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Online reviews: Added Value and Web Pollution!
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Today, exactly nine year ago, our DCViews website went live for the first time. Digital camera evolution has leaped forward since, and my Kodak Digital Science DC50, the first digital zoom camera below $1000, is a far cry from today's digital compact cameras. From July 2000 onwards, we have been browsing an impressive number of camera reviews on the Web and guided you to more than 6000 reviews through our review links. The quantity of camera reviews and review sites is growing steadily. Sadly, we cannot say the same for the review quality...
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We occasionally get the question why
we have not included a particular review in our links. The answer to that question
is that either - or both - of the following shortcomings apply:
• The review itself is sub-standard and does - in our opinion - not provide any
added value to our visitors. For that reason we will only link to reviews in a language
that we understand ourselves.
• The review website does not adhere to the Web-etiquette, does not give credit
were credit is due, and/or publishes articles for Search Engines rather than for
Humans.
Review Quality
On our DCViews website you will find a number of
requirements
that we consider a quality camera review should meet in order to add value for our
visitors. Admittedly, we may have been more forgiving in cases where no online reviews
were available yet, or more stringent in cases where many reviews were already available
online.
Previews: This is the most misused term in digital camera reviews. In many
cases the preview is just a copy of the text in the press release or of the accompanying
information, or at best a rewording of the press information without the typical
bombastic and superfluous terms. A true hands-on preview giving initial comments
on early experiences with the camera is becoming the exception.
 Annoyances:
Many reviews are nowadays hidden in a landslide of ads, and it takes you some time
to discover a minimal section of actual review text on each page. The most annoying
thing though, is the use of pop-up ads that cannot be suppressed and were you cannot
find the exit button, because it is not present or cleverly placed out of your sight.
Hyperlinks: Text in a review can be highlighted so that when clicked, the
browser automatically displays another page with relevant information to further
explain or provide background information on the selected word or sentence. This
is becoming a misused feature to provide you with unwanted ads or other irrelevant
information.
Web-pollution: In our camera review quests, we have come across camera reviews
that do not add any value at all and only contribute to web-pollution and the information
explosion. Although the term "value add" is contentious, to assume that someone
may be looking for the information in the example on the right is really stretching the imagination.
Regrettably, even reputed sites like i3a provide links to such reviews in their
daily news round-up.
Website Quality
Although the boundaries of what you should and should-not-do on the web are eroding,
we still believe that you should give credit were credit is due, and not use the
creative work (text and/or images) of others only for your own advantage. With the
ever accelerating rate of stuffing the internet with (non)information, techniques
to increase Search Engine page ranking have become vital. Many websites however,
exploit the techniques to the extreme, thereby forcing us to spent our valuable time
on irrelevant information when visiting these websites.
 Web-etiquette:
Some camera sites offer links to camera reviews from their colleagues without the
appropriate credits. This usually happens in two equally objectable manners. One
method is by copying the most essential parts of the review in their own summary
and thus reducing the need to visit the website, rather than inviting their users
to visit the original website. Another method is by providing links that do not add
any value for the original creator.
 Value
added links are considered to have both the original website's name and the subject
included in the hyperlink text. In many cases only the name of the website is included
in the hyperlink and the subject-text is used to link to - and thus favor - pages
on their own website.
Writing for search engines: We have already given you some examples of Search
Engine misuse, but there are several websites that really go all the way. A particular
page property favored by Search Engines is the use of important keywords in section
headers and the use of repetitive keywords in the body text. The sample page on
the right illustrates this phenomenon. Another example of the excessive use of camera
names and the word "review" is shown in the example on the left, where you can even
select camera reviews for the same camera in a different color. It's re-assuring
to see that at least the rating for these cameras is the same.
Epilogue
In our DCViews website we have gone a great length to provide a maximum of information
in as little overhead as feasible. With our navigation system all information is
only a few mouse clicks away, and all our data is presented in separate views with
concise abstracts. To achieve this we have designed our website using "frames",
a technique that allows for partial loading data in a "view", thus eliminating the
need to reload a page each time you click an item. Furthermore, we make extensive
use of direct hyperlinks to get you to relevant pages on the Internet, when we feel
that adding text does not add value.
The drawback of our approach is that most Search Engines will value our pages optimized
for humans less than pages optimized for Search Engines. Overtime our approach might
prove not economical any longer. Next year we will celebrate our tenth anniversary
and maybe, rather than changing our principles, it might be a good time to bring
a close to our website… |
| July 28, 2009 |
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