Last week I talked about how email addresses (IP addresses actually) get blacklisted. Rosemary, from St Paul, wrote in to tell me that addresses can also be blacklisted when there is a poorly constructed email-based form on their web site. It’s a good reminder to check your web forms too. You can learn more here (http://rickconner.net/spamweb/spam_formmail.html) if you are interested.
Looking for a quick description of the web form problem led me to find Popular Spammer Tricks (http://rickconner.net/spamweb/tricks.html). I think this site does a great job of describing how spammers get their job done (how they spam) and how you can avoid receiving spam and/or avoid making the spammer’s job easy.
On a completely unrelated note – I have to put in a big plug for the new downtown Minneapolis public library (http://www.mpls.lib.mn.us/newcentrallib.asp). For those from outside MN – the library has been completely rebuilt and it’s amazing. You can get some great shots of it on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=minneapolis+library). The best picture, however, can be found on the Minneapolis Star Tribune (http://www.startribune.com/10001/gallery/445640.html) just click on #3. Some of you may recognize these smart looking girls are my youngest two! (I have to add that this actually made the paper version of the news too!)
I spoke with someone today whose email is not reaching his intended recipients. He works for a small company. They handle their email on their own server. They noticed a while ago that their messages were bouncing back to them – rejected. They had been blacklisted.
So what does that mean?
There are organizations on the Internet who track spammers and potential spammers on blacklists. Internet service providers subscribe to these lists and refuse to carry messages from people on the list (tracked by the IP address used by their mail server). This is one way ISPs try to thwart spam and viruses.
One problem is that potential spammers are unaware of their status – because they aren’t really spammers; they are often small organizations who handle their own email and have left open a back door to their server. A spammer can sneak through this backdoor and send email out through the server without the company knowing. (This might happen to your ISP too – though they should know better.) Once this error has been detected they may be added to the blacklist.
What can you do?
If you suspect that you have been blacklisted or want more information – you can check out MAPS at http://www.mail-abuse.com/enduserinfo.html. Their web site walks you through the process of checking to see if you have been blacklisted, gives advice to remedy the situation, and instructs you on how to request that your IP address be removed from the blacklist once you have repaired your server.
Thankfully I have not had to deal with being blacklisted. I have heard that the folks to maintain these lists are very helpful if you are in earnest about clearing your good name. I do keep the blacklist in mind when I’m selecting an email provider – some cheap ones taint their name by selling accounts to spammers and that’s how they get on the list. I might research a provider by doing a search for their name + blacklist. If an ISP has made this mistake you can bet someone has mentioned it in a newsgroup.
Despite what Google would like us to think, there really isn’t a definitive engine. None of the search engines catalogs all of the web sites. So it makes sense to know about a few of them and to know how they work together.
Many of the search engines share databases, which is part of the reason results may look similar in different search engines. Bruce Clay has a wonderful chart that diagrams the relationships of the major search engines (http://www.bruceclay.com/searchenginerelationshipchart.htm). The chart is especially helpful if you have a web site that you want the search engines to find. Tap into the big feeder search engines and you’ll reach the others.
The top search engines include:
Google – http://www.google.com
Yahoo – http://www.yahoo.com
MSN – http://search.msn.com
Ask – http://www.ask.com
See the popularity of various major search engines at SearchEngineWatch (http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/2156451).
Specialty search engines include:
Yahooligans http://www.yahooligans.com – still my favorite for kids
NexTag http://www.nextag.com – for comparison shopping
Business.com http://www.business.com - for business sites
Melissa Data http://www.melissadata.com/Lookups - a couple of good info databases
Beyond Google http://www.llrx.com/features/supersearch.pdf - a presentation that includes lots of scientific and academic search tools
I hope that helps!
If you’re located in the Twin Cities, you are welcome to join us (ASIST & others) tomorrow evening for a great talk on information policy. You can get more info online (http://www.asis.org/Chapters/mnasis/index.html) or just let me know if you want more details.
Search engines like web sites that are popular. I mentioned that last week but thought I’d talk more about it this week.
(For readers who don’t have web sites – here’s a fun site full of Mother’s Day ideas http://www.amazingmoms.com/htm/holiday_mothersday.htm.)
Search engines define popularity by the number of web sites that link to a specific page. To determine your web site’s link popularity you can use the following tool: http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop
It will tell you how many links Google thinks you have, how many Hotbot thinks you have, and the same with MSN and Yahoo.
If you run the report, you’ll notice that the numbers differ. Generally MSN will give you credit for many more links than the other search engines and Google will give you credit for the fewest links. That is because Google will only give you credit for “quality” links. They don’t define quality – but generally a quality link is a link from a web site where the content is related to your content and where the site is also popular. Google does not like “link farms” that simply list links to hundreds of sites without a rhyme or reason. (We’re all seen these.)
So, how do you get links?
First you just ask. Ask your real world partners if they have a web site and if they will link to you. Find sites that you think are quality sites and ask them to link to you – but give them a good reason. “Hello, I think your visitors might like my monthly specials page, please link to me…” Don’t be afraid to exchange links with sites that you think your visitors would like.
Second, provide content that is link-worthy. Be sure to have information on your web site that other sites might find link-worthy. In fact there are some sites that might be happy to publish an article by you on their site and provide a link to you – which can be a good way to spread your message.
Third, send out a web-based press release via PRWeb (http://www.prweb.com). I did this with a recent client and we went from 4 links to 145 in 10 days. Now these weren’t all quality links and many links will only be available for a short time – but the links had an impact.
I get that question a lot. Luckily I have some answers – some of which I’ve talked about in previous Bytes – but I think it’s a question that comes up often so I thought I’d talk about it again over the next few weeks.
(For those who don’t have a web site – here’s a cool site to give you market prices of homes by neighborhood: http://www.zillow.com. Thanks for Christy in St Paul for that tool. I just didn’t want to leave my non-web owning friends in the cold today.)
First I think it helps to think about how search engines look at web sites. The backend of the search engine is a database. The different fields track information on your web site – such as tracking all of the words used on your site and frequency of use. That info helps a search engine determine the topic of your site.
So if you mention on your web site 3 times that you “sell refrigerators in Minneapolis” and someone searches for “refrigerators for sale in Minneapolis” the search engine can show them your page – before someone who only mentions it twice and after someone who mentions “refrigerators for sale in Minneapolis” 3 times. Now it’s not really that simple – but it nearly is.
Some of the fields (or characteristics) that really matter to search engines include:
Words: how often do you use the keywords someone is searching on your page
One note – search engines cannot “read” images so don’t count any words you have in images. You will get partial credit for “alt” tags, which provide text alternatives to images – but only partial.
There are other nuances that I’ll get into in future weeks.
Title tags: the blue bar above the web browser that appears when someone is on your web page, search engines give you extra points for any words found here.
Freshness of content: when was the info on the page last updated and how often is it updated. You can train search engines to visit you more often by updating info more often.
Popularity: this is often determined by the number of web sites that link to you. Some links are worth more than others (a link from NY Times is better than a link from your kid’s blog).
There are other things that matter too – but I think these are the biggies. It helps to see exactly what a search engines “sees”. Here are some tools that will show you that:
1 Hit – http://www.1-hit.com/all-in-one/tool.search-engine-viewer.htm
Spider Simulators – http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/search-engine-simulator.shtml
SEO Toolkit – http://www.webconfs.com/search-engine-spider-simulator.php
Sim Spider – http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/sim_spider.cgi I love this tool but it is not always available. If you get a page not found you can try again – but it’s really touch and go. I include it because it’s so darned good when it’s there.
