Email Form Error

Sat 20th Jan '01 Founding Member of iCop http://www.i-Cop.org International Council of Online Professionals In this issue: 1. INTRODUCTION ==>Learn from a Dummy. � 2. PLACES TO VISIT ==>Web sites for you to visit. 3. TOOLS AT NOWSELL.COM ==>Useful tools to make your life easier. 4. FEATURE ARTICLE ==>"The Year-2000 Net Winners and Losers" By Rob Spiegel. Scroll to the end for subscription details. o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o "NOW *YOU* CAN LEARN THE SECRETS OF MARKETING MASTER MIKE ENLOW!" The man who taught Cory Rudl is Endorsed by the world's most respected consultants; Jay Abraham, Ted Nicholas, Gary Halbert, Dan Kennedy, Brad Richdale, Mark Nolan, Jerry Buchanon ... Ultra POWERFUL marketing concepts to Explode Your Business! Click Here Right Now! o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X X INTRODUCTION X X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X Hi, WHAT A DUMMY! I've a problem on my site. The stats show I'm getting hundreds of 404 "page not found" errors. The URL given as the culprit is a malformed call to a CGI subscription script. I'm worried I'm losing an awful lot of new sign-ups! When someone clicks the submit button on any of the site's sign-up forms, a request should be sent for the script at: http://www.MyDomain.com/cgi-bin/script.pl. In this instance however, the request is going to http://www.MyDomain.com/archives/year/nov/cgi-bin/script.pl. This location simply doesn't exist, thus the error. I generally use root-relative paths for the links in my forms. It enables me to put the form on different pages without changing anything. In this case that would mean the link should be "/cgi-bin/script.pl," i.e. the route from the main directory. I thought I'd perhaps omitted the first slash (/). That would make the link "cgi-bin/script.pl," and thus interpreted as a document-relative link, i.e. the route from that particular page. On a page in the directory "nov" this link would lead to a cgi-bin within the *same* directory/folder. Of course, there isn't a cgi-bin directory within the "nov" directory. However, the full URL to this imaginary location would be: http://www.MyDomain.com/archives/year/nov/cgi-bin/script.pl. My 404 error! I've checked the pages in this directory several times over the last month or so since I first noticed the problem (yes - THAT long!). I can't find anything wrong. But the number of new subscribers I appeared to be missing out on was slowly gnawing away at me! Yesterday, I determined to do something about it. First I re-checked the pages. Same story. So then I decided to actually create what the URL was pointing to. I made a cgi-bin in the "nov" directory, copied the script file into it, and set permissions. Unfortunately, and as I half expected, the server didn't like it. The script wouldn't work. The only other option was a redirect. I opened the .htaccess file and added the following line: Redirect /archives/year/nov/cgi-bin/script.pl http://www.MyDomain .com/pages/ezine.html (all on one line) Now, any request for http://www.MyDomain.com/archives/year/nov/cgi-bin/script.pl would be redirected to http://www.MyDomain.com/pages/ezine.html. In other words, users of the bad link would be sent to my main ezine page. On testing it worked perfectly, seamlessly landing me on the new page in an instant. Following the process through, I also tested the form on this, my main sign-up page. BOY I'M A DUMMY! It didn't work. I clicked the submit button and nothing happened. Nothing. Not even an "Internal Server Error" message. Looking through the source code, it didn't take too long to find the problem. The closing /FORM tag was *before* the Submit button. This meant the button was not part of the form code, so clicking on it had no effect. Simply moving the /FORM tag to the line below the Submit button fixed the problem. I began to wonder ... how long had it been like that? It must have happened when I redesigned the site ... that was when I moved host ... that was in November. NOVEMBER! Oh my God! DUMMY! I'd noticed the growth of Biz Bits seemed to have slowed a little over the last few months! I put it down to the time of year. I didn't check. As a result I must have lost hundreds of new subscribers. And then there's the 404 error! GET SMART! Don't be a dummy like me. Check, and double-check your forms when you put them online. And your links. Of course, you could always use Site Buildit instead. See it here It builds your site for you, so you don't even need to know about all this stuff - let alone get it right! Personally however, what appeals most to me is the Site Buildit range of promotional tools. Some smart thinking, and very nifty programming at work there. So much so, that it's hard to see how even a beginner could fail to get traffic. BB Happy Chinese New Year to you if you're celebrating! BB Please rate Biz Bits at the Cumuli Ezine Finder. http://www.cumuli.com/ezines/~bizbit BB Tell me what YOU think! Send your feedback, comments, what you like, what you hate, etc., to me at: mailto:azam-nowsell.com TTFN Azam PS - Get 2001 off to a good start by benefiting from corporate status. Professional Online Business Incorporation is just a click away. To ensure your business is formed correctly and quickly, visit: http://www.nowsell.com/go/to.cgi?l=inc �� ----------------------------------------------------------------- Your Privacy: I greatly value your trust in me. I will never, ever, under any circumstances give or sell your email address to anyone. Period! ----------------------------------------------------------------- o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o "TRUST YOUR SALES TO A COMPANY WITH OVER 11 YEARS EXPERIENCE" Real-time secure processing of credit cards and checks from your website with the Internet's Largest Merchant Account Provider. Plus fast card processing for mail, phone order, etc. * Quick Set-up * 99% Acceptance * International * Click Here o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X X PLACES TO VISIT X X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X

http://www.projectseven.com/ Dreamweaver Web Site templates (to buy) and some good, fairly advanced, free tutorials.

http://www.emailaddresses.com/mailto_encoder.htm Free service encodes your email address so it can't be harvested from your Web site by spambots.

http://www.freshmeat.net/ Scripts of all shapes and sizes at this huge resource. If you can't find it anywhere else, try here.

http://hop.clickbank.net/hop.cgi?nowsell/coverart High-quality ebook cover designs. The best I've seen in fact. (written *before* I noticed I could use my clickbank account). o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o "SELLING ONLINE? WANT TO SELL MORE?" Master and use the incredible power of words. The magic, irresistible and unstoppable power of words that sell! Unique Web-focused copywriting course. Sales Copy, Ads, Email and more. Click Here o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X X TOOLS AT NOWSELL.COM X X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X Promotion Tools * Keyword Research Tool * Meta Tag Maker * Free Automatic Search Engine Submit * Rapid Manual Search Engine Submit Tool * Position Analyzer to check site rank in the SEs * Link Generators * Multi Search Tool HTML Tools * Multiple Pop-up window code generator * Multiple MouseOver image generator * Frames code generator * Simple CSS template * 216 Web color palette and codes * HTML Special character codes * Useful cut & paste Javascript, and more o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o "TOP SEARCH ENGINE POSITIONING SECRETS!" Step-by-step, Michael Campbell shows how to get to the top of search engines AND hold your position once you're there. Click to Learn from a master of today's ever-changing algorithms! o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X X FEATURE ARTICLE X X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X -------------------------------------- "The Year-2000 Net Winners and Losers" -------------------------------------- By Rob Spiegel If 1999 was the year American business went giddy and bubbly with the Internet, 2000 was the morning-after year, a time of mammoth headaches and out-of-whack backs. Yet the Internet flame-outs were not distributed equally. Here's a round-up of the winners and losers of year-2000. Read the trends in the shakeout dust. Winner: PetsMart.com. Loser: Pets.com The brick and mortar company, PetsMart.com, wins the battle for pet action on the Internet. Whether it's because of trust or simply a high-functioning site, consumers chose the brick over the Pets.com click, which failed last fall. Other examples of this trend include Barnes & Noble, the brick and click bookseller that is making inroads against Amazon.com, and Toys 'R' Us, which broke eToys this past during the holidays even though eToys was the 1999 online winner. eToys laid off 700 employees, more than half its workforce, during the first week of January 2001 after a dismal holiday sales season. Winner: MP3. Loser: CDNow CDNow was created to give music shoppers better information about their recorded choices. Instead, music consumers wanted new technology to receive their music. Music downloads won the day, not mail-order CDs. Winner: America Online. Loser: Every other stock bubble When I first heard the news of an America Online/Time Warner merger, I assumed Time Warner was buying AOL. Surprise, surprise, David bought Goliath in a brilliant move. With all of the pre-April stock bubbles, it's surprising more of the dot coms didn't buy up their offline equivalents in the AOL manner. Many of the dot coms that were trading at $240 per share in March ended the year trading at $2. A good number of these will vanish completely in 2001. This makes AOL's move look that much smarter. Winner: Traditional big business and tiny start-ups. Loser: VC-backed start-ups There are two clear winners when it comes to e-business. First, large traditional companies take huge savings as they move procurement and sales to the highly efficient Internet world. DaimlerChrysler claimed a 17 percent savings during 2000 due to online procurement. Companies such as GM, GE and Boeing have also trimmed costs via the Web. A few percentage points here and there adds up to billions in savings at these corporate giants. The other big winner is the small niche retailer who can now reach a larger audience through the Internet. These companies sell products such as hot sauces or fly fishing equipment to enthusiasts who can't find a wide selection of their hobby products locally. The losers are the high-priced Net companies that attempted to reach a wide, undifferentiated market or those whose steps to profitability were unclear. The tiny niche sites were typically pay-as-you-go, funded from the entrepreneur's pocket, while the large, unfocused dot coms were living on other people's money. Winner: Plumbers. Loser: Sites with leaky pipes As more and more traditional companies move to e-business, infrastructure builders are the big winners. Hosting companies such as Akamai, Conxion and Digital Island, or procurement software specialists such as Ariba and Commerce One will most likely be winners no matter how the game shakes out. These companies specialize in helping Ford buy from U.S. Steel. The "leaky pipe" companies are those who depend on consumers to warm up to the Net. When it comes right down to it, the value proposition for a consumer to buy from Amazon.com (where a 20 percent savings is gobbled up by shipping charges) can't touch the value proposition that Ford gets by saving billions in steel purchasing costs. The winners and losers of 2000 can be summed up in two points. Ecommerce wins if: 1. You can make existing trading partners more efficient (U.S. Steel selling to Ford or Toys 'R' Us selling to everybody). 2. You can give a enthusiast a selection that can't be found locally (hot sauces and fly fishing equipment). Rob Spiegel is the author of Net Strategy (Dearborn) and The Shoestring Entrepreneur's Guide to the Best Home-Based Businesses (St. Martin's Press). You can reach Rob at spiegelrob-aol.com. o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o "EXPERT PROMOTION ADVICE EVERY DAY!" Guaranteed to turn your business around in just 10 minutes a day! Marketing advice and tasks daily from industry greats. They'll even answer your questions in the forum. Limited time - $6/ year! Click Here for more o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o _________________________________________________________________ To subscribe to Biz Bits, send a blank email to: mailto:bizbits@nowsell.com Should you ever wish to unsubscribe (hopefully not!): mailto:BizBits-unsubscribe@topica.com To subscribe on the Web please go to: http://www.nowsell.com Archives: Biz Bits Internet Marketing eZine Posts to Biz Bits FFA [mailto:FFA@topica.com]: This is where you can send all of your ads, sales letters, promotions, offers, etc. You may post once every day. Subscribe with a blank email to mailto:FFA-subscribe@topica.com ================================================================= Information on sponsoring Biz Bits: mailto:bbads-nowsell.com ================================================================= Biz Bits is Copyright © 1999-2000 Azam Corry. All Rights Reserved. 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