Web Marketing Pro Blog

I have talked before about the advantages of the Firefox Web Browser vs. Internet Explorer. Firefox 2.0 is still better than Internet Explorer 7. But that topic is for another post.

What I want to do here is sound a little alarm about problems that arise when you upgrade Firefox 1.5 to Firefox 2.0.

The worst part, it seems to me, is that the upgrade wizard does not warn you about these problems before you go ahead with the upgrade.

Here’s a WARNING you should see — but you don’t — when you try to upgrade to Firefox 2.0:

FIREFOX 1.5 ADD-ONS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH FIREFOX 2.0
The main problem I encountered was that many of the Firefox Add-ons that I had added to customize my 1.5 version of the browser were not compatible with Firefox 2.0. Unfortunately, Firefox did not let me know about this until after I had installed version 2.0! And, to my knowledge, there is no going back. Sure, I could uninstall 2.0 and reinstall 1.5, but at that point the 1.5 add-ons would be gone. I would have to reinstall each one.

If you have only a few add-ons, or none, it’s no big deal! But, it’s still worth looking into, because your favorite add-on in Firefox 1.5, something you use all the time, may not work in 2.0.

OTHER ISSUES TO CONSIDER BEFORE UPGRADING TO FIREFOX 2.0
For more about this, you can check out the Firefox Discussion Group on Google Groups:
http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.feedback.firefox/topics

I notice that some people are complaining here that their bookmarks and passwords are lost when they upgrade from Firefox 1.5 to 2.0. That’s serious! I can’t say whether this is true or not. (I don’t keep bookmarks or passwords in my web browsers.)

There are more comments here:
http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.feedback.firefox.prerelease

Here’s one from July 20 that caught my attention:

It’s a pain in the neck to do all of the downloading only to find that Firefox is not compatible with certain other programs. With forethought and a little courtesy you could have let us know ahead of time. [...] An informed decision can only be made when [you have] all appropriate information first, not last.

Of course, you can also go to the Mozilla Firefox 2.0 upgrade page for more information:
Here’s one example of what you’ll find, however…

If you encounter strange problems relating to bookmarks, downloads, window placement, toolbars, history, or other settings, it is recommended that you try creating a new profile and attempting to reproduce the problem before filing bugs. Create a new profile by running Firefox with the -P command line argument, choose the “Manage Profiles” button and then choose “Create Profile…”. Migrate your settings files (Bookmarks, Saved Passwords, etc) over one by one, checking each time to see if the problems resurface. If you do find a particular profile data file is causing a problem, file a bug and attach the file.

This is written to the Open Source community of programmers and computer whizzes more than to average browser users like you and me. The “-P command line argument”? A “particular profile data file”? I can figure this stuff out, but I also have other more pressing things to do. And it’s not a solution to the problem.

Let me know what you think!

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Google recently introduced a new paid version of its Site Search for Small Businesses. It has a number of advantages over the free service, the most obvious of which is the fact that there will be no advertisements next to search results. You can also customize search results so that the pages you want to show up at the top of the results are given more weight than other pages.

For more, see Google Enterprise: Google Custom Search Business Edition (CSBE) and the Google Custom Search Help Center — and these articles for an overview:

(If you only have time to read one, read the eWeek article.)

Google Launches Hosted Website Search for SMBs
eWeek.com

Google Offers to Run Site Search Engines
washingtonpost.com

It’s just a hunch, but using this service could also improve the site’s performance in standard, external Google searches.

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I would just like take a moment to point out that the old McBuzz Blog on Blogger still does very well, thank you very much, on the keyword “national workplace napping day” (currently in the #10 slot on page 1)*.

It would still be folly to infer from this that I know more about National Workplace Napping Day than the average person on the street.

It would not be completely off base to infer that there is something missing from the Google search algorithm when it comes to finding authoritative or useful information about obscure national holidays. What, exactly, could it be? I am dying to find out! Because the answer could hold the key to other mysteries of the Google Search Universe.

*Time for an update to that report. The old McBuzz Blog has fallen to #14 — or #4 on page 2, if you like. But the mcbuzz.com website/blog — official site of Mark McLaren and McBuzz Communications — is now #9 on page 1. So, whereas before, a blog that had nothing to do with National Workplace Napping Day was on page one of Google for those keywords, now appearing above it in the rankings is a website that merely refers to the former’s placement on Google.

This is good for some search engine marketing specialists — like McBuzz. The hard part for consumers is figuring out which search engine marketing specialists have any idea why Google thinks Mark McLaren and McBuzz Communications are so closely related to a national holiday about taking naps at work. Snore…

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Following up on the fact that McBuzz Communications has moved its offices to Seattle…

Within the next week or so, I will get down to business and back to talking about the robots.txt file and the Google supplementary index and good web marketing stuff like that, but in the meantime…

As I told a friend, I’m getting so much more done, albeit not on the Web Marketing Pro Blog, now that I have that third tap in the kitchen (the piping hot coffee tap mentioned in the previous post).

Now it seems there’s even more reason to celebrate, and one more reason Washington is ranking high on Forbes list of best states for business :

Seattle has high-end coffee and world-class software. And its chocolate’s not too bad, either.

Seattle earns gold for its chocolate
Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle) - July 13, 2007
by Steve Wilhelm

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McBuzz Communications and Mark McLaren have moved to Seattle, Washington. Check out the address in the upper right corner of the page.

Seattle is an awesome city with all kinds of Internet and IT activity. My favorite thing about it, though, is that, in addition to the standard kitchen taps for hot and cold running water, it’s a city law that there be a third tap out of which flows piping hot coffee! That’s the real reason we moved here.

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