New Search Engine World Layout and Refresh

[Brett_Tabke]

If you have a moment, could you stop into Search Engine World [searchengineworld.com] (logo top right of this page) and tell me what you think? To start with, I just like to double check that I haven't made any major blunders with the new html. I doubt I could adequately express how much work went on behind the scenes to update the content and design (about 3weeks).

The layout was choosen for its proven SEO value. It is the first time in 4 years of the site that I have put SEO concerns above usability. But after the old template and design was such a rankings disaster, it is time to go with something I know works and has a track record behind it.

Thank you for all the support you have given to me and the site in the past. I hope I can continue to earn your patronage and serve the SEO community in the future.

New newsletter this week or next.

[rcjordan]

Looks good.

I started to complain about this last week.... it needs a BIG link to these WebmasterWorld forums. You have lots of 3rd party links to SEW that are referencing the forums --which you moved to WebmasterWorld.

[oilman]

looks pretty good - huge improvement

The Design and Development page is a little out of wack - looks like you forgot to close a font tag or H tag - all the words are HUGE

On the sign up for the newsletter where it says 'press the ol submit button' the ol should be ol' (with that apostrophe)

Under the downloadable scripts you missed a 'g' in logger for Traxis.

[mark roach]

Got an error:

err #): The server or script encountered an error while trying to access (path snipped for protection) !Either the directory or file doesn't exist, or its permissions are set incorrectly.

When I tried to access the Collective V3 link.

[Brett_Tabke]

Thank you guys. (I edit out the file path above mark for my own protection...)

Thanks Oil, RC....working on it.

[mark roach]

Sorry about that Brett. Does that mean you have to shoot me now ? :)

[oldtimer]

Much better

[Air]

Looks good. It looks like it will have a nice combination of SE and user friendliness.

Nitpicking observation:

At the bottom of the page after the link to WmW "moderatored" should be moderated.

[littleman]

I like it. The site has a nice modern simplistic layout - it seems a lot less busy.

[Brett_Tabke]

Thank you for all the feedback here and email.

[chiyo]

nice and neat...

just one thing. I think the text link on top of THESE pages to SEW was more effective.. it reminded me to check every so often. The SEW graphic looks neat, but not as enticing to click, (for me anyway)... Some new people wont know what SEW actually stands for. (maybe incorporate some text onto the grpgihc as well)

[Brett_Tabke]

Thanks Chiyo. I wasn't ignoring the comments - in the flurry of activity during the switch over, I missed a few posts here.

A text link is better eh? I'm kinda split on it. I may switch it back, or I might start rotating it with non-profit webmaster related links. I'm not real worried about clicks out of her back to SEW. All the regulars know me and the site. I just wanted a splash of color up there. I don't view this as a loss leader for SEW, I consider SEW a loss leader for here :)

[WordSmith]

Being kinda new round here, I cant remember the old look, but I think I'm addicted. Do you have a 12 step program or something? Brett, I really like your style.
But how come your pages are changing my browser font sizes? I thought I was hallucinating, first it set it to smaller on one page, then larger on another. Very Alice in Wonderland!

[Brett_Tabke]

Hi Wordsmith, thanks for stopping by. We do have an SEO 12 step program, but I am only on step 10 ;)

Changing browser font size? Hmmm. Best I can figure, you may have been biten by a banner ad that toyed with the fonts in a frame. I will investigate this.

[WordSmith]

If its any help, I was reading the article about feeding spiders, theres a bit of code in it, which was too small to read, so I checked the font size was set to smaller. Not somthing I ever change. So I reset to normal. Then on one of the tools, cant remember which one sorry, the text went huge and the font size was set to larger when I looked. IE 5, but you probably know more about me than I do by now. Never clicked any banners, dont even notice them anymore.

[Brett_Tabke]

Well the banner ads over there have an IFRAME on them where the advertiser can insert snips of html. There was a problem with the html they were inserting on one of the ads. I think that insertion may have been where the bad font codes came from. I was unable to reproduce your results - but, I did find a couple of table errors while I was digging. Don't you just hate it when you wander through code and find an error out of the blue - gives me the creeps.

Thanks for the feedback.

[WordSmith]

Yeah, I think I might have just clicked on the edge of a banner accidently. Actually, I've been poking into some of your source, looking for tips from the master, and you do have a few coding errors in the odd tag. <sorry, I'm nosy>
Hey if your on step 10 that means you have asked forgiveness from those you have harmed in the past right?

[Brett_Tabke]

step 10 is a tough one...lol.

Ya, I gave up hope of perfect html. Since most of my sites are dyno generated, that's a whole new degree of difficulty. Doing up code in an editor is one thing, but generating it on the fly out of several programs is difficult at times. The most common problem is the stray table row or cell here or there.

Still looking for a worthy html validator (htmlvalidator.com is probably the best out there, but there are some things I don't care for in it.