Hi Cheri =========================================== More! More! This is fascinating stuff, and I can't wait for the next installment. =========================================== WOW! Did you read that whole thing already? lol I guess you enjoyed it - which is good to know. =========================================== 1) When I used the MarketLeap tool, I found a surprising number of linkbacks for the Yahoo/Fast/AltaVista category. Clicking on the number took me to a list, which to my embarrasment included a number of very silly posts I've made in Larry Anderson's Weird Facts forum. Should we be watching every word we post? I would hate to have to leave a friend's forum or abruptly stop posting. On the other hand, I don't want to be judged by what I post there--it's just a bit of comic relief. What's your take on that? =========================================== My thought is don't worry about every word you post. See, most people would never ever see an entire linkback list like that. If people happen to come across a post here or there, it's not a big deal because they aren't going to see the whole list. And, I think, if people see a post here or there that shows the fun side of you - that's not a negative. =========================================== While we're on the subject, why do you suppose that out of my 800 some-odd posts, only about 100 show up, and come to think about it, why would they show up at all, when my URL isn't in any of them (yet)? =========================================== Was your url in any of them at any time? Such as when your site was launched before? One funny thing I see with public forums that allow "profiles" is that a "linkback" will show up because it was in a profile... and then when the profile gets changed, the linkback is still there. The Yahoo/Fast/AltaVista engines are the ones that tend to "update" slowest, so if you ever had a link in your profile, they don't realize you've changed it. Also - the reason that only a portion of the links show up is due to the way that spiders function. They tend to crawl links, and often miss a lot. Let's take an example. Say the bot visits your site. They hit the main page. From the main page, they jump to the articles link. From the articles link, they see Rick's link and jump to his site. Poof, gone. And, they've only listed two of your many pages. That's actually why Google introduced XML site map feeds, so you can "feed" googlebot a list of all the pages on your site. I cover "how to create one" in one of the upcoming modules. : ) =========================================== 2) As your test group, I'm assuming you'd value having us as unofficial proofreaders, too. How would you like to receive the information? What's the easiest way to help you find what we're talking about? =========================================== Probably the best way is to send an email with "Google This edits" in the subject line. Then, just copy/paste in the part that needs a correction and make note of what page it's on. I say that all bowing in gratitude. Thank you! I do appreciate the extra eyes. =========================================== PS, also had a look at my source code. You write that stuff by hand???!!! Wow, you must type even faster than I read, lol. =========================================== LOL. Html code I type like lightening. Email I'm painfully slow at. Mostly because I don't have to think as much to type code as I do to type real communication. lol : ) Linda

Linda, ============================================ WOW! Did you read that whole thing already? lol I guess you enjoyed it - which is good to know. ============================================ Yep. And did the exercises and explored a bit while doing so. Also read two e-books today that I want to promote on my Money page. I read fast. Type fast, too, but tend to mull it over, edit three or four times before I'm happy with the result. Yes, I truly did enjoy it. Your answer on how the bot works explains something I forgot to ask, why Google would only have the main page out of eleven. Of course, some of the eleven aren't active, like the blog. I can't wait to get into the nitty-gritty about how to improve that situation the right way. It's funny, I started out to create a little ezine, with no real idea of how I might attract readers, and with the notion of stealth-marketing to them if I did (listening to all the wrong people, obviously). Now I can see a way to provide real value to people like myself. You've raised my consciousness of the sleaze factor in the ways that people use to manipulate their prospective customers--things I might have done myself without stopping to examine them, because it appeared to be the standard way to market. I can't believe my luck in finding you! Cheri

"That's actually why Google introduced XML site map feeds, so you can "feed" googlebot a list of all the pages on your site. I cover "how to create one" in one of the upcoming modules. : ) " I'm glad for this because I tried to figure out how to do it once and was lost. I checked how many pages google had out of my 47. Only 10 Ugh! MSN had the most linkbacks with 204. I wanted to comment on what you were saying about not just concentrating on search engines. When I started getting some orders in January I thought it was due to getting my shopping cart going. That may have been some of it but I checked out my stats one day and got a surprise. In December I had contacted a lady that is listed #2 in Google for gourds. She has a list of gourd suppliers on her site and they are listed by state. PA wouldn't be very close to the top but I found so many people had come to my site from hers so I went to see what was going on. Check out what she did. http://www.gourdsbyjeanie.com/gourd_suppliers.htm Right away I emailed and thanked her for that. Martha

Martha, That's awesome! Just goes to show that the power of networking is at least as important as the technical stuff, once you reach a level of competency that means you have something to network about. I'm in awe of your knowledge of how to find these things out from the technical side. I thought I was relatively literate, but I don't know how to do that. I'm sure Linda will teach me how in this course, though. Cheri

Martha, That's awesome! Just goes to show that the power of networking is at least as important as the technical stuff, once you reach a level of competency that means you have something to network about. I'm in awe of your knowledge of how to find these things out from the technical side. I thought I was relatively literate, but I don't know how to do that. I'm sure Linda will teach me how in this course, though. Cheri