me the beauty of women is undeniable proof of God.  You can’t tell me that there isn’t a superior intelligence at work there, they are pure living art.  I just wish they made sense.  And there you have God’s humor making our lives interesting.

I also setup a domain to display my old HTML Character Code Reference Table at (where else?) HTMLCharacterCode.com.

I am working on a few other new sites and updating some elder ones, as well.  Right now I am trying to setup sites using best web design practices that take advantage of the HTML5 & CSS3 web standards.  This is proving to a be a lot more difficult using CSS to structure the layout.  Although I love the standard, it is a great deal more difficult to code this way.  It is also harder to struggle through the code when designing radically different sites, as I always have to start over from scratch.

The worst part is that while I am trying to get all my old sites updated with HTML5 and CSS3, I am not learning all the neat things that I can do in HTML5 with the canvas property that I need to know.

I feel like I’m always racing to catch-up.  My part-time job doesn’t exactly help me accomplish a single thing, either.  It’s a very physical job moving freight all night long and always wears me out and takes me out of the game for well too long recuperating afterwards.

Why even have this stupid menial labor position, I don’t know, I am farther in debt now than when I started a year ago.  WTF?

Why Rip-off an Artist?

I am so tired of the current state of society.  Humans no longer matter and we take a corporate attitude of greed and protect-your-own-ass because no one else will.

Actually, there are real people who will stand-up and fight together and stick-up for each other.  But that’s not the point.  The point is that it should have never gotten this bad.

I see this all the time.  I designed a website that not only exceeded the needs and specs of the client, but it does so well beyond any parameters, including my own.  As I am just a freelance artist, it’ll never win any awards (I can’t afford to enter the webbies, etc… I am not surviving on what I get paid now) and only the client’s customers will ever really see it.

Ever hear the phrase “Charge a Corporation Twice or more what you would anyone else for the same work.”?  It is so very true.  Although lulled into thinking I could work with these people, they broke the original contract.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have a contract in writing.  So *I* kept every promise and delivered an extremely search engine optimized, user friendly, interactive website  based on the MODx content management system/framework.  This is the most extreme I had ever gone with CSS, Sprites, Fly-out menus, minimal graphics, reduced graphic sizes, etc…

But in the long run I screwed myself because I didn’t have a written contract.  And it would have protected me, because these people were absolute abusers.

Now, let me tell you that I did bid low to get this job because I thought I would enjoy it, but I had no idea that anyone could be so rude, condescending, back-stabbing or ruthless.  Instead of treating me like a business partner with a humongous stake in  their online success, I was belittled and chastised as if a lowly underling employee.  I had never been treated with such disdain by a client, before.  The terms of the original contract agreement was breached on several occasions and the deceit I experienced was unconscionable.  It’s a surprise that I was able to complete the project at all.  And I had no recourse because the agreement was verbal and I trusted them.

But the project was finished, despite themselves.  Not only was it finished, it was done right (despite themselves): the way I wanted it done (which was well beyond what they had asked for).

But now I know why to charge 2 or 3 or more times the price for a corporate gig.  Either you are working for a committee, or you are working as a mere employee with absolutely no rights or benefits (like a slave).

The extra money covers the extra hassle of writing the contract, and in dealing with a committee or being treated like a peon.  And the contract protects you from getting the shaft, spiteful delays for meetings, etc…  Now I know.

I told them I would not work for a committee, that I would work with just 1 person in delivering them a site beyond what they expected. I did.  But not without giving in to allowing a second person in to the mix who berated me and crucified me to “corporate”, her bosses.

These employees have “corporate” on the brain because they are so scared of losing their jobs.  The girl they added to the communication chain was apparently the company bulldog.  And she thought she was right, no matter what the facts are.  In the end she twisted everything into lies, was dismissive and disruptive just to “show me” a thing or two, and delayed the whole design & development process, incredibly.

Today I was on the phone with her to reach the other party, the guy I actually get along with, in order to make the site live.  He’s gone for the day.  As I am talking to her, she grunts her displeasure with me and dismisses me by hanging up the phone without so much as a “Goodbye.”

Previously, I had always worked with the business owner and entrepreneurs such as myself where we were smart enough to understand and communicate with each other.  If only the masses could communicate, they could educate themselves.

Then, I run into this article on “Smart Planet” how artist’s should watch their own asses because it really is OK to steal someone else’s artwork!:  How a thief defends theft: http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/thinking-tech/how-to-protect-your-copyrighted-images-on-the-web/3684/

I am so angry this guy works there, at “Smart Planet”.  He’s telling us to watermark our artwork if we dare to put it online?  And all we are doing is trying to give our best work.  He says we could disable the right-mouse on a web page?  That makes our visitors angry because that right mouse button does a whole helluva lot more than save images, it is a vital tool for any web user.  He says to make a robots.txt file to steer the search engine bots away from our images… I did that once.  Not only did my images no longer show-up in Google Images, but my graphic design rank plummeted, and some search engines (such as the wayback machine) showed my web pages with all the images blocked out with a gray window over them.  Heck, I said stay away from crawling there, not to not show them on my pages!

There were plenty of lame excuses he gave, but they were all just excuses.  But it was interesting to see the criminal mind at work, how he could so effortlessly come up with any excuse and act as if it was actually a convincing argument.  Hey, fella, the reason Murdock gets away with it is because he owns Fox, not because it’s right, true or factual.

Listen, you self-centered “dogs” out there who don’t give a crap about anyone but yourself, it isn’t me or another artist that is “going to get you and bring you down”, it’s your own criminal activity and stupidity!

We artists are trying to give you are very damn best as a matter of pride in ourselves and our work.  And you treat us like we aren’t worth the same as you, that we are under you, your class, your level of achievement?  You rip us off for no good reason and excuse it as if we could do anything about it?

Where has morality gone?  What has happened to our ethics, and why do we dismiss them in order to make a point on TV or in a blog?  We used to be civil to each other.  Corporate America is NOT a good thing.  It seems to embrace ignorance.  But no one is fooled by Sarah Palin.  Being dumb is just plain dumb, no matter the excuse.

Internet Explorer Support Now Costs Double

Can you believe this:? Microsoft Internet Explorer refuses to run on my XP desktop or XP notebook machines, or even my Vista based laptop! I can’t get IE running on anything, not even on my son’s XP desktop.

Thanks so much for nothing, MS!

It isn’t that I want to use it, it’s just that I need to support the IE browser for my web design clients.  And yet it won’t even run on my Windows based machines.  I am so tired of supporting IE.  They fail to develop the browser at all so that it will keep up with ancient web standards such as CS3, XHTML and XML and don’t even plan on supporting HTML5.  Ideally, the browser is considered crappy.

Why the hell should I support this peice of junk browser?  Oh yeah, my client’s clients/customers.  Well, I am now doubling my rates to support anything other than the last version of Internet Explorer, FireFox, Safari, Chrome and Opera.  Why? because IE is so poorly undeveloped that it should not even be considered a true modern browser.

So from this moment on, if you want support for IE7, you will have to pay double for it.  Because IE really *is* that crappy and really is much of a pain in the butt.  Everyone else supports the current and emerging web standards, just not IE.

HTML 5 Stuff

Over in the Web Design and Development (WD&D) group (at Google Groups), I started a thread/topic/post for discussing HTML 5 Stuff. One of the members left a link to his own take on the upcoming HTML 5 standard and I responded to it right there in his blog.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware that his blog system would not automagically convert less than (“<“) and greater than (“>“) symbols over to html codes, and so every time I talked about these tags, they completely disappeared from the post reply as if they were actual HTML code (whether they were simply disallowed or are actually showing up as code, they simply are not showing up in the text of my reply at all).

So, in an effort to correct how his blog is displaying my reply to his post, I have decided to try to correct and clarify my response to his original post concerning HTML 5 on his blog here:

My Corrected Response on the HTML 5 Topic:

(As indicated, I will also try to edit this post and make it clearer…)

HTML 5 represents web design coming out of the dark ages.  It isn’t just a significant and noteworthy advancement, it represents an understanding in creativity, art, media and the flow of the production process.  And it also offers coders much better and clearer semantics.

More needs to be done, though.  Browser wars continue to over dramatically impede progress as they look to promote their own brand’s and codec as the default solution.  There is no true web authority to lay down the law on these characters who fight like dysfunctional in-laws.  Here too, the world’s governments fail to step in and help resolve issues because it doesn’t even understand this technology.  And no one understands that the lack any real authority continues to impede the process of stanardization support, as well as its progress and further advancement.  Therefore, this demonstrable lack of control over the web (and the internet as a whole) is helping to promote the stagnation of our global economy.

HTML 5 is the answer.  Not in its present form, but as it evolves and support for it finally surfaces across all platforms.  Which is the trouble, because as browser companies squabble about minor issues in order to promote their own brand, their self-serving brand oriented corporate muscling and protectionist attitude holds up progress for the entire rest of the world.  Of course, they obviously think that they are more important than everyone else, or the greater good.  And this is where the lack of any kind of corporate morality is constantly stabbing progress  in the spine of the back, repeatedly, like some sort of remorseless mad axe murder.

I honestly think that HTML 5 will change the world, eventually. But support is key. Why Microsoft Internet Explorer continues to hold-up the show should be considered criminal. I cannot understand why it insists on being seen as the bad guy in the technology development sector when it comes to the web. Of course, Microsoft never has seemed to “get the internet”. But they are not alone in blame for the wishy-washy support for the HTML 5 standard support, either. All browser entities are guilty because they are still promoting their own interests in a standardized codec for the <audio> and <video> tags.  This kind of idiocy continues to overshadow the technology and hold-up progress.

Should they have placed the development of the HTML 5 standard into the hands of a capable independent organization of web designers and developers?  They did.  And yet many of these issues we looked to the W3C and WHATWG for guidance on were ignored.

Yet, the corporate dance is still required.  I mean, I can start a group to develop HTMLX as an independent group, but no one is going to support it if they are not on-board.  And no one is going to want to help develop it as a standard unless it has a good chance of becoming a real standard which is supported by the corporate community.

In the meantime I know that I would have a whole lot more web design work if the HTML 5 standard were a reliable and competitive standard that we could rely on once it is ratified and officially released.  But we can’t because of corporate bickering and the ensuing lack of agreement or support to actually handle the <video> and <audio> tags.

In a time when we need work and to promote progress in order revitalize the global economy, the w3 (the worldwide web) needs massive attention so that we can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

I am just one of many web designers experimenting with the HTML 5 standard.  I came across a link to this blog post on the subject of HTML 5 Stuff in the Web Design and Development group at Google Groups (http://groups.google.com/group/sitedesign).  But I do want better support, and I am calling for the browser industry to get on board (finally).  Because for us web designers, we will have to get on board with HTML 5 or we will simply die in the coming years.  This standard is just too good and helps untie the knots of code which flow and creativity tends to stumble over.

Thanks for your post, I love bringing awareness to HTML 5 and thank you for your effort.  I long to learn more about how to use the <canvas> tag. That tag should be lots of fun in the future. 😉

Reference:
Jame’s Parker’s (from Cyber Designz) HTML 5 and How It Works Blog Entry
The W3C
The WHATWG
The following links require membership in the WD&D group:
http://groups.google.com/group/sitedesign
http://groups.google.com/group/sitedesign/browse_thread/thread/faf4070ed871499d

Web Design Tutorial Resources

Originally, I started making this list as a quick reference page for our Web Design and Development group at Google Groups.  Unfortunately, real life interrupted and I never got this list done.

So instead of posting the incomplete list of web design and development tutorial resources to the group, I thought I’d post the start of it here.  This way, the general public can comment on the resources or even add additional online websites offering tutorial resources.

Note that web design requires more than simply knowing how to code and present information in HTML & CSS.  Usually in any such position, highly proficient graphic design skills are required with demonstrable hands-on knowledge of the Photoshop and Illustrator creativity application suites will also be required.  Further skills such as Flash, javascript, or php & MySQL coding proficiency, or experience in SEO or online marketing may well also considered an huge asset.

The aforementioned reason is why it’s often hard to find just the type of tutorial you might require, everyone wants something different, and most tutorial resources only cover specific skillsets.  One site might be offering HTML tutorials while not offering XHTML tutorials.  Another site might cover the CSS standard to version 2 and completely ignore CSS3, etc…

Therefore, I am trying to build a quick reference table of online web design and development tutorial resources.  I want it for my own reference as much as for anyone else’s.  Technology is always evolving in this industry, so it is great to have reliable up-to-date resources from which to learn and to reference.

The W3C (the WorldWide Web Consortium) is apparently too busy developing standards and defining them with barely understandable legal speak, so do not expect any good tutorials there on the site…

http://www.w3.org/
[The W3C (WorldWide Web Consortium) offers Standards Documentation in Legal Speak]

http://www.whatwg.org/
[The Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group is currently working on the future HTML 5 Standard in conjunction with the W3C]

However, If the W3C was surely interested in leading the web technology standards, I think that they would have long ago identified their inability to communicate effectively with the rest of the world as well as addressed this problem with some easier to understand interpretations, examples and tutorials.  I personally take exception to some of the things they do, the way they do them, and the way they refuse to explain their lack of reasoning in doing some of the crazy things they do.

Since they don’t recognize this issue we are left to scavenge the web for decent info and tutorials in order to just have decent results.  And no one place completely covers any one standard, let along the lot of them.  In fact, there is no one decent authority to rely on.  Hence, I complied the following list of web design tutorials.

http://www.opera.com/developer/wsc/
[Free Opera Web Standards Curriculum (HTML/CSS)]

http://developer.yahoo.com/
[Free Yahoo Web Developer Network (HTML/CSS)]

http://www.sitepoint.com/
[Free HTML/CSS Tutorials & Reference Material]

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/category/tutorials/
[Free design tutorials for anything to do with design, all levels]

http://www.quackit.com/
[Free HTML/CSS Tutorials for Beginners]

http://www.tizag.com/
[Free HTML/XHTML/XML/CSS/Javascript/AJAX/VBScript/Perl/PHP/MySQL/ASP/Flash/SEO Tutorials for Beginners]

http://www.how-to-build-websites.com/
[Free HTML/XHTML/CSS/Dreamweaver/PHP/Javascript/Flash/Actionscript/PHP Tutorials for Beginners]

http://www.webmonkey.com/
[Free Web Developer’s Resource with many tutorials, articles and reference materials covering almost any web design subject]

http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/
[Inexpensive HTML/XHTML/XML/WML/WAP/Javascript/SSI/PHP/MySQL/ASP/Cookies/Flash/FTP/.htaccess/Promotion Tutorials]

http://www.hscripts.com/
[Free HTML/CSS/Javascript/Perl/PHP/MySQL/SEO/Linux/Photoshop Tutorials]

http://htmlite.com/
[Free HTML/XHTML/XML/XSLT/CSS/SSI/Perl/PHP/MySQL/Javascript/FTP/.htaccess Tutorials]

http://www.tutorialtastic.co.uk/
[Free HTML/XHTML/CSS/PHP/MySQL/Javascript/Graphics Tutorials]

http://www.webdevelopersnotes.com/tutorials/index.php3
[Free HTML/SQL/MySQL/Javascript/Flash Tutorials]

http://www.echoecho.com/school.htm
[Free HTML/DHTML/XML/CSS/SSI/Perl/PHP/ASP/Cold-Fusion/Java/Flash/Graphics/Design Tutorials]

http://www.sergey.com/web_course/content.html
[HTML/DHTML/XML/CSS/CGI/Javascript/Java/ASP/HTTPS/SSL Free Web Technologies Overview Course]

http://www.jessett.com/
[creating a website: Usability/Graphics/HTML/Dreamweaver/CSS/DHTML/SEO]

http://www.webdesign.org/
[Free HTML/CSS/PHP/ASP/Javascript/Design/Usability/Color/Templates/Photoshop/Fireworks/Gimp/PaintShopPro/CorelDraw/Illustrator/Flash/Swish/3D/SEO Tutorials]

http://www.academictutorials.com/
[Free HTML/DHTML/XHTML/WAP/XML/XSL/XSLT/RSS/DTD/Perl/PHP/Python/ASP/.NET/SQL/Javascript/Java/VBScript/SVG/SMIL/Flash/Photoshop/Gimp/Matlab/Gnuplot/GIF/Graphics/SEO & more Tutorials and Quizes]

http://www.alistapart.com/
[A List Apart is the primary resource for most professional web designers and UI developers. You simply can’t go wrong with the info here, though it often does require a good background in basic HTML/CSS coding to follow.]

http://www.learnable.com/
[Site Point’s paid, but inexpensive, HTML/CSS/Javascript/PHP/MySQL classes]

http://www.lynda.com/
[Lynda.com is a well known and reliable resource for paid design & development classes of all types]

http://iwa-hwg.eclasses.org/
[eClasses.org offers a variety of paid classes and certifications with discounts given to IWA-HWG membership]

Feel free to leave me a comment and add your own suggestions.  As indicated, I was nowhere near done when I started this list and the current list above only represents a small portion of what is currently available.

update May 5th, 2011:
The W3Schools site is full of glaring inaccuracies and no attempt is ever made to correct them despite hand fed the cited inaccuracies and their corrections by reknown industry professionals.  They have been a source of frustration for many professionals.  On top of this they sell HTML/CSS certifications without any authority or accreditation.  Steer clear of this garbage site.  More details can be found at http://w3fools.com/.

Getting Started on Twitter Info & Tips

I’m sure that you have heard all the buzz on social networking, social media and/or social marketing.  Rest assured that it is a big deal.  This is not all hype.  Social media allows us immediate interaction online, which makes it much more immediately effective and impactful because things do change over time.

For those of you that keep hearing how Twitter is losing visitor traffic to the website and therefore it isn’t important, don’t listen to the naysayers.  That is a bunk statistic because what powers all those Tweets are third party applications and texting from smartphones or PDA devices.  Only recently has Twitter updated the user home page with web 2.0 scripting which allows them to update the user with new Tweet alerts, so no one was really accessing Twitter webpages too much in the first place. Most people are using it from desktop applications on their PC, notebook or netbook, on their smart phone or PDA, and they are using it from all over as they live their day, not just from home.

I can even attest that I have increased sales through Twitter by trying to be helpful, a good resource, and plugging my websites a bit without being spammy.  If you need help with it, just tweet me as @Domainating, or through one of my branded domain names for sale posting account brand names of either @DomainNameGamer or @PremiumBrand.  I am also online there with other accounts, but you might think I am spamming the group if I listed them all (and some of you probably think I am already being too spammy, but I am also trying to elaborate on my point that if you have multiple brands to protect, you should do so).

When “tweeting” on Twitter, remember that you are limited to 140 characters.  All the people (tweople) who follow you will be able to see your tweets (your posts).  It is much like social blogging in 140 character increments.  Anyone searching for posts that use certain keywords can actually see your posts as well.  And you can use this to your advantage by searching for customers looking for recommendations, as well.

Some Simple Tweeting Tips:

Your tweets (posts) can also be seen by even more people when they are retweeted.

As an example, let’s say I saw this tweet from JoeTrippi:

JoeTrippi  Google to improve upon HTTP protocol? Tests show it could speed up page loads by more than 50% http://bit.ly/u6mt9

So maybe I think the Web Design and Development group (WDaDg) members and followers should know this, so I “retweet it” by copying Joe Trippi’s whole post.

Then I start the next post I make with “RT @” – RT means ReTweet, and the @ (at-sign) in front of a username functions as a mention so that they get credit and anyone seeing the retweet can check them out by clicking on the username (and possibly add them as a resource to follow).  so now it looks like this:

RT @JoeTrippi Google to improve upon HTTP protocol? Tests show it could speed up page loads by more than 50% http://bit.ly/u6mt9

…now, everyone following me will see that, as well.  So if you have something significant or valuable to say and do it consistently, you might be followed as a good resource by those who are searching related keywords in posts to follow.

When you mention other tweople’s usernames using the @ mark, they will see it in a special mentions area.  However, others may not see it if it is the @ sign is the first character of the post.  If you want others to see something, you just have to make sure that another character (other than a space) precedes the @.  Lots of tweople use a simple dot so that a reply to someone by mentioning them in the post where they want others to see might look like:

.@Domainating Thanks for the tip.

If you don’t use the dot or other character to precede the @, others still may be able to see it, so not using the dot or other preceding character does NOT make it a private message.  For instance, it still can be seen in your quick quip next to your picture on any of your follower’s (people following you) following page (the list of people they are following, which is accessible from their profile page) as the last post you made when listed there (there are usually multiple pages, you would only be listed on one of them).

If you want to send a message directly to another person (tweep) privately that only they will see, you can send them a Direct message by using a “D”:

D Domainating, you are ugly and your mom wears army boots!

…only I would see that post (or anyone looking over my shoulder when I was accessing it).

The catch is that you can only D (Direct message) your friends.  That means that in order to D the username you want to, you have to be following him/her/it AND they have to be following you (which is considered a mutual friendship).  Perhaps this is why they made @ kind of private if there are no characters in front of it and the username in a message?

The “#” (aka the number sign, the American pound sign of weight, or at Twitter it is most often called the hash tag) mark helps categorize posts and trends that people can access as a keyword or category, so that people can browse tagged messages according to subject.  So I might post…

ICANN accredidation means nothing because all registrars have to follow ICANN rules, and ICANN does not police registrars. #domain #domains

So now this post has been categorized using the hashmark so that other people looking for posts using the domains and domain keywords can easily find them.  They also speak to the trends of subjects in the social network.

Note that you will find tweople looking for recommendations on a web designer, a CMS, a domain registrar, a smartphone, a wireless service, an antiviri & security suite software package, and more, and Twitter can put you immediately in touch with these people.  Now THAT’s real time (social) marketing.

Twitter can be quite useful.  And you will find that as you establish relationships and have engaging conversations, you will reap the most benefits.

Twitter Tools and Utilities:

There are also several directories that specialize in listing tweople.  The most popular is wefollow and by listing yourself there you can gain a following of others interested in the same subjects.

Klout (http://) is a Twitter analysation tool that you may be interested in.

TweetStats n. an app to graph your Twitter stats (or anyone else’s, incase you want to check them out before you follow them if you are worried).  The graphs are nice, but I like to see the most used words and hash tags.

As noted above, I use a Twitter client (third party software) to monitor my Tweets.  My favorite is an Adobe Air application, @TweetDeck:

TweetDeck “TweetDeck is your personal browser for staying in touch with what’s happening now, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook and more.  TweetDeck shows you everything you want to see at once, so you can stay organised and up to date.” …from the homepage itself.

…hope that helps you get started (if you aren’t already)!

Thanks for reading!

The Contradiction of Search and the PPC Advertising Business Model

This post is a response to the article “Bing Now a Serious Challenger to Google” by Jeff Bertolucci, PC World

One should probably read this article in order to understand the inspiration for this post, though it isn’t absolutely necessary.  The links in this post open in a new window so that you won’t lose your focus here and can get back to this post easily (aren’t I a nice guy?).

Bing can actually be a boon to website designers & developers & teams of whom work together because unlike Google that does not penalize for poorly coded websites, it was reported that Live dropped pages that were improperly coded.

I have already made the argument that good web coding should be rewarded by the search engines in my blog.  I am not asking for awards from the search engines, but it makes sense to me that since a website represents the actual soul of someone’s marketing message, bad code should indicate a very poor marketing effort while professionally done, tight, clean code should be rewarded as such.  And I also emphasize that reducing the ranking ability of tables based layouts should be the very first consideration in establishing that part (of the formula) in the ranking algorithm.

I twittered this previous post to @mattcutts, who is in charge of Google’s Web Spam Department, twice yesterday and yet never received a response from him.  I suppose he gets a bunch of such posts from many being in his position, but I have also seen him respond to such posts, as well.

Matt Cutts has previously indicated that he believed that since the browser may not have had any issues with the underlying code, even if the code was poorly done, no web page was ever penalized for having poor coding practices.  However, this seems to ignore the fact that the worldwide web has become a commercial entity, and that any individual website presence represents the full resources which have been brought to bear for online marketing as a public and professional presence on behalf of a company or person.  Even if a free personal homepage, a web page exists to promote something, even if it is just information.  The sharing of it also helps promote that page’s authority and therefore its presence (possibly indirectly, but usually not).

Let’s face it, the internet is no longer free or even publicly available to all.  It is a goldmine and a company that can leverage itself as an effective online resource can prosper if marketed smart and promoted effectively.

The key here then, is the fact that Google is ignoring the commercialization of the worldwide web (aka: the w3) despite its monopolistic dominance of the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising industry.  This means that a company has no influence based on merit and drives the need for recognition through advertising in order to be noticed.

This same monopolistic attitude is seen in Matt Cutt’s attitude towards paid links.  Even though a paid link represents a measurable online marketing effort by a company or individual, he frowns on them as a purposeful and deliberate means of influencing the search engines.  But that is a protectionist attitude and monopolistic argument, because it is Google’s own algorithm itself that is tallying up direct links as votes for a website, not the marketer.

And since Matt Cutts has warned us that Google may penalize websites in the future, I will tell you that I have personal knowledge of and experienced the fact that Google is now, already started penalizing websites that display suspected paid links.  This is now a known fact based on the performance of a number of my websites which are utilizing free web hosting where paid links are employed in order to offset hosting cost, and also proven by the fact that you can report paid links to Google (as proof, simply check out Google’s “Webmaster Tools” which expedites such reporting by offering a very prominent link to do so).  My web traffic is now negligible and the PR (PR stands for Google’s “PageRank” system or ranking a site from 1-10) is non-existent at almost all these sites.  Although all of these sites are new, they had been previously gaining traffic and growing in unique visits.  A few had a PR of 2 or 3 and most of the rest were at a PR of at l.  There were a few PR 0 sites too, but now most are not even acknowledged by Google’s PR system.  They are all CSS design based WordPress sites.  They all include unique content.

In effect, as a monopoly, Google is trying to funnel any and all advertising sales through it’s own PPC (or Pay-Per-Click, as in paid advertisements) marketing program.  Most people I speak to that are marketing their business themselves and are aware of Google’s “Do not buy links” policy are actually afraid to advertise anywhere else.

The stunning idiotic result from an otherwise very smart and successful internet marketing entity known as Google is that no one there sees this contradicting business model as pure monopolistic. This is a business model which is excessively slanted in its own favor and the end result is highly unbalanced and completely unfair, especially to individuals, professionals, small to medium businesses and any business that is starting up.  Because Google sells links and tells everyone not to buy links.

In other words, Google’s business model suggests that only corporations should consider playing because demonstrated effort and merit through efficient and clean professional code which it spiders on a regular basis has nothing to say or add to a company’s online marketing effort.  And this is completely opposite of how Google should monitor marketing and effective online presence building.

Furthermore, instead of simply influencing marketing channels, Google is using protectionism in order to dominate advertising via its monopolistic presence.  The end result is a message which tells every webmaster and online marketer, “Play it our way and play with us or die.”

Nothing is more contradictory than Google’s advertisement and PPC marketing model if it is actually a serious search engine.  And we all know it is the largest.  But it is now ignoring the webmaster’s efforts in clean and efficient CSS structured and styled, properly coded (X)HTML web pages.

Quite simply, the PPC advertising model is extremely flawed because it relies on a corporation’s ability to play by pouring in gobs of money to secure the top positions with the top bids.  Even though there is a little wiggle room allowed for effective advertising copy (monitored through click-throughs), the end result is that in order to secure the top ads, the price of the advertised product has to support the bid, which makes end-sold products and/or services inherently higher.

One can argue that Frugal is a great alternative to advertising, but Frugal, which promotes low prices and coupons, is not even close to effectively marketed anywhere on the web but at Google.  With Google AdWords, you have the ability to build a woldwide presence instantly for a product, service and/or brand through Google’s content network, and each ad placement is in direct competition with the crux of web content found on each individual page, so users/readers/viewers have already demonstrate an active interested in that type of service/product/brand.  Google offers no such alternative with Frugal, nor does it effectively promote Frugal because it is not in the interest of its business model.  Google only uses Frugal in order to offer an argument against clear protectionist intent and related issues.

Long way to go to make a point that hasn’t been made yet, isn’t it?  That’s right, I still haven’t gotten to the point, all these facts mere lead-up to the idea that… [deep breath]…  if any decent search engine (with a significant presence) actually allies with the web designer/developer/studio to provide truly relevant results based on the seriousness of a company’s marketing effort by rewarding the effort, consistency and merit of professionalism which is demonstrated in the effectiveness of the code which a bot has to crawl and cache any damn way, I am sure that would go an enormously long way in allowing web design/development professionals the recognition they deserve.

But Google’s contradictory business model turns it all upside down.  It wants to see your links and tallies them to help establish your PageRank and this same tally (not the PageRank, but that link tally) also influences your ranking in the search engine results in some significant way through its algorithym.  It monitors your presence and influence on the web, but it sees paid direct links as spam.  It presently and demonstratedly marks sites with reported paid links as spam and stops sending them traffic through its search resources, even though Google is in the actual business of selling links itself, and just because they are indirect pointers to pages that is so-called different (and yet it is still advertising, still paid links).  In order to play, one has to pay Google, driving up product/service costs because Google’s AdWords model is self-corrupting.  And Google continues to scare us into using their PPC ad services.  People and businesses have been broken or made on their understanding and use of this queer system, both through PPC ads and the actual search results.

Why anyone else wouldn’t take advantage of the inherent corruption and contradiction of Google’s business model is beyond me.  Remember in fact that this is how Google started, promising an alliance with webmasters to produce effective search with relevant results.  This is what drew us all in.  And if webmasters saw a true benefit from providing clean code, they would.  But the fact is that Google only cares about content, not marketing (unless it is its own), not professionalism in presentation in the one way it could absolutely and logically measure it.

So in the end analysis leads to only one conclusion for me, this is an opportunity crying to be taken advantage of.  Bing may not be the one with the balls to do it.  It, after all has been a consistent follower in the business of the internet.  It didn’t even get it, at first, and almost missed the boat completely.  But Bing does represent an expression of a search for new ideas.  And yet, Microsoft has historically not embraced innovation in the same way that IBM snubbed Microsoft’s innovation.  It is old and Microsoft has clearly never lead the industry in any sort of innovation with the internet because it suffers from the same old conservative snobby old boys network attitude that IBM scoffed at.  Microsoft just doesn’t understand the new generation and the digital age.

But, in the same way, Google is doing the exact same thing.  It has forgotten its alliance with webmasters and web professionals.  Google now inhibits business through the same lack of understanding in the unfairness of its business model.

Which actually leaves the door wide open for a new player.  Yahoo is, after all, primarily a portal, is branded as such, and is ever abandoning any of its efforts in search because it refuses to innovate.

Anyone want to start a search engine?  The sky is literally the limit.  It should embrace net socialization, all forms of web media, localization and news.  Without utilizing a business unfriendly contradictory business model. No one does that, and it would be easy to do effectively.  But that’s another post for another time.  😀

By the way, can anyone reach the present that Google left me?  It’s dead-center in the middle of my back. Actually, it’s not that bad.  The percentage of websites I have on free web hosting is not very significant, so the blade is tiny.  But I was one of those webmasters that jumped on the Google bandwagon, so the betrayal does sting.

My code has evolved, but Google refuses to evolve their search and refuses to acknowledge superior design code.  That said, so does every other search engine.  Because they all are on the PPC marketing kick, too.  But Google and I had a thing going.  Actually, we still do, breaking-up is hard to do no matter how much a loved one may abuse you.

You know?

…………………………………
Associated Reference Links:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/181980/bing_now_a_serious_challenger_to_google.html
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/