The internet is, of course, loaded with freely accessible information. However, the most common problem is sifting what is useful from your search results. With potentially millions or more returned results, most people stick to the first couple of pages of any given search engine.

Unfortunately, you don’t always find what you are looking for… right?

That’s when you potentially “run into problems” because the link or two or three you choose might put you on a web site selling expensive access to the information that you were trying to find at little or no cost.

It’s actually the norm for internet marketers to price things high. It’s called “perceived value”, and they feel that if you don’t shell out a large chunk of cash, you may not feel whatever they are selling or doing is “worth it”.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Solid information on internet marketing exists. Videos, tutorials, ebooks, pre-made websites and more are all available at prices you’d expect to pay at say your local book store (and I’m talking you choosing paperbacks over hardback books).

So, don’t be fooled with the latest (or not even latest) or greatest “come on”. Yes, I do suggest you check for bargains using the above hyperlink. You’ll be amazed at what you find and how much you do NOT have to pay.

Strangely enough, just before this “story broke” (actually it was hidden in a tiny little section of our local business paper which I detest – the paper and the hiding), a friend of mine running WorldNewsVine and I were talking about the people’s right to news and how it’s used on their websites and blogs.

I won’t get into the whole convoluted mess, but here’s the little snippet of information that, if anything, should get you to take a look at your own web site or blog if you provide feeds:

Google said it will allow publishers to set a daily limit on the number of articles readers can view free through its search engine.

What the…?!

So I went digging, and suggest you take a look at:

o News.Sky.com

o Sliceofscifi.com

Or just do what I did and type in “google limits articles” into their search engine.

Freedom is getting slimmer by the day people… we best be sticking up for ourselves – fair warning.

Hopefully you are running some statistical accounting method on your website and/or blog like Google Analytics. By tracking the information in and out of your site, you will also be made aware of pages that either got lost in the shuffle, were eliminated completely but still referenced elsewhere on your site (that you forgot to remove the link to), or pages seach engines like Google (for reasons unknown) expect to be there, but aren’t.

These are known as your 404 page errors, and letting them pile up can be a time consuming task to set straight and (potentially) hurt your standings.

Mostly they are just a pain in the neck to get search engines like Google to stop seeing. In fact, years ago on a completely different hosting server, I did use the cgi-bin (we don’t now). And, even though the hosting had changed numerous times, those cgi-bin 404 errors kept haunting me. So when I saw a recent incoming newsletter about this problem, I figured it’s a good time to give everyone either a heads up or reminder to track these down and eliminate them.

In fact, Mary Peng of Web Analytics World has recently put out an article on how to make the most of those inevitable 404 errors. She writes:

No matter what type of site you may have, 404 errors may cost you something. It might not be money, but it’s costing you something. Retail sites could be losing money. Other types of sites, however, may be losing something just as valuable… pageviews… return visitors… things like that….

The truth is, your site could potentially do that extra 10-25%, you just don’t benefit from it because your visitors are encountering 404 page not found errors. These visitors can be potential browsers and buyers, but once they hit that 404 page, they’ll leave and bring their money to another site.

Within her article, she also suggests another resource that gives you some great suggestions on how to fix up your 404 errors.

You’ll also discover some very interesting and creative ways you can make those dreaded 404 errors more entertaining. Here are more cool ways web owners have created their 404 pages.

So don’t wait too long. Do stay on top of these “lost pages.” Put them to valuable use and never lose another visitor to your site again.

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