Hi Folks,
Just a quick correction: Jackie wrote the Linux article you received on Monday. You can see a corrected copy here.

I have been interested in Linux for some time. I am an accountant and use QuickBooks Pro 2002 and Excel for spreadsheets. Is there a solid Linux alternative to these programs? Calvin Wiles rockingwranchinc

Today's issue answers some tricky questions regarding multiple submissions (don't do it!), and reporting known search engine spammers to the search engines (do it!). Our closing story, from Charlene Rashkow, aWebPro Gold Contributor, offers some fantastic advice for anyone working on a business plan.

As always, continue to send in your questions about search engine optimization, Linux, web marketing, web development, email marketing, affiliate marketing, etc... Don't limit yourself though: I love getting feedback on all aspects of WebProNews, especially ways to improve! Look for our aggregate issue Tuesday, and have a great weekend!

Garrett

Resubmission Tactics: Follow Up
By Dan Thies

In a recent issue Marv Dealy, of Throckmorten Enterprises asked about the wisdom of repeatedly resubmitting your site to the search engines. We received conflicting responses from two top SEO specialists. Here's a response from Dan Thies, which offers some surprising advice, and tips the scales towards NOT resubmitting your site. In fact, Dan advises that you don't submit your site at all!

Here’s Dan Thies:
My two cents here, based on practical experience. Not only do I not
REsubmit, I don't submit in the first place, at least not to the "major"
search engines (AllTheWeb/FAST, Altavista, Google, Inktomi). Search engines regularly find and crawl websites that have enough external links pointingto them. Submission doesn't speed things up any more; in fact it seems to slow them down.

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When I launch a site, I arrange link partnerships well in advance, and
we're usually getting crawled by all the major search engines within a week
of the links going up, with multiple pages included at their next database
update.

Compared to sites we've tried to work with "after the fact," it's not even
close - they usually take weeks to get crawled after being submitted, and
it can take a few months for Google to list a new site that doesn't have
substantial incoming links on day one.

Inclusion (getting crawled does not mean you're listed yet) also happens
faster when we focus on links instead of submissions.

We work on links, not just to the home page of the site, but to major
internal pages as well. For example, if we have 5 sections, the home page
for each section also gets some external links. This encourages the search
engines to do a deeper crawl - getting more pages indexed means more
traffic.

I'm not the only one who feels this way. Doug Heil, whose SEO service's
website is ranked in the top ten on all the major search engines, recently
mentioned in his forums that he stopped doing submissions a long time ago.
It took a real leap of faith to try this the first time with my own site,
but it worked. We got our first hit from Google just 3 weeks after launch."

Dan Thies
Author, Search Engine Optimization
Fast Start

Report Search Engine Spam! By Paul J. Bruemmer

Search engines encourage Spam reporting as it can speed up the process of
delisting spammers. It can take time for the search engines to find all the
spammers through crawling. Below is a list of email addresses and URL to
report suspected spam to search engines.

Search engine reps at Search Engine Strategies Conferences have reported
that over 90% of submissions via their Add-URL forms are spam pages. Some
of these are submitted by unethical SEO firms via cloaking and doorway
pages, whereby hundreds of computer-generated pages for a single keyword
phrase are submitted via free Add-URL forms.

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This is why it takes so long to get listed for free and is also the reason
for paid inclusion programs, which most people use now to get listed
sooner. Search engines say paid inclusion is necessary to improve the
quality of their databases. So we all pay the price of search engine spam.
Definitely report suspected spammers.

Paul J. Bruemmer, CEO, Web-Ignite Corporation

Your Business Plan: a Guide to Success By Charlene Rashkow

As a professional business writer, I am often privy to valuable information
regarding my client's business performance. Noticing a common thread
running through their strategies, I recently asked some pointed questions
of three successful business owners. Each suggested that a strong business
plan was their first and most important tool as they prepared for their
venture. With that in mind, I probed further for specifics and received the
following responses.

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What do you believe is the most important reason for creating a business
plan?

1) A business plan can be the greatest impetus for moving you forward in
the direction of your dreams. It makes your ideas concrete and gives you a
clear guidepost to follow. While the preparation and presentation of a
business plan might at first seem intimidating, it really is a tool for
success.

2) We found that when we clearly defined our business and our goals in a
plan, people took us more seriously. To persuade investors, a sound,
comprehensive explanation of intended strategies helped get the funding
required. If your goal is simply to give yourself a road map, nothing could
be more helpful than a well thought out strategy.

3) By focusing on the specifics, it seems like the path is laid out clearly
before you, almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once an expectation is
set, we tend to act in ways that are consistent with that expectation.

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How did you begin the process of putting together a plan and what did you
include to make sure it was comprehensive?

To continue, click here

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