Here’s a topic that should be obvious, but isn’t: how should you best code links on your site from page to page? Should you use something like “page two” or “continued…” or “more” with the page filenames as the links? Should you use absolute links that always begin with a leading / (as in “/reviews.html”), should you always use relative links (as in “../reviews.html”) or should you use fully qualified links (as in “http://www.free-web-money.com/reviews.html”)?
This isn’t the first time I’ve received this sort of query, but a few days ago I got this message from a loyal reader:
I am starting my own web design business and I could do with some assistance. Do you have any starting out pointers and how are the contract negotiated for service and provisions? Is there a special legal branch I should be contacting or is there already pre-made forms. I appreciate any and all assistance.
There’s always a time lag between when a book is published and reviews start to come in, so I’m pleased that the first review of Creating Cool Web Sites with HTML, XHTML and CSS is available online, and the result is very positive! A. P. Lawrence says that it’s “definitely a book I can strongly recommend for someone who wants to start writing their own web pages.”
In previous articles, I’ve written about the terrific Google Adsense program (see Partner with Google and make money! for a good starter on the subject), but after the Internet bust of the late 1990’s, I never realized that I could be actually selling advertising space on my Web sites, and making a tidy revenue stream off the deal. But I am, and here’s how…
A reader writes:
Some time ago I purchased your book, Creating Cool HTML 4 Web Pages. I have gotten a lot of use out of it. However, I am now getting my feet wet on Cascading Style Sheets and have come across something I did not see answered in your book. I am hoping you can answer these two questions.
1) I use <h3></h3> headers for the headings of columns in a table. I notice Internet Explorer adds an extra blank line under the headings before continuing text but Mozilla does not. How do I eliminate the blank line following an <h3></h3> header? I would like text to follow immediately below the heading.
2) Same question for horizontal rules. I do not want a blank line below a horizontal rule; I would like text to follow it immediately. How do I get rid of this extra blank line?
A reader writes:
” Hi, I’m a very beginner at shell scripting and unix/linux. I have your book (Wicked Cool Shell Scripts) and it is really great. So far I’ve done two or three, Inpath is the one i use most. I’m going make a user for an ftp account so my friends can upload/download songs and other files. I decided to use your adduser script for the job but when i run the script i get an erorr like – /etc/passwd : permission denied. How do i give the script permission to write to /etc/passwd? Sorry if this is an obvious question but i couldn’t find an answer. I used chmod 755 and ran it as root. By the way, i really like the site and book cover, i wish all linux/programming manuals had really cool covers.”
My thanks to the Portland area Lotus/Domino User’s Group for being the first to publish a review of my new book Creating Cool Web Sites with HTML, XHTML and CSS, which you can read here. In the review, it says: “This book does an excellent job in covering a lot of ground without needing 1000+ pages to do so. Taylor takes you through the basics of HTML and XHTML, as well as how to use CSS to add formatting and presentation to your page. There’s even some coverage of JavaScript as well.”
Most of the time on my weblog Free Web Money I talk about proactive things you can do to improve your search engine findability, your site’s relevance for a specific key word or key phrase. For example, keyword density and page titles have both been explored in depth in previous entries.
Instead, this time I thought it would be useful to talk about a couple of things that you really shouldn’t be doing, things that will actually lower your Google pagerank and, quite likely, your relevance score for the other top search engines too.
