JimWorld Gazette Issue #42 02/20/1998

Gazette - Issue #42 - February 20, 1998

-- Housekeeping
-- Our Kids Are Safe From JimWorld
-- Keeping Kids Safe From Banners
-- Spam Debate Now At An End
-- Submitting An Article To The Gazette
-- Tips From The Hitman - Part XXIV
-- Snippets
-- Success With Matilda Listings
-- Writing For The Web - Part II
-- Adam's Toolbox -Part II
-- This Week's Gazeteer Message

Link to this issue of the Gazette as http://gazetteworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g42

HOUSEKEEPING

To those of you that have been around the Gazette for a long time, you will recognize this issue as a throwback to how it used to be. On occasion, things would back up and I would feel compelled to vent. Well, this is a vent issue. I hope I didn't do serious damage to my system by holding off for so long.

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The annual Surfers Choice Site of The Year voting is going on right now and JimWorld needs every vote it can get. We appear to be neck-and-neck with a very nice sports news site that has a web camera showing that they have a room full of employees. Sure be nice to beat them, but I need your vote. Voting is taking place at http://surferschoice.trigger.net/vote.htm and we don't have enough votes yet to insure victory. Time is running out, so please take a moment and vote!

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Just a short note to let you know that the Search Engine Forums continue to pick up steam, as they head towards their first 500 postings. There is help in there for any problem you are having get traffic from the search engines and directories.

OUR KIDS ARE SAFE FROM JimWorld

WARNING - if your favorite pastime is standing around a 50-gallon drum in front of the local library and warming your hands by the heat given off by burning books, do not read this article. It will only upset you and make you question your priorities, bringing on an attack of intellectual disorientation.

Last week I spent the day at at my son Nick's school talking about the Internet as a career. I had intended to do more than talk. I had intended to show several web sites as illustrations of the many different ways a person can build a career online.

I got to the school early to make sure the computer in the classroom was set up the way I needed it. The school's head of technology services was there to make sure the setup went well.

In fact, everything went well except one minor point. The school has porno blocking software installed and it can't be disabled. The result being that the only thing I could get on the screen was the blocking message. When I questioned the technology manager and the teachers, they commented that 'It's always that way. Our students can't get to anything on the web that has any information.' Great. Our tax dollars hard(ly) at work.

JimWorld was blocked probably due to its explicit talk about marketing. A cartoon character party supply site was blocked for encouraging fantasy among our young. I can't exactly figure out why my personal web server was blocked.

At least I have discovered why one site was blocked. CyberPatrol continues to block DejaNews because some of the newsgroups contain offensive language. Apparently they don't have the ability or willingness-to-work required to actually block only offensive materials, so they paint with a very broad brush. It's just cheaper than doing their job well. That must explain why they block ALL of the 1.4 million sites on Tripod.

I received an email a few weeks ago from a long time Gazette subscriber who just happens to be 15 years old. His father recently installed blocking software and now his son has to have his father sit with him and turn the blocking software off so he can read articles on JimWorld.

I downloaded the brand of blocking software his dad installed and sure enough, JimWorld is blocked. So I went to the publishers web site to see how to file a complaint. Wow. Even better. They have a real-time inquiry form to tell you if your site is blocked or not. I entered JimWorld's URL and received the seal of approval from their all-knowing software. JimWorld is not blocked. Disregard the fact that millions of their users can't reach JimWorld. So I entered the URLs of some porno sites. At least, I've heard that they are porno sites. Nobody I know would of course ever visit one of them. Anyway, I received wonderful assurance that these sites were OK and not blocked.

Apparently, it was causing too much trouble to tell the truth about blocking of sites, so to avoid having to do any work they just programmed their site to lie to everybody. Are these the people you want to turn responsibility for raising your kids over to?

Another way to keep kids safe is admittedly a lot of trouble. I know because it is the way Cathy and I have raised Nick. We did the parenting and taught him values. It is a better way.

The web will not crash under the weight of demand by a growing user community. Streaming video will not bring the web to its knees. Rather, it will disappear from view when the book-burners have blocked every site on the web. They will have reached Nirvana when they can tap right into the Internic registration page and have the blocks in place before your domain name is even issued.

Those wishing to express their alternate point of view on this issue are advised that I haven't changed my mind on anything in 30 years, but you are welcome to try. When I open the next set of Forums, I think I'll call one of them "You're Full Of It, Jim". Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

KEEPING OUR KIDS SAFE FROM BANNER ADS

Solid Oak http://www.solidoak.com/ has announced a new feature to their CYBERsitter site blocking software. Now it not only will keep our kids safe from adult sites, search engines and sports content site, but it will keep the entire family safe from the evil done through banner advertising. You know. Those advertising graphics that pay for most of the free content that exists on the Internet. The little graphics that keep you from having to reach into your own pocket every time you want to visit a web site that isn't trying to sell you something.

This will probably be a very popular feature with the same group of people that enjoy the premium movie channels on cable without paying for them. The 'I am the center of the universe and only my needs matter' group.

If you stop and think for a minute you will realize that if everyone started blocking banner ads, then all currently free content-rich web sites will either cease publishing from a lack of money, or will have to respond by changing the way advertising is presented, then the blockers will block that and the sites will respond by changing again and...... until the publishers just give up and start making everyone pay for what they get.

Solid Oak is not a company that you should do anything to support. As a webmaster, any success they achieve will come at your expense. As they, and other companies just as short-sighted, begin to take money out of your pocket, you will have to work harder to support you web efforts.

But given the enormous size of the shallow end of the gene pool, there will be no shortage of customers for Solid Oak. So you might start thinking of new ways to fund your web site if you depend on banner advertising.

As with most companies that operate on such low moral ground, Solid Oak doesn't seem to object to running banner ads on their own web site. After all. That is different than the evil you do by running banner ads on your site.

If you want to voice your appreciation for Solid Oak's efforts to put you out of business, drop them a line at mailto:pr@solidoak.com and you might want to drop Infoseek a note at mailto:comments@infoseek.com to ask them why they would want to run banner ads on the web site of a company that is trying to put them out of business. Maybe they just need some good eyeglass cleaner.

SPAM DEBATE NOW AT AN END

For the past two years the question has raged: is it better to have Spammed and lost, or never to have Spammed at all?

Symantec Corp., makers of such well known software products as Norton Utilities and Norton AntiVirus, has discovered the definitive answer to the dilemma: it is better to have never Spammed at all. They sure wish they hadn't been the ones to discover this long sought after truth.

On February 6th of this year, Symantec sent out a deluge of unsolicited commercial email, better known as Spam, to drum up some response for its Web site builder, Visual Page. Reaction is just what they got. Tons of it. None of it good.

The reaction was immediate and vocal from the recipients of the messages. Many of the email addresses could only have been acquired by crawling through the newsgroups and gathering email addresses. Many newsgroup participants maintain special email addresses that they only use to post to newsgroups, so they claim that the addresses must have been harvested from their postings.

Since the mailing, Symantec has been under siege from a major flame attack by previously loyal customers vowing to remove all Symantec products from their computers and to never buy from them again.

Symantec has countered with an announcement that the mailing was a 'mistake' and they don't know how it could have happened. Somehow the list of people that had opted-in to receive announcements got merged with a list of harvested email addresses that they never meant to use. At least they didn't claim that the harvested list was only in their possession so that they could help Federal authorities track down the evil culprits.

Proponents of spam have always maintained that people don't object to receiving uninvited email if it comes from a company with a legitimate image. They claim that people only object to the quality of the message, such as MLMs, adult sites and Get Rich Quick.

I guess someone had to put the spam debate to bed. I guess I'm glad it was Symantec and not me. Really glad. We now know that the quality of the spam doesn't make any difference. There just isn't any method of preparing it that makes it palatable.

If you want to read an only slightly less critical analysis of this event, stop by http://www.wired.com/news/news/culture/story/10360.html

Maybe now I'll stop getting emails asking the age old question: But Jim. Why can't I send unsolicited bulk email?

SUBMITTING A STORY TO THE GAZETTE

One of the things that makes the Gazette special is the large number of people that go out of their way to make a contribution. Some send tips in that are helpful to everyone. Some write long, complex articles that bring a new perspective to working on the Net.

We want more. We want anyone with a story to tell to submit it for consideration. If you write an article and want to submit it to the Gazette, we have one condition.

We take pride in the fact that the Gazette is based on original content. What goes in is the best of the information submitted that has not been published elsewhere. That is the condition. When you want to submit to the Gazette, don't submit it elsewhere until you have gotten a response from the Gazette staff. We have had to pass on a good many articles because they had already been submitted to other publications, and some wound up not being published anywhere.

This doesn't mean that your article won't be reprinted in lots of other newsletters and web sites. The opposite is true. Because of the prominence of the Gazette and its 24,000 weekly distribution, most articles do get much wider distribution than if you had distributed it yourself to other publishers. The requests for reprint permission come into JimWorld and we grant that permission in most cases and require that the article carry the authors credit as well as a credit that the article first appeared in the Gazette.

When you submit an article, please include a statement that it has not been published elsewhere nor has it been submitted to other publications.

TIPS FROM THE HITMAN - PART XXIV

This week we get back to the specifics. We will take a look at one of the old reliable Search Engines, Lycos. Lycos has been around a while, I know it one of the first I started using in 1995 after I found the limitations of Yahoo. Yes, I started at Yahoo just like you did.

Lycos is not the most popular Search Engine, but it has a very solid market share when it comes to use. Currently, Excite appears to be number one since it is the default search engine for AOL. It may be called AOL Netfind. Lycos will still generate the hits you want if your page does well, and Lycos has one thing going for it. It has remained consistent in the way it indexes pages. Lycos does have anti spamming protocols to stop the most obnoxious attempts to force a page to the top, but it has never deteriorated to a witch hunt as has happened on Alta Vista.

As always, the information I am putting forth is based on my personal experience with improving Search Engine position. I also read a good deal of information on a daily basis and discover new things from other sources all the time. I try not to report anything as fact if I have not personally observed it myself. That said, let’s talk about what Lycos looks at on your page.

We will start at the top and work our way down the page, since this has been the way I have covered the basics in the past. It is important to have your keywords in your title, and Lycos does not seem to mind long titles. Sites with sentences for titles often appear in the top ten listings.

As for the meta tags, they are of little or no importance on Lycos. Many of the top pages do not contain meta tags at all. The meta description is not used as the index description either, rather the first 140 characters or about 20 words on the page are used to describe the page. This should make it clear that keywords near the top of the page are important. Many top pages have meta tags, there is no reason not to use them, but they do not seem to be essential or important.

There is an abundance of short pointer type pages doing well in the top 10 at Lycos on any given keyword. This would be a page with keywords in the title, keywords in a heading at the top of the page (often <h1> ) and a very short page that is graphic free and very high in keyword density, often containing little more than a keyword loaded paragraph and a link to the real home page.

When you are selecting keywords the order does seem to mater, what I mean is big dog and dog big would seen as two different keyword phrases. Words that are first letter capitalized or all caps or all lower case are treated as the same word.

Comment tags can be seen in high listings on occasion, but not enough to convince me that they have an influence on the position or are indexed. Due to the length of time it takes to get a listing, (3 to 5 weeks) It is not easy to do a case study.

Lycos is reported to support pages in frames, but my experience is that frame pages always are at a disadvantage due to the format of the index page of a frame. These pages are mostly instructions to the browser. I avoid using frames in attempts to get good listings at any Search Engine.

I am not sure I have given warnings about the use of .asp extensions on pages in my regular reports, but for the record, it now appears that all the top Search Engines including Lycos are recognizing this extension and indexing them now. So, my past warnings about these tags are now no longer valid.

Image alt tags are indexed by Lycos and an alt tag used in the page logo or first graphic on the page may be seen being used as the description, so once again don’t put a banner exchange banner at the top of your page unless you wish to do some free advertising at your own expense.

Although each of the Search Engines is unique in how it indexes pages, it is worth noting that a page that does well on Hot Bot will often do very well at Lycos. This is important to consider because Hot Bot now posts new submissions in days where Lycos will take weeks. So you can save yourself some frustration of waiting and being disappointed if you get a good listing at Hot Bot first and use it as a model for Lycos.

So, summing it up, short pages with high keyword density and keywords in the title, headings and high in the body are the key at Lycos. It should be noted that Lycos seems to give more weight to newer listings as I have seen some of my listings move from top ten to twenty or thirty over time. The pages replacing my listings will often be using identical methods, almost as if they had copied my work when I was in the number one position. When this happens, and it always does from my observation, it is best to make some minor changes in the pages that did well the first time and resubmit. The changes seem to give some weight as an updated page not just a re submission and it seems to make a difference.

Hayden Mitchell mailto:webhitman@infofree.com
Web Themes http://www.webthemes.com

SNIPPETS

Tired of visiting each search engine to find out how you rank under different keywords and phrases? Try the PositionAgent at http://www.positionagent.com/free.htm It's fast and appears to be accurate. At least it agrees with my manual tests, so I guess that proves it is flawless. If you remember the early days (a few months ago) of the various position checkers, it was pretty unreliable. Now they seem to have started to mature and become useful.

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The Electronic Commerce Guide from internet.com at http://e-comm.internet.com/ is a good place to keep an eye on the changing landscape of the e-commerce world.

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If you want to learn a bit of HTML, start at Dr. Clue's at http://users.abac.com/cgi-bin/drclue/F1.cgi/HTML/HTML.html It's to-the-point and covers just about everything you will need to know.

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If you want to test you browser out to make sure you can handle all of the many different file types you'll run into on the web, head over to the WWW Viewer Test Page at http://www-dsed.llnl.gov/documents/WWWtest.html put together by The Defense Sciences Engineering Division, located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

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Infoseek's submission page is down again this weekend. If you only try to submit on weekends, you are destined to fail with Infoseek. For several weeks now they have been turning submissions off on Friday and turning it back on sometime Monday.

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I am writing you to inform you of a new Free Business web hosting site located at http://www.hpermart.net. They give you ten megs of web space, cgi access, and a non-IP virtual address. This is a great place for small business to start off with experimenting on the web.

I would also like to thank you for all the good your newsletter has done for me. I have used many of the tips outlined in the JimWorld to remake my site and since I put it up a few days ago, I have already had over two thousands hits. You are offering the best, free or paid service around and I will continue to read your letter until I loose my vision.

Thanking you,
Tom Dean - Mind Creations - http://cyberot.fortunecity.com

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If you have a list or newsletter that you want to advertise or attract advertisers to, you should get it listed (for free) at ListCity. You can register to trade ads with other lists and newsletters that might help you grow your subscriber base. Or you can register to that your list accepts paid advertising. ListCity will try to find advertisers to give you money. Cool. Free. Cooler. http://www.list-city.com/ I registered. So should you.

Thanks to Designs...by the Beach http://beachsite.com for sending in this tip.

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Hi Jim, I wrote to you for the first time some weeks ago and pretty much blasted one of your contributing authors. So that you don't feel I haven't taken your primary message to heart, that of helping others and paying my dues by giving....I want to give something to you as my payment this week.

I have been awash of late because my webmaster had to move to California, and while I know the virtual distance isn't vast, it will take some time for him to get settled in. My page, meantime, needs some revamping, but I couldn't do it because I didn't know how to "size" things correctly.

Amazingly, the Gazette this week offers the perfect tool and sound advice on both sizing and resolution. This is no coincidence. Each time the Gazette comes out, I spend upwards of two hours gleaning invaluable information, tips and tools which magically appear just when I need them.

This is due to either a vast conspiracy of wondrous guardian angels whose job it is to look after me, protect me, and teach me wondrous things... OR... it is due to the devotion of one man to the original ideals of the internet, and the commitment of one man to the internet tradition of sharing and helping folks whenever possible.

I pick door number 2.

You may not imagine or want to know the comparative value of your Gazette, but your readers do. Every Gazette is worth 100 digests and moderated newsletters! Every tool saves hundreds of hours searching. And every tip is worth it's weight in pixels.

So, thank you. Thank you for every word of invaluable information, every perfect and easy to use tool, every timely tip, every day you spend giving help, encouragement and support to those of us who are trying really hard to move into the millennium with the same spirit of generosity we arrived with, before the deluge of commercialism hit the web.

Just thought you might like to know you're making a difference, really huge, amazingly amazing, great whopping difference. So...that's it...

Have a good day.
Betty St. John http://www.mommydearest.com

--- JIM --- Thanks Betty. I visited your site and had the darndest time getting out of there. It totally captivated me at a time when I thought I had too much to do to stop and enjoy something. Thanks for stopping me. Those enjoyment stops are what initially started my love affair with the Net. I hope the Gazeteers visit you by the thousands and take a break as well. The art, the music and especially the writing are a perfect blend. ---

SUCCESS WITH MATILDA LISTINGS

G'day Jim. I have put together the latest information on Matilda straight from the Matilda Webmaster. By the way, Warren the Matilda webmaster thinks your search engine forum is "cool" and he likes what you are doing at JimWorld.

The Australian search engine Matilda is receiving well over 36,000,000 visits per year and about half of that traffic is regularly coming from the USA. Some people are still under the impression that Matilda is a country-specific site for Australia, but this is not so. Matilda wants a higher profile in the USA and, targeting localism as a trend, has recently introduced state pages and US classified state pages.

This represents fertile new ground for American webmasters, among others. The USA is a big player, so it makes sense to encourage visits from the most active source. With more outbound surfing by Americans, Matilda is picking up a lot of traffic from surfers who are jaded with the traditional search engines and who are tired of the total lack of interest for any form of liaison with individual sites. They will even soon be opening an office in Seattle.

Matilda works hard at being user-friendly. It has a dedicated staff who work long hours (they sleep between 11pm and 4am Australian Eastern Summer Time) creating a content-rich search site and they appreciate your comments, whether it is good or bad. Every day they get e-mails from people who are amazed by the amount of new traffic they have generated by being listed on the Matilda site.

What Matilda Is
There are three main international directories, consisting of Matilda, DirectFind and Webaholics as well as numerous hotlists such as country flag directory, MLM directory and homepage directory, among others. As we all should know by now, content equals activity and Matilda is jumping with content.

What Matilda Likes
Matilda is de-programmed for keywords, which means it is only their selection of sites that get that prized spot towards the top of a search. DirectFind and Webaholics is listed using the criteria of latest date. Matilda will deal with a client submission site and, time permitting, with anyone who has a specific request. They appreciate the frustration that comes from trying to find information and resources on the web.

What Matilda Doesn't Like
Matilda will not deal with sex sites. Staff have had some bad experiences with vicious and spiteful behavior from some people involved in that industry. They have also had enormous problems with spammers using computer programs that attempt to list a site 10,000 times. This is not a good way to make friends Downunder or get anywhere with a listing.

The Trend
Many US sites, using lateral thinking, are coming to realize that the best way to get a higher notice factor is to advertise their sites with an offshore banner.

The Site
http://www.aaa.com.au/matilda/

This information was supplied in the spirit of Helpware from Shane Hersey, freelance web author (Australia).
E-mail: mailto:egotist@unforgettable.com
http://www.geocities.com/paris/1872

WRITING FOR THE WEB - PART II

By: Wendy Boulding

Text presentation on your web site is like your body odor. If people like it they'll come closer. If they don't, they'll run away fast. You want people to read your words. You want them to pay attention to what you have to offer. And they will, if you give them a feast of information in a style that their eyes can easily digest and their mind can appreciate.

Take Off Your Shoes
The essential key to superb text presentation is empathy. Put yourself in the shoes of your potential visitors. Think about the possible browser they may be using. Think about the speed of their modem. Think about what will be the easiest and most convenient way they can access your offerings in a short amount of time. Don't assume that the technology that sits on your desktop is being used all over the world. Be prepared to design for all people and all their needs.

Take Time To Plan
After you've written and edited your text, divide it into segments. Every topic, concept, suggestion, and/or instruction should be placed in separate paragraphs. Keep your paragraphs short.

-Write headlines. Remember, headlines are like traffic signs directing your visitor from place to place. Make them descriptive and meaningful.

-Consider using lists and tables. Putting your ideas into point form breaks up the monotony of reading paragraph after paragraph. Important information is also easier to visually grasp in this form. From a design perspective, it makes a long passage look a lot less daunting.

-Decide what will go where. Let's say you are going to put a short story on a web page. Chances are you will choose to put the story on one page. But let's say you wrote an article on how to write a short story and you want to put it on the Web. You would divide the information up into sections and have each one on a separate page. While your text is still in your word processor, pick out the most important information that will go on to the web page your readers will be exposed to first. Then sort out the remaining text and determine how each section will be placed on separate web pages.

Seeing Is Believing
Keep in mind that people on the Internet don't graze. They "surf". The tighter, more concise you can get your message across the better. You are being given the opportunity to maneuver your way into the psyches of millions of people. Spoon-feed them your ideas and they'll be much more willing to stay and much more willing to come back for more.

-DO NOT PLACE ALL TEXT ACROSS THE FULL WIDTH OF THE SCREEN! Reading long selections of text this way is unbearable. Have your text take up no more than half the width of your screen.

-Size does count. When you put your text into HTML format, stick to using the default font size for most of the text on the page. This way you will be ensuring that what you are designing will be properly seen by most people. Use different sizes of text to create variation on your page. But don't forget, fonts that are too small infuriate and fonts that are too big irritate. Use both sparingly.

-Sprinkle in a few surprises. Emphasize and highlight various words scattered through each web page to catch the reader's eye. Because links are automatically underlined, it isn't a good idea to underline non-linking words just for the sake of emphasis. It will cause confusion. Use colored, bold, or italicized text instead.

-Always include a <TITLE>. Have the title of your page clearly define what is found within it. When you are creating a <TITLE> think of what you want the reader to remember most about your site when they scan through their bookmarks.

-Preview your pages before you upload them.

A Paperless Age? (Ha Ha)
I can't speak for everyone, but I do know that I print out a lot of web pages. I prefer to surf fast, print out what looks interesting, log off the Internet, and then take my printed pages to my couch or out with me when I go to McDonald's. Let's assume I am not the only one who does this. Design your text-filled pages with printing in mind.

-Create two versions. Have one version of your text split into segments and accompanied by graphics and links. Have a separate page where the text is uninterrupted. Encourage your reader to print out that page.

-Again, be considerate of your readers. The width of browser screens is varied. Text placed across the full width of YOUR screen may look fine to you, but not to others. Lines may be cut off on the right side of their screen. When they print out pages that extend beyond their screen width, the printer also cuts off each line. If you want to have long lines, at the very least, create a one-inch margin on either side of the text.

-Be color conscious. Choose your background and text colors very carefully. Red text on a yellow background, for example, prints out faintly. White text on a black background is invisible on a printed page. If your text is important, stick to the basics; black on white.

-Do you really want to use frames? Some browsers cannot print frames correctly. Think about what parts of your text would be suited for frames and which segments need to be presented on a full screen for a potentially pleasing printout.

Ugly Orphans
There is a statistic that states "60 percent of Internet activity happens via e-mail". If this true, you may want to create an e-mail tie-in to your web site. It may take the form of an e-zine or even just web site updates. Whatever you choose, be aware that the way you present text in an e-mail format is just as important as the way you choose to design your web pages. Like with browsers, not all mailer programs are created equal. You may send out an e-mail that looks wonderful on your screen but may look like this to your reader:

I am writing to let you know that
I have
just updated my web site and added
some new
graphics and tutorials. Come and check it out!

These are called "ugly orphans". The problem can easily be avoided by keeping the lines in your e-mail short.

-A short line is 65 characters max. Compose your text in a word processor. Use a fixed width font like Courier (12 point). Have one-inch margins. This will create lines with 65 characters in each. Save your text to an ASCII text file (.txt). Open the text file and copy its contents. Go to your mailer and paste the text in the message you will be sending out.

-You can also do it manually. Paste text into your mailer and shorten the lines by placing your cursor at the point in the line where you want to shorten it and then press ENTER. Keep each line that follows the same length as the original one.

Change The World
With the investment of thought and time, you can impact your readers with your own words and ideas. Give them what you desire the most: simplicity, thoughtfulness, and convenience.

Good Luck!

Here are more sources of information:

Web Architect
http://webreview.com/universal/previous/arch/
Sun On The Net: Guide To Web Style
http://www.sun.com/styleguide
Art and the Zen of Web Sites
http://www.tlc-systems.com/webtips.htm

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Visit Wendy mailto:wjb@planet.eon.net at http://www.mind-magic.com for a lot more information about written communications.

ADAM'S TOOLBOX - PART II

In my last column I introduced you to ASP. I gave you some examples of why you might want to use ASP, and told you what you would need to get started. This week I'm going to give you a start on creating your own ASP pages.

ASP is simply a glue to hold together scripting languages, server side programs, and HTML. If you know HTML and do any web programming at all, you can probably start creating some ASP files without learning a new programming language. ASP has a built in interpreter (or scripting engine) for VBScript, but third party developers have created scripting engines for other scripting languages. For instance, ActiveState.com http://www.activestate.com/ has created PerlScript, a scripting engine for Perl. Most of the ASP code you will find on the web is written in VBScript, however; it is the most commonly used language for scripting with ASP. Server side programs can also be written in just about any language, including C, C++, and Java.

Creating an ASP file is quite easy. Simply place some ASP markup into a plain HTML file and save it with an .ASP extension. How do you create ASP markup? Just enclose your script in <% %> tags. Here's a simple example that prints out the numbers 1 to 50 separated by commas.

<html>
<body>
<p>Counting from 1 to 50</p>
<%
' this is a comment
for counter=1 to 50
response.write counter & ", "
next
%>
<p>Neat, huh?</p>
</body>
</html>

There are a few trade-offs when you use ASP. Like any other tool for creating dynamic pages, ASP pages don't load as fast as plain HTML pages do because the server has to create the HTML rather than just serving it. And also like any page that is generated dynamically, your chance of something going wrong is increased. And of particular interest to anyone promoting a site, some search engines don't index files with an ASP extension. (SmartDesk's WebSuite web server has an innovative solution to this, however. http://www.smartdesk.com/

I hope that these two columns have given you a good overview of ASP. While ASP isn't the best tool for every application, it can be a very powerful addition to your webmaster toolbox. If you want to explore ASP further, you can check out any of the resources I've listed below.

Active Server Pages
Arranged in classes, an excellent starting point for learning asp.

ASPhole
Tons of links to asp resources for asp programmers.

15 seconds
Very professional site with excellent articles about all things ASP.

The ASP Developer's Site
News, links, and tutorials on ASP.

An ASP You Can Grasp
Nice article detailing the basics about ASP.

The Microsoft IIS Team recommends the book "Working with Active Server Pages" from QUE

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Article written by:
Adam Kalsey, Technical Director
the marketing store! http://tmsonline.com

THIS WEEK'S GAZETEER MESSAGE

This week's message is obviously not from a Gazeteer. It is yet another example of a very offensive form of spam. It sets of my BS detector every time I get a copy in my email inbox. The following is just a random example of the same tacky message used by many of the soon-to-be-out-of-business promotion companies. This type of message is meant to make me think that they have actually been to my site and had a lot of trouble finding it. Here's how one example reads:

"Whew! I couldn't find your web site. I searched three search engines using keywords... I almost gave up -- as I guess did many others. You built a good looking site. For a few hundred dollars more, you can promote it right to the top!

You can dramatically raise the visibility -- or findability -- of your web site with all of the popular search engines. Contact Hot Rockets Web Site Promotions. That's all it takes to can get your site in the top10 -- maybe even 3 or 4 listings in the same list of top 10 sites."

(snip)

"Search engines are the world's cheapest and most effective form of advertising -- but it is not enough to simply build a web site and submit it to a search engine. If your customers can't find YOU, they'll find your competitors.

Get your web site listed in the TOP 20 when people look for your product or service. Don't lose this opportunity to have your web site pop right to the top.

Hot Rockets can put you there -- and just for a few hundred dollars. We can do it for you as we have others --GUARANTEED! Hot Rockets Site Promoters are computer professionals who have worked for IBM, Texas Instruments and Digital Corporation. Search engines are our business. We get immediate results with surgical interventions. That is why we can keep the cost to you so low."

If they had visited JimWorld, they would have noticed that I am probably not a prime target for their services. A press release about their company might have gotten my attention, but this spam certainly doesn't.

Just to see how well they have done at placing themselves in the TOP 20 as they offered to help me do, I searched for 'hotrockets' at Infoseek. Not in the TOP 20. In fact not listed at all. JimWorld had 621 hits.

So I tried:

HotBot. Hotrockets-1. JimWorld-879.
Alta Vista. Hotrockets-1. JimWorld-1,075.
Excite. Hotrockets-0. JimWorld-445.
Lycos. Hotrockets-0. JimWorld-267.
Northern Light. Hotrockets-0. JimWorld-658.
Webcrawler. Hotrockets-0. JimWorld-119.
Yahoo. Hotrockets-No. JimWorld-Yes.

Using PositionAgent http://www.positionagent.com/free.htm, I couldn't get them to come up in the first 100 results on any of the search engines.

Think of the many mistakes they made in this one simple (minded) piece of spam.

They can't get their own site listed.
They immediately got busted when they claimed to have tried hard to find JimWorld. They need to polish up their searching skills.
They sent an advertisement to a totally inappropriate site.

I tried to stop by their site to offer my services to help them promote their site, but their server hasn't been responding for several days. Oh, well. That's life.

I know that there are a lot of professional site promoters on this subscription list. Please take this story to heart. Deceptive marketing practices eventually catch up with you. I have collected various version of this same marketing attempt from the past 14 months. Not one of the companies that have sent me this type of message are still in business today. Apparently it doesn't work very well.