Posts by Michel Wester

Michel Wester is a Front-end developer at the Dutch company Exxtra where he builds templates and a variety of websites. They specialize in online marketing and building websites. -- More articles and bio from Michel Wester
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Checklist For Launching New Websites

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If you are developing a new website then you must recognize that in the last fase of building there are always a lot of small things that have to be taken care of. Because several points are critical and may not be forgotten when a site goes live I’ve made a small checklist to see if everything on a site or a shop is working correctly before launch.

The original checklist is in Dutch and can be found here with additional information.

If you have any points that aren’t on the list but should be, please share it in the comments or on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or via email. So without further ado, the checklist: (more…)

Bing Homepage Experiment Annoys Users

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In the last couple of days Bing tested a rather unusual feature on the homepage which annoyed a lot of users. Users of Bing that were part of the test got a whole lot of new opened tabs when using the search engine because every time after typing a query and hitting enter a new tab was opened with the results. And this was just in Google Chrome and Firefox and these users were lucky because users of Apple browser Safari had the results opened in a new window… that is…. for every query…. every time….

The result of the test was that a group of users complained on Twitter with some of them thinking it was a bug on the homepage. After to many complaints Microsoft decided to shut down the experiment. “We heard the feedback, and we’re disabling the feature now.” Microsoft sayed. (more…)

Bing Strips Search Results With New Look

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Microsoft decided to overhaul the design of the search results, the page now has a completely new layout. Earlier this year several users spotted a experiment of a cleaner interface and since that moment Microsoft experimented further and came up, based on the received feedback with this new stripped design.

After performing a query you will see a very clean and simple interface. The left column with search history and filters is gone and the related searches are now shown at the right net to the results. Besides the related searches nothing is shown here, even no ads. The left side as wide as the logo now looks pretty empty. (more…)

Zerg Rush Easter Egg from Google, defend your search results!

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Recently Google is occasionally hiding bigger Easter Eggs in the Search Engine. This started last year with the query ‘Do A Barrel’ roll which still works and lets you turn the page, short after that around the holidays the query ‘let it snow’ made it actually snowing on the page with results with a Defrost button to bring the results back.

In the past more smaller subtile Easter Eggs where hidden by Google in the search engine and other products. For example, for some time in many doodles there was a little triforce, YouTube contained serveral ‘eggs’, Google Maps at this moment has a small kayak Egg and currently on the homepage of Android.com there is a small Easter Egg hidden in the footer. (more…)

Google Does Take Manual Action On Webspam

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Maybe you already follow the webmaster videos from Googles Matt Cutts in which he answers questions from webmasters. Matt is doing this for several years now and which I think is a good thing. There are a few hundred videos now and he even answered one of my questions once icon smile Google Does Take Manual Action On Webspam .

In his latest video Matt answers a question from himself. “Does Google take manual action on webspam? Does manual action result in a removal or can it also be a demotion? Are there other situations where Google will remove content from its search results?” (more…)

Google Consumer Surveys Could Be Worthwile To Try

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On the 29th of March Google introduced a new product called Consumer Surveys. A new product aimed on both large and small companies who would like to do market research in an easy way in order to make certain decisions. These online surveys can be about everything, for example how many hours users watch TV or which kind of packaging they prefer for a certain product. (more…)

Users Make Good Use of Whitespace Google+ [Fun]

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And now for some after-weekend fun icon smile Users Make Good Use of Whitespace Google+ [Fun] . As you must have noticed last week that Google introduced a completely redesigned interface for Google+. Say what you want about the new interface but almost instantly there were a lot of comments about the extra whitespace which shows especially on bigger screens and lead to the trending topics #whitespace en #usesforwhitespace on the social network.

Soon after this Google+ boss Vic Gundotra announced that there are plans for this space but what functionality Google has in mind he wouldn’t say yet (please not ads!).

Many users with bigger screens made fun of the whitespace by showing on pictures what you can do with it. For example, you could put bacon in here but also a new browser window with Facebook seems to fit nicely, or what about a lavalamp. We collected some funny pictures from users below, if you want to see more of these pictures head over to, of course, Google+. (more…)

How Google Would Look Like In The ’80s

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What if Google and other popular sites would exist in the ’70s or ’80s and how would they look and function. After watching the popular BBC Comedy “Look Around You” the Dutch web editor Jo Luijten came up with the idea to think about how Google and Twitter would look like in the eighties.

It resulted in the video’s below, besides Google and Twitter Luijten also made video’s of Angry Birds, Draw Something and there’s a video of how Facebook would look in the ‘90s. In an interview with Wired Luijten told he is now looking at YouTube, I’m curious how that will look like icon smile How Google Would Look Like In The 80s . (more…)

Google Analytics To Be Used For Measuring Google+ Pages

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On the Dutch website Dutchcowboys Arvid Bux spotted a photograph of a presentation from Google with information about measuring Google+ Pages. The photograph shows that actually quite logical Google Analytics will be used for measuring activity on Google+ Pages.

I was able to find the original presentation (Google Confidential) from Google with some more information about connecting Analytics and a Google+ Page.

To measure a page you only have to make a new profile in Analytics and then paste the unique tracking ID in the settings from the Google+ page, this is the same way you can currently measure Picasa Web Albums. Also there is a button to make a new Analytics profile directly from within the page. By measuring a page this way the statistics are separately from a existing profile so you can’t combine it with a existing profile from your own company website. (more…)

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