Lost in Translation

People build a lot of mystique into search engine rankings. They like to pretend that there is a big secret to how this works. There is only one secret: search engines don’t tell us all criteria they use to rank websites. They don’t reveal all of the details involved because they don’t want people gaming the system. (And people already try using what they do tell us.) Anyone claiming to know these secrets is either a liar or has committed a felony called industrial espionage. So you’ll want to avoid those people.

However, when search engines do share information, they tell us a great deal. For that part, there is no big secret. While there are a great many technical details that can go into making a site rank better in search engines, there are a few basics you should know about as a site owner. I’ve got 3 things you should know.

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In the past 10 years, I’ve made websites for a wide variety of organizations. I’ve made them for businesses, nonprofits, and individuals. One thing most have in common is a misunderstanding what is acceptable in terms of logo, and other image use, on their site.

For example, many sites have logos that belong to other organizations on their sites. The logos may be from manufacturers whose products they sell, or from professional organizations of which they are a member. The logos may be from social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

More often than not, these logos are used without explicit permission from those the logos represent. The website owner borrowing the logos isn’t doing so maliciously. In fact, most of them are convinced they are just giving the other websites some “free advertising”.

Let me once again be the bearer of bad news: that just ain’t so. What that is, is theft. (more…)

All web designers run across this at some point: a client has created something to sell and they want to make sure it won’t get stolen when they put it online.

Visual art, audio, video, poems, how-to’s, blogs, and other such materials are what we call IP or intellectual property. There is a lot of exaggeration and paranoia surrounding these items and the potential for theft/piracy.

Yes, there are means to prevent theft but none of it is 100% foolproof.

Here are a few facts about managing IP online

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One of the purposes of this blog is to clear up technology myths. I ran across an interesting article that just screamed to be written about in this blog.

This piece of “news” was released a few days ago: EXCLUSIVE: W.H. collects Web users’ data without notice.

In a nutshell, the article says “The White House is collecting and storing comments and videos placed on its social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube without notifying or asking the consent of the site users, a failure that appears to run counter to President Obama’s promise of a transparent government and his pledge to protect privacy on the Internet.”

The article gives reactions from various groups who feel there is something sinister going on.

Bear with me. This post isn’t about politics. It’s actually about technology and business practices. And why this is actually not news.

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A lot of individuals are taken in by the hype surrounding email marketing. The websites look great, the results sound promising. I’ll say it before and I’ll say it again: “if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is”. The Internet is just like your offline life. Never believe the two are different. Just because it’s in writing, doesn’t mean it’s true.

So why would I say buying an email list is bad when so many say it’s so good?

For starters…those saying its so good are frequently after your wallet. Ask yourself: who’s saying its so great? Are they in the business of selling those lists? Or in a business that is in any way related to that? Or maybe they’re a novice touting themselves as experts, just parroting what they’ve read (and believe me, there are a lot of those).

Ok, that doesn’t really answer the question. So why is it BAD? Two good reasons. (more…)