Home
>
Web Design
>
Why Dot-Coms Fail - a Webmasters Perspective

Why Dot-Coms Fail - a Webmasters Perspective

Everyday we hear that another company goes out of business.

When and why does a dot-com become a dot-bomb?

After checking few dozen defunct companies, I think the main reasons for dot-coms failure are:

Poor business plan. In the last years, a lot of investment capital was spent on poorly planned companies that clearly couldn't reach profitability.
Poor company promotion. This applies both offline and online. Two newspaper ads and word of mouth are not enough.
Poor financial management. Fancy offices, free food, does it ring a bell?
Poor Human Resources management. With lots of cash in their hands, many start-up companies hired too many people or, even worse, hired unqualified staff. The hiring of friends and relatives often returned no value on investments.
Errors in the company's Web site. Sometimes hundreds of errors could be found in one Web page. Yes, those Web site builders should go back to school- if they ever went to school for HTML at all.

I'll focus my comments on the last reason:

How Errors in the Web Site Can Affect the Company's Health

It's clear that you can make money on the Web if you have customers. You have customers if you have viewers- "traffic" in the geek's language. And you get traffic if your site is easy to find -- near the top -- in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). That's not so easy to achieve.

First of all your site has to be indexed by the search tools: Search Engines and Web Directories.

Although some Search Engines will eventually find your site by themselves, most of the time this only happens if somebody links to your site. In the case of a NEW site, having existing links is almost impossible. Rather than wait for links to be made, start a submission campaign.

A big no-no is submitting a Web site using submission software. Using software of this type may be quick and easy, but some Web Directories and Search Engines do NOT accept automated submissions.

It's true that manual submission is a time consuming process -- you'll have to read AND follow each Search Engines' submission guidelines, to effectively perform the submission ? but it's a necessary step.

Most of the defunct sites I've checked had only a modest presence and visibility in the Search Engines.

Let's say that you submitted your site correctly, you waited a reasonable amount of time - usually few weeks ? for the Search Engines to process your submission, but your site does not appear near the top in the Search Engine Results Pages.

You're wondering why, right? Well, one or more of the following reasons might apply:

1) Your submission was not accepted by the Search Engines. If you used spamming techniques, such as:

Repeating keywords in the keyword meta tag or using text in the same color as the background, some Search Engines might refuse to index your site.
Page redirection -- including cloaking -- or building artificial links farms can sometimes be seen as spam by some Search Engines. These links farms involve building Web pages for the sole purpose of creating links to the targeted site. For more about spam please read my article:

"Search Engine Spamming Sucks!" [ http://www.web-design-in-new-york.com/articles.html ]

Some Search Engines also have difficulty in indexing pages that use frames or Flash.

2) Your submission was accepted, but your site is not listed in the Top 10-30. Because very few people check pages after the first 30 results, you want to be in the Top 10-30. There are many reasons why a site is not listed high.

The most common reasons are:

The lack of your main keywords in the content of the page, in the Title tag and in the Description and Keyword meta tags. Ultimately it all depends of the Search Engines' algorithm- the criteria used by the Search Engines to rank pages.
HTML errors. Examples include unclosed tags, unquoted attributes, improperly nested tags, missing the ALT attribute on images. Any of these will affect your site's accessibility, reducing your potential client pool.

A Web site with HTML errors can look fine in Explorer, strange in Netscape or Opera and totally unreadable in a text browser. Although Explorer has the largest market share, an important percentage of net surfers use other browsers. Don't forget the more than 50 million people in the USA with disabilities. Many of the latter use text/voice browsers.

Other Types of Errors in Web Sites

Proper HTML coding is very important but the structure and the layout of the pages are equally important. I saw sites without ANY way to contact the company: no email address, no "contact page". I saw sites so crowded that it was almost impossible to find my way around. I saw sites with ugly color schemes. I saw a site so "heavy" that it took nearly three minutes to download the Home Page.

According to statistics, users have very limited patience when it comes to loading a page. If after eight seconds they cannot see the page, they leave. And we all know what that means or the success of a Web site.

I not only saw all those errors in sites that are now gone but I also found them in sites that are still alive, including, incredibly, some Fortune 500 companies' Web sites.

So Do We Dot-Com or Not?

The answer is a resounding YES! But with one condition, learn from your predecessors.

How can a dot-com become profitable? I don't pretend to know ALL the answers. If I did, I would be millionaire by now.

Advice for Forming and Managing Your Company:

Develop a sound business plan, with clear, credible ways to get to profitability. Venture capitalists are much more cautious than a few years ago. They invest less and are more selective in this risky business. They want value returned for their money. After all, statistics show that 9 out of 10 startups fail.
Handle your money wisely. Enough said.
Hire only the people you REALLY need and be sure ALL of them are professionals.

Advice Regarding the Web Site that Supports Your Company:

Do the right thing when you prepare the Web site. Hire reputable professionals to build and promote your cyber adventure. If you already have a Web site, remember that a Web site can easily be redesigned and properly resubmitted to search tools.
Have your site designed according to W3C Recommendations - the Official HTML coding rules. Yes, this takes time and it's much easier to use an HTML editor, but the results are much better when properly coded by hand. Watch your site's accessibility and usability. Don't forget to test and validate the code. Talking about testing, do yourself a favor: check the spelling on your pages.
Do not use spamming techniques. You might not be caught today, but one day the Search Engines OR your competitors will find you. Search Engines sometimes will use this reason to ban your site FOR LIFE.

For more about spam please read my article:

"Search Engine Spamming Sucks!" [ http://www.web-design-in-new-york.com/articles.html ]

Avoid gizmos: JavaScripts, Flash or frames. Bells and whistles will NEVER help your page' ranking. In fact, it will hurt your site's indexing or ranking in the Search Engines and will annoy most of your viewers. So, just don't do it!
Have interesting content in your pages, content that grabs your viewer's attention. No matter how beautiful your site is, no matter how much professional promotion you made, if the site doesn't grab viewer's interest, he will leave ? you guessed it -- to your competitors' sites.

Also, use the Title tag, the Keyword and Description meta tags in your HTML coding to list targeted keywords from the contents of your pages. This helps the Search Engines rank your site higher.

Promote the site thoroughly. Submit the site properly to Search Engines and Web Directories and pay special attention to the link popularity issue- contact Webmasters of related sites to ask them to include a link to your site. Yes, it takes time, but it's worth it.

So, let's see: do we dot-com or not? You bet we do! There are tremendous opportunities on the Internet. Find your niche, follow the rules, work hard and you'll make it.

It will not be easy but if you believe in your dream and set realistic expectations, you'll be successful.

Good luck!

About The Author

Daniel Bazac is the Web Marketer for Web Design in New York, ( http://www.web-design-in-new-york.com/articles.html ), a site design, Search Engine Optimization and promotion company. He's been online from 1995 and he's also a seasoned Internet Information Researcher. He can be reached at http://www.web-design-in-new-york.com/articles.html

detailed home cleaning Park Ridge ..

In The News:

Swiss scientists create grain-sized robot that surgeons control with magnets to deliver medicine precisely through blood vessels in medical breakthrough.

Researchers exploited WhatsApp's API vulnerability to scrape 3.5 billion phone numbers. Learn how this massive data breach happened and protect yourself.

Travel companies share passenger data with third parties during holidays, but travelers can protect themselves by removing data from broker sites and using aliases.

Xpeng's humanoid robot moves so realistically that crowds believed it was fake, marking a major advancement in robotics technology ahead of 2026 commercial launch.

Researchers discover phishing scam using invisible characters to evade email security, with protection tips including password managers and two-factor authentication.

iPhone and Android users can reduce battery drain and data usage by restricting Background App Refresh to Wi-Fi connections instead of mobile networks.

Scammers nearly stole an Apple account by exploiting the support system with authentic-looking tickets and phone calls, users can protect themselves with safety steps.

FoloToy restored sales of its AI teddy bear Kumma after a weeklong suspension following safety group findings of risky and inappropriate responses to children.

Threat intelligence firm Synthient uncovers one of the largest password exposures ever, prompting immediate security recommendations.

Viral video shared by Elon Musk shows Tesla's Optimus humanoid robots performing tasks from cooking to construction, garnering over 58.5 million views on social media.

Chinese hackers used Anthropic's Claude AI to launch autonomous cyberattacks on 30 organizations worldwide, marking a major shift in cybersecurity threats.

Apple's new Sleep Score feature gives you a rating for your nightly rest quality. Learn how to set it up on your Apple Watch and iPhone today.

Essential phone settings to enable before losing your device, including Find My network, location services and security features for iPhone and Android.

The Fox News AI Newsletter gives readers the latest AI technology advancements, covering the challenges and opportunities AI presents.

Cybersecurity research shows weak passwords remain a major threat, with simple patterns and number sequences putting millions of accounts at risk.

New Android malware BankBot YNRK silences phones, steals banking data and drains crypto wallets automatically. Learn how this advanced threat works.

FDA approves first human trial for Paradromics' brain-computer interface that could restore speech for paralyzed patients through neural technology.

New phishing platform QRR targets Microsoft 365 users across 1,000 domains in 90 countries. Learn how to spot fake login pages and protect your accounts.

OpenTable now uses AI to track your dining habits and share insights with restaurants. Learn what data they collect and how to protect your privacy.

Google's discontinued Nest thermostats still secretly upload home data to company servers despite losing smart features, raising serious privacy concerns.

New Android malware NGate steals NFC payment codes in real-time, allowing criminals to withdraw cash from ATMs without your card. Learn protection tips.

DoorDash confirms data breach exposing customer names, emails, addresses after social engineering attack. Learn how to protect yourself from scams.

Concerned about Google's AI scanning your Gmail? Learn how to disable Gemini features that access your emails, Drive files and Chat messages for privacy.

Google warns Android users about dangerous fake VPN apps hiding malware that steals passwords, banking details and personal data from phones and tablets.

Apple's digital passport feature lets iPhone users breeze through TSA checkpoints this holiday season using Digital ID technology at 250+ airports.