Dropped from Google

One of the biggest challenges I've had to face in starting my own website hasn't been the actual code. Nope, I can write the software just fine, after all, that's what I do everyday (usually). My biggest challenge so far has been advertising, informing people that my site exists and what it can do for them. For public websites, there has to be some kind of strategy in getting a high rank on the search engines, Google being the #1 search engine to target.

There's some controversy about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), whether is it actually a legitimate practice or not. Unfortunately SEO usually gets a bad rap, there are a lot of people who consider SEO nothing more than "spamming" search engines in order to get a top rank (at the expense of actual meaningful content). In actuality, legitimate SEO practices stress an importance on creating meaningful content, and good website design practices.

Neverless, search engines, especially Google will take a firm hand when they suspect that a site has used unfair practices to gain a higher ranking in their listings. I experienced this first had on Friday when I realized my Google Page Rank for NOTAMAce.com dropped to zero. What this means is that it is practically impossible for NOTAMAce.com to show up on any search listings for "notam" or "notams" in Google (fortunately, my ads for those keywords are still up).

At first I was furious, I wasn't participating in any "link farming", "hidden text", or other dubious practices to gain a high rank. I found the reinclusion request page for Google, however I resented the fact I had to confess that I did anything wrong in what I felt (at the time) was Google's error.

Well, after I calmed down I rechecked the guidelines, and I realized I had inadvertently violated them. You see, it took me a while to come up with the name "NOTAM Ace", a year ago I first launched the site as "Preflight Pro" and placed it on the domains "preflightpro.com" and "notduats.com". Well it turns out Google frowns on the same page under different domains (can't blame them, spammers do that too), so when they found three domains that had the same content, they flagged me.

I had decided to keep the domains active, simply because there were links to some directories and in archives of newsgroups that still had a link to "notduats.com". But I'd rather have NOTAMAce.com reactivated, so I called my ISP and requested the domain pointers be removed, and filled a reinclusion request to Google, explaining my situation and informing them I had taken steps to correct the problem. The time it takes to be reincluded ranges anywhere from two to eight weeks. I hope I get reincluded soon! At the very least I still have my Adwords to help with the traffic.

In the end I don't really blame Google, they have to make sure the listings are legit. I do blame the spammers (not legit SEO guys), who've really poisoned the wells for the rest of us.

Till next time, clear skies!

Tower LGTS OTS

I'm pretty happy to announce that I've just rolled out a new feature for NOTAM Ace, unlit towers.

How many times have you called the flight briefer or checked DUATS to be told there's an unlit tower near the airport. How many times have you just ignored it, simply because the information in the NOTAM is so vague as to be completely useless? ("8 miles East - North East of the airport", yeah okay that's really specific)

Well no longer, when you do a search in NOTAM Ace if there's an unlit tower in the NOTAM, you will know exactly where its located.

I'm really pumped by this feature, simply because it illustrates the benefit of NOTAM Ace's mapping technique, and it offers something DUATS and even the FSS briefer can't match (although as always call 1800-WX-Brief to get an approved FSS flight briefing before you fly...seriously I mean it!).

Till next time, watch out for those towers! Clear Skies!

The past year in review

Wow, its been nearly a year since I last posted! A lot has happened to me aviation-related in the past year. Here's a brief summary:

1. IFR Certification - I went for and received my IFR rating, passing my checkride on 11/22. Its been a challenging and rewarding experience, even more so than the private pilot certification. I own my thanks to my flight instructor Matt F at Capital City, who showed infinite patience and guidance during my training, especially when I "gave bad radio."

2. Preflight Pro - I did some work on my visual NOTAMs tool, Preflight Pro and relaunched it as NOTAM Ace. Its more polished and offers a better UI experience. You can see the new version at http://www.notamace.com/.

3. Mentoring - People who know me quickly realize its hard for me NOT to talk about flying. One of those people Mark, who I worked with during the first half of the year, figured since I talk about it so much there must be something to this whole flying business. He's now pursuing his private pilot certificate as well! He'll be training at Capital City (http://www.capitalcityaviation.com/) and I look forward to seeing him around OSU!

This year - 2007

What's a blog post for the new year without a list of goals? Well here are several of my goals for the new year as a pilot.

1. Keep IFR currency - a requirement and responsibility that comes with having the rating, still it'll be pretty challenging as a "casual" pilot

2. More training - I've been bitten by the aerobatic bug, ever since I the flying club outing to Red Stewart field. I recently found out that Marysville (MRT) has a flight school for aerobatics, I want to check it out and see about getting some aerobatic training. Maybe even compete as an amateur in a few competitions.

3. Getting non-pilots involved - I love sharing my passion for flight with others, it was great taking Mark up in the air and just cruising around. Another friend, Will is pretty interested in flying too, so during a nice weekend (a rarity in Ohio this time of year) I'd like to take him up in the Warrior as well. I believe strongly in aviation being a shared experience, and I want to show as many people as possible what I experience in a small airplane 3000 feet up.

Preflight Pro released to rec.aviation.piloting!

Wow, what a great weekend! On Thursday night I officially introduced Preflight Pro to the aviation community, or at least a major part of the aviation community with the following post on the Usenet group rec.aviation.piloting.

The response and positive feedback from the group was overwhelming. I think I was on pins and needles all Thursday night and through Friday morning. Its one thing to THINK you've created something useful and cool, its a completely different story to have those thoughts confirmed by your actual target audience. I felt like a theatre producer/playwright on opening night.

Here are some of the things that came up during the initial release:

1) There was a bug early on in the searches for Sacramento that was caught and reported by a user (thanks Todd). The automatic error logging worked perfectly and sent me an email that pretty much spelled out what exactly went wrong.

2) A number of people noted that all they got was the city of Columbus, OH. Reading between the lines, I realized that the program didn't really do a good job of letting people know that a search was in progress. Therefore a lot of folks assumed (rightfully so) that the was stuck or hung. I plan on fixing that as soon as possible by putting in a animated "please wait" graphic.

3) There was a huge buzz over filtering the NOTAMs. It was a feature I considered before, but I wasn't sure if it was something people really cared about. While only one person initially called for filtering, a lot of other people jumped on the bandwagon in a small legal debate, offering alternatives to simply hiding the filtered NOTAMs etc. Based on the feedback, I plan on incorporating filtering in the next big release of the program.

4) I was worried about server load and performance, but the fact that the application performed 5000 requests over three days (75% of the requests served on Friday) without crashing or any noticeable slow-down, has put my mind at ease. My daily bandwidth consumption was also well below my calculated daily max, so I now know traffic can grow quite a bit without any more financial cost on my part.

All in all, I don't think I could have asked for better. Traffic after the weekend has dropped off, as expected. But I feel like I accomplished the goals I set out to do. My next plans are to continue to develop the features and just keep getting the word out to other pilots.

Finally, I'd like to thank all the posters of rec.aviation.piloting, I couldn't have asked for a better group of users for my little infant program. I will continue to seek your collective input as I work on making Preflight Pro the best NOTAM tool on the Internet!

Preflight Pro is the visual alternative to DUATs for NOTAMs and TFRs on the Internet. See the difference at www.notduats.com.

Clear Skies!

Preflight Pro: The alternative to DUATs for NOTAMs and TFRs

Flying has been slow recently, with it being winter and all in the mid-west. Mostly my time has been occupied with a personal software project I've called Preflight Pro.

This project came from a need to address a major headache in preflight planning, Notices to Airmen (or NOTAMs for short). Currently there are three ways to retrieve NOTAMs so far:

1) Obtain a preflight briefing by calling 1800-wxbrief
2) Through DUATs
3) Or through the FAA's PilotWeb

Number 1 is hands down the best and most accurate way to get up-to-date NOTAM information before you fly. I'd like to repeat that, getting a preflight briefing from an approved FSS briefer is the best and most accurate way to get up-to-date NOTAM information before you fly.

But what if you're just checking out NOTAMs just to stay informed about the area you currently fly in? Or what if you're planning that dream flight to the Super Bowl this Sunday? You don't want to call up a flight briefer and harrass them if you're not actually going to fly in the next two hours are you?

So the only alternatives to access NOTAMs online are either through DUATs or PilotWeb. Let's be honest here, DUATs is an out-dated system that was designed to present text information on 300x150 monochrome terminal screens, and PilotWeb is nothing more than a screen scrape of that same text dumped out on a webpage.

I'm not denying that DUATs and PilotWeb are not informative; in fact they are excellent resources for information. But this is 2006, if you're going to present information on the web you're going to have to go a step beyond in HOW that information is presented.

That's where I hope Preflight Pro will fill the niche. I'm not going to say anymore except provide you a link to my site, I want you guys to see for yourself and make the call if I'm on the right track.

Preflight Pro: The alternative to DUATs for NOTAMs and TFRs.