Online Promotion Course Questions

Questions From Online Promotion Course

Q. Alexa wouldn't let me on.

A. Copy and paste the following address into your address bar: http://info.alexa.com/data/destination_site

Q. Webalizer is only a trial version, and I didn't understand a lot of it.

A. The trial version will let you know if this is a program that you think is a benefit to you. Don't worry too much about not understanding all of it. My advice is to check it every day as soon as it is working on your site, and you will soon have a grasp on the information it provides that is useful and the information that is superfluous.

Q. I wanted to download the Webalizer because it sounded like it has really cool stuff, but when I got to the site I didn't see a button that said "Download Webalizer" and I didn't understand all the components that I really needed to make it work.

A. There is a Download button on the site; however, installing Webalizer may get technical for newbies (my first and second programmers had to put it on my site for me). If you have trouble installing Webablizer, ask a professional programmer for help installing it to your site.

At the very, very least install a simple counter on your site if money is an issue. You need something to know how many people are coming on a daily basis.

Q. So all we had to do was examine it, and now we wait until the next lesson on how to fix it, right?

A. Right. I simply wanted you to get a measure of where your site is in comparison with others. Then, as we go through the next lessons, you can see if the suggestions you implement are working or not. In fact, someone said that they didn't even have a simple counter on their page to know how many people are coming. From personal experience, I would have sped right past some of the things that have worked the best on my site had I not known how to use these types of counters for evaluation purposes.

Q. Alexa told me that I'm not rated and no stats were available.

A. Alexa uses information for sites listed on the Open Directory. If your site is not listed or there are no stats, click on the Open Directory link at the very bottom of the Alexa site. You will be taken to the Open Directory where you can simply Add URL at the top. When this information is reloaded into Alexa, your site will appear (This may take a few days to a couple of weeks. If your site doesn't appear within a reasonable time, please let me know.)

Q. Addme's popularity link said I was linked once to HotBot and once to MSN. But more people than that have traded links with me, so I didn't get it.

A. Addme searches through the search engines it is reporting on. For example, it looks through HotBot and reports how many times your link appears on pages found there. If you trade links with someone who is not listed on the HotBot search engine, Addme will not count that link. I feel your frustration. Although I have approximately 145 solid links that I know about, none of the search engines on Addme or Alexa give me credit for that many. (Alexa counts the links in the Open Directory that you have.)

When we start linking strategies down the road, one thing you can work on is increasing your totals in each search engine. A really quick example, you would go to HotBot and search there for sites that are similar to yours to contact and request a link. Each of these sites that link would then increase your link count on the Addme HotBot count.

Q. When I use the services like addme, webalizer or alexa how do I know that it won't cause a lot of spam for me and also for the people that visit my site?

A. The three programs mentioned in this lesson do not, in my experience, email even sporadic messages to clients or to visitors. Addme won't even know you were there (except on their visitor counter). You do not have to leave an email address or anything. Webalizer is a for-purchase program (after a 30-day trial), and in 20 months of use, they have not contacted me even once. Alexa catalogs all sites on the Open Directory. I would guess they have at least access to the email address you post in the Open Directory, but they have never contacted me either.

I know some of you may have had some experience with "traffic increasers"-those annoying programs where you add code to the bottom of a page, and a pop under page is displayed every time you click off that page. These three programs are not those types. These will simply help you get a tally of how many visitors you're getting, the number of links you have on particular search engines, and where your site ranks.

If you have other questions, please email me at: staci_stallings@hotmail.com or online_course@hotmail.com