Hello Logan:

I plan to give you a more thorough review, probably by Monday.

I wanted to tell you right away that your site, TempestDream is a very cool site, for so many reasons. It is also one of the more original sites I have seen in awhile.

I look forward to perusing and reviewing it.

I'm glad you are here.

I am rushing off to tell one of our members, X Q mano, about your site. He has some of his own poetry and I know your site is just what he will like. Also, just the other day I mentioned in a thread about how I would like to start a poetry site.

Your fellowship is welcome here brother. I look forward to it.

Blessings,

Sean

Hey Logan!

Welcome to CWM i am glad you like it here so far! /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> I will try to post my " Critique" soon. I am kinda busy though.

/biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />

Hi Logan:

I'm just dropping you a quick line to let you know I will be back in my office tommorrow (Wednessday) and will review your site then. I have been snowed in with the family but tomoorrow will be back to work.

Blessings:

Sean

Hi Logan:

I have looked through your site and really like it. I could find very little to suggest for improvement. I made notes as I went through and I have posted them below. Please excuse the free flow and half sentences.

TempestDream Site Notes:

Fast Loading.

In IE 6 works great in the following three resolutions:

640x480

800x600

1024x768

On the home page, in IE 6, the ?Fun, Fast, Free? take a few seconds to show. Longer than I would normally hold my mouse over a link. In Netscape they were instant.

In Netscape 6 at 800x600 there was this issue on the right hand side with the ?Good Stuff? section:

In Netscape 4 it would not scroll to the bottom of the page. This is not that big of a deal because it is such a small % of browsers, depending on your site?s audience.

I haven?t checked it in Opera yet (it is not on this computer). Has anyone else?

The rest of the review is based on viewing in IE 6.

Great simple looking, yet skillful and stylish page design. I like that you have a few basic colors. Mainly black, white, gray shades, and blue hyperlink text.

I remember doing a site for some photographers a few years ago. They kept wanting the site design elements cut back until finally they had mostly plain white pages with a single photo in the center of each. They were right; having minimal site design elements highlighted (by not detracting from) the art of their work

You have done the same with your site. You are letting your content, with the stories, poems, and quotes are the art of the site. Yet layout you used is art itself. Again, very impressive.

I like the site structure with the Poetry, Stories, and Quotes Hubs. I like your bread crumb trail. What I also like about your navigation is that everything is easy to get at and the links are grouped by type of areas.

Your site search section is comprehensive. Did you use a script for it? It might be a little overwhelming for novice web users, but you gave lot?s of examples that help.

Sitemap is quick and easy to use.

You make publishing a breeze. No long form process.

Your tell a friend section is great. You explain to people that they can use it to send to others or remind themselves. Plus you give people simple step by step instructions for sending. Good marketing. You also allow for people to send to many people at once.

After going through the site awhile, and my visited hyperlinks turned to my browsers default color, I started having a little trouble seeing the hyperlinks in the body copy. For first time visitors this may not be an issue, but if someone is returning they may miss important links the second time around. I like that they do change color when visited, I would just recommend controlling the color rather than allowing a browser default.

The more I navigate through this site, the more I see how great of a navigation scheme you have. I like the Poetry/Story index pages and the subnav on each poem or story page ([ Commentary ] [ Post Commentary ] [ Poetry Index ]).

Your printer friendly version and large print version links à Way Cool.

Overall, I find I have little to say that might help you improve it. It is so well done. I will be visiting often and I am going to tell some friends about it.

For search engines I would consider putting ?Poetry and Stories? and any other keywords and phrases at the front of your page title (title tag). Considering adding more copy on the homepage with different versions of your keywords and phrases. The only problem is, this could clunk up your design.

Have all your hyperlinks to the main section of your site be absolute. Especially to your main page. Use: ?http://www.tempestdream.com/? rather than ?/index.html?. I?ll explain more if you want me too.

That?s all for now. Hope this helps.

Blessings:

Sean

Thanks Sean!

That was waaay more in depth than I was expecting, and I'm grateful for your time on it.

As to your suggestions, you're 100% right that I need to optimize the copy for search engines. I'll be working on that. I think I need to clarify the scope of the site a bit more before I can really pull that one off.

I understand what you're saying about relative vs absolute, but I'm unsure why you raise the issue. I went ahead and made several of the relative links absolute, particularly links that point to the top-level index.html. To clarify, how much of the website do you include in "the main section"?

Again, thank you!!!

Logan

Hi Logan:

In regards to having absolute verses relative links to the main sections of your site:

The short answer is that part of Google?s PageRank calculation is based on the number of links (both offsite and from within) to a particular page. Now, people who link to your site, and directories you are listed on, will likely (should) link to you as ?http://www.tempestdream.com/? rather than ?http://www.tempestdream.com/? /index.html?. According to some SEO forums, it appears that Google may see both versions as two different pages. In other words, your PageRank may be split between the two ?versions?. So: 1-You want to make sure that all directories and other sites that link to you use only one version. 2- Since internal links count, you want to add to the count of pages linked to your absolute version rather than starting another count for your relative versions.

I hope I explained this clearly.

Blessings:

Sean

I was unaware that internal links counted at all in pagerankings... this is good news indeed. Good good! Once I return to a regular schedule, I'll begin making most of those upper-level links absolute.

Thanks much!

You're welcome.

Take a look at this thread at SitePoint:

http://www.sitepointforums.com/showthread....&threadid=82447

Blessings:

Sean