JimWorld Gazette Issue #105 11/19/2000

JimWorld Gazette - Issue #105 - November 19, 2000

CONTENTS

• From Our Sponsor - LookSmart Special Offer
  
• Let Your Friends Help You Build Traffic
  
• From Our Sponsor - WindowsTracker.com
  
• Search Engine Forums Update
  
• We Know What You Did Last Christmas
  
• Gazetteworld Arrives
  
• The "Missing Link" Of The Internet
  
• New Top Level Domains
  
• Selling Your Site - From Another Angle
  
• Snippets

Link to this issue of the Gazette as http://gazetteworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g105

FROM OUR SPONSOR

SPECIAL LOOKSMART OFFER TO GAZETTE READERS - SAVE $30

Want to maximize your holiday traffic?

Submit your site to the LookSmart Network and get your site listed in the search results of MSN, AltaVista, Excite, LookSmart and over 370 ISPs.

The Network reaches 4 out of 5 US Web users.

That's 64 million people!

Express Submit guarantees that your submission is reviewed within 48 hours.

Act quickly to take advantage of the holiday sales season - only 38 shopping days left!

Submit by Nov. 30 and save $30 on Express Submit!

< http://jimworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g105ls >

LET YOUR FRIENDS HELP YOU BUILD TRAFFIC

Are you keeping your site's visitors pretty happy with your content and services?

Wouldn't it be nice if they would tell all of their friends that they should rush over to your site?

The answer to both is Yes. Yes it would be great to have some personal help in building traffic and sales.

I receive a lot of traffic at JimTools from the small script I installed to allow visitors to tell several of their friends just how much they are missing by not using JimTools.

Every day people send personal endorsements of JimTools to friends. These add up day after day to a significant increase in frequent visitors. Everyone knows that the best form of advertising is word of mouth. Endorsements by friends are a real attention-getter on the Net, as it is in every other aspect of life.

I'm going to expand this feature throughout the rest of JimWorld, but I plan to use the free service offered by Recommend-It to process these user endorsements. There are several reasons to go this route instead of the local solution I have been using.

1. Each person that sends an endorsement of JimWorld is entered into a contest to win prizes. Research shows that rewards are a big help in getting these endorsements sent out by visitors.
   
   
2. There are multiple ways in which I can earn income from the people that send endorsements for my sites. I can share in the advertising and earn income whenever my visitors sign up for any of Recommend-It's opt-in lists.
   
   
3. Because of the size of JimWorld I can have a co branded version of the service and offer it to the webmasters that make up my community. Again, that generates income, which any web site needs in order to survive.

Like you, I have to operate JimWorld in a way that allows it to exist and grow. The fertilizer for that growth is money. When I can combine something that fills one of my needs for promotion tools and creates that fertilizer for growth, I win on several levels. I'll keep you posted on the results of implementing Recommend-It's service. I'll be tracking both traffic results and income results. It should be interesting.

If you want to sign up for Recommend-It now go to: http://jimworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g105ri

FROM OUR SPONSOR

GET THE LATEST SOFTWARE UPDATES FROM WINDOWSTRACKER.COM

Some things never change. But your PC software does.

Now, get the latest updates for Windows applications, shareware and freeware online via WindowsTracker.com.

It's your #1 online resource for software information and instant downloads.

Search the extensive WindowsTracker database and get email updates of the latest releases!

Visit < http://jimworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g104wt >

-- So many of you rushed to WindowsTracker.com as a result of their ad in the last Gazette, they decided to run another one. Their ad tied the record for single issue response since we started tracking results. If you haven't been over there yet, give it a try. Nick and I use their PalmTracker that is available on the menu bar at the very top of the screen.

SEARCH ENGINE FORUMS UPDATE

The past week has been so busy in the Search Engine Forums that it has broken all previous traffic records.

The return of the ODP Forum, the opening of the new "I Need Some Paid Help!" Forum, Inktomi's announcement of their paid listing and spidering service and GoTo's announcement of two major new search engine partnerships have kept the Forums going 24 hours a day.

http://searchengineforums.com/

----------

ODP Forum Reopens

As a result of popular request we have re-opened the Open Directory Project (ODP) Forum.

The ODP meta-editor Flame and myself moderate the Forum. In addition to Flame, there are several other meta-editors hanging out there and people are already reporting success in getting their sites listed.

The Forum Rules message gives you a roadmap on how to submit your site and then deal, step-by-step, with any problems you have in either getting listed or making necessary changes to your listing.

We've imposed some rigid guidelines for this Forum to avoid any bickering and keeping the focus on getting traffic from ODP and it's many database users.

----------

I Need Some Paid Help!

So many people have been looking for ways to get some paid help optimizing their sites to perform well in the search engines that we opened a new Forum where any site owner can post a request to hear from our many Search Engine Optimizers that hang out at the Search Engine Forums.

The new Forum took off quickly and people are already letting us know that they have gotten the help they needed.

Need some help getting traffic from the engines? This is the Forum for you.

----------

Inktomi Forum Jumping

Since Inktomi recently announced their new paid spidering service, the Inktomi Forum has been on fire!

Inktomi now offers a paid service that guarantees your page to be spidered every 48 hours, which allows you to fine tune the page for better performance, or to keep a frequently updated page current in their index.

The prices are reasonable at $20 per year for the first page and less for additional pages. However, if you list many pages, this can get a bit pricey, so you should drop in on the Inktomi Forum and find out how everyone else is managing this new service to his or her best advantage.

Inktomi powers a massive amount of traffic through their partner sites and occupies an essential component in your traffic-building plan.

Expect to see a future announcement from Inktomi that they will begin charging for all submissions.

Stay tuned.

----------

GoTo.com Forum Jumping Too!

GoTo.com has announced the signing of new partnership agreements with Lycos and AltaVista. By supplying paid listing to these search engines, GoTo brings millions of new hits each month to their pay-for-placement customers who bid on keywords in the GoTo system.

It's become more important each day to actively manage your keyword bidding account at GoTo. That is a active conversation if the Search Engine Forums.

These new channels of distribution are being implemented now and should be completed fully by the beginning of December.

>> Lycos
In this agreement, GoTo will provide Paid Search Results to Lycos Network Sites, which includes both Lycos.com and HotBot.com. Users who conduct searches on Lycos.com, HotBot.com and the directory pages of Lycos Network sites will be shown search results that include GoTo's top 3 listings in a section called "Featured Listings." In addition, at least 2 additional GoTo listings will appear among the first 10 results in the "Web Sites" section on Lycos.com, and GoTo's 4th listing will appear in the number 10 position in HotBot's "Web Results" section.

>> AltaVista
The top 5 GoTo results will appear in a section labeled "Sponsored Listings" on selected AltaVista search results pages. Users can access additional GoTo results by clicking on the "More" link at the end of these results. The Preview is expected to bring several million searches a day.

Effective November 20th, GoTo's top 3 listings will also appear in a section labeled "Sponsored Listings" for searches conducted on the AltaVista site. By selecting the "More" link at the end of Sponsored Listings, users will be presented with a full page of GoTo results. This launch will expose your listings to a significant portion of AltaVista's 50 million searches a day.

----------

Yahoo! Expands Fee Based Submissions

"We have now expanded the Business Express program to cover all submissions to our main commercial categories. By charging a fee, we are able to dedicate sustained resources to an expansion of the commercial directory. Moreover, any site submitted to these areas will be reviewed and either added or denied within seven business days. If your site is denied, you will be told why and will have a chance to appeal the decision."

You will now find that most commercial oriented sites must be submitted through their us$199 process. For non-commercial sites they still offer the free submission process.

Here's their new FAQ about this submission policy:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/faq.html

Keep in mind that paying the fee does not guarantee that your site will be accepted. It's more important than ever that you visit the Yahoo! Forum at http://searchengineforums.com before you submit. If you don't, it's a pretty sure bet that you will visit before you pay to submit again.

----------

The e-world is rapidly changing. Fees to be listed in search engines and directories is here to stay, but there are still many places where you can be listed for free and you'll find many of them being discussed in the Search Engine Forums and at Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Watch at:
http://searchenginewatch.com/

Danny's article on the changes to Yahoo's submission process:
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/00/11-yahoo-paid.html

If you are not up to speed on all of these (and many other) happenings in the world of search engines, you haven't been hanging out in the right place.

The right place is the Search Engine Forums.

WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST CHRISTMAS

The early indicators are coming in for this year's holiday shopping season.

Many e-commerce sites are reporting a rise in the percentage of abandoned shopping carts. Think of it as shopping carts being left in the aisles of your local toy store, full of toys but left to sit while the shoppers gets in a car and drives away. It was great having them in your store but a real bummer to see your checkout employees fixing their nails and looking bored.

So what might be driving this trend to fill up e-carts and not finish the order?

Maybe the store owners did a great job last year of getting all of their orders shipped in time to be sitting under the tree on Christmas morning. Maybe they did better than anyone in their industry.

But they are the only ones to know that.

If you did great last year in meeting your customer's needs, tell someone. Heck, tell everyone. Paste it in big gaudy letters across the top of every page of your site. You either blow your own horn or get painted with the same brush the media used to paint Toys-R-Us last year.

"Gee, Susie. Santa was really sorry but his Elves didn't finish your present but he left you this really pretty piece of paper. He'll send your gift in a few weeks."

No parent wants to have little Susie open a gift certificate from the e-toy store just because the e-store doesn't know yet how to run a business. They want Susie to open a real toy. The parents either got burned last year or they watched any of the thousands of hours of television media firestorm and want to be comfortable knowing that the gifts will be there for Santa to place under the tree. Santa seldom delivers gift certificates. At least mine never did.

Don't be shy about blowing your horn. SCREAM to your visitors that you are the absolute guaranteed place to get gifts on time.

Delivery will be more important this year than having the lowest price.

That's a nice trend!

GAZETTEWORLD ARRIVES

http://gazetteworld.com/

I admit it. I've been way too lazy about getting the past issues of the Gazette onto the web site. The requests for back issues from new subscribers have kept this project at the forefront of my awareness. It was time to bite the bullet and get the job done.

I've taken corrective action on this little lapse and the result is GazetteWorld, a whole new home for the Gazette's 3 1/2 years of content.

I started the project with a design that made finding your way around JimWorld and the Gazette archives a bit easier. JimWorld's content and resources have grown so much over the past year that the sites navigation has become cumbersome and is my top priority this year.

I used the WebTeacher data base system to manage the database of back issues and as always, it was the easiest answer I could have hoped for.

When the preliminary design was ready, I requested a site review from our members at the Get High Traffic Forums <http://gethighforums.com > and worked through several rounds of improvement. Their help makes beta testing of a sight both fast and painless.


Next I started loading up the database and have finished all of 1998 through 2000 and expect to have the balance done this month.

Drop in and take a look around. Read some back issues and pick up a few good ideas for your sites.

WebTeacher WebData database system
< http://www.webteacher.com/webdata >

THE "MISSING LINK" OF THE INTERNET

Networking is a powerful tool.

Just to be clear, we are NOT talking about running miles of cable from one computer to the next and we are NOT talking about recruiting people for a business opportunity. What we are talking about is recognizing, developing and profiting from your network of contacts, no matter what business you are in.

We all know more people than we think we do. Surveys have shown that, by the time we graduate college, most of us know about 250 other people. The Internet has changed all of that.

That number goes way up when you think of people you know via the Internet. Let's look at five ways to develop your network of contacts, online and offline, to help skyrocket your business, no matter what that business is. Make a list of the people you know and let's get ready to go!


STEP 1:

The first step is to let your group of contacts know what you are doing. Honesty is the key here. HELP them see the next level of relationship where you can be of help to each other in a business setting. If they are going to open their contacts to you, and you to them, you must both be comfortable.

And don't push it. If they hesitate, back off.


STEP 2:

Ask them how you can help them. Many times in life and business we get by giving. HONESTLY offering your help to them without asking anything in return will set the stage for a mutually beneficial relationship. Honesty is the key. If you have less than noble motives, stay away.


STEP 3:

Be involved on the Net. The most efficient way to make new contacts is over the Internet. There are thousands of chats, newsgroups and forums out there. Almost certainly there are some on YOUR topic. Get in the swim and meet new people.


STEP 4:

Develop credibility. Here we go giving before we get again. While in the chats and on the forums answer EVERY question that you can. Don't answer if you don't know. But if you DO know, make your voice heard often. Be sure and let them know how to reach you and, over time, they will.


STEP 5:

Be in for the long haul. If you are not building relationships for the long haul, people will sense that and back away. Let people know that even though many things may change over the years, you won't.


If you begin with these five basics you will start to develop your own network of contacts that, over time, will mean you may never have to find prospects again. The math is straightforward. Each contact you develop who shares even one person with you is opening you up to not 1, but 250 other potential prospects.

Remember to be honest and up front about your intentions and YOUR network of contacts will grow up to produce a bumper crop.

----------

Author Maryan Bridge has used the principles here to make her business a success. You can too. To contact Maryan visit her website today at http://www.itseasy.bigsmart.com and see how professional networking has worked for her.

NEW TOP LEVEL DOMAINS

ICANN, the organization that controls the domain name system (and much more) of the Internet has just completed their Board meeting and they've approved seven new long-awaited top-level domains (TLDs) that should be operational by spring.

In addition to .com, .net, and .org. there are seven new dots:

-- .biz - for businesses
-- .info - for information
-- .name - for personal sites
-- .pro - for professionals
-- .aero - for air transport
-- .museum - for museums
-- .coop - for cooperative businesses such as credit unions

Several new board members were installed which gives me some hope that ICANN will soon address several of my concerns about the domain name system as it exists currently.

I would hope that they would address such issues as a disaster recover plan to react to the disappearance of a registar. Should a registar go out of business, there is currently no real system in place to provide alternate registar services to their client domain name holders. In other words, if the registar with whom you registered your domain name goes out of business, your domain name would soon stop working. Even while it might still be working, you would be unable to make any changes like moving to a different server.

Minor problems I know, but they keep me awake at night.

Another issue I would like to see addressed is the funding of ICANN itself.

Currently the operating budget is... well, none. Board members must even pay their own expenses to travel even to board meetings. Their ability to research and create contingency plans is pretty limited when they have no money to fund these tasks.

Considering that the Internet has created billions of dollars of wealth for so many people throughout the world, you'd think we could find a few bucks to fund the organization that makes it all possible.

Just another example of exactly how well government understands how the Internet works.

SELLING YOUR SITE - FROM ANOTHER ANGLE

Get High Traffic Forums
< http://gethighforums.com >

A recent question in our busy "I Want To Sell My Site" Forum at the Get High Traffic Forums caught my attention and it seemed like a good conversation to share with you.

The originator of the thread was in search of other ways and places where he might sell a site that he no longer had the time necessary to manage and expand.

After thinking about it for a while, I suggested the following to him:

----------

Several people have mentioned ebay as a place to "sell" sites. I haven't heard anything about how effective that is, but it's worth looking into.

There is another approach you might take.

Consider "giving" your site to someone who really wants to work hard to build it up. Pick someone with the skill, time and energy to grow the site into a more popular and more profitable attraction.

Initially you would retain a major portion of ownership and income, but the new "owner" would progressively receive a larger share of ownership as her/his efforts pay off in income for both of you.

At some point the new owner would own all but a small percentage of the site. You would retain some minority ownership like 10% forever.

Given that the market for site sales has softened - to say the least, this is an excellent way to get far more profit than you are asking for in an outright cash sale.

Require the "buyer" to put in some amount of "good faith" money up front. That way they are fully committed to the deal. The money could go directly to you, or better yet, invested in improving the site which would benefit both parties in the long term.

----------

Many of you have sites that you would love to sell if you thought you could earn a good return on the money, time and effort you have invested to bring the site to its current level of development.

Maybe this is a way to accomplish your goals and to tap into some else's unused energies and time.

Don't forget to do the paperwork up front. If you want some more ideas about how to implement this type of "sale" just ask in the Forums and we'll kick it around for a while.

If this sounds good to you, stop in at the Get High Traffic Forums and list your site. It's free and has been working very well at matching up buyers and sellers.

SNIPPETS

Internet Marketing Strategy Day Conference
< http://jimworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g99imc >

It's time to make your reservations for the March, 2001 conference in Las Vegas. The conference organizers have gotten so much feedback from U.S. web professionals that being the smart business people they are, the first U.S. conference has been scheduled.

This conference is being jointly organized with our own Search Engine Forums. Come meet some of the moderators you've only known in the Forums.

The schedule has been expanded to a three-day event to allow time for several new presentation and workshop subjects.

Attendance will be limited to keep the conferences tightly focused and highly interactive, so don't procrastinate and expect to be able to get tickets any time you want.

This looks to be an early sell-out.

----------

Access Search Engines
< http://access-search-engines.com/ >

If you operate a search engine or directory, be sure to submit it for a listing at Access Search Engines. Their goal is to document the thousands of directories and search engines available on the web.

This is also a good place to visit regularly to find places to submit your site for a listing.

----------

"NOTICE: We collect personal information on this site. To learn more about how we use your information, see our Privacy Policy."

This shows how important Yahoo! considers the issue of being up-front with their privacy policy. They now display the above message on pages related to the input of user information. It's even in bold to hammer the point home.

How "up front" is the placement of your privacy policy? Is it there, but just barely?

Many consider the privacy policy to be a necessary evil. There is, however, another way to use it. Put it front and center throughout your site. Make it part of your selling tool kit. Let your visitors and potential customers know that you take this issue very seriously. It shows them that you are someone they can trust to hold up your end of a relationship.

It's the right thing to do. It's also the smart thing to do.

----------

New York Times - Abuzz
< http://nytimes.abuzz.com/e/1.71242 >

The new Abuzz service at the New York Times web site is another way for you to reach out and impress people with the quality of your knowledge in your areas of interest. We know that these knowledge-sharing services are great ways to build you reputation and attract traffic and customers.

Anyone can register to help others find answers to their questions. That means that you should get over there and get started now before it really takes off and grows. Share what you know and benefit at the same time. That's a great thing about the Net.

----------

e-Shopping Habits May Mean Traffic But No Sales
http://www1.internetwire.com/iwire/iwpr?id=19807&cat=te

Although analysts are predicting a record year for Internet shopping, a recent survey commissioned for SuperPages.com by Verizon found that many consumers use the Internet to window shop - to research and browse for gifts before they buy from local merchants. In fact, 21 percent of respondents characterize their shopping behavior as researching online and buying locally.

Just five percent of respondents chose researching and buying products online as the best description of their shopping behavior. Not surprisingly, 65 percent are sticking with the old fashioned method as their primary form of shopping - researching and buying at a local retailer.

----------

Buy/Sell Sites and Domain Names
< http://www.influxis.com/ >

Influxis launched its new web site, a business-classifieds publication for the online world. The site's main feature is a searchable database of Web sites and domain names for sale by their owners. Each listing includes information such as asking price, current geographic location, and site assets such as inventory or intellectual property. Influxis visitors can search the listings by price, location or both. Domain names are listed alphabetically for easy reference.

Owners of Web sites or domain names can list their property on Influxis for a fee of $10 per month.

----------

Romeo & Juliet virus
< http://www.gfi.com/ >

GFI, developer of email content checking & anti-virus gateway software, has discovered a hazardous new email virus that it named the Romeo & Juliet virus. The second virus this year to bear romantic connotations, following the Love Bug last May, according to a GFI spokesperson Romeo & Juliet is particularly dangerous because current virus scanners cannot detect it.

The virus is transported by an HTML email containing malicious code, an executable file called My Romeo and a compiled help file (.chm) called My Juliet. The HTML code automatically runs an executable file. It then spreads across the Internet by connecting to a number of open relay sites.

Visit the GFI site to find out what you should be looking for in your email in-box.

Just what I wanted for Christmas, yet another loving email virus.

----------

New Free Firewall Software
< http://www.tinysoftware.com/ >

Tiny Software Inc. has released version two of its popular Tiny Personal Firewall. Free for personal use, Tiny Personal Firewall v.2 is an easy-to-use software firewall that prevents unauthorized access, offers high security for computers and is based on the award winning, ICSA-certified WinRoute Pro security technology.

"The significance to this version of our Tiny Personal Firewall is far beyond that of any firewall product available today," said Roman Kasan, president and CEO at Tiny Software. "As an integral application agent in our Centrally Managed Desktop Security solution selected by the US Air Force for its approximately 500, 000 desktop computers, our Tiny Personal Firewall proves to be a secure, robust and scalable firewall solution. For corporate networks, this application can provide the most in-depth logging per node for inter-network security and user productivity reporting."

Tiny Personal Firewall can be selected to run manually or as a service and includes a desktop administration utility for full configuration of the security engine either on the same computer or remotely. Within its easy-to-use interface, Tiny Personal Firewall gives users the flexibility to choose from low, medium or high security settings. It is also capable of allowing different configurations of the security settings using its packet-filtering feature that can be assigned to specific applications.

Tiny Personal Firewall v.2 is compatible with Windows(R) 95, 98, Me, 2000 and NT 4.0. It is free for personal computer use and pricing starts at $39 for business use.

----------

New CGI Directory
< http://www.cgiscriptsonline.com >

Got some CGI scripts to sell or give away? Get them listed in this new directory.

----------

Jim,

Thanks.

I just wanted to write a note of thanks for your site(s). I've been working on my first web site the last few months and got a ton of information from JimWorld.

I'm now listed in several directories and our orders are picking up. This is an invaluable service and I appreciate it very much.

John