| Your head hurts. | | | | boilerplate CSS code which converts them into |
| Your eyes are burning. | | | | MySpace backgrounds. In some cases, these layout |
| You feel a little sick to your stomach. | | | | makers will even use the original web address of the |
| Yep. That's right. You just spent the last two hours | | | | 'found' image in their layout codes. So in effect they |
| searching for 'free myspace layouts' and you came up | | | | are not only stealing the image itself but they are also |
| with bumpkiss, nada, zilch, zip, nothing. You may even | | | | stealing the bandwidth of the website they found the |
| be a little astonished that such a burgeoning scene can | | | | image on. All of the above takes absolutely no artistic |
| be so bereft of a truly valuable contribution. One would | | | | talent whatsoever so touting the finished pieces as |
| think that the arena would be overrun with opportunists | | | | 'original' or 'handmade' MySpace layouts is an utter |
| trying to take the internet by storm producing whole | | | | sham. |
| collections --not just one or two here and there-- but | | | | The Ugly |
| whole collections of quality premade MySpace layouts. | | | | This group of MySpace layout makers use the same |
| One would think. | | | | tactics as 'The Bad' but will go one step further and |
| Well after engaging in some serious clanging of | | | | use any and every black hat search engine |
| swords on the front lines of the MySpace layout | | | | optimization (SEO) trick in the book in an attempt to |
| battlefield for the past year, let me tell you where it's | | | | 'game' their MySpace resource sites to the top of |
| at. | | | | search engine results pages. And unfortunately, many |
| Free MySpace layout makers generally fall into one of | | | | of them succeed. Search engines like Google and |
| three categories: | | | | Yahoo still have a ways to go when it comes to |
| The Good | | | | weeding out websites that employ unscrupulous |
| Although these are few and far between, a small (and | | | | methods like keyword stuffing and multiple site |
| I mean very small) group of web designers will actually | | | | networking. |
| put some major effort into producing a collection of | | | | HOPE |
| attractive and truly original MySpace layouts. The | | | | On the bright side, search volume for the keywords |
| backgrounds are worked up from scratch and they | | | | 'free myspace layouts' is actually declining while |
| are customized to fit well with MySpace profiles. On | | | | searches for other related keywords is on the rise. |
| top of this, great care is taken to make sure the colors | | | | This means that MySpace users are finally starting to |
| selected for the fonts are properly coordinated with | | | | realize that using the word 'free' is a waste of a good |
| the background image to make the text easy to read | | | | search term since 99.9% of MySpace layouts are free |
| (a big problem on MySpace). | | | | anway (assuming you don't count all the time you |
| The Bad | | | | spent trying to find a good one). MySpacers are now |
| A much larger group of web designers (and I use this | | | | starting to become much more descriptive with the |
| term loosely here) will scour the net and download any | | | | adjectives they tack on to the keywords 'myspace |
| and every image they can lay their mouse finger on. | | | | layouts' in an attempt to find something that will truly |
| They focus heavily on celebrity and product photos | | | | adorn their profiles with an original, classy or |
| (cars, motorcycles, beer, etc) and all of them, of | | | | professional look. |
| course, are copyright protected. So what this | | | | Hopefully this trend will continue and eventually make it |
| essentially amounts to is theft, plain and simple. These | | | | a lot easier to separate the wheat from the chaff. |
| images are then used in conjunction with some | | | | |