Hey, you’re new. We like you already! You obviously have great taste! If you like what you read here you’ll probably want to subscribe to our RSS feed (or the audio RSS feed). Stick around and be sure to speak up and post a comment or two! Stanford’s Guidelines to Web Credibility:
Avoid errors […]

I spend a substantial amount of time listening to Sprout. That’s PBS’s cable network for young kids. My son (1 1/2 years) is addicted to that channel, which he calls “LaLa”. We’re not sure if it’s because that’s because of “LaLa” from Teletubbies, or the “LaLa” song that Elmo sings… but when he wants to […]

Stanford’s Guidelines to Web Credibility:
Use restraint with any promotional content (e.g., ads, offers).
If possible, avoid having ads on your site. If you must have ads, clearly distinguish the sponsored content from your own. Avoid pop-up ads, unless you don’t mind annoying users and losing credibility. As for writing style, try to be clear, […]

Bag the Elephant!
How to Win & Keep BIG Customers
by Steve Kaplan
208 Pages, $11.97
Published July, 2005
At just over 200 pages, Bag the Elephant took me a considerable amount of time to actually finish. While the principles are presented quite simply, it’s jam packed with tips and strategies that take some time to digest.
The elephant in […]

Stanford’s Guidelines to Web Credibility:
Update your site’s content often (at least show it’s been reviewed recently).
People assign more credibility to sites that show they have been recently updated or reviewed.
Have you ever been to a website and you could just tell the content was old and stale? Maybe it wasn’t obvious right away, […]

Every serious website stakeholder is always considering new ways to some how drive traffic to their site. There’s something to consider that people do not always think of right away, it’s called plug-in content. Plug-in content involves putting things on your website that are useful, entertaining, or intriguing to users in some way, […]

Google labs has just added a new “Page Creator” tool. Looks like you need a Gmail account to test it out.
Here is what Page Creator offers:
Google Page Creator is a free online tool that makes it easy for anyone to create and publish useful, attractive web pages in just minutes.

No technical knowledge required.
[…]

While publishers continue to battle Google over Google Library, it appears that an online porn outlet has won what could amount to a sizeable victory that might have further reaching implications.
The suite was filed against Google over their displaying of thumbnail images pulled from the Perfect 10 porn site. Presumably, the pictures displayed were behind […]

Stanford’s Guidelines to Web Credibility:
Make your site easy to use — and useful.
We’re squeezing two guidelines into one here. Our research shows that sites win credibility points by being both easy to use and useful. Some site operators forget about users when they cater to their own company’s ego or try to show […]

Netflix, the online DVD rental company, has been caught “throttling” accounts of frequent renters. Throttling is the practice of giving preferential treatment to low-volume renters over high-volume customers.
This is a classic insurance company style move, in that the less Netflix (or insurance companies) have to do what they are paid to do, the more profit […]

Search Engine News has posted an excellent story about a plan by Internet Service Providers to create a two-tiered Internet access plan. While the ISP customer already pays for access to get online, this scheme is trying to get businesses to pay again for in order to be allowed to be reached by the ISP […]

If the war of Internet dominance is about traffic, it appears that Google has been eclipses by MySpace.
Just over two years old, MySpace now has 2-1/2 times the traffic of Google Inc, and it quickly eclipsed Friendster as the top social-networking site where users build larger and larger circles of friends.

Webside story has just published a study on search engine conversion rates, for business to consumer e-commerce websites. Looking at both organic and paid results, the study found that AOL produced traffic that was more likely to convert once the visitor hit your site. Here is the breakdown:
AOL 6.17%
MSN 6.03%
Yahoo! 4.07%
Google 3.83%

As each day goes by, it seems according to the authorities, reciprocal linking’s future is dismal at best. So assuming efforts to continue reciprocal linking will be futile, then we have two options, one way links and 3 way links. “HA HA” you say, “I can just pay for one way links!”… wrongo […]

Stanford’s Guidelines to Web Credibility:
Design your site so it looks professional (or is appropriate for your purpose).
We find that people quickly evaluate a site by visual design alone. When designing your site, pay attention to layout, typography, images, consistency issues, and more. Of course, not all sites gain credibility by looking like IBM.com. […]

I don’t have a problem with people emailing me requesting link exchanges so long as they are not automated messages blasted to me and hundreds of others who never visited my site. Usually those can be picked out within half a second of looking at the email and deleted just as quick. But this one […]

Netratings has released search engine marketshare for Dec. 2005.
Google: 48.8%
Yahoo!: 21.4%
MSN: 10.9%
Compared to Nov. ‘05, here is the change for each:
Google: +2.1%
Yahoo: -2%
MSN: -0.5%
No Statistcs were provided for AOL or ASK.
Compared to a year ago, the growth in these three engines was:
Google: 75%
Yahoo: 53%
MSN: 20%
But when looking at the numbers from a marketshare perspective, […]

Stanford’s Guidelines to Web Credibility:
Make it easy to contact you.
A simple way to boost your site’s credibility is by making your contact information clear: phone number, physical address, and email address.
This is a pet peeve of mine, going to a website and not finding good contact information. Web forms are great, but there […]