Poor Richard 36
#036/22-Oct-99
POOR RICHARD'S WEB SITE NEWS
Geek-Free, Commonsense Advice on Building a Low-Cost Web Site
Editor: Peter Kent
Top Floor Publishing
http://PoorRichard.com/
Over 37,000 Subscribers in More Than 100 Countries!
IN THIS ISSUE
- Beginner's Column: RealNames -- Another Way to Beat the Search Engines?
- Useful Web Design Utilities
- Purchase Circles -- What They are and What's Next
- More Domain-Name Madness
- Domain Names -- $6/Year
- Poor Richard's Web Site and Other Top Floor Books
- Book Reviewers Wanted
- Reading Back Issues
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Beginner's Column: RealNames -- Another Way to Beat the Search Engines?
There's a new way to get to the top of the search-engine listings. I'm not really happy with the way this situation has turned out, but there's not a lot I can do about ... it's become a reality, so you may as well understand how to make it work for you. Let me explain.
First, try this. Go to Altavista -- http://www.altavista.com/ -- and type the words "greek vacations" the search box, then click on the Search button. When the search engine has done its work you'll see a link at the top of the list that says "greek vacations - Click here for a list of Internet Keywords related to greek vacations." Click on the link, and you'll see the links to several sites related to greece.
Now, try this. Type "Toyota Celica" into the search box and press Enter -- this time you'll see a link right at the top of the list that says "Toyota Celica. Click on this Internet Keyword to go directly to the Toyota Celica Web site." There are little letters, RN, immediately after Toyota Celica.
Now, open Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 and type the words Toyota Celica into the Location bar. Press Enter, and a frame opens in the left side of the browser window. Right at the top of the frame you'll see the same Toyota Celica link, with the same little RN.
RN stands for RealNames, and a number of companies have signed up to work with this system. In addition to AltaVista and Microsoft, companies and Web sites such as GO, MSN, Mindspring, and even Network Solutions are working with RealNames.
RealNames allows you to buy keywords, so that when someone types the keywords into some kind of search system, your site will pop up first in the list.
I don't like this system, I'll say that right now. It's added another layer of complexity to the Internet. In the early days it took foresight to pick a good domain name, then it required a little work to make sure your site is properly listed in the search engines... now you have to pay, too, to properly listed. The idea of free search-engine listings appeal to me, a sort of meritocracy -- if you do your work, you can get listed. Everyone has the same chance. Except now you can pay to go to the top of the list. (And I really don't like the idea that Network Solutions -- the company that administers the domain name system -- has signed up to work with RealNames, either.)
RealNames says that this system is intended to simplify the Internet, because it allows keywords to be used to reach Web sites. But we already had a system in which keywords could be used to reach Web sites -- the .com domains. Not so long ago typing a single word into a browser would make that browser automatically search for the the .com domain of the same name. So why do we need another keyword system? Ah, well, this allows more sites to use the same keyword, and the mixing of keywords. You can now search for "greek vacations," for instance.
It also allows sites to share keywords... perhaps. But it allows companies to buy up keywords so nobody else can use them -- try registering your site under the MP3 keyword, for instance ... you won't be able to, because MP3.com has bought the rights to it.
I don't much like this system, overall, but it's here, and here to stay (at least for the foreseeable future). So you might as well figure out if it can work for you!
If you want to find out if keywords that would be useful to you are available, visit the RealNames site: http://www.realnames.com/
There's also a very interesting article on how to work with RealNames here: http://www.associateprograms.com/search/search-engine-rankings.shtml
Useful Web Design Utilities
A reader sent me information about a useful collection of utilities -- The Web Writer's Toolbox. It's shareware -- you'll have to pay $15 to get some of the utilities to work -- with a little over a dozen tools. There are several color tools, for instance. Pick a palette -- a 24-bit palette or a browser safe palette for instance -- then click on a color to see the hex code you'd use to create the color in a browser. There's an icon tool that allows you to extract icons from program files, then create buttons from the icons; a file converter, to convert from bmp to jpg; and a screen-shot program, to take pictures of selected areas of your screen. There's even a handy little tool for creating special characters in Web pages -- click on the character you want, to see the code you'll need.
The program's user interface needs a little work, but there are some handy little tools in this kit. You can find it here: http://web.one.net.au/~webtoolbox/toolbox.htm
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****sponsor****************************************************Purchase Circles -- What They are and What's Next
Did you hear the recent fuss about "Purchase Circles"? Amazon.com has been providing information about what particular groups of people are buying. You can see what, for instance, Microsoft employees purchased recently, or U.S. Marines, people in Canada or Egypt, or students and faculty at the Abilene Christian University. There was a little fuss about this when the system was first introduced, perhaps not surprisingly. If you'd like to read a little about the implications, and what may be next, take a look at Chris Locke's article on the subject at Personalization.com, "Beyond Purchase Circles."
Do I find it interesting that "Business @ the Speed of Thought" is the number-one best seller at Microsoft ˜ while the number 12 slot is held down by "The Microsoft File: The Secret Case Against Bill Gates"? Do I find it interesting that the top 20 Microsoft purchases include no books on Linux ˜ or that the top ten buys coming from Microsoft Network (MSN.COM) include no technical books whatsoever? Or that the numero uno order from Ogilvy & Mather is "Truth, Lies and Advertising"? Or that there's no listing at all for IBM (did they bail out? if so, what do they not want me to know?).
See http://www.personalization.com/soapbox/
Personalization.com is a new site that is a "clearinghouse of objective information about personalization." It will "explore what 'personalization' means for Internet commerce...
... The term is freighted with many meanings ˜ ranging from the form letter hysterically announcing "You may already be a winner!" to web pages that display the local weather in return for a simple zip code to far more sophisticated backend systems that track customer preferences and make complex predictions."
Well worth investigating. I've written about my friend Chris Locke before -- he's a great writer, both insightful and entertaining, which is a rare combination.
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More Domain-Name Madness
I've written before about why you should write the domain-name portion of your URL in mixed case, so I won't go into detail right now. But I just had to mention a few examples I've run into recently.
A reader sent me one that you might find amusing, www.lumbermansexchange.com. For most of us, the term "sexchange" just jumps out of the URL. It might have been clearer and more easily understood had the owners written it thus: www.LumbermansExchange.com.
On the other hand, the ambiguity of this URL gained them national attention when it was mentioned in a national computer magazine!
Here's one that's just plain unclear: www.toolcribofthenorth.com. Surely writing it as www.ToolCribOfTheNorth.com would have made it much easier to understand.
Finally, here's one that's virtually incomprehensible in lowercase: www.rusickofit.com. What they really mean is www.RUSickOfIt.com (though admittedly that's not terribly clear, either .. perhaps www.R_U_SickOfIt.com would have been clearer).
There's no reason you can't have mixed case in the domain-name portion your URL ... but don't fool around with the directory portion of the URL (everything to the right of the .com/ part).
Domain Names -- $6/Year
You can expect domain names to come down in price dramatically. The price paid to Network Solutions by a registrar when it registers a domain name has now been fixed at $6 a year. At that price we should soon see registration fees come down, and domains given away in some cases -- host a Web site with a hosting company, for instance, and there's a good chance your domain won't cost anything.
For an article related to the new domain-registration system, see: http://dailynews.netscape.com/news/Business/09_28_1999.robtz1812-story-bcbusinesstechnetworksolutions.html
Poor Richard's Web Site and Other Top Floor Books
Top Floor Publishing now has five books in print:
Poor Richard's E-mail Publishing
http://PoorRichard.com/email/
Poor Richard's Web Site
http://PoorRichard.com/
Poor Richard's Internet Marketing and Promotions
http://PoorRichard.com/promo/
The CDnow Story: Rags to Riches on the Internet
http://TopFloor.com/cdnow/
MP3 and the Digital Music Revolution: Turn Your PC into a CD-Quality Jukebox
http://TopFloor.com/mp3/
Order direct from the publisher, and you'll get a 100%, 1-Year Guarantee. If you feel the book wasn't worth the money, send it back for a refund!
And remember, these books are discounted at the Web site, and you pay just one shipping cost regardless of how many books you buy!
Book Reviewers Wanted
Do you review books for newspapers, magazines, newsletters (electronic or paper), Web sites, or other media spots? If so, perhaps you'd like to review Top Floor Publishing's latest book, "Poor Richard's E-mail Publishing." Or perhaps you'd like to review one of the other books I mentioned above?
Contact my Marketing Director, Missy Derkacz, at reviews@TopFloor.com. Include your full mailing address, the name of newspaper/magazine/whatever in which the review will appear and the probable date of publication, and the editor's contact information.
Reading Back Issues
If you need to refer to back issues of this newsletter -- and search the archives -- you can find them at the following location: http://PoorRichard.com/newsltr/
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