Now how did I do that?

The new section of my jewelry website has been hit massively by the AskJeeves bot. 212 M, 13082 pages, versus Googlebot’s 5M and 241 pages. What did I do that they like so well? I’d love to know, since the site hasn’t been up that long. The original part of the site hasn’t been spidered that well by AskJeeves, so I have no idea what happened to cause it. I’ve had a visitor from ask.com already, so I know I must be showing up. Yes, just one, but then they only just spidered me. It’s a subdomain, and not many links directly to it (certainly fewer than to the site).

In any case, I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. It may be a minor engine relative to Google, Yahoo and MSN, but I’ll take what I can get.

Anti-spam screensaver?

That’s more or less what it amounts to, but I don’t know that I like it. I came across this article on it when reading in WebProWorld, and I just don’t know about it. I’m not a fan of DOS attacks, which is basically what this screensaver does to known spammers… although I will admit the possibility of making life more difficult for spammers does have its appeal.

Interesting discussion on my discussion boards.

It’s down in the Parents of School Age Kids section, and it’s on homeschooling. It was started by a visitor, who by the points made I would assume is a fundamentalist Christian, and feels that public schooling goes too much against Biblical values. I can’t say I agree, but it certainly makes for a fun debate, and so far things are remaining quite polite, which is nice to see in what is in many ways a religious debate.

Now, my daughter is too young to go to school, but unless the local public schools are simply too dreadful when she reaches that age, I am not going to homeschool her. I’ll supplement her school work if I feel she is lacking in any areas, but I think she’ll do very well with other children around her.

Now, today and tomorrow I really, really need to get transcription done before the pay period ends. I let myself get very distracted, naturally, with my grandpa in the hospital, and now I really need to play catchup. Not like next pay period will be any easier since we have to move sometime after December 7.

And, of course, I’d really so much rather spend the time on my websites…

Finally got some new AdWords running for the jewelry store.

Yes, I missed the biggest shopping day, but that’s life. I put in a ton of keywords, so now we’ll see what I get for my efforts. I’m just targeting a couple of sections of the website for now, and we’ll see from there what I do. It’s tricky figuring out what will work best, and I need to write some more ads for everything, of course.

Transcription has been slow but steady this weekend. I’ve had at least a few reports available those times I’ve been able to spare for typing.

We finally found an apartment, now we just need to find out what day we can move in. Naturally, it comes available the first day of Brent’s new job, so we can’t move in on that day. We need his work schedule to see when we can get in there. Still, I’m delighted. The complex has a playground, which happens to be just outside our patio, so Ariel should have an easy time finding friends. I just hope it isn’t too noisy when I need to work.

Are you making sense to your customers?

My husband and I have had to do a lot of apartment shopping, as we are moving – very soon. It’s not my favorite chore, nor is it Ariel’s, but it has to be done.

Some complexes have very good salespeople. Others definitely need more practice. We went to one complex the other day where we had mentioned that I am expecting #2. While we were out looking at the model apartment, the girl commented on how small I was. THEN she asked how far along I was. Now if you think about that, the compliment only works the other way around. Ask how far along I am, then comment on my size for that stage of pregnancy!

She was pretty clearly not that experienced. A cricket walking on the patio was quite an embarrassment to her – she can’t stand bugs of any sort. Now, I don’t like bugs either, but I know they are outside, especially with the beautiful natural landscaping the complex had. Nothing to be embarrassed about. She didn’t know how to present that in a more positive light.

Of course, in internet marketing, you have to catch the bugs before your visitors even come to your site, because they’re much harder to explain away. And you don’t dare make assumptions that will make you look bad – visitors and buyers will just leave.