A Picture Speaks A Thousand Words

Written by Stephen Brennan


A very well known and apt adage for many circumstances, but today I'm not going to talk aboutrepparttar virtues of a picture in it's ability to replace words or describe more effectively. Today, I want to use this space to help those unfamiliar withrepparttar 132397 ways in which we can make images work for us onrepparttar 132398 Internet, especially beginner webmasters or those who haven't had a lot of practice at using images so they aren't a liability to their website.

Unfortunately, forrepparttar 132399 lack of a bit of knowledge, many webmasters,repparttar 132400 uninitiated and some ofrepparttar 132401 relatively experienced, are using images in such a way as to disadvantage themselves and their websites. The most common problem I see is images that are way to big (and I don't mean physical size), which only serves to slow their website's loading time. I've noticed there are a number of webmasters who either aren't aware ofrepparttar 132402 fact that a website is no place for a bitmap image (.bmp) or they don't know how to convert it to a more friendly file.

Firstly, we have to establishrepparttar 132403 major file types (or file 'extensions') that are used on websites. These are, as I just mentioned, bitmap (.bmp), which is a MS Windows® format, jpeg (.jpg), gif (.gif) and to a lesser degree png (.png). These initials all have meanings, for instance 'png' stands for 'Portable Network Graphics' but it's really of no consequence to name them all.

As I said, except in a very few circumstances, bitmap images have no place on a website, simply because ofrepparttar 132404 size ofrepparttar 132405 file needed to carry them. They certainly have their uses but this isn't generally a recommended use because they can slowrepparttar 132406 loading speed (the time it takes for a web page to appear on a user's screen) to a virtual crawl, unless they are a very small or 'simple' image in terms of color and content.

Other file types can also be too large, especially whenrepparttar 132407 image is a color photograph. Color photos consist of a lot of visual information in order to be 'photo quality' and consequently, even in jpeg format, probablyrepparttar 132408 most popularly used image format onrepparttar 132409 Net, they can be quite large files. So, you ask, "How do I deal with this - what can I do if I have an image that I really want to use, but it's too big?" No problem.

Lost and 404 Not Found

Written by Meghan Whitmore


Are you sometimes tooling around onrepparttar web, clicking your way through links, when suddenly you come to a dreaded dead end:repparttar 132396 404 Not Found page? Do you wonder what those darn error pages are all about? They are often brick walls that force you to back track, and they can be very annoying. If you have a website, you want to make sure that visitors to your site aren’t led into one of these dead ends. If these dead links are exasperating to you when you are surfingrepparttar 132397 Net, they are exasperating to your guests as well,repparttar 132398 last people you want to annoy. But, if utilized correctly, 404 pages can actually help your visitors findrepparttar 132399 content they were searching for. They do not need to be brick walls.

What is a 404 page?

404 is a Hypertext Transfer Protocol status code. Hypertext Transfer Protocol isrepparttar 132400 protocol web servers use to communicate with web browsers. When you type in a URL to try to visit a web page, your computer sends a request message torepparttar 132401 server andrepparttar 132402 server sends backrepparttar 132403 HTTP header to your browser, which includes a status message before you even seerepparttar 132404 web page. Normally, if everything is correct, repparttar 132405 status code is “200 OK”, but you don’t see it because you seerepparttar 132406 page you were looking for. But ifrepparttar 132407 server cannot findrepparttar 132408 page you are looking for, it reportsrepparttar 132409 status as “404 Not Found”.

But what does it really mean?

The numbers 4-0-4 each actually mean something as individual digits. The first 4 is telling you,repparttar 132410 client, that there is a mistake on your end, such as a possibly mistyped URL or a request for a page that no longer exists. The 0 just represents a syntax error- it basically just means “something isn’t right”. Now afterrepparttar 132411 4-0,repparttar 132412 last number could be any one of several digits that indicatesrepparttar 132413 type of error. The 4 in that section means thatrepparttar 132414 page cannot be located. Another status messages could be 401, which means you are unauthorized to view that page.

There is a clever myth behindrepparttar 132415 404 Not Found message. The story goes that 404 wasrepparttar 132416 room number ofrepparttar 132417 room where repparttar 132418 very first web servers were located. But there story includes a mystery- there is no room 404 in that building at CERN, whererepparttar 132419 first web servers were held. Sorepparttar 132420 404 Not Found code is a bit of an inside joke for those who have heardrepparttar 132421 story.

How To Utilize Status Code Information

You can use your log files to spot “404s” by reviewingrepparttar 132422 logs of your status codes. Take note any of 404 occurrences. If there seem to be quite a few, more than you could chalk up to user error, you might have a broken link in there somewhere. Checkrepparttar 132423 referring page,repparttar 132424 pagerepparttar 132425 user was at just before arriving thatrepparttar 132426 404, then inspect that page to findrepparttar 132427 broken link and fix it. If you do not have access to your log files, you can request them from your website host.

So why exactly do these 404 error pages exist?

The 404 Not Found Page comes up on your screen for several different reasons.

1) The page may have been moved. In this case, it is as though you are trying to visit a friend when you find a note taped to their door that says they have moved. But it doesn’t tell you where they moved to. Not very helpful, is it? The 404 Not Found page is a note like that.

2) The hyperlink you followed my have a minor error inrepparttar 132428 URL.

3) The page may simply be gone. Not moved. Just taken down. And whatever linked you to it doesn’t know it. This is a form of Linkrot.

Linkrot refers to outdated or abandoned URLs acrossrepparttar 132429 Internet. If you take a page down or changerepparttar 132430 URL, other sites that have links to your page will haverepparttar 132431 wrong URL, causing Linkrot to occur, and sending people who click on those links, expecting to come to your page, right for a lovely visit fromrepparttar 132432 Error Page Fairy.

How do you avoidrepparttar 132433 Error Page? Help stop Linkrot. If links continue to lead to dead ends,repparttar 132434 flow ofrepparttar 132435 Internet will be interrupted, dramatically reducingrepparttar 132436 usability ofrepparttar 132437 web. You may not be able to stop another site from screwing up URLs linking to your site and creating a dead link to your site, but you can at least maintainrepparttar 132438 links and pages on your own site.

You must regularly checkrepparttar 132439 outgoing links from your site to make certain that they still lead to existing pages. It is your responsibility to ensure thatrepparttar 132440 links on your site lead to actual destinations and not error pages. Internal links should be maintained as well. AlertBox’s Jakob Nielsen believes that URLs should “live forever”; that there is no reason to let a page you built languish abandoned and outdated.

Of course, sometimes you cannot help but remove a page or change its URL, and you will not be able to always prevent repparttar 132441 occurrence of an Error Page. But if you can’t avoid an Error Page, at least make it work for you!

Good Error Page: Not An Oxymoron

Turn an error into an advantage by designing your own error page for your site and making it interesting, informative, helpful, and even fun.

According to Jakob Nielsen there are 5 rules for making a good Error Page:

1) Design an error page specific to your site, rather than sending your visitors torepparttar 132442 browser’s standard Error page.

2) Politely apologize and tell your user that that page cannot be found on that URL, and apologize forrepparttar 132443 inconvenience.

Cont'd on page 2 ==>
 
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