Website Review of Smartmoney

SmartMoney.com is an online magazine within 'The Wall Street Journal Digital Network'. Most importantly, SmartMoney.com passes the McAfee SiteAdvisor screening. This means the site is believed to be relatively safe from spyware, viruses, and adware and that smartmoney.com can probably be visited without serious threat to your privacy or computer.

SmartMoney.com is a financial publication geared toward individual money management, and is one of many personal finance websites available on the internet. Since SmartMoney.com offers similar information to other financial websites, this increases the competitiveness of the marketplace for this type of news source. The following review assesses smartmoney.com in relation to 1) internet statistics, 2) user reviews, 3) site content, and 4) function and use of the website.

Smartmoney.com statistical rankings

77% of Smartmoney.com's reader searches originate in the United States and only 16.4% of its visitors make it past the home page as per the Alexa Web Information Company on 9.17.09. In terms of additional web statistics, smartmoney.com ranks among the lower of its genre. In fact, as per Alexa.com,

SmartMoney.com ranks well below Bloomberg.com, MarketWatch.com, and TheStreet.com in terms of page views, traffic rank, reach and viewers time on the site. Also, the site's recent trend in these variables has been mostly down indicating a declining interest and/or competitiveness of the financial website. Thus, for starters, internet statistics show smartmoney.com is not among the more favored financial websites.

User reviews of Smartmoney.com

Of the SmartMoney.com user reviews available on the internet through sites such as faqs.org, epinions.com, and moneysmartz.com, SmartMoney.com doesn't get many complaints. However, whether or not one should take these reviews seriously is also a matter in question. Are the reviews skilled at reviewing websites, computer savvy, financially savvy, paid off? There's no denying, the following reviews of SmartMoney.com are good and that gives credit to the website regardless of who's doing the reviewing.

SmartMoney.com review #1:

SmartMoney.com review #2:

SmartMoney.com review #3:

SmartMoney.com review#4:

Content quality and formatting at smartmoney.com

An important aspect of any website is the quality of its content and its aesthetic design appeal to the site's visitor. Since SmartMoney.com is owned by the Wall Street Journal, this is another credit to the websites favor. However, SmartMoney.com is not the Wall Street Journal and therefore might not contain as high quality content as the newspaper.

Nevertheless, after reading about 3 articles from the site, the content seemed typo free, well researched, and about important current financial topics such as high yield dividend stocks. However, some of the Personal Finance topic tabs were limited in content. For example, the elder care section only had 20 articles at least one of which dated back to 2000.

The writing itself was interesting, had a fairly wide range of writing styles ranging from matter of fact to casual delivery of information. Also the articles didn't seem to have a standard length, some were short and others were long. Many of the articles were well presented in a professional, informed, legible and helpful kind of way which made the reading a relatively good experience.

Onward, the website itself is multifunctional in the sense it contains up to date news in addition to pertinent financial information that is not typically time sensitive. The user tools are extensive but require registration so it's hard to assess their functionality without going through the ordeal of site registration. Some of the columns are appealing and capture an array of financial issues and topics.

Functionality and usefulness of Smartmoney.com

Learning about the functionality of SmartMoney.com was fun because it was like visiting a car studio for the first time and checking out all the vehicles, their features, abilities etc. SmartMoney.com had some nice features and not so nice features for this reviewer. Some of the things that seemed relevant are listed below:

• Text zoom feature is helpful
• Author biographical links didn't work
• Embedded company tickers with quotes was nice
• Available tools were good and located well
• Some user tools required site registration
• Lots of advertisements
• Web page loading time was good
• Generic pictures on some of the articles

Essentially the site was functional and relatively useful. SmartMoney.com seems mouse friendly making use of rollover tabs in addition to mouse clicks. Getting to specific topic areas didn't take too many mouse clicks and searching which was nice, however the sites search bar was more adept at finding general topics than specialized, academic and/or highly elaborate financial terminology and data.

Summary

In summary, SmartMoney.com is ok. It seems short on content buy the content that is there is of good enough quality even if the reader doesn't have a clue about the authors. Of a few reader reviews of the site, none seemed to contain any horrific shortcomings and the site is affiliated with a well known financial publisher which adds to its credibility. Visually the site was like an advertising carnival on the home page, but thankfully subsided after delving deeper into the site.

SmartMoney.com's non-member basic features, security, and content was good, but the Alexa rankings, lack of site differentiation and home page ad barrage may be a deterrent for registering at the site; even for the free 2 week trial. As far as financial sites go, SmartMoney.com is not a toss out because it does have some interesting information, but making this the website of first financial reference might make the site a yawning bookmark on its visitor's web browsers.

Website Reviews: IRS.gov

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service website (IRS) is a website designed to assist the public in becoming informed about the tax filing process and rules associated with that process. The IRS website has navigation and search options that help visitors locate the information they are looking for. The IRS also provides explanations of rules derived from the Internal Revenue Code via online publications. While some of the underlying tax codes and tax preparation service providers are linked out to other websites, a great majority of information is contained within the website. This article will discuss some of key aspects of the IRS website.

Key features of the IRS website

There are several key features of the IRS website that make it quite useful and potentially beneficial. The website is quite full of useful information that can help make the tax filing process easier, more informed and potentially more accurate. A few of the key features of the website are listed as follows:

• Refund status lookup on the home page
• Ample access to forms and publications needed in the filing process
• English and Spanish navigation options
• Guides to efiling, freefiling and other online filing methods
• Search features that
• Category tabs to distinguish between types of filers ex, individual or business

IRS forms and publications

Whether one is navigating on behalf of oneself, a client, business, government agency or other relevant tax concern, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service home page has the choice of two languages English or Spanish and quickly enables one to access the table of forms and/or publications needed for tax preparation. The forms and publications can be downloaded or viewed online as either pdf files or html. What's more, the forms and publications table allows browsers to match the form numbers with the form name making the search for the correct form quicker.

Navigating the IRS website

In terms of navigation the IRS website is functional as most if not all the links are operational and the forms makes use of standardized formatting. Additionally, tabs on the home page quickly allow the website user to become orientated and finds one's way around the website without becoming too lost. The search feature is a useful way to type in keywords that may help one find a more specific piece of information cataloged within the vast website. The colors of the website are easy on the eyes, i.e. mostly white and different shades of blue with contrasting links. Help links and search tips further aid the ease of navigation on the website.

Quality of tax information

The quality of the information on the IRS website is good. While it does not give tax advice it does provide a great deal of information about the regulations and forms that one might obtain tax advice for. Thus, the website is a useful resource for tax preparation information.

The IRS website also includes contact information, legal information, tax preparation links, a site map and frequently asked questions links. The IRS website can be a useful resource to tax filers, tax preparers or persons researching tax information for other reasons. For the most, part, almost all the information one needs to file taxes is on the website and it seems though of the few things that are missing is actual advice on how to file taxes to avoid overpaying the Government.

Overall, the IRS Website,  is a functional, and useful website to persons interested in the federal tax process. The site has some useful key features that allow one to check on one's status or find contact information for the large organization. Additionally, the site is relatively easy to navigate and contains a lot of standardized tax information and sources that can be quite beneficial in becoming familiar with the tax related information. While the IRS website does not replace the advice of a tax attorney or tax accountant, there is ample information contained within the website that one may be able to forgo the use of such services in some cases.

Source: http://www.irs.gov (U.S. Internal Revenue Service)