critique requested

[Cynthia Turcotte]

Hi all --

A client has hired me to, among other things, optimize her web site
for search engine submission. So being the dutiful SEO geek that I
am, I went through and optimized each and every page of the site,
including a complete recoding of the homepage which she botched.

Now after all of this work, she tells me that she wants to keep the
home page as it is. I've gone on record telling her that I feel that
she won't get the results she is expecting if she keeps the page as
is, to no avail.

So I am seeking outside opinions. The site is geared toward women so
I would like to get as many female opinions as possible -- but men are
welcome to respond too.

Please note that I am NOT asking for a critique of the core layout.

All I want to know is which page is a. better optimized and b. more
visually appealing.

http://www.b-tone.com
http://www.b-tone.com/indexa.html
http://www.b-tone.com/indexb.html

Please reply either here or via email at we*******@wkdesign.com

Thanks!

Cynthia Turcotte

[David Dorward]

Cynthia Turcotte wrote:

Hi all --

<snip>

Read: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/usenet/xpost.html

--
David Dorward http://dorward.me.uk/

[Daniel R. Tobias]

Cynthia Turcotte wrote:

Please note that I am NOT asking for a critique of the core layout.
Though, since this is a discussion newsgroup rather than a help desk,
you might get comments on that and all other aspects of your site anyway.
All I want to know is which page is a. better optimized and b. more
visually appealing.

http://www.b-tone.com
http://www.b-tone.com/indexa.html
http://www.b-tone.com/indexb.html

Well, first of all, none of these have valid HTML. They're missing
doctypes and charset attributes, for starters, and have an enormous
number of syntax problems. For instance, you insert a "TM" sign as a
proprietary character from a vendor character set instead of using the
standards-compliant Unicode number for it. There's a lot of
nonstandard, proprietary JavaScript too, such as a "link" that attempts
to bookmark your page (which doesn't work in Mozilla, but it has a
perfectly good bookmark function in the browser user interface where it
belongs). There's also one of those really obnoxious "no right click"
scripts, which unfortunately *does* work in Mozilla (there's a Bugzilla
entry seeking a configuration setting to disable this sort of thing).
Another script generates a "mailto" link that includes space characters,
which are invalid in URIs unless encoded as %20. The whole page is in a
fixed-pixel-width table, which is bad for adaptability to different
resolutions and display situations. Your stylesheet sets all the font
sizes to pixel sizes, which is also bad for adaptability.

None of this has anything to do with your question, but as I said, this
is a discussion newsgroup, not a help desk; you'll get whatever people
decide to throw in, and if some of it happens to answer your question,
that's purely coincidental. :)

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/

[Cynthia Turcotte]

>Well, first of all, none of these have valid HTML. They're missing

doctypes and charset attributes, for starters, and have an enormous
number of syntax problems. For instance, you insert a "TM" sign as a
proprietary character from a vendor character set instead of using the
standards-compliant Unicode number for it. There's a lot of
nonstandard, proprietary JavaScript too, such as a "link" that attempts
to bookmark your page (which doesn't work in Mozilla, but it has a
perfectly good bookmark function in the browser user interface where it
belongs). There's also one of those really obnoxious "no right click"
scripts, which unfortunately *does* work in Mozilla (there's a Bugzilla
entry seeking a configuration setting to disable this sort of thing).
Another script generates a "mailto" link that includes space characters,
which are invalid in URIs unless encoded as %20. The whole page is in a
fixed-pixel-width table, which is bad for adaptability to different
resolutions and display situations. Your stylesheet sets all the font
sizes to pixel sizes, which is also bad for adaptability.

None of this has anything to do with your question, but as I said, this
is a discussion newsgroup, not a help desk; you'll get whatever people
decide to throw in, and if some of it happens to answer your question,
that's purely coincidental. :)

I do appreciate all of the technical input, but the important question
was not answered -- if you had to pick one, which of the three pages
is more visually appealing?

Thanks again,

Cynthia

[Alexander Johannesen]

Cynthia Turcotte <ct******@cfl.rr.com> wrote:

I do appreciate all of the technical input, but the important question
was not answered -- if you had to pick one, which of the three pages
is more visually appealing?

Not to sound like a daft one, but why are you asking questions about
visual stimulus in an *authoring* newsgroup?
Alexander
--
___________________ ______________________ _____________________________
| |
http://shelter.nu/ | alex at shelter . nu | http://shelter.nu/xsiteable/
___________________|______________________|_______ ______________________

[Chris Lambert]

Daniel R. Tobias wrote:

Another script generates a "mailto" link that includes space characters,
which are invalid in URIs unless encoded as %20.

Then your browser/mail client should encoded it as %20.
--
Chris Lambert (http://web.trout-fish.org.uk/)
"I am Homer of Borg. Prepare to be ...ooooh donuts!"

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Fri, Sep 12, Cynthia Turcotte inscribed on the eternal scroll:

Well, first of all, none of these have valid HTML.
[...]
resolutions and display situations. Your stylesheet sets all the font
sizes to pixel sizes, which is also bad for adaptability.

I do appreciate all of the technical input, but the important question
was not answered

Some of the *important* questions _were_ answered. This is, after
all, an _HTML_ authoring group. Given a discrepancy between your
personal priority and the group's charter, I know which I think should
win, and I would say that no matter who was setting the question, not
excluding myself.

If you wanted to know "is my tag soup visually appealing?", I'm more
than a little sceptical that this was the best place to ask it.

The curious thing is that, in my experience, once the graphic artist
has produced an appropriate display (tag soup and all), then someone
who understands web design principles can almost always produce
something that looks almost indistinguishable on the originally-
intended platform, but is much better engineered for the WWW.

Can we take the building analogy? You have a cardboard cut-out model
of your intended building. At the slightest hint of a breeze, the
model would collapse. But instead of offering it for critique amongst
visual stylists, you've asked in a building engineer's forum, and
naturally they're going to tell you what building engineers are
required to tell you: that the disabled toilets are useless on the
sixth floor with no lift access above the fifth, the earthquake and
hurricane resistance requirements aren't met, and fire evacuation
arrangements are completely inadequate. Its only claim to fame is
visual appeal.

good luck (you may need it)

[Daniel R. Tobias]

Chris Lambert wrote:

Daniel R. Tobias wrote:

Another script generates a "mailto" link that includes space characters,
which are invalid in URIs unless encoded as %20.

Then your browser/mail client should encoded it as %20.

It might, as an error-correction step, but the *author* should have
properly encoded it in the first place.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/