The good news is that a couple of months ago our blog search was added to GrabPERF, a blog performance monitoring site. We are included amongst some industry titans, including Mozilla, Wordpress, Google, CNN, Digg, Technorati, and more.
The bad news is that according to their speed metrics, we currently rank as the third slowest […]

In the past, the average Internet user searched topically. However, local searches are becoming more and more popular. When a person wants to find quality links to local entities, it only makes sense to utilize a directory edited with quality control in mind.
There is nothing like the simplicity of going […]

While everyone else is boozing it up..err.. I mean getting ready to network and do some business at the SES conference, it is with great pride that I steal a bit of their thunder and give you a brief intro to some new features on the BOTW Blog Directory. And why shouldn’t I […]

Building a human edited directory has advantages and disadvantages. The main disadvantage is that it takes time to hand pick sites and add them one by one. Since this also leads to better quality and less junk for our users to sort through, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.
The Regional branch of the […]

Many webmasters and internet marketing professionals scoff at the Alexa ranking system. “Too easy to manipulate”, they say. “Not truly representative of traffic”, others note. And while I agree with them, I take a different stance when it comes to Alexa’s usefulness.
I find Alexa to be a pretty good resource, especially when […]

Providing our end users with a first-rate experience is one of our top priorities. When people come to BOTW and enjoy using the directory, they will be sure to return. We work hard to provide meaningful navigation throughout the directory. In the end, this creates a gratifying experience for our users, more […]

Well, the new Blog Directory Search really is ready to rock and roll, however the team, in its infinite wisdom has decided we should hold off a little to pretty ‘er up. I think it already is pretty, but I brought my design skills to bear on the problem and I do believe I […]

([\w]*)[\w =\.\,\-\;]((?:[\w]+ =?){0,50)!
If you want to scare or confuse someone, just paste them some Regular Expressions, which incidentally reminds me a lot of Geek Code. Of course I’m way too busy working on Best of the Web! to worry about crafting my own. The regex code above is actually […]

Santa was a little upset when he showed up Christmas Eve in the wee hours to find what was once a plate of freshly baked oh-so-good chocolate chip cookies, was now a plate full of crumbs. A tall frosty glass of icy cold milk reduced to mere droplets sat uninvitingly, and I, resplendent with […]

I got my new Apple PowerBook G4 in early September. One of the first things I did was to spend some time learning about iCal, Apple’s calendar application. In an effort to work on my organizational skills, I spent some time adding in important dates and prioritizing my to-do list. One of […]