Details Are Necessary Before Claiming Something is Wrong With a Web Site

This really grinds my gears. Every 3-4 weeks, I’ll get an urgent email or call. The escalation chain goes something like this:

Consumer writes to Customer Service.
> Customer Service Rep forwards to Customer Service Supervisor.
>> Customer Service Supervisor forwards to Associate Marketing Manager.
>>> Associate Marketing Manager forwards to Marketing Manager.
>>>> Marketing Manager forwards to agency Account Manager.
>>>>> Agency Account Manager forwards to me.

Along the way, each person tacks on a message about how urgent this is, get back to me right away, yada yada yada.

By the time I see it, the email thread is fairly lengthy. When I scroll down to the original message, it typically says something like this:

“Your web site doesn’t work.”

[sigh...] I take application bugs seriously, but it never occurs to anyone that this is not enough information to make a guess as to what the problem was. So I’ll spend a half hour reviewing the site, testing functionality and forms, and looking at our Web Analytics to see if there were any traffic spikes or periods of no data that might indicate there was a problem with the Web hosting. 100% of the time I find nothing wrong. So I say nothing wrong could be identified by the information we have.

Of course clients want to hear that something was wrong because “the customer is always right.”

Then I have to reeducate everyone again that the user did not report any details that could help identify what the problem might be. It could be any number of things:

• User didn’t say what he was tying to specifically do.
• Maybe the user is not waiting for a Flash movie to play.
• User may be on slow dial-up connection, not broadband. Or possibly sharing Internet connection on a network that is congested due to heavy use by other users.
• User might be using outdated operating system and browser version we are not currently supporting. (e.g. Windows 98 and IE 5)
• User may be using a computer that is very old/slow, loaded with many applications or malware that freezes from Flash, video or other functionality.
• The user may be impatient and clicking everything and causing the browser/computer to freeze.
• We don’t know if user only tried once. If user tries again, it might be fine.
• Maybe the site is blocked by the military/school/company/organization that the user is accessing the Internet through.

Having someone say the Web site doesn’t work is too vague to confirm if it is a Web hosting issue, programming issue, database issue, hardware issue, software issue or user issue.

It is critical to try to educate the Customer Support team to ask more detailed questions when they get obscure comments. The following is the minimum amount of information we need to recreate and identify problems:

• What type of computer being used: brand, processor specs, memory (e.g. Dell Latitude D610 Intel Pentium M processor 1.86GHz, 2 GB RAM)
• What Operating System (e.g. Windows XP Professional)
• What type of Internet connection (i.e. DSL, Cable, T1, Dial-up)
• What Web browser and version (e.g. Apple Safari 2.0.4, Firefox 2.0.0.4, Internet Explorer 7)
• Specifically what day and time (including time zone) did the user try to access the Web site?
• What specifically did the user try to do?
• What happened as a result of the user’s actions?

Also, design contact forms to capture useful information. Clients tend to ignore this, but as a result, we waste a lot of time down the road troubleshooting vague claims.

The user was kind enough to report a problem. But without details, it’s unlikely any problem can be identified.

Please let me know if you found this useful.
Thanks.
-Roland

Apple Safari Web Browser For Windows – Will You Support It?

In case you hadn’t heard, Apple announced last week at their developers conference that they’ve made available a beta version of the next Safari Web browser. What’s significant is that they are releasing Safari 3 for both Mac and Windows Operating Systems.

It’s an interesting turnaround in the market. Microsoft maintains about 85% market share of the browser market. Mozilla Organization’s Firefox browser is responsible for eroding Internet Explorer’s share and has about 10% share of Windows users in just two years. Other browsers such as Opera maintain single digit percentages. Two years ago Microsoft stopped supporting Internet Explorer for Mac OS X. Now Apple is trying to gain another foot hold on Windows desktops, presumably since they had great success at getting a Windows version of iTunes installed there.

What does this means to you?

Have you thought about the extra labor it might cause on your end to support yet another combination of operating system and Web browser?

Making HTML and other browser technologies work consistently across the different flavors of Windows and Mac OS X and many browsers is very time consuming.

When sending out contracts (transaction documents, statements of work), please be very careful about defining what operating systems and Web browsers you intend to develop and test for.

If you make vague and broad statements, it could expose you to many more labor hours than expected to account for consistent user experiences.

Finally, always check your Web Analytics to identify what type of OS/browser combinations the majority of your Web site visitors account for. Never assume you or your client knows what that majority of your audience is using.

Good luck!
-Roland

Google Analytics Rolls Out New Interface and Features

I just received an email from Google informing me of the new enhancements being rolled out to Google Analytics.

If you haven’t used it before, Google Analytics is an amazing, free Web analytics application. Originally developed as Urchin and acquired by Google in the fall of 2005, Google Analytics is a full feature Web analytics application.

Hello from Google Analytics,

We are happy to announce the release of a new version of the
Google Analytics reporting interface. Since you are an existing
user, you will automatically be upgraded – there is no action
required on your part. To access this new version click the “View
Reports” link next to any profile in your account by logging in at

http://www.google.com/analytics.

For a smooth transition, we’ve listed some helpful resources and
notes below. Also, you will still be able to access your old
reporting interface for at least a month by clicking “Previous
Interface” below the “View Reports” link for any profile in your
account. Other than a few improvements detailed in the version
notes below, your data and configuration settings remain
unaffected by your choice of interface and your data continues to
be tracked in the same way as it was prior to this redesign.

*What is new?* In the new version, your reports have been
redesigned for clarity, greater visibility of important metrics,
and ease of use. Here are just a few of the features you’ll
notice:

- Email and export reports: Schedule or send ad-hoc
personalized report emails and export reports in PDF format.

- Custom Dashboard: No more digging through reports. Put all
the information you need on a custom dashboard that you can
email to others.

- Trend and Over-time Graph: Compare time periods and select
date ranges without losing sight of long term trends.

- Contextual help tips: Context sensitive Help and Conversion
University tips are available from every report.

The new interface has everything the previous interface had and
more. In addition, links within reports make it easier to navigate
related information and explore your data.

The following resources are available to help you get the most
from the new Google Analytics interface:

- Report Finder Tool: will help you see where data from the
previous interface is located within the new version (it is
also linked to from within your reports on the left
navigation menu):

http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/static.py?page=v1v2map.cs

- Product tour:

http://services.google.com/analytics/tour/index_en-US.html

- FAQs for more details about the new version:

http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/static.py?page=FAQ.cs

- Help Center: includes articles related to the new version:

http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/

- Support: if you encounter any issues with the new version
that you can’t resolve with the help center, you can contact
our support team through the Contact Us link at the bottom of
the help center web page, or receive higher-touch support
through a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant. Find one
here:

http://www.google.com/analytics/support_partner_provided.html

- Analytics Help Forum: If you would like to discuss the new
version or get tips from experienced users, please visit the
Analytics Help Forum in English within Google Groups at:

http://groups.google.com/group/analytics-help

A few notes about the new version:

- The new version works best with Flash 7 or higher. Most
browsers have this installed already, if yours does not,
please download it at Adobe.com .

- Google Analytics now uses the same geo-data source as
AdWords, therefore, map and geo-location report results may
vary slightly between the previous interface and the new
interface. For those of you with filters designed for
geo-data, you may want to verify the results and edit if
necessary.

- Limiting the Available Reports for a profile by specifying
which Report Dashboards and Report Categories are available
has been removed from the product in favor of the new
customizable Google Analytics dashboard. If you would like to
limit the availability of data within a certain profile for
certain users, we recommend removing those users from the
profile and instead scheduling an email to deliver data to
them.

We hope you find the new version even more useful and thank you
for using Google Analytics!

I only spent five minutes digging around and I am extremely excited. There was a lot of reorganization to put more data points on a single screen — extremely helpful to reduce the amount of clicking to gather a complete picture of certain metrics.

It also “feels” like the data loads much faster than before. I’m blazing through these screens.

The feature I don’t see yet is the ability to add comments on certain dates/milestones. That would be helpful to identify historical events tied to traffic spikes.

Definitely check out Google Analytics if you haven’t done so already.
-Roland

Web site design and style suggestions

WebDesignFromScratch.com has an interesting Web 2.0 do/don’t design guide.

Check it out.

Footnote symbol order

I received a reward program credit card application from Fidelity Investments over the weekend. As with any such application, reading the footnotes is critical to understanding just what is included in the marketing promises. I also spent many years working on such acquisition applications, so I have a morbid curiosity to read these boring things (or I’m just a glutton for punishment).

All the obscure use of footnotes in this one just made my head hurt. Six-panel brochures are hard to navigate as is, but the writer/reviewers did a poor job footnoting the details. There was no consistency or recognizable pattern. For example, the first inside panel cites in the following order: §§, **, *, †. I don’t know what reference manual they used. More likely, it was a marketing intern or other inexperienced, young professional.

Chicago Manual used to be the gold standard, but is more and more ignored either because of lack of experience or because software application programmers set up defaults that didn’t follow a proper guide.

Here’s the generally accepted order to follow:

1	asterisk	*
2	dagger	†
3	double dagger	‡
4	section symbol	§
5	parallel lines	||
6	paragraph	¶
7	number sign	#
	restart using doubles
8	two asterisks	**
9	two daggers	††
10	two double daggers	‡‡
	etc.

Many, myself included, are tempted to follow a eye-pleasing *, **, †, ††, but it’s not correct. Just resist temptation and follow the correct format. While you’re at it, be sure to correct others as well. Standards and consistency are important.

Hope you find this helpful.
-Roland

Handy domain name research and suggestion tools

I have previously written about how to choose domain names to register.

Pretty much any domain name registrar Web site has a recommendation tool. I want to highlight two research tools I really like:

PC Names Domain Search — “A free site dedicated to developing the most advanced tools for finding domains”

PC Names has a clean interface and uses AJAX to display available domain names in real time as you type. You can search on available dictionary words, 3 letter domains, 4 letter domains. You can also allow it to recommend alternate keywords (a thesaurus-like function).

ABAKUS KeywordDomain — “Save time finding that ideal keyword rich domain name”

Abakus allows the user to enter up to four keywords for various Top Level Domains (TLDs), then generate domain name suggestions.

Both allow WhoIs lookups without annoying challenge mechanisms that require you to type in text from a randomly displayed image.

Definitely check out these domain name tools the next time you are brainstorming domain names. They can save you a lot of time and aggravation.

I hope you find these useful.
-Roland

Tips to stop blog comment spam on WordPress blogs

I enjoy publishing my blogs using WordPress. A few short months after switching to WordPress from Blogger, I began to get a steady trickle of comment spam. Just plain garbage not related to any of my articles. These comments contain URLs for porn, prescription medication, online casinos, loan providers, insurance providers and more. Some just have random characters and a URL, while others might have eight rows of URLs.

Still others include fake compliments in broken English, such as “Great site. I like you say. Go pornpalace123.xhfshds.com.”

I get annoyed and frustrated because I would like legitimate reader feedback and I don’t want to turn off real visitors who see these junk links. So my writing hobby also requires constant vigilance.

Also, this nonsense messes with my traffic stats. I want to have reliable numbers, not artificially inflated with spammer visits.

What’s most bizarre is that the guys/gals posting this crap don’t know that comment spam is no longer effective in improving their Web site’s natural search results, because it’s typically not relevant and the no-follow tag tells the major search engines not to index hyperlinks in comments. These spammers are not following current Search Engine Optimization methodology and tactics. I guess they didn’t get the memo at the last Spammer-con.

Tips for WordPress blog publishers:

• Regularly update the Comment Moderation filter with keywords you want to screen for and temporarily hold in a queue for your review.
• Regularly update the Comment Blacklist filter — extreme foul language or comment spam subjects like casino, prescription names, sex acts, etc.
• Temporarily block IP address ranges that repeatedly post spam over time. (Warning! Only advanced users should consider this extreme tactic.)
• Install a plug-in that challenges the comment poster to either answer a math problem or type in the text displayed in an image. That helps slow down automated spambots.
• Activate Akismet plug-in to move possible comment spam into a queue for your review.
• Install and activate Bad Behavior plug-in to block known spammers from accessing your blog.

I regularly update the built-in WordPress Comment Moderation filter (“Options > Discussion”) with various keywords and domain names to help flag comment spam and put it in a review queue.

While I’m doing that, I also update the Comment Blacklist with every dirty word and spelling/misspelling variation I find in comment spam.

At times I’d turn off the comments function for a few days to see if I could make the spammers give up and move on. But after I turned the function on again, the spam returned quickly. Presumably automated spam bots are the cause.

I tried implementing a challenge mechanism that requires the comment poster to type in the letters/numbers displayed in a unique image. But that didn’t have much affect and broke unexpectedly a few times.

I activated the WordPress Akismet plug-in about 3 months ago. Since then, Askimet has caught 977 and 351 spam posts on Chaos365.com and NewMediaSandbox.com, respectively. It automatically puts comments in it’s own queue (“Manage > Akismet Spam”) and I review to confirm there are no legitimate reader posts. What’s nice about this tool is that it draws from a library of data to help flag possible spam posts. Then when I submit what I consider to be spam, it combines with other user-provided data so all users benefit.

Akismet has caught 977 spam for you since you first installed it.
You have no spam currently in the queue. Must be your lucky day.

Suddenly, the first week of November I got several hundred spam messages in my Akismet queue in less than a weeks time. I decided it was time to find a tool to block spammers before they could even post.

I’ve carefully used the Comment Blacklist to restrict specific IP address ranges that repeatedly abuse my blog. I’ve even updated .htaccess file a few times. But realizing that IP addresses may change, I edit these only temporarily as a short-term solution to try to make spammers/spam bots move on.

Obviously, this is becoming to much work. I needed an automated solution. The plug-in I found is called Bad Behavior. It essentially prevents identified spammers from accessing the blog. Period.

I installed Bad Behavior on a Sunday morning on my two primary blogs. By Friday morning (5 days later), it reported that it had blocked 2,381 access attempts on Chaos365.com and 198 access attempts on NewMediaSandbox.com. I can check (“Options > Bad Behavior”) to see how many attempts are reported for the past 7 days.

In the same period since installing Bad Behavior, each day I also checked the Akismet plug-in to see if anything is in my queue awaiting confirmation and I am happy to report it has been zero each day for both blogs.

There are other popular WordPress plug-in solutions, such as Spam Karma, that work well for many bloggers. But your best strategy to get started should be trial and tweak, and add on additional tactics carefully. Research these solutions I’ve mentioned (Akismet, Bad Behavior, Spam Karma), check out other options available at WordPress.org, and decide what may be right for you. Just don’t activate too many simultaneously because you might create unexpected conflicts that could prevent legitimate visitors from accessing or contributing to your Web site.

In summary, WordPress owners should:

• Carefully identify keywords not related to your blog content that you want to moderate or block altogether.
• Install and activate the latest Akismet and Bad Behavior plug-ins.
• Fine tune as necessary so you keep the good posts in and the garbage out.
• Keep publishing!

I hope you find this useful.
Good luck!
-Roland

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