Behind the times? Old school designs and how to ID them.

Of late I am seeing NEW web sites still being designed with replicant text menus at the footer of some sites. Marketing and hybrid agencies will say these are for search engines. I have to laugh, because THOSE links were originally designed for browsers that didn't use images OR for designation as section 508 compliant alternative to a graphical menu.

See, back in the day when the first browser wars were just starting (circa 1998-2000) web sites were just coming into the equivalent of their 'teenage' years. No real standards existed but some general ideas were in place. The use of a text based altenate menu below the main site was used quite often for Mosaic style browsers or for visually impaired users. People also deisgned some fancy javascript menus, but since javascript wasn't fully supported and alternate text only menu was also sometimes used to overcome this issue.

Today marketing and hybrid agencies will tell you the footer menus are for search engines. Not so. They are just another set of links and are treated as such by search engines. Continuing to utilize such design attributes is basically 'old school' now. Search engines really do not know what those links are, and could care less if the are in the content or elsewhere of your website. Internal linking is more or less neutral, and generally doesn't improve your overall rankings - but it doesn't hurt either.

Not to mention, a well designed main menu system will use text instead of images anyway - so the duplication for screen readers (re: visually impaired) are also now a moot point. Modern screen readers coupled with good best practice design overcome many of the frustrations visually impaired users experienced at the turn of the century. The redundant text menu is only needed if the site is in Flash or uses images for its menu system.

Another common design myth is the design shouldn't exceed 800 pixels in width. This was true back in the 1990s when monitors were set up for the average user at 800x600 pixel resolution. Today, the most common resolution is 1024x768 as more and more wide screen monitors pervade the market this will probably expand to 1200 pixels wide in the very near future. Web sites designed for 800px are no longer the norm and can be a hinderence to the user in terms of content text site and textual real estate.

Categories: SEO Myths | Web Development Myths

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31. May 2009 04:09 by Administrator2 | Comments (0) | Permalink

SPF record checking

SPF is used to determine if an email domain name is valid or not. Only 1 SPF record can be used for any given domain. This is helpful in stopping 'spoofed' emails.

To check a SPF record go to http://www.kitterman.com/spf/validate.html 

Categories: Industry Tools

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4. May 2009 07:05 by Administrator2 | Comments (0) | Permalink

About the author

I've been involved in Internet technology since the early 90's. I started by running a BBS, then FIDOnet (precursor to todays e-mail). This in turn lead me to start one of the world's first HTML based BBS with Internet technology. Prior to moving back to hometown WV in 2004, I was a developer for numerous companies, including Fortune 500 firms, dot com 'darling' companies, and AOL's public web site (non-member side) inlcuding having completed many sites for the Federal government including the EPA, FCC, NIH, and the USDA. I've worked on massive challenging sites, with a teams of developers, programmers, all for one single site and I've worked in companies where I took manula web site production from several weeks to just hours creating 2-5 new sites a week using automated tools , many with e-commerce capabilities.

Its been an exciting career for the past 15+ yrs or so. Sure, I've stepped on toes, I've hit the perverbial glass ceiling too (in a previous job),  I've seen trends come and go (heck I may have even started a few). I've made some people a lot of money, and I've seen people put their entire life into a web site. I was there at  the beginning - where were you?

I've learned to tell what works for companies and what doesn't. The internet is not one size fits all, as social networking is not for every company. Technology is not the challenge. Almost all the internet technology suitable for everyday business is off-the-shelf, the true challenge is change. Change involves education, implementation, and adaptation.