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Search Engine Optimization

Click here for a PDF discussing the basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) including: organic vs. sponsored results, tips to move in the ranks, “black-hat” techniques, and common myths.

The Perfect Web Hosting Company? Part III

So, I narrowed things down to:
http://JustHost.com
http://Fatcow.com/
http://SuperGreenHosting.com/
http://HostClear.com/
http://ipage.com/

I decided to try FatCow next.  They had a funny name and a green policy, though I was leaning towards a 100% money back guarantee rather than a 30-day satisfaction guarantee.  I waited awhile on the phone for them and then hung up.  I chatted with their online chat rep and got a more prompt response.  I want a company I can pick up the phone and talk to a real person in a realistic amount of time.

I figured I’d try SuperGreenHosting.com and HostClear.com next. None stacked up to the prompt service on the phone and chat, environmental commitment, price, money-back guarantee, and product offerings as ipage.com.

I received the go-ahead from one my new clients to take a try with iPage.com hosting… with the guarantee, there’s not much to lose. As no company or business is perfect, I’m sure they will turn out to have their challenges as well; but I will let you know if they seem to outperform Bluehost in the long run.

The Perfect Web Hosting Company? Part II

So, here’s where we left off…  I’m on the Justpages.com site and the virtual agent popped up when I tried to leave the site (see screenshot below) and she kept copying and pasting the same 3 discounts over and over no matter what I asked her. Here is a conversation I had with one of their virtual agents:

Connecting to Agent…

You have been connected to Megan

Megan Says: Hey Wait! We would hate to see you go without seeing what’s made us Award Winning Web Hosts, so just this once we would like to offer you a 20% discount on our unlimited hosting plan. To take advantage of this last minute offer just CLICK HERE

Megan Says: When you are ready just say “Hi” and we can get started….

You: I was wondering what the difference is between the basic and premium plans

Megan Says: Here at Just Host with our unlimited hosting plan you receive unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited email accounts and you can host unlimited domains.

Megan Says: We do also have a premium version of this you can checkout HERE,

Megan Says: For dedicated server solutions which you can customize to your own needs. Check these out CLICK HERE

You:Yes, I looked at those. However, the only difference I can see for the more expensive plan is the 3 free domains vs. the 1 free one with the basic. Is this the ONLY difference?

Megan Says: You can host unlimited domains on just one account.

You: why should I get the premium vs. the basic?

Megan Says: We have a premium package which you can view HERE, which also gives you unlimited disk space and unlimited bandwidth but with 2 more FREE domains!

As you can see, getting a different agent on a different day produced the same useless results. I could only see 1 difference between their basic plan and their premium plan – the number of free domain names. The basic plan offers 1 free domain per year. The premium offers 3 free – an annual savings of $10/yr/domain, so $20 savings per year over the basic account if you have 3 or more domains to host. HOWEVER, the plan COSTS $3.45/month ($41.40/year) and the premium plan costs $6.95/month ($83.40), so they are actually charging you MORE for those domains per year than if you just got the basic account and paid for the domains separately if that is the ONLY difference between those two accounts.

I couldn’t imagine justhost.com would so blatantly rip people off, so I tried to call customer service to ask about this discrepancy. I waited on hold for 5 minutes and 50 seconds and then hung up. I clicked their “chat” button, in hopes that it would route me to a different call center than the virtual agents. It seemed to route me to more specialized help where I had the following conversation with tech support, which was emailed to me in a transcript after the chat:

The following is a transcript of your chat session.
General Info
Chat start time Feb 5, 2010 3:49:37 PM EST
Chat end time Feb 5, 2010 3:56:09 PM EST
Duration (actual chatting time) 00:06:31
Operator Name Removed by Apryle
Chat Transcript
info: All our operators are currently assisting others customers. You are currently in position 1  Thank you for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.
info: You are now chatting with ‘Usher Abott’
Usher Abott: Welcome to Live Chat support, how may I help you?
Apryle: I was wondering if the 3 free domains
Apryle: are the only difference btw the basic and premium plans
Apryle: It’s tough to flip back and forth and compare.
Usher Abott: Yes, that’s the only difference
Apryle: I am also wondering if you know what the average hold time is before being able to speak with a representative.
Apryle: I am considering switching my clients over
Apryle: to a different host
Apryle: and I am considering Justhost
Usher Abott: The average hold time on chat is less than a minute
Apryle: yes, you were very prompt on chat but I am wondering what is like on the phone. thank you.
Apryle: I just waited on the phone for 5 minutes 50 seconds and then hung up and tried chat.
Usher Abott: The hold time for phone is bit high than chat, but its not the same all the time
Apryle: yes, I understand, that’s why I was hoping for an average wait-time. But it seems like you don’t know or are not supposed to provide that information.
Apryle: thanks.

So, I didn’t want to waste any additional time on this hosting company. I am very disappointed that they are overcharging for their domains and then calling them “FREE”. Despite it’s great reviews, JustHost’s website and customer service were really concerning; if they can’t answer questions about their own products to win me over as a customer, how are they going to answer my technical questions if I have a problem with my website hosting? Are they going to try to pull one over on me like with their “Premium” plan?

Verdict on Justhost.com: I will not switch to JustHost.com or recommend them until their customer service improves.

…when I continue, I’ll discuss the other hosting companies I looked at…

The Perfect Web Hosting Company? Part I

Today I spent some time reviewing hosting companies. I currently host my own sites on Bluehost and have recommended Bluehost to my clients. However, just like with auto insurance, sometimes a better plan, pricing, or service, comes along in hosting as companies go back and forth to one-up each other on these features to win over new clients and keep their current ones. It’s time I revisit hosting companies to ensure my clients are still getting the best plans for their money.
First, I visited a few review/rating websites including:

After comparing from list-to-list, I really zeroed in on the companies that offer 100% money back guarantees. Since I am considering switching hosting, I don’t want to risk switching to a new company and then have it not be all that it’s cracked out to be. I want the assurance that I can back-pedal at any time. That seems like a policy held by a company with confidence!

So, I narrowed things down to:
http://JustHost.com
http://ipage.com/
http://SuperGreenHosting.com/
http://HostClear.com/

I also included http://fatcow.com on my list because they are green and I read many great reviews, despite their 30 day only guarantee.

My next priority was unlimited everything – pretty much, anyhow.  I looked for plenty of email addresses, storage space, transfer, and mysql databases.  I also looked for site statistics of some sort.  This was a standard for the most part, so I jumped to my 3rd priority: customer service.

I started with JustHost.com.  I went to their website and navigated between pages to compare plans.  When doing so, an obnoxious chat box poped up each time to entice me to puchase a plan immediately and “not leave the page” (despite me simply navigating BETWEEN pages of their site).  I figured, since I have an agent, I’ll just ask her the questions I was about to try to answer via their website.  She kept copying and pasting the same 3 discounts over and over no matter what I asked her.  She then admitted that she was a virtual agent and had no idea about their different plans.  I discontinued my chat and called their phone number to see if I received the same level of support from their phone.
…to be continued (I know, the suspense is killer!)…

Glossary of Blog Terms

First and foremost, the term blog derives from the word weblog, which is just an online diary of sorts.  The writer(s) are called bloggers and you may have heard the term blogosphere, which just is a collective term encompassing all blogs and their interconnections. Now that you know about bloggers blogging in the blogosphere, on to some specific definitions:

Atom: Another popular feed format developed as an alternative to RSS.
Blogger.com, a free, popular blog hosting web site.
Blogroll: A list of links to other websites or blogs a blogger recommends.
Comments - when a blogger creates a new “post” or journal entry, site visitors have a chance to write a response, or comment, regarding that post or topic.
Comment spam:Like e-mail spam. Robot “spambots” flood a blog with advertising in the form of bogus comments. A serious problem that requires bloggers and blog platforms to have tools to exclude some users or ban some addresses in comments.
Feeds: see RSS Feeds.
Permalink: AKA. Permanent link. The unique URL of a single post. Use this when you want to link directly to a post somewhere instead of linking to your homepage
Pingback: The alert in the TrackBack system that notifies the original poster of a blog post when someone else writes an entry concerning the original post.
Plugin: AKA Plug-in or Plug in.  A module that extends or adds to the basic capabilities of the blog software.
Podcasting: Contraction of “iPod” and “broadcasting” (but not for iPods only). Posting audio and video material on a blog and its RSS feed, for digital players.
Post: An entry written and published to a blog.  Usually presented to the site visitor in reverse chronological order (newest entry first).
Post Slug: For blogs with common language URLs, the post slug is the portion of the URL that represents the post. Example: http://domain.com/2008/01/this-is-the-post-slug
RSS:Really Simple Syndication is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts.
RSS aggregator:Software or online service allowing a blogger to read an RSS feed, especially the latest posts on their favourite blogs. Also called a reader, or feedreader.
RSS feed:The file containing a blog’s latest posts. It is read by an RSS aggregator/reader and shows at once when a blog has been updated. It may contain only the title of the post, the title plus the first few lines of a post, or the entire post.
Subscribe:The term used when a blogs feed is added to their RSS feed reader like Bloglines or Google. Some blogging platforms have internal subscriptions, this allows readers to receive notification when there are new posts in a blog.
Templates:Templates, used on the “back end” of a blog that work together to handle information and present it on a blog.
Theme:CSS based code that when applied to the templates will result in visual element changes to the blog. The theme, as a whole, is also referred to as a blog design.
TrackBack:A system that allows a blogger to see who has seen the original post and has written another entry concerning it. The system works by sending a ‘ping’ between the blogs, and therefore providing the alert.
Weblog: the unshortened version of ‘blog’.
Wordpress: a free, popular, customizable blog software; can be used as a content management system

Web Site: 1 Word or 2?

Over the next week or two, I’m going to talk a little about web jargon.  The first thing I wanted to dispel is any myths you may have regarding the spelling of the most common web terms: website vs. web site, homepage vs. home page, and webpage vs. web page.

So, let’s put this to rest.  Is the word website  supposed to be 1 word or 2?  According to Google, a search on “define: website” produces the following definition (note the third on the list):

However, the revised 11th edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary, published in July 2004, shows website as the standard form, and claims that future dictionaries will reflect this.  Additionally, according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary,

We recommend capital initials for Internet, World Wide Web, the Web, but not for individual sites.

Website, web site, internet site… call it what you will.  Similarly, webpage and web page, and homepage and home page, are certainly frequently used and understood.  You’ll find throughout my site I prefer the one-word versions of these terms.

Okay, so should it be capitalized?

According to http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu,

There is considerable debate, still, about how to capitalize words associated with the Internet. Most dictionaries are capitalizing Internet, Web, and associated words such as World Wide Web (usually shortened to Web), Web page, Web site, etc., but the publications of some corporations, such as Microsoft, seem to be leaning away from such capitalization. The Yale Style Manual recommends capitalization. The words e-mail and online are not capitalized. The Guide to Grammar and Writing is a monument to inconsistency on this issue.

So, Web site or Web page is probably more correct than Website or Webpage.  Maybe I’ll make the switch to capitalization!

Next article, blog definitions!

ays template in-action

Terry from Active at Altitude wanted a minimalist redesign for his website activeataltitude.com similar to the design of BBC. Active at Altitude provides a unique home away from home lodging experience in the peace and magnificent beauty of Estes Park, Colorado, USA. They specialize in active-lifestyle vacations or vacation coaching. With Terry’s web-savvy, all he needed was a home-page template to get him started. The rest is history.

Click below to visit his new website:

Active at Altitude – Estes Park Lodging

And check out his video below:

ays holiday hours

I will be closed Thursday, Dec 24th, and Friday, Dec 25th, this week, in addition to the weekend.

Also closed Thursday, Dec 31st and Friday, Jan 1st.

Seasons greetings and happy new year!

what a content management system won’t do

A content management system will provide a framework for you to quickly and easily update your site from any computer with internet access.  However, a CMS will not give non-technical users 100% flexibility with their site.  They provide a structured means for adding content.   If you’re considering a CMS, keep in mind that…

  • CMS will not write your content for you.  If you didn’t have anything to say before, adding a CMS or blog will not magically create copy.
  • Without a custom plugin, you will not be able to change your header and footer images or text.  You will only be able to update the content portion of the page. 
  • Your navigation will either be images that you cannot update from within the CMS admin control panel, OR text that will allow you to add/remove navigation items from within the CMS control panel.  So, if you want smooth-looking graphics for your navigation (i.e. http://www.iconeden.com/ or http://www.giraffe.net/) you will probably not be able to add or remove navigation from within your CMS panel.  However, if you are okay with regular text for your navigation, you’ll be able to add or remove pages from the navigation.
  • Images inserted into posts will have limited stylization options.  If you want a dropshadow, wooden frame, poloriod frame, or some other decoration, you’ll either need to have it on every image that you add to the content area, or you’ll need to add it to the image before uploading it.  It’s sort of an all-or-nothing feature.

If you’re unsure of whether or not a CMS might be right for you, please contact us today and we’ll answer any questions you might have. 

recycle old computers

Go Green for 2010!  Did you know that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that in 2005 only 330,000 pounds, or 12.5 percent, of the 2.63 million tons of electronic waste that was disposed was recovered for recycling?  The other 87.5 percent of electronic waste ended up in landfills or incinerators.  Computers contain 3-8 pounds of lead and a myriad of other toxic materials that can contaminate the environment when dumped in a landfill or incinerated.  Clear off any personal data and take your computer in to one of the following locations to help keep computers out of landfills.

Recycle Old Computers in Boulder or Denver -