Unfocus » Inspiration » An Open Letter To Trey Gates

An Open Letter To Trey Gates

Hello, Mr. Gates. I hope this letter finds you in high spirits.

On behalf of the Internet, I’d like to welcome you to the wonderful world of Twitter, and to be the first to tell you that every life saved by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is one more reason to forgive you for Internet Explorer. Indeed, your ability to recognize that life’s very basic necessities have been overlooked for decades, and are key, long-term solutions to many of the worlds problems are both noble and a testament to your brilliance. However, you have not applied that same simplistic, but forward-thinking approach to your new online presence, and so I think it’s imperative that you and I quickly skim over a few of the widely known “gotchas” that some web-masters may overlook when erecting their first website.

WWW subdomain is fine, but honor de-facto standard with redirect

The use of any subdomain to arrive at your main site is clearly your call, but over the past few years it has become somewhat of a standard to simply let the ‘www’ subdomain fade out of the public eye. However, should you choose the opposite, it is friendly to simply redirect the non-www version of your domain to a record that actually returns the intended website.

With the WWW Subdomain

Without WWW Subdomain

Prevent duplicate content using a 301 redirect

Proving to the world that you haven’t exploited access to the SEO experts at Bing, you have chosen to allow two duplicate versions of a single website sit on different domains. One of Bing’s competitors – let’s call them Gogol – will quickly denote a scoring penalty for both domains unless you issue a 301 redirect correctly. This penalty applies to all websites, including yours.

If you have the money, buy the .org TLD

Before writing you this letter, I sent you a message through your new websites contact form informing your team that TheGatesNotes.org was available for purchase. I was surprised, as TheGatesNotes.com was in fact bought back in Summer of 2009, which is more than enough time for your domain guys to read about the dangers of domain squatters and scammy internet marketers, two types of people who would love nothing more than to acquire an alternative TLD and scam unsuspecting visitors under your brand and foundation’s image. In short: spend the $9.95 to buy the .org at the same registar you used to buy the .com: GoDaddy.

Never use GoDaddy to register domains

Unless you’re secretly in love with Danica Patrick or the SuperBowl, there is absolutely no sane reason to use GoDaddy to register domains in this day and age. There are simply too many other registrars that offer far superior prices and features and allow you to manage your domains without imposing incredibly difficult restrictions on your business and everyday life. GoDaddy sucks. Don’t believe me? Bing it.

Don’t register as a private domain owner

On the footer of your website(s) you imply that a governing limited-liability company was created to control your new web ventures, but on your domain registry record you chose to privatize yourself through DomainsByProxy, a GoDaddy property. This ‘feature’ is usually used by sketchy websites to conceal their identity and to prevent cease and desists, along with DMCA requests from being effective. Is this the image you want to project? That one of the world’s largest foundations is hiding behind the same protection used by eBay scammers and domain squatters? Fix this by displaying the contact information for your foundations PR agency, or some other registered agent who can speak on behalf of your website.

Those are the five main issues that are currently holding your new website back from it’s full potential. Please take all the above as kind, sincere advice given to you by a fellow web master who has endured his own embarrassment and ridicule many times over.

Sincerely,

Jeff Hood.

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