If you are into SEO or you want to know more ‘technical’ data about how a particular website or web page is designed, ranked or linked, consider using the Firefox web browser. Firefox has a slew of add ons for all sorts of purposes.

To quickly gather information about web pages, I use the SEO Quake, SEOpen and the SearchStatus extensions. The SEO Quake is usefull when pulling up search engine queries and you want to know more about the pages served. SEOpen and Search Status toolbars provides extensive search-related information about a site or web page.

These are useful if you are performing SEO work, or you want to know more about a particular publisher before you exchange or purchase links from them. They’re great for those of us who like to “trust but verify” a webmaster’s claimed traffic stats.

Check out some other Firefox SEO Extensions.

Are there any other ones worth listing?

In the early days, banner ads were the standard ad unit across the Web, with a size of 468X60 pixels. Over time, standard ad sizes changed. (Anyone remember microbuttons?) Nowadays, with average higher screen resolutions and larger monitors, ad units are larger than ever. Where there was once banner ads, now Leaderboard ads (728 x 90 pixels) reside.

So who sets these standards, and if these standard ad sizes change from time to time, where can they be found?

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is an association dedicated to helping online, Interactive broadcasting, email, wireless and Interactive television media companies increase their revenues.

IAB Ad Unit Guidelines are intended to create a set of standard ad sizes for interactive marketing and advertising. Almost all marketers and publishers use these standards when buying and selling advertising. In addition to banner sizes, they also list guidelines for email, pop-up and pop-under, and rich media advertising.

As an advertiser, these standards make it easier to offer similar creatives across different publishers. As a publisher, these standards in mind when determining your advertising opportunities.

While the standard banner and leaderboard ads will remain popular, ad sizes will continue to evolve. Who knows? Maybe the microbutton will even make a comeback!

Standard Ad Sizes (in pixels):

Rectangular/pop-up ads
Medium Rectangle: 300 by 250
Square Pop-Up: 250 square
Vertical Rectangle: 240 by 400
Large Rectangle: 336 by 280
Rectangle: 180 by 150

Banner/button ads
Full Banner: 468 by 60
Half Banner: 234 by 60
Micro Button: 80 by 15
Micro Bar: 88 by 31
Button 1: 120 by 90
Button 2: 120 by 60
Vertical Banner: 120 by 240
Square Button: 125 square
Leaderboard: 728 by 90

Skyscraper ads
Wide Skyscraper: 160 by 600
Skyscraper: 120 by 600
Half Page Ad: 300 by 600

Links:

As they say in real estate, it’s all about “location, location, location.” Who you link to and the types of sites where your links point to say a lot about your website.

Generally speaking, search engines interprets a link as a ‘vote’ for the site it points to. In addition, they also analyze the pages that links to a site. In other words, a link from a good page on a good authoritative site counts ‘more’ than a link from lesser location. And while you can’t control who links to you, you do have control over who you link to.

Why is who you link to important? Because if you link to a ‘bad neighborhood’ website, you are, basically, vouching for it. In other words, you put your site’s credibility on the line with each outbound link. Simply linking to bad neighborhoods could entail a penalty to your own site rankings. If you’re into link exchanges or you sell direct links, be very careful about who you link to.

Unless the theme of your website matches, you should generally avoid exchanging links with link farms, adult, pharmacy, gambling or online casino sites. These are the sites that can constitute ‘bad neighborhoods’. Because such sites are prone to spamming, search engines will likely reduce link value — and, again, possibly penalize your site just for linking to them.

PageRank and the link popularity of a site is a good measure of how a site is viewed. Although these factors can sometimes be manipulated, you can usually get a good idea of how trustworthy a specific page might be by checking these variables.

That’s why you need to know all you can about your link partners, so you won’t finding yourself associated with a bad neighborhood.

The goal of WebAdClassifieds.com will be to help create a more open and secure marketplace for link and sponsorship opportunities of every stripe.