Your Domain Name – What’s In a Name? »

December 29, 2007

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Sometimes people get in a hurry to register a domain name. They quickly settle on a name that makes sense to them but they don’t examine it from all angles. It is sort of like they get tunnel vision and then then end up with something that can be misinterpreted. Here are a few reason why you should spend some time selecting a domain name before you register it:

• http://therapistfinder.com/ – This site is designed to find Therapists in California. However, the domain name suggests something different… Boy, a dash sure would help out followed by a 301 Redirect…
• http://penisland.net/ – This site was so determined to grab that particular domain name that they settled for the .net version. Yikes.
• http://www.whorepresents.com/ – The place to go to find a gift for that special girl that has everything…
• http://www.speedofart.com/ – I guess it is like a shot of Nitrous for swimmers or something…

These are just a few examples illustrating the importance of carefully selecting your domain name. And you should certainly make absolutely sure it is what you want before you actually put up a site.

I remember the first domain name that I registered.  I was so proud of myself for taking the first step and I was well on my way to putting up a web site.  Then I received the “congratulations on registering your new domain name” email from the registrar.  It was then that I realized that I had left out a letter in the domain name.  Instead of crystalCOASTtech, I was the proud owner of crystalCOSTtech.  Taking a little more time to check everything would have been a good idea for me.

Thanks to Steven for posting these and lots more. Cracked me up!

Paid Links, De-Indexing and Google »

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As has been mentioned, Google recently beat down millions of sites because they sold advertising …er… I mean links. Whatever you want to call it, Google doesn’t like it. They only want advertisers to buy links from them (through Adwords) and not spend any advertising dollars with anyone else. So, under the guise of “preserving the unadulterated purity of their search index” they penalized us, along with millions of others site owners, by removing our blog’s PR thereby making us less inviting to potential advertisers.

“I’d like to see them back off the paid links war and instead work out other ways to determine if a link deserves credit, paid or not.”
Danny Sullivan
Search Engine Land

Our Tech Blog was a 5 on its way to a 6 – m’eh, good for us. Personally, I could care less about Google’s PR. So, when our PR was stripped, I barely raised an eyebrow. We made some money from selling advertising on our blog and that was more important to me than PR. And besides, before we placed a link to an advertiser, we personally examined their site to make sure it was related to the theme and content of our site. In fact, we turned down several spammy sites that were obviously just trying to buy a good link from us and we even removed one advertiser who, after we initially approved his ad, changed his link text to say “Check out my PR5 web site” – those wacky spammers. So, yay for us. We were doing our part to fight the spammers! Rest easy, Google. The Index has been defended and remains as pure as freshly fallen snow. Surely Google could see that, right?

But then I started seeing comments about Google de-indexing sites that continued to sell advertising (crap, there I go again… I meant to say “links” instead of advertising, sorry). Posts like that really caught my attention.

In addition, Google said that some sites that are selling links may indeed end up being dropped from its search engine or have penalties attached to prevent them from ranking well.

Are you kidding me? In my opinion, I think that is taking it too far – the “de-indexing” thing (more on why I think that in future posts). Google has argued that selling links (yay, I got it right that time) pollutes its index and that is why the practice is being penalized. But, we didn’t sell links; we sold ads and the ads we sold were only for other web sites directly related to the theme of our blog. These advertisers were interested in putting their ad in front of the eyes of people looking for technology related information.

So why would you penalize us for that? Surely you checked all that and did not just paint everyone with the same brush, right?

Evidently not because I still see lots of sites that display text ads from link brokers that are unrelated to the actual site at all and those sites still have PR. Translation: Google’s system for detecting sites spamming the index is not working. Get a policy in place that actually works before implementing it. And never, ever rely on other webmasters to report to you when they find evidence of a paid link because they could have ulterior motives and might just be trying to cause problems for a competitor.

To sum up, Michael Gray said it best – Hey Google, stop crying about paid links. Their current practice of penalizing and possibly de-indexing sites is worth about as much as a submarine with a screen door.

Improve Google Results »

December 26, 2007

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If you have ever complained because of seeing poor quality web sites listed in Google, be aware that they are hiring actual humans to help improve the SERPs.

For example, you could apply for the currently open position of “Search Quality Evaluator” if you live in Mountain View or want to move there.

“We can’t tell how much this helps Google with its search results. But it is clear that some problems are still better handled by people.”
Saul Hansell
New York Times

Or, you could apply to become a Google Linguist and help analyze the content that Google indexes. Incidentally, the fact that Google is hiring linguists coupled with the fact that they are currently scanning and indexing thousands of college library books (and have been doing so for some time) should really drive home the importance of writing web site content for humans, not robots. That Google is doing this indicates that they are improving the ability of Googlebot to recognize normal human speech and language patterns. Translation: pages that are written for robots will probably soon be dropping in the SERPs. Write for humans.

You could even apply for one of the many temporary positions such as Google Quality Rater.

It is nice to see Google trying to supplement their Search algorithms with some actual human interaction. Too many times, it seems that quality web sites are penalized for some obscure, unclear violation while spammy, made-for-adsense sites flourish.

New Web Site Launched »

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We are pleased to announce the launch of our latest creation: Dive Aventuras is a scuba dive shop located in Puerto Aventuras, Mexico. Completion of their site represents two “firsts” for Crystal Coast Technologies, Inc.:

• It is our first dive shop web site. We are located on the North Carolina coast and there are quite a few local diving businesses, so we are excited that we got to create a site in that business category.
• It is also our first International web site. Since Dive Aventuras is located in Mexico, we are really excited to have them as our first foreign country client.

Dive Aventuras wanted a web site that they could update on their own, so we created a custom CMS to control all their content and allow them to upload pictures and change text whenever they want. With clients from all over the world, they wanted their site to have an updated look to really showcase the awesome service that they offer. Click on the graphic above and check out the site for yourself.

We want to thank Karen for giving us the opportunity to create such an important feature of their business and welcome her and the Dive Aventuras team to the CCT family .

Automatically Write .htaccess Files »

December 20, 2007

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Htaccess files are a must have in the arsenal of any good web designer. They are super important for SEO and vital to the security of your website. But, if you have never heard of .htaccess files, this post is not for you. However, if you use an Apache Server configuration you probably agree that .htaccess files can sometimes be a pain.

I know people that can write them in their sleep with one hand tied behind their back while reciting the alphabet backwards and when they are done, the file works perfectly. Not always the case for me (which is why you should ALWAYS check you .htaccess file before you think you are done).

If you are not comfortable writing them from scratch, here is a great tool that will hold your hand through the entire process. All you do is fill in the details on the form, check a few boxes and viola, your .htaccess file is done.

Click here to try it