If you’re involved in the website building world at all, you probably know about Google and other search engines taking “content mills” for a ride.

I hate saying it’s content mills, because Entrepreneur.com and other websites that weren’t content mills were hit as well. That’s a pretty prominent magazine. What are they doing on the chopping block? A lot of people are questioning why certain sites were targeted (Suite101, LoveToKnow) over other content mill websites (eHow, Examiner).

So I’m taking a look at the top ten most dramatically decreased (according to sources) to see why readers might find the websites unappealing.

WiseGeek

This was listed as number one, with about a 70% drop in rankings.

Here’s a page:

Click on the images for a closer look.

This is a typical page at WiseGeek. Designers will probably cringe at it. It’s pretty crude. The design isn’t pretty. The yellow circled areas are either advertisements or links to get you to click on additional content throughout the website. The pink is the actual content.

Here’s the page: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-urban-planning.htm

On an average page, there’s over five Google text ads, and over five areas where WiseGeek places similar “you may be interested in the following articles as well” type of link placements (whole page navigation?).

Does the content answer the question? Yes, but can you find the answer? It’s hard to read when you’re “stopped” at least four times throughout the article, an ad or links to other pages are between every paragraph.

The content is pretty formulaic. Four or five paragraphs, all about equal in size. Each one has a few keywords. There’s answers, but sometimes you have to work past the fluff to get to it.

This is a website that pays editors to edit the content. How well they do the job may vary from person to person, but it doesn’t matter how well the content is written if I can’t read it.

It doesn’t matter how well the content is written if I’m unable to read the content.

Ezine Articles

One of the “scourges” of the web. People write about whatever they want and hope to get a link back from the page.

I separated navigation from advertisements this time. It’s not so bad until you scroll down the page.

http://ezinearticles.com/?5-Proven-Profit-Strategies-For-Info-Publishing-Success&id=5966966

As soon as the content is over: Ad, Ad, Share this Article Stuff, Links to over 40 different related and unrelated content inside the website, Ad, Ad, Ad.

So over five ads a page, and many, many links to other pages.

Can you get answers from this place? Well, yes and no. Some writers write well. But there’s no editorial process at all. If an article passes Copyscape standards (barely) and looks like it was written by someone who can write in English (barely) the article is published. But without some editorial process, the information is highly skewed to get the person to click on the writer’s links to find out more. And THAT design is heavily “unfriendly” toward the writer because it’s one link among at least a hundred posted.

If you scroll down on the page, even on my big fat screen, it’s a lot of additional stuff below the content, ads and more links to other parts of the website.

Outside of that, there’s content that might vary in size, but most fit the standard “over 300 and under 500″ category.

I’ll pick on my own article this time.

http://www.suite101.com/content/personal-ringtones-on-the-samsung-exclaim-a159864

As you can see, the ads on the left is actually in a bigger font size than the text of the article. The article is interrupted halfway through for advertisements. Navigation isn’t too bad on top, but as you scroll downward, the worse it gets as far as ads. At least seven on this page.

Does the content answer the question? It can, yes. Mine does, others who have written there do answer with knowledge they possess. There’s an editorial process with this website. It’s heavily SEO based, though. Editing grammar problems is there, but there’s a huge focus on keywords in the right places and following what is presumed to be Google friendly.

The formulaic 400 words and under 1000 words intro, fluff, meat, conclusion can happen.

HubPages

If you check out HubPages, the website itself isn’t too bad, but it might depend on which hub you land on.

This one is pretty classy.

http://hubpages.com/hub/WomensFashionsofthe1920-FlappersandtheJazz-Age

So yeah, the top part, about 1/3 of the page is content, the rest are ads, but they are less obtrusive, especially as you scroll downward.

I think I counted five ads, but the amount of content was staggering compared to it. The number of ads, compared to the gargantuan content, isn’t so bad. Top-heavy, yes, but not bad.

But other hubs may show ads inserted by the writer of the hub. The hubs are self service. Anyone can log in and post a hub, and then link it to their own websites, ebooks for sale, Amazon book ads, and so on. If the Hub’s page was unobtrusive with ads, the content may make up for it in advertisement and heavily biased content. The one link posted actually did a pretty awesome job but if you click around, you may see a lot of variances.

Does the content answer the question? Depends on the hub you land on. The person might have been very good, or the person may have posted more ads (Amazon.com ads, links to other hubs, self promotion etc.) with very thin content. There’s not much of an editorial process. Because it’s a crapshoot in an ocean of hubs, there’s room to believe that content may be a big part as to why HubPages is on thin ice with Google.

Your Dictionary

A dictionary, of all things!

Let’s look up a word: Content

So you have less than a full paragraph of content, and three big ads on top. The orange, again, is navigation. The navigation is understandable. So it’s top heavy when it comes to advertising.

http://www.yourdictionary.com/content

But as you scroll down, there’s more content. This is actually content from a legit dictionary. I don’t know off-hand if this dictionary website has permission to publish the content, but it seems like it does.

Does the content answer the question? While the ads are top heavy, there is useful content. The website does answer the question. I don’t know why this one was brought down. It could be users didn’t like it for some other reason. I’d love to hear from people looking at this, what is your opinion? Why would Google be less interested in this dictionary?

BrotherSoft

I haven’t been to this website before, and now looking at it… I don’t know. It’s a software download website, so why is Google lowering it a notch?

There’s ads and navigation problems here. There’s ads riiiiiiight next to that download link. I scrolled down just under the name of the software they want you to download.

http://www.brothersoft.com/eyes-relax-portable-edition-368161.html

This one is a little bit trickier. There’s obtrusive ads, that’s obvious, but look at the green highlighted text. I marked over them in orange in the image, but look at the page.

If you scroll over it, there’s a big ad that pops up. So while you are cruising the website, if you happen to mouse over something, up pops an advertisement.

There’s a paragraph of content, and the download link, but there’s mostly navigation away from the page and ads. On other pages, there’s content like “how to stay awake at night when you have work to do” but instead of content, it’s minor content with links to software downloads.

Does the content answer the question? If you were looking for software, it’s here. There’s downloads. I don’t want to download a program, so others will have to share how safe it is, but with the ads all over, it’s hard to navigate, the ads are obtrusive. I can see why if you were searching for an article, and you got links to software programs covered up by ads, it’d be a little tough to stay put.

Buzzle

Here’s a confusing one:

It’s not pretty… well it’s just really plain. But there’s nothing wrong with that.

Two ads on the page.

Both are after the article and left side navigation.

Below the ads are links and links and more links, not as bad as Ezine but could be a contributor to the decline on Google.

So the real problem has to be the content.

See that place I highlighted, it is a link that goes to another page on the website. I didn’t find it obtrusive.

Does the content answer the question?This one does. I don’t know of the editorial process for this one, but it looks like the workers are not paid. That usually means self promotion. I could be totally wrong about this one though, because I’m clicking on people’s names and I don’t see links to their website, just more of the author’s work on Buzzle.

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/birthday-gifts-for-teenage-girls.html

So why do you think Google kicked it down a notch?

Associated Content

Here’s Yahoo’s purchase of the ones solo entity of Associated Content. Most writers will know that AC pays a very small up front fee for content (ranging from a couple of dollars to maybe $20… but I’ve not seen anyone claim to make that much on a single article in years) and now they offer revenue share for writers.

Now the ads are less obtrusive. They are kind of big. Four big ones on this page.

There’s two on top, two on bottom. Here’s the rub: Content can be minimal. There’s very little editorial work being done. As long as the content looks original and looks like English, anyone can write for Associated Content.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/7815722/protect_yourself_part_5_12_tips_to.html?cat=25

Does the content answer the question? It’s up in the air. While the ads are tolerable, and navigation streamlined, the quality of the writing will be subject to whatever whims the writer feels like. If he or she wants to write fluff, there’s fluff. If it’s great, it’s great. It’s just unreliable.

Free Downloads Center

So this one is similar to Brothersoft.

Can you find the download link? It’s next to the name of the software. Took me a minute to find it, too.

More ads and navigation than content.

http://freedownloadscenter.com/Palm_Pilot/Home_and_Hobby/Digital_Photography.html

Now you can’t blame them too much. The bandwidth of an article vs. the bandwidth of uploading and downloading software is a HUGE difference, so to make up for the money they need to operate, they have to do stuff to the page.

But at the same time, it might be risking viewers if they can’t find the download link, or figure out what to read.

Does the content answer the question? If you need the specific software, yeah. It isn’t really content heavy, the most content is on the blog and it just highlights the latest content available.

Essortment

Let me tell you a little store about Essortment. Once upon a time, there was a website that wanted writers to write for them. They paid about $15 or $20 an article, I forget how much, and they asked all sorts of people to write their content for them. Sounds like Demand Studios? It wasn’t. This was before Demand Studios ever existed. I forget the name off the top of my head, but it was something like WriteForUs, WriteForCash, something similar.

But a flood of writers went in, wrote for the website, and then one day, *poof* they said no more, and then they went into dormant mode.

http://www.essortment.com/tips-growing-avocado-53521.html

And that’s where it was ever since. The content was static on pages like Essortment.

I guess one day Demand Studios bought it out, because it is now owned by them.

By web standards, this content is ancient. It didn’t used to look like this, but these are the changes made by Demand Studios. Mostly ads, lots of navigation, content broken up by ads.

Does the content answer the question? Yes. The content is old, but they were evergreen topics, for the most part. You may find outdated content and maybe new content thanks to DS adding more to it, but it’s still there. You’ll have to work around the ads to get to the content. The fact that the content is old may attribute to the lowering of the quality value, according to Google.

That’s ten. There’s some patterns in there.

Formulas are out.

If you’re going to answer a question, answer it. Remove the fluff. Just because you can write 400 words on a topic doesn’t mean you should. You should probably also give room for more words if something requires it. People stuffing “how to replace a 747 jet engine” may need a little bit more room for people trying to answer “how to pick a prom dress”.

Ads need to diminish in size, content needs to be predominant.

Another problem is ad obtrusiveness. If there’s more ad space than content space, there’s a problem. Some websites will have a paragraph on a page, and three huge ads! The paragraph of content will sometimes be enlarged, because it has to be or you wouldn’t notice the paragraph.

Navigation can’t outsize the content.

Also, navigation is important to a website, but overly suggesting other areas to look at with over 40 links and three different navigation tools is confusing. A few mild suggestions is OK. The more choices, the more likely I’ll be confused and will leave the page.

Quality May Vary

As far as quality goes, that’s an individual standard. Here’s a look at something surprising. Yahoo Answers, the “self serve” of content, actually improved in the rankings. Here might be why:

Yahoo Answers

Check this out, one ad (I’ve seen two on there at most at this moment).

There’s the big bold question, with big lettering for the follow up information to the question, followed by a real person answering.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AtFOVqf09iEajqApXSCs9lAjzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20070529192231AADyRhn

Is there quality in the content? Depends on your definition. These are real people who get very little reward, they just like to help out. This is “forum mentality” where someone asks a question on the forum, and it’s volunteers who answer. Some are extremely helpful. Some are not so grammatically correct. But there’s no formula. No restrictions or qualifications. Just personal experience or knowledge being shared.

Can it be abused? Yes, some people may link their own content to the answer or may have a hidden agenda, but you have back up answers from other real people. Just because you leave a link to your website doesn’t mean it will be selected as best answer.

There’s always a direct answer to the content/question. It may not be edited, formulated or search engine optimized, but it’s an answer. Often short and to the point.

So what do you think internet readers are trying to say about what they want as far as content?

You know you need back ups. We all do. But we also need space on the computer. So here’s the quick tip from me for today.

Drag your WoW game, your ripped copies of movies and music you have CDs for, etc., and put them all on your external hard drive. I got the Verbatim hard drive from a PR rep, and all I can say is… it’s so small. Small. But with over 300 gigs of space. They have a bigger one for 500 gigs. With WoW or other games running off of the external hard drive, you get at least 20 gigs of space free on your main drive. I think I just purged 40 gigs of games off of my hard drive onto the Verbatim, and the games still run smooth.

Copy files you only have digital copies of into three ways. Frequent, Back Up and Never Used. You know those old files you never look at any more, but hang on to? Save that to your external storage space, and to a couple of burned CDs (or release into the cloud).

If you use it frequently (at least once a month) store it locally and put it on your current backup drive.

Update your Never Used spaces if you use something and then stop. Drop it into an “Empty” folder and then once a week empty it onto your back up and never used files. You can schedule your computer to do this automatically. (Yes, people talk about it, and never do it, but it takes thirty minutes.

File, file, file. This isn’t your filing cabinet, with marker-ed up reused files and limited space. This is the magical world of tech and Internet. Write your files with really long labels. Rename it when you’re done. Move them where you want.

Remember, if you only have one copy on your back up hard drive, then it isn’t a back up. Duplicate it.

Is there a better method? What’s yours?

Laptop Cases

I just got my Targus bag, and I love that one. The Cajun is looking for a good match for his netbook. Of all the laptop accessories, the case you carry it in may not be the item that most people think of, but carrying around your laptop or netbook in your arms gets to be a pain after the first two times.

Having a laptop case on hand allows you to carry the mouse and other accessories that I find I need when I am traveling or when I’m on my way to school.

My Targus bag costs $65 or more. If you want a great price on laptop cases, they can range between $20 and $100 and go up from there.

Laptop Mice

The mouse is easier to use than the touch pad. So getting a wireless mouse has been one of the first few gadget items we’ve looked for when it came to having a netbook. Laptops with touch pads are OK if you don’t use it much. However, trying to play World of Warcraft with a touch pad… as a few may know, it is difficult.

The mouse I bought for the Cajun cost I think about $15, and I think he’s wanting to get the bigger one, because the cheaper ones are tiny! And he’s got big hands. The good-sized ones that look great are usually about $25 and up. The ergonomic ones, which if you’re like me and use your netbook for work and school, you’ll want to get one of those that are about $30 an up.

So I’ve got an Acer accessory pack that included a pouch for the netbook, and a mouse, plus a…

Laptop External CD Drive

My netbook, as most netbooks do, come without the CD Rom drive. My Acer accessory pack came with an external DVD burner. This is a great method of getting the DVD or CD Rom drive that you will need. I bought an external mouse for the Cajun and he can use my DVD drive if he needs it.

These usually cost around $89 but if you get a kit, it should come down in price.

What are your laptop must-haves?

Photo by Moriel.

Some people hate it. Some people think Google’s new side bar looks a lot like Bing’s. I think so. I think it’s silly. Their previous look was fine. I liked the more zen and simple design.

The logo changed too, but no one really noticed or cared since the left bar was the real deal killer for many searchers. Many are threatening to switch to Bing. (Who doesn’t use more than one search engine, anyway?)

So here’s the quick way on how to get the side bar off of Google.

Popular answer number one:

Use Firefox.

Download Greece Monkey. Greece Monkey can be found here.

Use this script on it:

function AddStyle(Style) {
var style = document.createElement(‘style’

);
style.type = “text/css”;
style.innerHTML = Style;
document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)[0].appendChild(style);
};

AddStyle(“#leftnav {display:none}”);
AddStyle(“#center_col {margin-left:0}”);

Answer No. 2

This is the No-Coding Answer.

Go to Tools.
Click on Options.
Click on Privacy.
Click on Remove Individual Cookies.
Search for PREF.
Delete the google.com PREF.
Refresh, repeat deleting the cookie if you need to.

This should work. Let me know if you have a few extra tips on getting rid of the Bing-like side bar.

I hear not all countries are getting the side bar, either, and sometimes not all states are getting it. Let me know if you happen to get it or you don’t. Maybe you don’t have the updated cookie, preferences or whatever.

Subscribe to stay up to date on additional changes, quick fixes and how to do other tech stuff. I’ll make a video on this later and will probably post it here in this section.

Thanks for reading.

You may already be seeing the new bar on the left hand side of Google, which offers up the usual “Images” and “Videos” option of searching. Google search has been trying this design out for a while.

To me, this left handed side feels a little ‘crowded’ now that I’ve gotten used to the old system. Is it easier or better to use? I think that since you can customize it to increase or decrease the tabs for advanced searching make it easier than doing additional clicks for advanced searches. Without going to a ‘different page’ for images and video and news and other search narrowing features, it makes it a bit easier.

I think Google’s new search browser look mimics Microsoft’s Bing left side bar.

It’s not exact, but why did they change from their old design to the new one? To try to recapture some people who switched to Bing? The heavy data driven search engine has been debated over a lot of news features. Here’s the real facts.

1. Google has a new look.
2. It’s shiny.
3. Google is still the same old search engine, it just has the added bar.
4. It feels crowded to me but others may like it.

Maybe I’ll get used to it, or rather, I will have to if I continue to use Google. I would have preferred it being on the right, but then, that’s where the ads are.

What’s your opinion of the new left side bar at Google? Love? Hate?

I’ve found just the thing to give as a gift for a tailgater, or to buy for yourself if you love to cook out and have your own favorite sports team. Grill Toppers recently sent one my way for me to try out.
Grill Topper is a great device that lets you sear your favorite team logo into your steaks, hamburgers and more.

How ingenious! This is actually something fun, and I swear every single tailgater will want one of these. They are always trying to find the thing that will one up the party next door. Here’s the solution. Branded meat.

This has got to be a best seller among sports fans in the near future if it isn’t already. Easy to use, and reasonably priced, meat can now be branded and displayed. Ultimate fans will have to have this item.

It is pretty easy to use. Just sit atop your grill, and once it is heated, you can sear your meat on the topper. It makes the mark for you, and it seems to work perfectly ever time. There’s a video on how it works and more information at the website.

If only they would make these for high schools, for more teams. I also like that they have some additional more generic symbols, like the fleur de lis. Looking forward to seeing additional logos on these grill toppers.

Given that I recently got an Aspire One netbook for Christmas as a gift from my brother, I was delighted to try out one of the new messenger bags. I hadn’t purchased a carrying case for mine yet, so this was a great idea for me.

I’ve carried it around for a couple of weeks now, stuffing in my netbook, notebooks, pens, and smaller gadgets like my cell phone and PDA and the cords needed to power them.

The bag itself has a great outer shell material. There’s several pockets both inside and out. I love the magnet feature, much better than the Velcro closures you see on many bags of this type. I like the solid click of the magnets when they attach, so I know it is closed. I hate being in a quiet room with a lot of people, like a library, and the noisy sound Velcro makes. The magnets totally work well in replacement. One slight wish is that the magnets could be a tad bit stronger. More for my “feeling secured” rather than actual practicality. I want have to tug a little to open my bag.

The outer material feels great and the padding within the walls of the bag makes me feel more secure about what I am carrying. If I drop this on the floor with my netbook, I feel my netbook has added protection to it. I can plop it on the floor or table and not worry about the ding.

I love the color, the red one is the one I got. Targus offers different colors for different bags but the red is fitting with this particular model.

Some things I thought the bag was missing was a bit more extra room for notebooks. There was room but I felt like the material was less “giving” if I wanted to stuff some books. I felt like I was stretching it a bit with a couple notebooks and a folder. However, if you just use a small notebook and carry around your laptop or netbook with this case, there should be plenty of room. Plus extra pockets for notes and pens and other small gadgets.

As I was carrying it around, my shoulder felt the weight. I think it needs an additional shoulder pad. I see this on other Targus bags and maybe they could add that to this bag. Still, it wasn’t too bad, just slightly uncomfortable. The extra padding with a shoulder pad on the strap would fix that quickly.

In all, it would be a great purchase. Stuff your laptop into your backpack or a purse? Not sure about that but this Targus bag totally works.

Thanks Targus for sending me a great product.

This is a supplement to the Samsung Exclaim Personal Ringtone article I wrote. There is more information at the article about how to do this, so go there to read and if you need the video, that is now provided. Thanks for watching and let me know if you have any questions.

This is how to make video ringtones, which is how you make ringtones for the Exclaim. This should also work for the Samsung Rant, as it should have the same software that is provided by Sprint.

Remember that you are trying to upload the video ringtone that you make to your memory card. That’s the one you want to do. You may need a memory card reader to hook up to your computer in order to do this right.

Samsung Exclaim From Sprint

The first one is on the Personal Ringtone on the Samsung Exlaim.

The second one is How to Get a Personal Ringtone on the Samsung Rant.

Let me know what you think of the two articles. I have to say, I had a time trying to figure this out. It took me nearly an hour of trying to figure out what worked.

I also found out that if I downloaded my favorite YouTube video, cut it into a 20 second edited piece, and format it correctly using the instructions, I could actually have mini clips of YouTube videos as ringtones. Fantastic, isn’t it? I made a handful from some on my favorites list and some of my favorite moments from YouTube channels I subscribed to.

So if you are a fan of Nalts or sxephil or any of those guys, you can take a piece of them with you.

I might do the opening to Firefly sometime as a nice ringtone.

I can’t wait until I have more ringtones to share with people. I might make a few of my favorites and upload them to this blog for others to use.

My Samsung Exlaim is actually a pain about putting on ringtones. A friend shared this. I thought it was funny.

I’ll be writing an article and making a video on how to put your own ringtones on Samsung Exclaim, soon.