Mitch Keeler interviewed me on the Web Hosting Show podcast today. This was my first ever appearance on any podcast and I thoroughly enjoyed it. My voice intonation sounded like something between Fred Thompson and Darth Vader, but that’s something I’ll have to work on. Mitch has done a great job with the Web Hosting Show podcast over the years. The show has 500 subscribers to date. Mitch has a knack for wit and humor and explaining the ins and outs of the sometimes wacky web hosting world. If you want to learn about and stay up to date on web hosting, subscribe to the Web Hosting Show and you won’t be disappointed.

The theme of the show was web host reviews and I got a chance to talk about how we do web host reviews here at Clickfire. I’ll be writing more about this in the future because I want to elaborate on some of the answers I gave Mitch. Enjoy!

Show Notes | Download

Digg has it’s share of viewpoints, but this error message is an argument in itself.

Original title: Don’t know what you got til it’s gone

I just had some fun making up fictitious Google technologies on April Fool’s Day. I left out one product that is not funny and just might be real: Google Rollercoaster. A better amusement park analogy would be one of those rides that takes up hundreds of feet in the air, stops for a while, then drops you suddenly like The Great Gasp. That’s what happened to me. Let me explain.

March 22: I realized that something really strange was going on with the Google search results. Not only had Clickfire lost most of its rankings, but other sites appeared perched atop the first page where we once sat. Here is what I observed for searches on brand names:

• First and second pages flooded with brand subdomains, some very odd
• Third party registered domain names that include brand names (still seeing some of this)
• Commission Junction affiliate domains–not affiliate sites, but pointing directly to jdoc..-whatever .com

For any keyword phrase that did not have a brand name in it, the results look much better (except for the fact that I wasn’t there anymore). I was starting to get worried. My traffic had dropped by around 70%. Affiliate and AdSense revenue had shriveled to nearly nothing. Is it me or is it Google? Will I ever know? I would give my right navigation to know what aspect of my site might have tripped this filter of grief. Worrying wasn’t helping, so I hit the forums and blogs in search of an answer.

April 2nd, Barry Schwartz of SEO Roundtable posted that that Matt Cutts was seeking feedback on a new update called “Dewey.” Uh oh. But Matt seemed to be seeking differences in SERPs on 2 datacenters and not so much on poof cases like mine, where pretty much all rankings from aged white hat sites had disappeared. However, I did notice a few posters here and there who had reported cases similar to mine. I felt a little better. Was this mysterious google update an algorithm update? Was it a software upate. Was it a… hmm… could it be? No… was it a datacenter update? Bigdaddy, yes, I’ve been here before. I remember that during the Google Bigdaddy datacenter, I saw the exact same goings ons in the SERPs during almost the exact same time period in 2006. Had Bigdaddy come back to haunt me?

April 9th: whatever this misery was, it began to go away.

This experience was a reminder that we who rely on organic search results are just one update away from a brick and mortar job.

That which does not kill me, only serves to make me stronger.

Nietzsche might have been a good SEO.

Thanks to my favorite web hosting personality and friend, Mitch Keeler of Mitchelaneous.com and the Web Hosting Show for asking me some really interesting questions in this interview. This is my first interview ever and I enjoyed it so much that I’m thinking of asking some of you for interviews. That’s what blogging is all about, isn’t it? People. Here’s a sample, but I suggest spending some time exploring Mitch’s sites to get the full impact of who he is as well.

How did you get your start on the Web?

Emory: My path into the web began in the mid 1990’s. I was a fairly uninspired surfer and email user until I discovered online multiplayer gaming. Meeting others and competing with them in a virtual world fascinated me. I spent a lot of time gaming back then when I should have been reserving domains like games.com. Looking back, I guess you could say that playing multiplayer games was my first online social networking experience. But, instead of the polite introductions we have with today’s social networking sites, you broke the ice by joining a game and chasing people around, taunting and blowing each other up.

There are many hundreds of Half-Life 2 servers to choose from on any given night. This night, I joined WebViper’s Skul’Shock South server. Like a lot of PC gamers, WebViper creates his own custom maps. He even has his own mod of Half-Life 2 running on his server. A custom map maker creates his own environment, placing weapons, determining respawn points and inserting his own props to maximize gameplay. Custom map making can consume a great deal of time. I know because I made a few maps for Duke Nukem 3D a long, long time ago when I should have been doing things like, oh, say reserving domains such as business.com. But, that was a different stage of my life. In-game advertising just might be a sweet way that mappers and modders can get paid for all their hard work and creativity.

Unlike other servers, we don’t beg for money. It’s 100% free!

So, I join the game and begin fragging my opponents and what do I see on the billboard in front of me? Someone wants me to know that a company called GH1.com offers web hosting services. I took some of the screen shots below to share with you. In fact, I risked my virtual life to grab these images as several times I found myself respawning after curiously staring at these web hosting ads which would have been ignored had I seen them on an actual Web page. There is not much leisure time for sight seeing in Half-Life 2, if you know what I mean.

GH1 web hosting site — the website image in the bottom left corner does not appear in the actual game, I just superimposed it over the screen shot here so you can see what GH1.com looks like in a browser should you visit the site. Read more of this post »

Ten years ago on this day, I registered the Clickfire.com domain and began what has been my most satisfying website creation experience ever. When I started out, I truly had no idea what I was doing and where it would go. As I think about it, one of the most important things to me was to establish a web identity. I wanted a little piece of Internet turf where I could live and play and totally be my creative self. I want to put forth a little history of how things began and evolved over the decade.

Let’s dust off the old hard-drives and see what we can uncover from the Clickfire archives. Read more of this post »

SEO, Bruce Clay, Mobile Search, Video, and Social Media

Pictured above: Scott Thompson and Bruce Clay

The last day of ad:tech New York 2007 is half way over.  I won’t post again because I’ll be high-tailing it outa here to the airport after the conference.  The highlight of today for me was meeting Bruce Clay.  As an old SEO guru I’m a fan of his work and his site.  He was a really gracious man with an intelligent sense of humor that is common in geniuses.  I attended the SEO session moderated by Mr. Clay not because I needed to learn more about SEO but because I wanted to hear him speak. 

The conference over all was a success.  It is clear that this industry is growing and it’s also clear that even the brightest in the field are a little confused about the exact direction it’s going.  Most do believe that mobile search is going to be huge, but no one can agree when this will be.  I spoke to a mobile search company in the exhibition hall and they were adamant that mobile search is already huge, others are not so sure.  Either way it’s something to watch for. 

The other big talk is about video and how best to take advantage of it for your business.  Many are interested but almost all are still trying to figure out the best way to implement video.  If video is big, so is social media. But again there are many questions still floating around about where to put your attention and what social tools are best.  Just make sure you include the social media graphics at the bottom of your pages or posts (Digg, StumbleUpon, etc.). 

I hope you’ve enjoyed this adtech 2007 review and I hope that you will come by and visit NextModo.com.  I’m here to help you create better sites that will increase conversions, make you look good, and earn more money.

I’ll leave you with a tip I picked up at the SEO session:
Use short URLs that are easy to email and to link to.  This will ensure that your URLs don’t break in emails and will be easier for users to copy when linking to you.

Thanks
Scott Thompson
NextModo.com

Day three of ad:tech New York was the first full day of sessions.  I could detail each session I attended but will instead point you toward the adtech podcasts.  Look for them soon on the ad:tech Web site.  Below are some of the highlights of the day. 

Wednesday started with a panel discussing the state of the Internet marketing industry.  The panel was moderated by the President and CEO of IAB, Randall Rothenberg.  It included several leaders in our industry and the political blogger, socialite, and former political candidate Arianna Huffington.  Ms. Huffington was a lot of fun and a very likeable person.  It’s easy to understand how she succeeded in life with her quick wit and charm.  Huffington noted that even though her readers are obsessed with politics they also have other interests and much of the success of her website comes from offering “other things outside of politics.”

Huffington spoke about sharing her content with other sites.  She stated that by giving their content away it brought more readers back to her site.  In the old world everyone was protective of their content but now you can share it and still get traffic.

I highly suggest listening to the podcasts from today while paying special attention to the video and mobile advertising sessions. 

ad:tech kicked off with a motivating speech by Adtech programming chair Drew Lanni.  More than just tell us what ad:tech was he asked a few questions like “How is digital transforming all media?” One thing is for and that is that it’s a great time to be an entrepreneur.  

The keynote speaker, Nick Brien of Universal McCann, talked about branding and how it’s becoming more complicated in this new world where one out of every three purchases online are now influenced by social media.  In this new world corporations must be transparent because their brands are now owned by the customer.  If you want to create a positive brand you must provide an exceptional experience. 

I attended two other meetings where we discussed the new Internet economy.  I think I heard the word “Facebook” about 500 times today.  With Facebook’s new technology to target users everyone is excited about the possibilities.  How close are we to perfecting behavioral and contextual ads?  That’s the big question of the week.

I spent more time in the exhibit halls today gathering chotskies and talking to a lot of bright people.  It seems like there are dozens of analytic software companies now and dozens of other companies that probably have good products but don’t know how to explain what they do.  If you have a product or service and are spending thousands of dollars to show up at a conference like ad:tech New York make sure your employees know how to articulate your company’s product.  Here’s another tip.  If you want to get attention do something outstanding.  But if you do something outstanding have plenty of people ready to talk to the crowds that gather around your booth. 

The exhibit halls are now closed and the next two days are going to be full of workshops and sessions.  I’ve enjoyed the sessions thus far and can’t wait to meet more talented folks and fill my brain with more interactive marketing knowledge. 

Scott Thompson
NextModo.com

At the Atlas booth enjoying the oxygen bar.  It was the cleanest air I breathed since I arrived in NYC.

I hope I have enough room in my suitcase for all the chotskies.

The flight from Atlanta to New York was pleasant with a great ending as we passed by The Statue of Liberty and Manhattan.  I’m kicking myself now for not having the camera ready.  The shuttle trip from LaGuardia took almost an hour, but I did enjoy the trip as I got to see a large portion of the city first-hand. 

I arrived at my very “dated” hotel and checked into my very small room.  There were no more rooms at the Hilton for the conference rate and I decided to save a few bucks by staying in a close, but not as nice hotel. 

The exhibition halls were open so I decided to cruise on over to the Hilton and check out the booths.  I was blown away at the large number of exhibitors.  I’ve been to a few Internet conventions but none as large as ad:tech.  It looked like everyone was giving away an iPod so I made sure to drop my business card in every bowl hoping to win.  As for swag I filled a free bag with pens, notebooks, and other odd freebies.  The booths that did the most creative thinking were the busiest.  One exhibitor set up an oxygen bar and another had a team of very tall women dressed as dominatrix cops.  I thought about trying the oxygen bar and kept my distance from the leather garbed women.  I couldn’t think of anything positive they might do with those sticks. 

I spoke to a lot of people including Ross Geier with Didit and Grant Kravitz from Boss Dev.  Out of all the exhibitors I spoke with I liked them the most and found their services interesting and useful. 

After I filled my bag with goodies I took to the streets and walked to Times Square and then back up to Rockefeller Center and watched people ice skate.  This is a walking city and I can’t imagine how someone could live here and be fat.  I walked several miles today touring the area and I never strayed more than a mile from the hotel. 

I’ll post pictures and a summary of the first big day of adtech Tuesday night.  You can find me at the conference if you want.  I’m the guy with the laptop.

Scott Thompson
NextModo.com 

Things have been quiet around here for several weeks but that is about to change!  My good friend and fellow webmaster/SEO, Scott Thompson will be attending the Adtech New York conference this week and has agreed to post his experiences here for us. I am excited about this conference because Adtech is more of a marketing webmaster’s venue than others. I was looking over the list of speakers and companies attending and it seems just about every digital marketing genre imaginable is being represented: everyone from political bloggers to gamers. Scott’s perspective as a professional webmaster and founder of a new online marketing blog will be interesting to follow. Okay, Scott, take it away and pleeeeease get me some cool Tee’s :) –Emory Rowland

My bags are packed and I’m ready for a week of learning and fun at ad:tech New York.  From what I’ve read this year is going to be the best yet with over 10,000 attendees.  With announcements from the likes of Facebook and top rated speakers like Bruce Clay this is going to be a valuable four days. 

Wish me luck as I bring you news and photos from Adtech.  I’ll arrive in New York on Monday and plan to tour the exhibit hall and fill my pockets with swag before hitting the streets to see a few sites.  From Tuesday to Thursday I’ll be sitting through seminars filling my brain with all sorts of goodies to share with you. If you are going to be at ad:tech and want to network with a world class Internet guru go find Bruce Clay.  But if you want to say hello to a really nice guy look me up.  Check in here at Clickfire for daily updates.

Scott Thompson
NextModo.com

Finally, the sequel to How to Win a SEO Contest! This is based on article promotion content from the SEO Contest. I guarantee these 3 principles will help you achieve defeat. To my surprise, several webmasters actually republished this and I ended up getting a few links and laughs.

Let’s suppose you want to lose a search engine optimization contest such as the retsambew dash klat for charity competition. How would you go about doing it? Rather than offer theories on how to win first place based on personal anecdotes or debates on SEO discussion forums, consider some reliable methods that will ensure you successfully lose the SEO contest you have entered.  

Avoid Strategy
To effectively lose a SEO contest, it’s important to avoid any temptation of having a deliberate and coherent strategy. As the contest moves forward, remember not to observe the activities of your competitors in the search engine results (if you must, look at the losers only and learn what you can from them). Avoid SEO forums, tutorials and blogs belonging to search engine engineers. If you feel boxed in by all these rules, just trundle along and do what feels good for your site. Following these guidelines will not guarantee that you finish last, but they should put you in striking distance.

Stay away from Keywords
Assuming the SEO contest is similar to most wherein the entrants try to rise to the top of a search engine results pages for an obscure and difficult to pronounce keyword phrase such as retsambew dash klat for charity or nigritude ultramarine or supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, you will want to avoid any referance to such keywords in the text, title tags, anchor text, etc. of your competing site’s pages. Mentioning these words will put you at a higher risk of not losing.

Do not Rely on Inbound Links
Links from other sites pointing to your contest site may be seen by search engines as a vote for your site. Make sure you avoid such practices at all costs to ensure losing the contest.  If you catch a webmaster of another site linking to your site, it may be advisable to send a brief communication asking that the link be promptly removed. If you are faced with a case where someone absolutely must link to your site, insist that it be done without anchor text inlcuding the SEO contest keywords. “Click Here” is a good alternative.

Good luck!

Anonymous Webmaster asks…

Several of the Google AdSense ads on our site are showing a “page not found” error within the ad space. I have checked from multiple locations and still see the errors. Our ads are not showing in all cases. Can you advise as to how I can correct?

This error had been puzzling me until recently when I saw the problem on one of my own sites and had to do some debugging. The answer starts with Google AdSense Alternative Ads, which provides a way to display your own ads if Google cannot display an ad on your page:

Alternate ads allow you to utilize your ad space in the event that Google is unable to serve targeted ads to your page. By default, Google shows public service ads (PSAs) if no targeted ads are available.

To display an altnernate ad, users are instructed to specify a URL pointing to their alternate ad resource, which looks this way inside the AdSense code:

google_alternate_ad_url = http://www.example.com/docs/alternatead.html;

A further advanced feature allows webmasters to collapse their ad if there are no targeted ads available so that it takes up no page space. This URL is given as an example:

http://www.example.com/scripts/google_adsense_script.html

I discovered that in my haste, I had copied the example above and replaced “example.com” with my own site name. That should work, right? Nooo… because I left the directory “/scripts/” in the path  which made it point to a dead file instead of “google_adsense_script.html,” which lay in my root directory. 

To answer the original question, if you are seeing the ”page not found error” inside your AdSense units, it is likely caused by an invalid alternative ads path. Make sure your alternate ads URL path is pointing to the correct file location.

Remember that the page not found error only appears when Google cannot display an ad. It is difficult to test your fix because most of the time Google displays ads. If it displays an ad, it’s not looking for the alternative ad path and therefore not showing the error. ¿Comprende?  Read more of this post »

 Gimme a Link and I’ll Stop Spamming Ya

Patrick Altoft of Blogstorm noticed the World’s Worst Link Exchange Request and asked “whats worse than a link exchange email?” Well, I’ve got a very strong candidate for you. How about a link exchange request delivered through the medium of comment spam requesting follow up on IM. Today I logged into WordPress to approve comments and found this unakismetted comment from someone named, Richard:

hello, my name is Richard and I know you get a lot of spammy comments,

I can help you with this problem. I know a lot of spammers and I will ask them not to post on your site. It will reduce the volume of spam by 30-50%. In return Id like to ask you to put a link to my site on the index page of your site. The link will be small and your visitors will hardly notice it, its just done for higher rankings in search engines. Contact me icq [removed] or write me [removed], i will give you my site url and you will give me yours  if you are interested. thank you

I just may approve this comment after all :)

Update from Richard 9-10-07: This may be the first case of someone achieving celebrity status through spam. This time we see the human side of Richard the Spammer as he introduces his wife, “Dosia,” confesses his guilt and appeals to our sense of hope…

Hello guys ! This is Richard again,
Im here again to help you solve the comment spam problem, I got tons of emails and wasnt able to help all of you but Ill do my best. I am a very nice guy actually, and I want to save the internet world! As I told you I know a lot of spammers because my wife Dosia and I work at a large link spam company. When I saw the blogs, guestbooks and forums full of spammy links I was shocked! I wanted to stop this pest, and I know there is a note book in the office where these techniques are kept secret. Im trying hard to find this secret book. As soon as I find it Ill tell you guys how to prevent the spam comments. Im in danger now guys because my boss will spank me hard for this if he finds out I want to ruin his business! I feel very guilty because these people gave a job for us and we are ruining their business. I know they have a website and they look for links thats why i asked you for a link to their site for me not to feel so guilty and do something good for them too. My wife and I will probably be fired :( But we are ready for this to save you. Thank you guys, dont worry, Ill help all of you. Please believe me and our dream will come true.

From Richard and Dosia with love. icq [removed]

I can confirm that the both messages came from the same IP address. I can’t wait to see what Richard says next time!

I’ve been wanting to have some fun and publish some of the material I drummed up for the SEO Contest held last year by Webmaster-Talk Forums: Retsambew Dash Klat for Charity. When the contest was over, I realized that I had ended up creating a ton of content, some of which is worth sharing. I threw together the piece that follows for the purposes of article promotion (in case anyone was thinking of taking it too seriously). If any of you are considering entering a SEO contest, this may be helpful to think about before committing. It helped me. I promise you I’ll eventually shutup about this contest… just give me a little more time :)

How do you win an search engine optimization contest? That’s the question that  SEO’s and webmasters ask themselves before investing what could turn out to be a great deal of time competing in an SEO contest like Nigritude Ultramarine, Isulong Seoph or Retsambew Dash Klat for Charity. Consider a few points before embarking on the journey to win a SEO contest.

Understand the Rules
Don’t dive into the water without first knowing how shallow the pond is. It’s easy to get caught up in the lucrative prize offerings promised by SEO contest sponsors. Carefully examine the rules as publicly stated by the contest sponsor. Are the rules fair? Do they give advantages to experienced competitors who control lots of links or does the average Joe webmaster have a reasonable chance? Also ask if the contest rules have safeguards against cheating, spamming and unethical practices.

Know Thyself
Perhaps the next most important questions to ask is can I win the contest?

Realistically assess your SEO talents and capabilities against the rules of the contest.

Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry character made a statement that should resonate for any potential contestants: “A man’s gotta know his limitations.” If you are an aspiring SEO or SEO newbie who will be competing against hundreds of professional SEO’s for tens of thousands of dollars in prize money, you may wish to make your debut in a smaller stakes contest. The risk of wasting valuable time may be far greater than the chances of reaping the reward. After all, you may be better off working on your own web site’s long term growth.

Have a Strategy
If you’re convinced that you have a reasonable chance to win an SEO contest, formulate an initial strategy based on what you know works and especially what has worked for you in the past. Of course, you can and should adapt your strategy. As the contest progresses, you will want peak in on your competitors and see what’s working for them. Even if you don’t win, you will probably learn a few new tricks.

I may have just become a willing victim of link baiting. I’ve been enjoying the DNScoop tool lately for a very good reason: The DNScoop tool says Clickfire.com is worth $37,204!  This may be a wee bit on the high side given that they are looking at the domain name itself without revenue. Never-the-less, I’m having lots of fun with the figure, especially after the depressing score received a recent Godaddy appraisal ($84 - $260). The DNScoop tool does have some real value in that it reports data of interest to the SEO conscious domainer:

• Domain Age
• PageRank
• Inbound Link Count
• Inbound Links
• Alexa Traffic Rank
• Number of Indexed Pages per Search Engine
• Domain Name IP Report - other services limit the number of domains you can see hosted on a server or require a login.

I wonder if there is a script functionality that can measure webmaster ego?

Was I being naughty to assume that I could upload a few web hosting reviews to Google Base? Most, not all of the reviews had 1 or 2 affiliate text links appearing in context. As most of you probably know, the affiliate relationship helps compensate our expenditures to hire an objective reviewer to log in and test each host and report back the findings to Clickfire visitors. The reward of making even a small profit helps justify those sunny weekend afternoons spent in front of the PC.

My bulk upload of about 10 web hosting reviews was declined and account “disabled” because my Google Base account was being used to:

direct Google users to affiliate or commission-based programs. We have therefore disabled your Google Base account. Please know that we don’t allow the promotion of affiliate products or sites.

I was referred to the program policies where the only thing about affiliates that I could find was this statement:

Posting is not permitted for the promotion of affiliate sites or products sold through an affiliate marketing relationship. This includes item pages that are made up primarily of advertisements, or pages where advisements obstruct the view of the item.

While Clickfire does rely on advertising to support the site (I think most sites do), we certainly don’t have pages that are “primarily” advertisements or obstruct user views. In fact, most of our advertising is through Google AdSense (2 ads per page) at the time of this writing.

I noticed that my login still worked fine. I still have permission to post items on Base. So, I tried uploading individual reviews with no affiliate links such as the one below, but was disapproved:

Read more of this post »

As asked by Jules Letona…

Hello,

Great site! My name is Jules, I’m 23 yrs old. It would be great to become a webmaster my self. I have a very small hat per every responsibility you mention on Becoming a Webmaster Part 2. However, I have a basic knowledge of HTML and JavaScript. I was wondering in this day and age, is it necessary to learn the coding? I don’t know if I should continue to focus on HTML, JavaScript, DHTML, yadda etc, etc. or simply just focus on some type of code editor that will do all the coding for me.

Thank you for your time.

Jules,

Thanks for the kind remarks :)

You bring up a great question and an issue that I have struggled with along my webmaster journey. At one point in time, I felt sure that I was going to be spending a lot of my time writing code from scratch to develop new and exciting web applications to make the world a better place. As my webmaster skills progressed, it soon became clear that there were a lot of other developers out there who were better, faster and enjoyed solving coding problems more than I.

After learning a few things about myself, that I was more wired for right-brained creativity than left-brained analytics, I pursued other webmasterly skills that interested me. For one thing, I enjoyed writing so I researched and wrote a lot of content. I published the content on Clickfire and began watching my server logs to see what people were searching for and how they were arriving on my pages. It wasn’t long before I realized through tweaking the pages and links, I could influence the types and numbers of visitors arriving at my site from search engines. Many years later, I found myself doing SEO for large corporations.

So, my answer is to be guided by what really inspires you. Maybe the aspect of webmastering that excites you is not writing code but doing graphics, servers, domains, blogging or just a zeal to make money online. Dive into something and see where it takes you. You don’t have to learn all the coding languages out there. I do think that it is important to have a firm grasp of HTML. Editors are just fine as long as you are paying attention to the code. Knowing HTML will serve you well in whatever direction you take.

Let me know how things develop for you!

Best of luck,

Emory Rowland

10 years = 1 template per month

The other day I was digging through some memorabilia and what did I find? The original Clickfire.com domain registration invoice from Network Solutions. I took a deep breath and read the print that I received as an aspiring web designer in the late 1990’s:

Thank you for registering the Internet/World Wide Web domain shown above.

Your welcome! I reflected on the personal journey I experienced since registering this, my first domain. I won’t say anything more about the journey now except that it was worth it. I thought about how to best celebrate the ten years. I am sure there will be more manifestations of celebration but here is what I came up with for now: give away a free website template each month until December, the ten year anniversary of Clickfire. See July’s template below, a business website template.

I would also like to say “thank you” to the millions of Clickfire visitors who have arrived here for whatever reason over the years. If you have gotten anything at all out of Clickfire.com since going live in 1997, I ask that you to place a comment here and tell us. Let the celebration begin!

To the lazy, the budget conscious, the busy, the bored

A while back I had some web templates done up with the thought of selling them as part of a project that never materialized. Recently I started thinking about these templates just sitting there on my hard-drive not benefitting anyone. The more I thought about this, the more it bothered me. Not that they are the sexiest designs or most Web 2.0 looking graphics that you will see.  They are simple, HTML table templates–not done with divs. But, they are what I would consider professional grade and not bad looking in my opinion.  So, I decided to post some of the good ones so you can download and use them if you want. The designer who originally put the templates together for me didn’t code them with valid HTML/CSS, so I had to go back into the code and tidy them up. I have created a free website templates section where these and any future templates will be posted. Here are the first templates:

Really, why are you doing this?

It hurts to give these away, but it also feels good. There is an indescribable blessing that I’ve enjoyed over the years of having given away free stuff on Clickfire. As a Christian believer, I can’t help but recall scriptures like “it is more blessed to give than receive” and “give and it shall be given unto you.” Giving can be addictive, especially when site visitors write in and say how much they appreciate it or how something you gave away has helped them do their job easier.

A less dignified reason also comes to mind. There are one or two large template download sites that annoy me for reasons I don’t want to talk about. I will say that I have personally purchased web templates from one particular popular template site and found them painfully difficult to edit because of graphical slugs and other code anomalies, probably a result of someone trying to design a template to make a quick buck. So here am I having bought a template that is supposedly going to save time and money because I should be able to just change the “company name” text and throw this little baby online in minutes. Hours later I am starring into my screen wondering why I didn’t just design the site from scratch. To my recollection, none of the templates that I have used from this large template site have ever validated. Many seem heavy on Flash and not at all designed with SEO in mind. Oh, and the prices. Exclusive licenses can be 40 times the price of the regular cheap templates that they resell ad infinitum. Read more of this post »