June 17, 2008

Community happenings and more information are posted on the

By Gina Burgess

Executive Director, CEO

There is a thing called a Googlebot. It is actually many computers fetching webpages much more quickly than a normal person can with a web browser. It has been compared to a spider that crawls the web, reading different websites and categorizing them for searches. It is difficult to understand all the logistics, but when stated like that it’s fairly simple.

You can add your site to Google’s Add URL or just let it sit there and at some point the Googlebot will find your site and add it to the list of millions of website on the net. I added the Chamber’s blog to the Google conglomerate of web pages, and I have added all of the website I have of our membership. Please go to the blog and check to see that your website is listed. If it is not, please send me a link and I’ll add it.

Google ranks pages according to how many links a site has. This is another thing this Googlebot does. Isn’t it the most intelligent spider? It will weed out the SPAM websites and leave in the legitimate ones.

“When Googlebot fetches a page, it culls all the links appearing on the page and adds them to a queue for subsequent crawling. Googlebot tends to encounter little spam because most web authors link only to what they believe are high-quality pages. By harvesting links from every page it encounters, Googlebot can quickly build a list of links that can cover broad reaches of the web. This technique, known as deep crawling, also allows Googlebot to probe deep within individual sites. Because of their massive scale, deep crawls can reach almost every page in the web. Because the web is vast, this can take some time, so some pages may be crawled only once a month,” says the Google web page on Googlebots.

So, this little spider scurries around the web and updates pages that are indexed. Only those pages that are updated frequently are crawled on a regular basis simply because those that are stagnant don’t need updating.

Key words are the attraction to be indexed. The Bot discards all the “the”, “and” “but” and other commonly and frequently used words. It zeros in on the exceptional words like Chamber or membership or sales then catalogs those pages that use the words fairly frequently.

Page Rank plays a role in this as well. The Greater Picayune Chamber voted for each of the members whose websites is linked on the Blog and on the Chamber’s web site. Google defines page rank like this:

“PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at considerably more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; for example, it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important." Using these and other factors, Google provides its views on pages' relative importance.”

That is so annoying!

By Gina Burgess

Executive Director

How many times has someone said, “Email me on that,” then has not responded to your request?

How about… people who just say “Hello” in the subject line giving no clue what the subject of the email is all about.

How about… all the “If you don’t pass this along to at least 10 people dire things will happen to you.” Or worse: “If you don’t pass this along then that means you are unpatriotic, disagreeable, don’t love God, afraid to stand up for what you believe… yada, yada, yada.”

Back when my daughter was extremely naïve and innocent, she called me about some scam about a rich relative in England passing away and she was the only member of the family they could find to inherit $4 million. Okay… if you believe that an attorney (or solicitor in England) would contact you by email for a $4 million inheritance, I have a bridge in New York I can sell you for cheap.

So what’s a busy professional to do with all the email bombs that come our way?

First, don’t forward something without taking off all the email addresses attached to what comes into your inbox. Ever wonder why you get so much SPAM? It’s because of the forward, forward, forward of a CutiePie, or Inspirational, or Patriotic email (which I love along with everyone else), but… Those email addresses are just asking to be retrieved and added to the next SPAMMER’s bulk mailing. Use the Bcc when emailing your address book. That’s Blind Carbon Copy. With Gmail, it’s under the address line. What it does is hide all the addresses you send to and leaves only the one you send to yourself in the address line. Your friends will thank you because they won’t be getting a bunch of bulk mail from someone they do not know.

If you give your email to someone, then tell them how often you check your email. I think the email providers should have an automatic category added to the domain name of each person’s email, such as infocompany@hardlyeverchecks. com. Or boss@digitallychallenged.com so everyone will know not to expect any reply to an email anytime soon. One fellow gave me his email and said he reads every email sent to him but never replies to one. ???? What is the point of communication if it doesn’t go both ways?

You get a lot of emails from the Chamber. That is because you need to know what’s happening at the Chamber. You also need to know what other members are doing. I do not know who said Knowledge is power but they were correct. The more we talk about the good stuff going on, the better we are. It lifts morale, it gives positive feelings the chance to expand, it’s better than a cold drink of water on a hot, dry day.

I live by email. For me it is the best form of communication because I can think before I speak, and I can change my mind before I send. I also have a record of what I’ve sent to whom and when. It’s great! I won’t abuse your trust by SPAMMING you. I get anywhere from 200 to 300 emails per week. I filter them all and only send you what pertains to you and our membership. I offer you the opportunity to send one free email to the membership per month. Use it! It works. Open up all those doors and see what walks into your business.