The importance of four seconds.

Shoppers are likely to abandon a website if it takes longer than four seconds to load, a survey suggests.

The research by Akamai revealed users' dwindling patience with websites that take time to show up.

It found 75% of the 1,058 people asked would not return to websites that took longer than four seconds to load.

The time it took a site to appear on screen came second to high prices and shipping costs in the list of shoppers' pet-hates, the research revealed.

Akamai consulted those who shop regularly online to find out what they like and dislike about e-tailing sites. About half of mature net-shoppers - who have been buying online for more than two years or who spend more than $1,500 (£788) a year online - ranked page-loading time as a priority.

It found that one-third of those questioned abandon sites that take time to load, are hard to navigate or take too long to handle the checkout process.

The four-second threshold is half the time previous research, conducted during the early days of the web-shopping boom, suggested that shoppers would wait for a site to finish loading.

To make matters worse, the research found that the experience shoppers have on a retail site colours their entire view of the company behind it.

About 30% of those responding said they formed a "negative perception" of a company with a badly put-together site or would tell their family and friends about their experiences.

Further research by Akamai found that almost half of the online stores in the list of the top 500 US shopping sites take longer than the four-second threshold to finish loading.

The survey questioned 1,058 net shoppers during the first six months of 2006. Consultants Jupiter Research did the survey for Akamai.

Did you just get banned in Google?

Google stepped up its quest to remove poor quality pages from its index. But the only problem is that Google send an email warning the owner of the site to an email address called webmaster@yourdomanname.com.

This just isn't an effective way of advising the site owner for lots of different reasons.

So how do you know if you got banned in Google?

1. go to Google and type site:www.yourdomainname.com

If you can't see any pages from your website, but previously you know that you were displayed then it's a safe bet your banned, provided that the result is the same for about 3 or four days.

How do you get re indexed?

You must remove any hidden text or spam content or whatever you think is causing the ban from all your web pages. Google is generally pretty vague about what you have done wrong.

Then create a google XML site map.

Then via the site map interface request re-inclusion to Google index. If you haven't been re indexed within 60 days. My advice is get another domain name and start again.

The moral of the story is don't cheat keep your web marketing clean and don't employ dodgy tactics such as cloaking. You will get caught out in the end.

Google Hiring and looking at the results

I noticed today that Google are hiring.

Search Quality Associate Manager - EU Headquarters

This position is located in our European Operations HQ in Dublin, Ireland.

Google is looking for an enthusiastic, experienced, and dynamic individual to lead an international team of Online Evaluators helping to improve the quality of Googles search results. This is an operational role for a web-savvy, energetic and motivated self-starter who is passionate about team-building and creating a great user experience. Applicants should have experience training and developing operations representatives in a customer service environment.

Responsibilities include:

• Lead a team of international evaluators assigned to reviewing sites for quality and content.
• Take a lead in developing and implementing best practices for troubleshooting website issues and identifying areas of concern and interest.
• Help build team structure, recognize leadership potential, and develop enhanced skill sets within the team.
• Increase effectiveness of staff and tools by recognizing opportunities for development and proactively suggesting and implementing new systems and structures.
• Provide regular reports on growth and performance of the department, and develop metrics to measure this growth.
• Act as a point of escalation for technical problems and liaise with engineering team.

Requirements:

• Quick learner with proven ability to grow and lead a team.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• 3-5 years of prior operations management experience.
• Great process management and multi-tasking abilities.
• Passionate about the Internet.
• Passion for learning and creative problem-solving.
• Proven track record of success in previous work experiences.
• BA/BS or equivalent; advanced degree a plus.
• Outstanding academic background.

Technical Requirements:

• Basic HTML experience.
• Familiarity with typical web practices such as managing a domain name.
• Familiarity with internet infrastructure such as WHOIS info and the Domain Name Server (DNS) system of domains, understanding of Firewalls, IP addresses, and name servers.
• Strong computer applications skills.

A plus:

• One to three years related experience in an Internet company and with web research or technical support.
• Previous experience with a computer programming language.
• 
  

Now who says that Google don't look at the results and it's just a machine? Mmmmm
a few names come to mind.