Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design

It is interesting to think of how, 10 years ago, using the Internet was a novelty. I remember how most people were saying that people just wouldn't buy anything on the Net. I first heard of Amazon.com by means of a radio interview of Jeff Bezos, and him talking about people's reluctance to use their credit cards on the Internet. Now Amazon.com is a household name and people are VERY comfortable using their credit cards online.

My point is that, in fact, we are emerging out of the horse and buggy stage, or maybe we're still in it, with respect to the Internet and it's usability. We have a very short time studying how people navigate around, clicking, scanning, and reading the web.

Jakob Nielsen has made a name for himself as the master of usability. Every year he releases his "Top Ten Mistakes..." and I find them quite enlightening. There are some great links in the article as well.

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox:
Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design

Summary:
The ten most egregious offenses against users. Web design disasters and HTML horrors are legion, though many usability atrocities are less common than they used to be.

Since my first attempt in 1996, I have compiled many top-10 lists of the biggest mistakes in Web design. See links to all these lists at the bottom of this article. This article presents the highlights: the very worst mistakes of Web design. (Updated 2007.)

Search 2.0 - Whats Next?

This is an amazing blog about the next innovations in search trends.

You may feel relatively satisfied with the current search offerings of Google, Yahoo, Ask and MSN. Search today is undoubtedly much better than what it was in the second half of the 1990's. But Internet search is still in its infancy and there's much room for improvement. Moreover, the super high valuation of Google on NASDAQ pushes investors and researchers to find better search solutions - to be The Next Big Thing. And these wannabes are not only working on discovering better indexing techniques, they're exploring new horizons like vertical engines, meaning-based search, intent-driven search, new clustering methods, and much more. In this post, we look into latest trends in the search industry.

My Favorite Firefox Extension

Its difficult for me to say that its my favorite since there are so many that have become vital to my online experience. Its just that I have lost so many bookmark files. With this extension, you not only eliminate the danger of losing your bookmarks, but you can synch all of your computers to have the same up to date bookmarks.

Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer by Foxmarks LLC

Foxmarks keeps your bookmarks automatically synchronized between two or more computers. A simple wizard guides you through the startup process. Foxmarks works silently in the background. As a bonus feature, you can access your bookmarks from anywhere via my.foxcloud.com. It's simple and solid.

'Click Fraud' Threatens Foundation of Web Ads - washingtonpost.com

It appears that a pay-per-click campaign's worst nightmares have come true.
'Click Fraud' Threatens Foundation of Web Ads - washingtonpost.com: "'You don't make tons of money,' Park said. 'But once you start clicking and you get actual payments, it becomes an addiction.'

Park is one of thousands of people around the world who receive e-mailed lists of Web sites every day to click on for cash. Operators of these fast-growing 'pay to read' networks and similar 'pay to click' rings say they provide a genuine audience for advertisers, but Internet fraud experts disagree. They say the networks fuel click fraud, which means using bogus clicks to pump up revenue artificially for search engines and their affiliated Web sites.

In the past year, industry analysts say, new forms of click fraud have emerged from the shadows of masked operations into plain view on the Internet. Dozens of Web sites offer to pay people to sit and click on ads, or to type certain words into search engines for hours at a time. Some sites have forums where people swap click-fraud tips."

Search Engine Facts 10 October 2006

I just found this bit of info in an SEO newsletter that I receive regularly. I really like the emphasis on good quality content. We sometimes get to focusing too much on getting links. This is called external merit, or off site factors that promote web sites. This is indeed important, but what we really need is a good quality content site.
Here is the bit:
I highly recommend keyword analysis, looking at server logs to figure out new content to add, thinking of new hooks to make your site attract more word-of-mouth buzz, pondering how to improve conversion once visitors land on your site, etc."