Canceling Your GoDaddy Account

I cannot believe that at one point I was considering moving all my domains over to GoDaddy¹. Their management interface is confusing to the point that I believe it’s intentionally confusing, so that you have a hard time figuring out exactly what charges you are incurring (there’s no single page that shows all of your charges), and when such charges will incur. When you do get one of those annoying $2.95 charges, there’s no indication on the bill as to what it was for. Well, no more! I finally bit the bullet, transferred the domains, and began trying to figure out how to cancel my account.

Like I Said, They Don’t Make It Easy

I looked and looked, and found no way to cancel my account. Searching their online help system for “cancel account” turned up nothing useful. I resorted to emailing their “tech support” - here’s the response I got, which is little more than a map through their convoluted system - hope it helps someone else out!

From GoDaddy:
How to Cancel Your Account

The following is an email I received from GoDaddy, regarding my inquiry to cancel all services:

Unfortunately Go Daddy cannot completely remove a customer account from our system for legal reasons. However, you can use the instructions below to cancel all products or services for this account, remove all payment methods from this account, and turn off all opt-in email notifications. Company policy restricts Go Daddy Customer Support representatives from making changes to customer accounts or services on behalf of the customer. You will need to make this change from within your account.

To cancel all products and services, follow the directions below:

First, log into your customer account:

1. Go to the GoDaddy Account Login Page
2. Log in using your account username (which may be the same as your customer number) and password

If you have trouble logging in, our password reset form may help you. You can find this form through the following link: Account Retrieval Page

Once you have logged in to your account, follow the steps below to cancel:

1. Select ‘Payments and Renewing Items’ from the ‘Renewals’ menu.
2. Check the box next to the item(s) you would like to cancel and click on the ‘Cancel Item’ button.
3. Select ‘Cancel Now’ or ‘Cancel at Expiration Date’ in the menu that appears to the right.
4. Click on ‘Save Changes’.

* Canceling now will immediately remove the service from your account. If you choose to “Cancel at Expiration Date” the service will remain active until the date specified and will not be renewed.

Please use the below instructions to remove a payment method from our system. Note that there must be no products or services in our system which are currently linked to that payment method before you can remove it.

1. Select ‘Credit Card & Payment Info’ from the ‘My Account’ menu
2. Select the radio button next to the desired payment method in the list.
3. Click the ‘Deactivate Payment Method’ button.
4. If there are any products or services currently associated with this item you will then be forced to move them to another payment method before you can continue.
5. After moving any products or services to another payment method, click the ‘Save Changes’ button.

You can choose not to receive email notices by updating your customer account settings. Follow the directions below:

1. Select ‘Account Settings’ from the ‘My Account’ menu.
2. Click on the “Email Preference Information” link.
3. Go through the choices and select your preference for each.
4. When you are done, click on the green “Save Changes” button.

You can also use the “UNSUBSCRIBE” link found at the bottom of all the notices that we send out.

Meta Tags- What Are They and Which Search Engines Use Them?

Defining Meta Tags is much easier than explaining how they are used, and by which engines. The reason is very few engines clearly lay out what they do and do not look at, and how much emphasis they put on any one factor. So, we’ll start with the easy part

Meta Tags are lines of HTML code embedded into web pages that are used by search engines to store information about your site. These "tags" contain keywords, descriptions, copyright information, site titles and more. They are among the numerous things that the search engines look for, when trying to evaluate a web site.

Meta Tags are not "required" when you're creating web pages. Unfortunately, many web site operators who don’t use them are left wondering why the saying "If I build it they will come" didn’t apply to their site.

There’s also a few naysayers in the search engine optimization industry who claim that Meta Tags are useless. You can believe them if you like, but you would be wise not to. While not technically "required", Meta Tags are essential.

If you simply create a web site and register the URL with the search engines, their spiders will visit your site, and attempt to index it. Each search engine operates slightly differently, and each one weighs different elements of a web site according to their own proprietary algorithms. For example, Altavista places an emphasis on the description tag and Inktomi states on their web site that;

Inktomi "(...) indexes both the full text of the Web page you submit as well as the meta-tags within the site's HTML."

Other search engines like Exactseek are true meta tag search engines which clearly state their policy:

"Your site will not be added if it does not have Title and Meta Description tags."

They also use the keywords tag.

Of course, not all search engines work this way. Some place their emphasis on content. The search engines have over 100 individual factors they look at when reviewing a web site. Some of these factors deal with page structure. They check to see that all the 't's are crossed, and the 'i's dotted. They note sites that have omitted basic steps, like missing tags.

One reason so many engines de-emphasized the meta-keyword tag had to do with spam. There was a time when 'search engine promotion specialists' would cram keywords tags full of irrelevant information. The web site would be selling garbage cans, but the keywords tags were chock full of irrelevant terms like "mp3" or "Britney Spears". They figured that if enough people visited their site, some would buy.

So today, to avoid and penalize this kind of abuse, some search engines don’t specifically use the keywords tag as part of the scoring of a site, but they monitor the keywords to ensure they match the content in the site. The reasoning being that, if the tags are irrelevant, they must have an alternate purpose. Is it a spam site? When keywords tags are completely irrelevant to the content, some search engines, that don’t specifically use keywords tags, will penalize that web site.

Even for those engines that have downplayed the value of Meta Tags, there are situations where Meta Tags gain considerably in importance, e.g. sites with rich graphics, but poor textual content. Unfortunately, a picture is worth 1000 words to you and me, but zero to a search engine. If a site has poor textual content, the engines will be more dependent than ever on the Meta Tags to properly categorize it.

Even if you ensure you have completely relevant Meta Tags, some search engines will still ignore them. But better they ignore them, than they ignore your whole site because they suspect something is less than above board. Never hope that having Meta Tags will make the difference in all the search engines; nothing is a substitute for good content. But in cases where the engine depends on that content, it may be the only thing that does work for your site.

So How To Use The Meta Tags?

Meta tags should always be placed in the area of an HTML document. This starts just after the tag, and ends immediately before the tag. Here’s how the most basic set should look:

Search Engine Optimization Software - Metamend

Always make sure that your meta tags do not have any line breaks, otherwise the search engines will just see bad code and ignore them. You should also avoid use of capitals in your code (html5 standard) as well as repetition of terms within the keywords tag.

What Goes Into a Meta Tag?

For the Description tag: ; Many search engines will display this summary along with the title of your page in their search results. Keep this reasonably short, concise and to the point, but make sure that it’s an appropriate reflection of your site content.

For the keyword tag;

Keywords represent the key terms that someone might enter into a search engine. Choose only relevant keywords. If the terms are going to appear in your keywords tag, they must appear in the content of your site, or be a synonym to a term on your site. Most search engines compare your meta content with what is actually on your page, and if it doesn’t match, your web site can get penalized, and suffer in search results.

for the Robots tag ;Many web pages have this tag wrong. An example of the wrong usage is content="index, follow, all" - wrong because some spiders can't handle spaces between the words in the tag or the word "all". Most engines by default assume that you want a web page to be indexed and links followed, so using the wrong syntax can actually result in the spider coming to the wrong conclusion and penalizing, or worse, ignoring the page outright. If by chance you do not want your links followed, or the page not indexed, then you would substitute "noindex" and or "nofollow" into the tag.

With the Internet growing at a rate of over 8,000,000 new pages per day, and the search engines adding a fraction of that number, Meta Tags are a common standard which can reasonably ensure a measure of proper categorization for a web site. So, always ensure that you cover all the bases, and use completely relevant terms in properly structured Meta Tags. Using tags properly will pay dividends in the short and long term. After all, using them properly only helps the search engines, which means they will send you more qualified traffic - customers.

Site Maps: Let Search Engines Find Your Pages

With 40 million websites in existence, and more than 3 billion web pages indexed by Google at the time of this writing (July 2003), it’s no wonder that more and more people are relying on search engines to find their way through the unruly world that the web has become.

Nowadays, it is crucial to get your pages indexed by the most important search engines. To maximize traffic to your site, you must make sure that all your internal pages are indexed, not just your main page (homepage).

Fortunately, you don’t need to submit each of your pages manually. The most efficient way is to create a Site Map (a list of links to all the pages in your site) and link to it directly from your homepage.

How Will A Site Map Help Me?

Search engines find pages by “crawling” the web. They go through the code of all the pages in their database (also called index), following links to other pages and adding them to the database (in fact, more pages are added this way than by manual submission).

However, search engines have trouble following links from pages buried too deep within the directory structure of a site. A Site Map solves this problem by giving the engines access to the links to all your pages once they follow the Site Map link in your homepage. For more effectiveness, place your Site Map in your root directory (where your index page is).

Site Maps: Not Just for Search Engines

While some web users will find their way through your site by following navigation links or by using the search box, others will turn to your Site Map. If you design your Site Map carefully, it will not only be useful to the search engines, but to your human visitors as well.

Here are some pointers:

• The Site Map should act pretty much like the table of contents of a book.

• The Site Map must clearly show all the sections of your site, and the information contained in each of those sections.

• Every item in your Site Map must be hyperlinked to its URL.

• If it’s not too long or cumbersome, use each page’s TITLE as the link text, since this tends to increase the relevance of your site. Otherwise, use the word or the short phrase that best describes the content of the page.

• Make sure that you place the link to your Site Map at a visible location in your homepage (users shouldn’t need a map to find your Site Map!).

• Don’t get creative: simply call the link “Site Map”.

• Make your Site Map a simple text link. If you use javascript the search engines will ignore it.

How can I check if my pages have been indexed?

Once you have created and uploaded your Site Map and placed a link to it in your homepage, submit both your homepage and your Site Map page to the search engines. You will then have to wait until the search engines do a web crawl. In the case of Google, the largest search engine, this happens approximately once a month.

To check if a page on your site has been picked-up and indexed by Google’s, go to www.google.com and use the “allinurl” command in the search box:

allinurl:yourdomain.com/yourpage.html

Where “yourdomain.com/yourpage.html” is the URL of the page you want to check.

To get a list of all the pages in your domain that have been indexed by Google, you’ll have to use the “site” command, followed by your domain name plus a word (or group of words) that you know appear in all your pages (for example, a copyright statement or some footer text):

site:yourdomain.com commonword

If after typing this command you get a list of all your pages (or at least a significant number of pages that weren’t in the index before), this will be a strong indication that your Site Map has been successful.

Top 10 Web Design Mistakes

As a webmaster, you want to keep your visitors content so they’ll come back again. Below you will find ten common mistakes made by webmasters that may deter people from returning.

1) Poor Color Choice

There's one important thing to keep in mind when designing your web site, and that is always keep it simple. More is not necessarily better. Your web site should contain no more than three colors. Also remember that your body text should be a contrasting color from your background. There's nothing worse than trying to read yellow text on a pink background. It may look cool to you, but cause your visitors to go cross-eyed.

2) Confusing Navigation

If your visitors cannot find their way around your web site, they'll leave...plain and simple. Your navigation should be logical and consistent on every page. Studies have also shown that web surfers prefer the standard left or right side navigation over other layouts.

3) Inconsistent Font Face and Size

Just like your navigation, you'll want your font style and size to be consistent. If your home page text is in Arial font, size 10, make sure the rest of your pages adhere to the same font style and size. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, and you may need to use a smaller font for disclaimers, terms and conditions, etc. However, in most cases, you should use the same style on every page.

Remember, 90% of web surfers go to the search engines to find what they're looking for and many engines look for keywords in your domain name when deciding on how to rank your web site. If you want people to find your site by typing in "juggling balls" then try to choose a domain name with those keywords inside.

4) Long Paragraphs

This is a common mistake made by many webmasters.

To make your web pages easy to read, remember to break up your paragraphs often and use subtitles. Most people will skim when trying to find what they're looking for so when your paragraphs are small and separated by logical headings, it will make it much easier on your visitor's eyes.

5) Misplaced or Lack of Contact Info

Don't make people search for contact information...especially if you're selling goods and services. Always have your contact information visible on every page of your web site. Hidden contact information looks fishy and makes people leery of doing business with you.

6) Long Page Loads

If your web site does not fully load within 10 seconds, your HTML files are too large. Check your graphics. Are you using too many? Do they need to be resized? Make sure your multi-color graphics (photos) are saved in JPEG format and use GIF files for solid colors and poster art. Also remember to use table height and width tags in your HTML code because your text will load before the images. Animated graphics also slow the page loading time tremendously.

7) No Meta Tag Info

Meta tags are HTML code invisible to the human eye but read by many of the search engines. While these don't have as much of an impact as they used to, many search engines still rely on this information when displaying your site in the search results.

8) Use of Frames

Frames can become somewhat of a burden. Many search engines do not list pages with frames, they don't allow visitors to bookmark certain pages, and they can cause printing problems.

9) Scrolling Text

The marquee tag is a cool feature, but many overuse it. Although the idea of scrolling text may seem appealing, remember that not everyone will find this idea entertaining. If you do decide to use it, make sure you clearly evaluate whether or not it is adding value or enhancing your page. There are some instances where this feature works, but there are many where it doesn't. Use it very sparingly.

If you have a sentence or two that you feel is very important to your readers, don't make them wait eons for the message to scroll across your screen -- just use plain text and save the scrolling text for the less significant messages or perhaps sub-titles.

10) Wrong Resolution

The average web surfer surfs with their PC screen set to an 800 x 600 resolution. If you create your web pages to fit a 1024 x 768 resolution or higher, keep in mind many people will have to scroll left and right to see your entire page. I don't know about you, but I find that quite annoying.

If you want your web page to be displayed correctly in all resolutions, create your web pages with tables and use percentages to define your table widths instead of actual pixel values. For example, if the table width is set to 100% instead of "800" then it will take up 100% of the screen no matter what the PC resolution is set to.