BKGETHIT.RVW  970817

"Getting Hits", Don Sellers, 1997, 0-201-68815-8, U$19.95/C$32.00
%A   Don Sellers don@zap.com donsellers@aol.com
%C   2414 6th St., Berkeley, CA   94710
%D   1997
%G   0-201-68815-8
%I   PeachPit
%O   U$19.95/C$32.00 510-548-4393 fax: 510-548-5991 416-447-5101
%O   markj@aw.com trish@peachpit.com gary@peachpit.com
%P   178
%T   "Getting Hits: The Definitive Guide to Promoting Your Website"

The overwhelming majority of books on the business use of the Internet
see the net primarily as a means of advertising.  The "politically
correct" form of net advertising is the Web page.  Web pages are
acceptable advertising because they are passive--the user has to make
the request to link to a page, rather than being forced to deal with
it like spam on email or newsgroups.  The Web page does, though, have
one significant drawback: the user has to find it.

Most net commerce books now do recognize this point, and may have a
chapter or two on promoting your promotional material.  "Getting Hits"
is *only* about pushing your Web site.  The coverage compared with the
topic is quite complete: sometimes depressingly so.  Seasoned
internauts may not be thrilled at the tips designed to fool search
sites, but Sellers does, at least, make the token gesture of not
recommending their use--and notes that some search engines will
eliminate your listing if you use such tricks.  The book does seem to
have an overall bias towards commercial advertising, but there are
some pointers for use by those who have more time than money
available.

The book provides good references for promotional resources.  (One
caveat is that the contact listings are *only* online; mostly
Websites; even for print media and other offline ventures.)  However,
the text could have been even thinner than it is.  Many entities are
described four times or more, sometimes with little new information
being added.  Some of this repetitive material can be attributed to
two additional authors for five of the chapters, but it is still
annoying for the reader.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1997   BKGETHIT.RVW  970817