” Hmm…  Looks like some deprecated code to me, “ I said quietly to my friends from Morrill Technology Group during a recent group meeting to determine pricing for reworking a prospective client’s site for organic search engine optimization.

You would have thought I’d have said something scandalous, obscene, or just plain funny with the snorts and chuckles I heard from Victor Morrill so I asked him what was so funny.

He thought I had said “defecated code” rather than “deprecated code”. Naturally I laughed…and laughed even more…  Well, with all of us in the meeting being parents from the Diaper Genie generation, the conversation digressed to the “diaper sausages” from the Diaper Genies.

Oops… Let me get back on track…  Hold that thought about defecated code and the Diaper Genie for later…

Deprecated code really could be viewed as “defecated” code, because with the onset of style sheets, there shouldn’t be any font or bgcolor tags in your site’s code. According to the widely-accepted html standards established by the world wide consortium (http://www.w3.org), deprecated code, such as font or bgcolor tags, should no longer be used in website page coding.

Giraffe Web only designs websites that conform to the w3c standards, because we want our sites–YOUR 24/7 marketing vehicle and business card to the WORLD–to have every chance of being viewing correctly across multiple browsers.  What this means is that we want your target audience to view your site in the way that it is intended, regardless of the browser used.  Additionally, we also review and run every line of code in your site through the validator tools available at the w3c’s site (http://validator.w3.org/) before uploading new code to your site’s server.  This is like another level of insurance for making your site as effective as possible.

Why do we check and recheck your site’s code for errors? In plain and simple terms, errors in the code of your website pages can cost you business.

Errors in your site’s code can cause the search engines to stop crawling your site, or not crawl it correctly.  If the search engines cannot or will not crawl your site, your site will not show up well in the search engine queries by your prospective clients or customers.

You should know that many web designers do NOT bother to review and validate your site’s code against the w3c codes. Many web designers simply don’t care enough to write code that allows sites to be viewed correctly across multiple browsers.

Here’s a case in point… I was in a recent advisory meeting at a local technical school, and we we were discussing the needs of Upstate businesses regarding website development. We wanted to make sure that the school could make certain they were focusing on teaching the correct classes to accommodate the community needs. One of the school advisors had the audacity to say, “We can get a web designer anywhere – a dime a dozen -  but we need JAVA and ASP.NET programmers. We have standards we have to meet.” This is a common misconception by most everyone because web designers have standards they have to meet, but most of them don’t bother.

In a perfect world in which all web designers write all of their html code to standards, all sites would be crawled regularly and correctly by all of the search engines, resulting in websites having good ranking with Google, Yahoo, et. al.

If current and prospective customers can always find your site in the search engines, you have a better chance of strengthening the profitability of existing customer relationships and building new relationships.

Giraffe Web is ready to help you develop a site for you that complies with standards.

We want to help you grow your business… Not throw away precious working capital on sites that don’t work.

If you are curious about whether your website is coded correctly, run your site’s pages through the validator at w3c: http://validator.w3.org/.

If you are a Giraffe Web client, rest assured that all of your pages will validate.  But hey, feel free to try out the validator anyway.

If you’re not a Giraffe Web client, you better get that Diaper Genie out of storage… just in case…

Cheers,

Judy

http://www.giraffeweb.net

Think ‘American Graffiti.” Think Hot Rods 101. David and Brenda Coombs takes your hot rod and makes it look new again. With such attention to detail, they can strip away all the non-historic modifications, and will re-fabricate the car from the exterior, engine and interior. Brenda did not like how the upholstery jobs were coming in, so she set up shop to restore the upholstery so your entire ‘Hot Rod’ can be refurbished from bumper to bumper. Visit their site at http://www.hotrods101.com.

Bob Hild found us on Google.  You can find Bob Hild on Google.  We launched his one-page nylon & vinyl seatbelt and tarp website on April 6th, and within 10 days he is showing up for his keyword phrases on the first page or two of Google – in the organic search area, without even submitting the site to any search engine as we are still in the final stages of tweaking the copy.

What Bob does is he works with several textile manufacturers that supply fabric for truck tarps, grass catchers, conveyor belts, seatbelts and other similar uses.  The fabric is a strong, industrial weave, is coated to be waterproof and comes in Nylon & Polyester  Polypropylene mesh and Vinyl Coated Waterproof fabrics.

To order, you need to call the phone number listed on the site.  He accepts credit cards.  Visit his site at http://www.bobhildtextiles.com.

Weddings Made Simple is  a wedding consultant service which specializes  in planning, coordinating, and overseeing all facets of your wedding. From small budgets to large, Weddings Made Simple can help you by giving you the tools you need to get your wedding plans process started and finished – to perfection! Visit their website at http://www.myweddingmadesimple.com and join their mailing list today. The website is a collaborative effort of Giraffe Web and King-Searls Designs.

Yes, I still have IE6 on this laptop because my server logs show it still very highly ranked as the browsers that are visiting my client’s websites, but I have IE7 on all the other systems we have, as well as the latest version of Firefox.

I also have an entirely different reason for wanting the browser to be upgraded. As web developers, we are constantly having to deal with client’s websites displaying properly in the various versions of browsers out there. Not only do we check the sites in IE7, but IE6, Firefox 3 and Safari. If we really want to torture ourselves, we also look at the site in Opera.

About 2 months ago, we maxed out on the number of website profiles we could have in our account. ‘Maxed out?’ my cohorts exclaimed. Yes, it appears that you can only have 100 profiles. However, you can have more than 1 account in your Google Analytics accounts, so we used one of our ‘extra’ domain names to create another account, and started adding profiles to this account. We have just about maxed out this new account now, so it will be interesting to see how many of these master accounts we can have.

This is a new launch for the Barrett Mackenzie, LLC, law firm. After somehow losing their previous website to the internet black hole, the firm wanted to showcase their practice areas and the partner’s backgrounds so individuals who need their services can see the dedication and experience of the attorneys in assisting individuals and families with criminal defense and family law matters. In addition, the firm specializes in litigation and appeals and mediation.

The West End Dance Company, located in the west end of Greenville, SC across from the Greenville Drive Stadium, offers a variety of dance styles for all ages, for you and your children: Creative Movement, Pre-tap, Pre-Ballet, Tap, Jazz, Ballet, HipHop, Adult Tap, Adult Hip Hop, Adult Stretching and also Exotic classes!

The studio has two productions per year – a fabulous holiday show and the annual May recital.  The website is updated regularly to help you keep up with all the great classes offered.  Also, for your convenience, all registration and waiver forms are on the website.  Visit Anna and her dancers at West End Dance Company today!

What I consider immediate local media would be: The Greenville News, The Greenville Journal, Greenville Magazine, The Chamber Outlook, G Magazine and GSA Business.

The press release I was sending out was 2 sentences and a photo attachment.  Greenville Magazine did not have anyway to attach a photo to their contact page. After spending a few minutes digging, I found an e-mail address for them, editor@, which immediately bounced back as no such user.  I think searched for the editor’s real address, which I found and sent the e-mail.  

G Magazine‘s contact e-mail on their website bounced back as ‘no such user’ on their server (editor@). 

The Greenville News website is so confusing, I am now thinking I probably gave up (since this was almost a week ago).  No wonder the paper is so lacking in any real news.  The Greenville News made a huge mistake when it stopped the separate business insert, because most people I know stopped reading the paper after that.  Their local business news is lacking because most businesses, unless they have a marketing firm already doing their work, can’t figure out how to navigate The Greenville News monster of a website so they can send out any news!

If I didn’t already think I knew who to send the information for the Chamber Outlook, I would not have been able to send it.  I am still not certain it went to the correct person.

I now think that I got so frustrated and this took so long to find new contact information, I completely forgot to try to send anything to the Greenville Journal!

So, even with GSA Business selling out to another publication, I was still able to send a press release to this publication and it was a pleasure to receive their auto-reply that it was received, instead of a bounced message!  The winner is….GSA Business!!!