# Opinion please?



## BlackFrancis (Oct 21, 2006)

http://www.blackholeproject.net/

I'm having trouble getting Google to crawl my website. Thanks to a lot of support and links, it crawls my website once every 7 days or so. As you can see, I put a solid-links navigation bar above my botton navigation bar. But it looks intrusive. Those crappy host's ads look intrusive enough.
I had the very same navigation bar at the bottom of my page before the latest crawl. But it still didn't reach any of my other pages.

Does anyone know why this might be?

Also... what do you think of my layout? Any tips?


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## MMJ (Oct 15, 2006)

Your navigation needs a better layout.

I would advise putting a nav bar on the left.

Also the ads stand out more than the actual content which isn't very good.


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## BlackFrancis (Oct 21, 2006)

Yeah... funny, isn't it? Even someone qualified to give advice on computers can't tell the difference between MY ads and MY HOST'S ads. It pisses me off rightly. Alas, it will take 4 days for the money to get to my Paypal for me to purchase premium hosting.


This might seem like a dumb question. But HOW do I make a verticle partition on my page, to make a verticle navigation on?

And my original question... Why doesn't Google get to my other pages?


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## MMJ (Oct 15, 2006)

BlackFrancis said:


> This might seem like a dumb question. But HOW do I make a verticle partition on my page, to make a verticle navigation on?


make an unordered list, float it to the left.


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## knight_47 (Mar 15, 2006)

Do you have a sitemap for your site? If not, let me know, and I can create you one, then you can submit this sitemap to google, so they know exactly how many files you have on your server, and where they are. this can help speed up the crawling.


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## BlackFrancis (Oct 21, 2006)

MMJ: I'm using Macromedia Dreamweaver, and it's not very format friendly in that regard. I tried working with bare code. But I realised I need a partition.

Knight: Yes, I have submitted a sitemap.... AGAIN.... ugh. Sitemaps! Sitemaps! Sitemaps!....
But yeah... do you think this may just be an issue with Google being a noob or the spiders dying out before they reached the links?


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## knight_47 (Mar 15, 2006)

I think it just takes time, especially for a new site. Also, the more links to your site from other websites tells google that your site is important.


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## martingreg3 (Feb 15, 2007)

Google's crawls of the web are not just based upon the existence of a site on the web, 

Yours sounds as if nobody is looking at it, which means there are possibly no interesting keywords in the title page. 

Try "there is no teen porn on this site" and your crawl rate will go through the roof, until the interest runs out.


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## MMJ (Oct 15, 2006)

BlackFrancis said:


> MMJ: I'm using Macromedia Dreamweaver, and it's not very format friendly in that regard. I tried working with bare code. But I realised I need a partition.


If you have any questions you can post them here.


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## BlackFrancis (Oct 21, 2006)

Crawls and interest are no problem here. Google crawls me every 5-7 days thanks to link trades (oh, crap. Reminds me I have links to add), and I seem to get between 10-30 hits a day. Sometimes just 4, but that's the interwebs.

But yeah... unless I wanted to make a framed site and put my main links on the outside area, I can't seem to get text links to run vertically down the page while having text in the whole of the page. In that respect, I miss Yahoo! Pagebuilder for its simple click-and-drag text boxes


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## BlackFrancis (Oct 21, 2006)

MMJ: I'm curious... what is this:

<>Removed Link<>


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## MMJ (Oct 15, 2006)

BlackFrancis said:


> MMJ: I'm curious... what is this:
> 
> <>Removed Link<>


looks like a picture to me. 

```
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"

"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

The Black Hole

[LIST]
[*]123
[*]123
[/LIST]
```
this will get text links to run vertically down the page


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## BlackFrancis (Oct 21, 2006)

MMJ said:


> looks like a picture to me.


Smartass 

Thanks a lot for that man... I'll work on a test-page right now! :up: :up: :up:

I'll be sure to donate, you guys have been brilliant this past 3 or so months.


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## MMJ (Oct 15, 2006)

BlackFrancis said:


> Smartass


Lol, I didn't know how else to answer. 

I'd appreciate it if you removed that link though. 



BlackFrancis said:


> Thanks a lot for that man... I'll work on a test-page right now! :up: :up: :up:
> 
> I'll be sure to donate, you guys have been brilliant this past 3 or so months.


You welcome!


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## ferrija1 (Apr 11, 2006)

Overall, light on dark doesn't look good. I would make the background white for a start. Also, some of the text there looks weird because it is too large.


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## BlackFrancis (Oct 21, 2006)

There. Link removed. Maybe you should amend your quote aswell.

The majority of visitors to my website enjoy the black background. I've noticed that most people who visit my site are comfortable with that. Yet, you seem to be in the minority. I'm sorry if it screws with your eyes, but you have realise the majority rules.
PLUS: Looking at a white background, is like staring into a light bulb and you will not have function of your eyes for much longer.
And as for the big text font... I figured, everyone eyes are ****ed up so much by looking at lightbulbs all day they need big fonts to grab their attention.

But thank for the suggestion.


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## ferrija1 (Apr 11, 2006)

BlackFrancis said:


> There. Link removed. Maybe you should amend your quote aswell.
> 
> The majority of visitors to my website enjoy the black background. I've noticed that most people who visit my site are comfortable with that. Yet, you seem to be in the minority. I'm sorry if it screws with your eyes, but you have realise the majority rules.


1. How do you know that your visitors like the black background? Did you take a poll, ask your sites users, or just make it up.  :down: 
2. It doesn't have to be white, just dark on light.
3. I actually find the current site harder to see.



BlackFrancis said:


> PLUS: Looking at a white background, is like staring into a light bulb and you will not have function of your eyes for much longer.
> And as for the big text font... I figured, everyone eyes are ****ed up so much by looking at lightbulbs all day they need big fonts to grab their attention.
> 
> But thank for the suggestion.


Well, huge sites like ABC, NBC, CBS, Adobe, TSG, Microsoft, and more don't need huge text to get your attention.


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## BlackFrancis (Oct 21, 2006)

Ok.. dude... I'm not going to argue psychology over you, I assume you haven't spent as long as I have in university studying it and reading about the heroes.
There's many factors involved in grabbing your attention.


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## ferrija1 (Apr 11, 2006)

BlackFrancis said:


> Ok.. dude... I'm not going to argue psychology over you, I assume you haven't spent as long as I have in university studying it and reading about the heroes.
> There's many factors involved in grabbing your attention.


  Yes, there are any factors in grabbing someones attention but ugly pages isn't one of them. I'm not saying your site is ugly, because it is not, but it could use some work.


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## MMJ (Oct 15, 2006)

ferrija1 said:


> Yes, there are any factors in grabbing someones attention but ugly pages isn't one of them. I'm not saying your site is ugly, because it is not, but it could use some work.


Thats true, it could use some work but no reason to make it a big deal.


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## ferrija1 (Apr 11, 2006)

MMJ said:


> Thats true, it could use some work but no reason to make it a big deal.


I'm not trying to make one thing a big deal, but isn't giving your opinion the whole point of this thread?


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## MMJ (Oct 15, 2006)

ferrija1 said:


> I'm not trying to make one thing a big deal, but isn't giving your opinion the whole point of this thread?


Yes, but if the owner didn't like your opinion no reason to get offended.


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## ferrija1 (Apr 11, 2006)

MMJ said:


> Yes, but if the owner didn't like your opinion no reason to get offended.


I'm not offended, it's their site and they can do whatever they want to with it.


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## BlackFrancis (Oct 21, 2006)

Bog, I love you guys!

Ok. I respect your opinion fully. I consider everyone's opinion... I wouldn't be halfway where I am without such thing.
But my point remains: Staring at a lightbulb as much as people like we do, is incredibly staining on the eyes. I'm used to it, you're used to it. But I've been to more black background websites than you have and become accustomed to a more sensitive environment.
I hope to spread this virus.

And yes. I have collected statistics. I'm always doing my market research.

Anyway... apart from the darkness, what else makes it ugly? And don't say the ads. I didn't put them there 

UPDATE: Google found 3 of my pages on their last crawl! W00T!


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## ferrija1 (Apr 11, 2006)

BlackFrancis said:


> Anyway... apart from the darkness, what else makes it ugly? And don't say the ads. I didn't put them there


Are you paying for that website (I'm guessing you are) ? If you are you shouldn't have any ads. You can get hosting at GoDaddy for something like $10/month, ad-free of course.


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## MMJ (Oct 15, 2006)

ferrija1 said:


> Are you paying for that website (I'm guessing you are) ? If you are you shouldn't have any ads. You can get hosting at GoDaddy for something like $10/month, ad-free of course.


ferrija1 is right, you can get better hosting if your hoster is the one who put those ads.


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## ferrija1 (Apr 11, 2006)

It seems like there's a new Flash ad on the top. It really stands out since your site is dark and the ads are light. I would switch hosts ASAP.


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## ferrija1 (Apr 11, 2006)

And now there is a text and what I think is CSS nav (too tired/lazy to check now).

For another suggestion, I would center less things, if you can.


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## BlackFrancis (Oct 21, 2006)

I paid for the domain, it's fully mine. But I've yet to pay for my 2 year hosting pack. Only $99. All the bandwidth I could want and constant uptime.


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## ferrija1 (Apr 11, 2006)

BlackFrancis said:


> I paid for the domain, it's fully mine. But I've yet to pay for my 2 year hosting pack. Only $99. All the bandwidth I could want and constant uptime.


Who is currently hosting the site?


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## BlackFrancis (Oct 21, 2006)

Bravenet.com

I'd be very pissed off with them, but they're a damned good company, and are very innovative. And then there's having to move me domain name to another server. And that just sounds like a right headache.


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## ferrija1 (Apr 11, 2006)

Well, if your paying for hosting and you can't get the ads off you should switch hosts.


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## BlackFrancis (Oct 21, 2006)

Well.. I forgot to mention, I'm not paying for the hosting. That's a problem... I have the money, just can't get it onto my wife's Paypal. lol
Only 99 dollars for 2 years... not bad at all. Especially the unlimitted subdomains! Damn I'll be having fun with that!


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## ferrija1 (Apr 11, 2006)

Who is going to be you're host?


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## BlackFrancis (Oct 21, 2006)

Bravenet.com
5% with the sleeziness... but they're damned reliable for anything.


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## ferrija1 (Apr 11, 2006)

I would rather go with a larger host that has a better reputation and at least try it for a while. Have you tried Bravenet's hosting yet?


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## BlackFrancis (Oct 21, 2006)

No. I haven't tried their hosting.
But I'm using their free hosting. Even when I didn't buy a domain from them and I was just a leech, uptime was brilliant, never came close to my bandwidth allowance, and they had brilliant, responsive helpline. So I thought to myself, if I'm on free hosting, I'd be happy with the service if I was getting what I'm getting now.
Bravenet's Google rank is 9. So I'm guessing it's pretty well-known to be reliable.
I'm not one to take **** though... first screw up these guys make, I'm moving to another host.

Also: I hate Go Daddy hosting. They host www.Helldot.com and keep screwing up, and can't even run a PHP chat with more than 3 people. So they're not an option.


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## MMJ (Oct 15, 2006)

So what happened? Did the menu work?


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## BlackFrancis (Oct 21, 2006)

Oh crapper. I was so busy with my ebook and updating other parts of the website.

Give me a couple hours. I'll see how it turns out. Thanks again MMJ!


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## ferrija1 (Apr 11, 2006)

I hope you'll like Bravenet's hosting, I haven't had any experience with them.


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## BlackFrancis (Oct 21, 2006)

Ferrija, want me to keep you updated? You know... for further referrence. With a Page Rank of 9... they'll soon get a flood of morons coming in here. And chances are they'd be on Bravenet. The front page seems they're marketting to morons alright. lol

Anyway! MMJ... I think it's Dreamweaver's fault. But I can't get that code to work no matter how I use it. I COULD (theoretically) rebuild ALL my pages from scratch. Practically, I'm not that motivated. lol And further-more, I can't have it on one page, because ease of navigation was ALWAYS my hard-hitting point. And people are incredibly simple, and require remembering less and less and less. So it's best to keep a navigation bar in the exact same place for every page.
I'm not being lazy... I'm just MEGA busy with my ebook, and keeping up with link-exchange requests. So please don't take it as offesnse. I have your code on a notepad in my HTML-page folder. Thanks again.


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## dr911 (Sep 21, 2005)

BlackFrancis ,

I checked your site.

Have you checked out your *"META TAGS"* ?

Example:

They should look something like this


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## MMJ (Oct 15, 2006)

BlackFrancis said:


> Ferrija, want me to keep you updated? You know... for further referrence. With a Page Rank of 9... they'll soon get a flood of morons coming in here. And chances are they'd be on Bravenet. The front page seems they're marketting to morons alright. lol
> 
> Anyway! MMJ... I think it's Dreamweaver's fault. But I can't get that code to work no matter how I use it. I COULD (theoretically) rebuild ALL my pages from scratch. Practically, I'm not that motivated. lol And further-more, I can't have it on one page, because ease of navigation was ALWAYS my hard-hitting point. And people are incredibly simple, and require remembering less and less and less. So it's best to keep a navigation bar in the exact same place for every page.
> I'm not being lazy... I'm just MEGA busy with my ebook, and keeping up with link-exchange requests. So please don't take it as offesnse. I have your code on a notepad in my HTML-page folder. Thanks again.


I'll insert it into your webpage give me some time.


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## BlackFrancis (Oct 21, 2006)

Dude... you don't have to do that... you've done enough for me man.

But... I have no more objections. lol

dr911: Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I only noticed one meta tag on my page. It seems to be of a different HTML class. It was generated by Dreamweaver, so it might us something differet.

```
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
```
I'm frightened... I may never get a good grib on this stuff... and eventually piss you all off.


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## ferrija1 (Apr 11, 2006)

http://www.w3.org/International/O-HTTP-charset


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## MMJ (Oct 15, 2006)

Insert the below right *after* the second tag:


```
<ul style="float:left; list-style-type:none; position:absolute; top:375px;

left:40px; color:red">
[*][URL]Link[/URL]
[*][URL]Link[/URL]
[/LIST]
```
You seem to have two tags, two tags, and two <!DOCTYPE> tags.

you should fix that.


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## BlackFrancis (Oct 21, 2006)

I dunno man.... I'm kinda in love with my navigation bar. lol Are you sure I should do this? 
I thought it looked A LOT better without the server-side adverts.


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## MMJ (Oct 15, 2006)

what are you talking about?


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## BlackFrancis (Oct 21, 2006)

Ok... Give me 30 hours. Then visit Black Hole Project. The server ads will be gone, and you'll see what I'm talking about... man my site looks sexy.

I was wondering... anyone want to make a good deal? Help me sort out a page full of links in exchange for an AdSense banner on that page for...ever, really? I want to make my traded links useful to someone.


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