For every 20-30 emails we get at iBegin asking that we fix an issue, 1 of them always has the veiled threat of a lawsuit. “Fix my # or I will sue you!” “We have moved – fix it or I will have my lawyer deal with this!” etc etc. Of those threats, 1 out of 10 are just downright unstable. Capital letters. Abusive language. Even the occasional threat of bodily harm.

What boggles my mind is how these people stay in business. Yes bad information sucks. It can be annoying. But what is the harm in asking nicely? I can understand if you have emailed us before and we didn’t reply – but that doesn’t happen

Sadly enough – another reminder of the recession. The threatening tone in emails has increased – the more stress you put on the business owners, the more likely they are to pass it on.

I should note that while I can be crass here (and in other areas), all emails are always civil. Even with the random person who replies to me with mentions on how I must be working with the terrorists because of my Islamist name (true story).

Many readers here at my blog found me through my prodigious commenting on other blogs. And dare I say it, most of my comments contribute directly to the topic at hand, with little self promotion.

So the other day I came across what looked like a mostly useless comment by GenieKnows on Mike’s blog post on Google Maps Re-design. The comment itself was a cross between useless and retarded. I didn’t pay it any other thought as the poster’s name (Drew) was not linked.

That is until I was chatting with Mike on IM and he pointed out that the smiley face was in fact a link! The little spammers, having found out Mike’s blog was do-follow, were trying to impregnate a link through the use of a smiley. I encouraged Mike to call them out, but he was far too nice for that.

Thankfully I am not. Yesterday the idiots hit my blog with a near identical comment like that, complete with their hidden link in the smiley.

So congratulations on acting like utter jackasses.

So in my previous post I talked about one of my favorite companies – LDC.

Next up is Yipit. But this isn’t just about how awesome Yipit is. No no – today they launched profile pages, and in the process, further convoluted their home page. So this post is about how I would look over their site, and improve their UI and SEO.

To me, SEO is about giving the user what they want. In the case of a local search site, that relates to what they want (fishnet stockings, lava lamps, Company X, etc) and where they want it (New York City, Greenwich Village [neighborhood], 10015 [zip code], or some other informal space). It is also very possible that the user has a general idea of what they want but do not know how to exactly define it.

So – off the bat, the home page for Yipit is rather confusing. We have 1 2 3, where #1 is a non-standardized (in general UI terms) breakdown, #2 is slightly more confusing (it is pre-filled as NY – which doesn’t match either of their three criteria), and #3 is … something that should not need to be defined. Under it we have a list of Top Furniture and Top Discount Furniture stores, with a crap-ton of ‘popular searches’ that somehow relate to each business (but how?) On the right is a quick description of Yipit that seems stuffed with keywords, then twitter updates, then more popular searches, and then popular business searches.

What in God’s name of stuffing is this?

On a slight tangent – the English language can be hard. What may be X to me may be Y to you. Taxonomy is not an easy business. But the complexity in taxonomy is far simpler for Yipit – by focusing on furniture (more later), the verse of words people could be possibly looking for is greatly narrowed. Instead of a drop down – just have a box saying ‘What kind of Furniture?’ Best of all – this lets them generate a list of keywords based on what users are searching for. Eventually they may learn that 75% of people use ‘fold-out bed’ while 20% use ’sofa bed’ and 5% use ‘bed that opens up’. Sure they may miss it the first few times someone searches for it (as it would not be in their taxonomy) – but over time they would have this incredibly rich database of words people search for relating to their own internal category. Back to the topic – replace ‘Near’ with ‘Around (optional)’ and have it pre-filled with New York City. Then a simple search submit. All of them next to each other, no #s, and maybe a few examples under the two input boxes. Forcing their categorization on me was an unsatisfying UI experience.

On a related note – the ‘definitions’ link looks like it is clickable – but it sure ain’t. Confused me there.

So – now we have greatly cleaned up the main search part – no forcing a user to figure out what you think they want – let them define it, and no need for the ‘duh’ 1 2 3 #s.

Next up – we have a bunch of ‘Top Furniture Stores’ under it. First off – all the profile page links go to the generic /furniture__ny/ page – I assume that is a bug. Second of all – why do we have 900 keywords stuffed in there? Having ‘new york’ stuffed in every single result leaves me with a bad taste. You have tags for each business. You should be using those.

But never mind the tags even. You guys have two objectives here – get people to use the Yipit code, or get people to find Yipit when searching for a popular key phrase / store. At the same time, Yipit’s authority in the eyes of search engines is still weak – it is new, and does not have a few links. So – instead of 12 businesses across two categories, list 4. Two are your advertisers, and two are either the two most popular furniture stores in NYC, or two advertisers. Ideally this would let you track how effective the home page is in getting people to use the coupon, and thus the value it generates. Furthermore, just list the tags you ahve for each business. No need to put in all these extra popular searches.

Now to the right side. The first paragraph is nice, the second paragraph throws me off with all that red text for links. Is it really needed? You already have popular searches – leave it at that. As for the twitter updates – honestly how many people care about that? You have a blog link in the footer – leave it at that. Leave those popular searches and popular business searches (though really rename it to ‘Popular Businesses’) – so your right is now a quick blurb on how Yipit does furniture (but should be slightly more fleshed out), and two quick lists on Popular Searches and Popular Businesses.

And bring the nice little footer image to the top please

So – now we have a home page much nicer and cleaner.

Next up – the directory pages in the footer. They are employing a Neighborhood directory, a Zip Code directory, and a Business Directory by alphabet. The Neighborhood directory expands into a bunch of pages for every category for every neighborhood, the zip directory the same, and the business directory just straight links.

Down the road this may work. But as I said before, personally I think that is stretching it too thin. Trying to run before you can walk. If I could run things, I would nuke the zip code directory, nuke the business listings, and only use Neighborhoods. The neighborhood-specific page would then have a list of just the businesses found in that directory. They have 337 in total – no worry of having too many in one neighborhood

The profile page I cannot complain about much. I would get rid of that Search Yipit drill down they have, and replace it back with the simple What/Where search box (with the Where pre-filled with that neighborhood). And instead of Other Searches of Interest, I would simply list the 5 closest Furnituer stores. Too many keywords (at this time) seem to be spreading yourself thin.

So we finally end up with the super confusing (to me) /d/xxxxx pages. Before I get started on it specifically, I noticed some links where /d/xxxxx_ny and some were /d/xxxxxxx_NY. That is duplicate content in the eyes of some search engines.

Now – the idea is smart. Search pages or tag pages – both are the same to Yipit. But that UI is just ‘what the fuck’ to me. At 1024 res that map on teh right is so squished. And way way too much information.

For example, I am looking at Murphy Beds. I fail to see why I care what the popular searches are on that page. I want to know name, info, and yes knowing their amount is nice. But popular searches are out. They could easily wipe out that entire blue box, giving the map a lot more space. Plus – you have a map – no need to put in the intersection. I think it should be just Name, Price (clickable with a tooltip to say exactly what $$$ means), address, phone, # of pieces, and a ‘more details’ link to their profile page! (profile pages are found nowhere on the search results page).

And as I said before – please just use a free-for-all input box for what.

I know I am not the only one confused by this page – the breadcrumbs lead to nowhere.

I would also slightly tweak the