Content issues - duplicate content
Posted on June 19, 2008
Filed Under SEO | Leave a Comment
There is some discussion over at Webmaster World Forums about content - a very interesting discussion about copying and pasting of full articles.
However I am not going to discuss exactly what this article discusses. I am going to discuss some general problems that we run into as everyday webmasters about content, content creation, duplication and copyright.
First let’s tackle the duplicate content issue. I will attempt to lay it out in black and white. Search engines don’t like duplicate content. They attempt to find the original source and give credit and rank higher the original source. They find duplicate content but looking at the code of a website and taking out the normal things ( like the header and footer) then they look for the same words, same links, etc…
So we know how SE’s find the content. Why would they find it? Well there are actually people other there that will copy your content word for word and add it to their website. They think it’s pretty good content, so they steal it to help bloat up their site and get links in. It doesn’t exactly work they way they want it to. They might also take blocks of text from your website an use it on their own. I actually had someone take all the content from my homepage and use it on theirs - apparently they were too lazy to write their own.
There are actually some legitimate reasons why SEs might find some duplicate content as well. One of them is print friendly pages. Every site that create print friendly pages is actually creating pages with the same content as the original page. So what do you? Make sure the SEs don’t find or index the print friendly pages by modifying the robots.txt files
Next post other content issues..
How Google handles hacked sites
Posted on June 4, 2008
Filed Under Random Thoughts | Leave a Comment
Hey as you may have noticed I haven’t been blogging as much as usual. The reason is the summer is usually a very busy time for me, in which i have many horse shows (almost every weekend). Yes I am a computer geek and have a life outside my house!
So my apologizes - my horses come before blogging.
Back on topic how Google handles hacked websites. I came upon a post in my Google Reader a few weeks back and thought this would be a great post for my blog as I don’t see it discussed very often. I can’t remember exactly who had posted it nor can find the original post.
Matt Cutts explains in a recent post that sites are temporary removed from the search index, once discovered they have been hacked. He also states they do it because they want to protect the users but… After a brief explanation he did go on to say that once Google knows that the website/blog has been fixed, it only takes 48 hours to be reinserted into the index.
So what to do if your site is hacked and gets kicked out of Google?
1. Fix the problem ASAP. The longer you are out of the index, the less exposure your getting…
2. Sumit for re inclusion here in your Google webmaster central
3. Wait a day or so then check the search index again.
My homepage is leaking
Posted on May 17, 2008
Filed Under Blog promotion, Link Building | Leave a Comment
Ok well it’s not exactly leaking they way you think it is.
But it is leaking PageRank and inbound links. And this can be issue with all SEs. Many people claim that Google is very good at realizing this although I would have to disagree.
So, this morning I logged into a new clients’ Google webmaster tools and saw that theirsite.com was the highest ranking site on the page last month but this time it is theirsite.com/index.asp. This I found to be alitte disturbing so I of course set out to fix this.
Normally checking the robots.txt is one of the first thing I do with SEO but I have bene busy and this is a new client, I haven’t yet got a chance to comb over the entire site yet. And with over 6,500 pages - I probably never will.
What is homepage leakage? ( that’s what I call it)
It is when you have incoming links to your site’s homepage but some of them go to:
www.mysite.com
http://mysite.com
www.mysite.com/index.asp
www.mysite.com/default.asp?pageid=1
Those links to the search engines represent 4 different pages with duplicate content even though they are the exact same page, just reached differently. Some search catch this, others do not but let’s not take any chances right? Ideally we would want to make sure all those incoming links going to different pages count as one.
To understand why this is important to us as website owners let’s look at how it can us. First of all we know higher page rank gets you higher listings in Google and we also know the more back links the better right?
So let’s look at this scenario:
You have 4 pages. Each has 20 back links to it. Those four pages have a combined number of 80 backlinks. Which do you think has a better chance of ranking? The page with the 80 back links obviously.
What to do about homepage leakage?
It’s simple, do a 301 re-direct on the pages with the least number of links to the one page with the most. Usually the one with the www. has the most links.
Learn how to do a 301 re-direct on Apache server
Learn how to do a 301 re-direct on Microsoft IIS server
Logo design, the process.
Posted on May 9, 2008
Filed Under Design | Leave a Comment
I want to show you a logo. Actually a few different versions.
Ok so think of this my requirements were to create a logo for the Richmond Music Festival. site found here . As you can see the logo is a little dated. It was created a few years ago and has no vector file, no PSD nothing to work with. I am also re-designing the website. So of course with a new website you need at the very least a tweeked logo.
Now if you think logos are quick and easy to design you are wrong. They are probably harder than a website simply because you have to include everything the company/organization is about in a single simple image.
Here is my first version:
And it took me over a week and about 8 versions before we came to a conclusion on the final version. But in the end I was able to explain exactly what the association was about in a few words and an image.
3 way Linking???? Is it worth it?
Posted on May 2, 2008
Filed Under SEO, Website Promotion | Leave a Comment
I don’t know about you but I am getting a ton of emails from supposed Webmasters trying to exchange links with me. It’s usually a three way link exchange. It’s gone as far as when I declined, the webmaster emailed me again telling me that it would be in my best interest to exchange links with him as his website gets alot of traffic. Of course I again declined. To be honest I don’t have a need to exchange links with other websites. Not because I don’t want the traffic or I don’t think it will be beneficial. It’s because managing those links is time consuming….
Back to the topic of three way links. There has been some discussion on the web about whether they are relevant and whether Google can see them and counts them. The discussion on SE Rountable today: http://www.seobook.com/archives/000467.shtml and a discussion on SEOBook.com http://www.seobook.com/archives/000467.shtml back in August.
Now some people say it’s bad and some say it is good. But the facts are that, there are pitfalls and advantages.
The advantages (if done properly)
1. Relevant visitors and traffic
2. Link in from a good site.
3. Can build site authority and promote your website
Everyone and their dog is using the technique simply because they think it’s effective. In SEO once a god technique is found and people start over using it and it becomes automated, it is less effective. Google then figures a way out to track it. It may not yet be a bad thing but soon enough it will be.
Disadvantages
1. It has become automated
2. People are only doing it to manipulate the search engines
3. Google will eventually penalize people for it.
So to three way link or not?
My opinion is not to always go with the crowd, do it the old fashioned way. Hard work. I tend to plan for the long term. For example if I leave my website, www.beseenwebdesign.com alone for 6 months, my ranking will remain the same and so far that’s worked. Actually it’s gone up.
If you have ideas on three way link exchange please leave a comment, would love to hear others opinions.
Self Plug: Launch Richmond Music Festival
Posted on April 29, 2008
Filed Under Design, Random Thoughts | Leave a Comment
Just launched the Richmond Music Festival Society. Visit the new site: www.rmfs.org
“The Richmond Music Festival is a registered, non-profit charity dedicated to music development through the areas of performance, instruction, appreciation and presentation. The Festival was founded in 1998 by a group of local music teachers and presented the first Richmond Music Festival in 1999 as a weeklong event in Piano, Voice and Strings.” Read more
Google’s new Blackle. Saving energy.
Posted on April 23, 2008
Filed Under Random Thoughts | Leave a Comment
If your worried about the environment like many of us are. Use Blackle. http://www.blackle.com/.
It’s the energy saving Google search engine. Sounds fancy right? Wrong, it’s actually just a black screen with a Google search engine. Google uses a white screen which takes more energy to display then the black.
Let’s save the world, one white screen at a time.
The easiest javascript form validation
Posted on April 16, 2008
Filed Under Design | Leave a Comment
This week, I have been been creating an online form for a current client and I was looking for a Javascript form validation script. Surprise, Surprise I found the easiest one! And I thought I should share it.
This form validation script is so easy, it’s done in four easy steps.
1.You create the external .js file and include:
/* This script and many more are available free online at
The JavaScript Source!! http://javascript.internet.com
Created by: wsabstract.com | http://www.wsabstract.com */
function checkrequired(which) {
var pass=true;
for (i=0;i<which.length;i++) {
var tempobj=which.elements[i];
if (tempobj.name.substring(0,8)==”required”) {
if (((tempobj.type==”text”||tempobj.type==”textarea”)&&
tempobj.value==”)||(tempobj.type.toString().charAt(0)==”s”&&
tempobj.selectedIndex==0)) {
pass=false;
break;
}
}
}
if (!pass) {
shortFieldName=tempobj.name.substring(8,30).toUpperCase();
alert(”The “+shortFieldName+” field is a required field.”);
return false;
} else {
return true;
}
}
2. Then you add the link to external script tag into the head of your document.
3. In your form you add the following:
<form onSubmit=”return checkrequired(this)”>
4. In the actual “name” of each individual field in the form, you add the word ‘required’ with no spaces in front of the current name.
It was so easy I thought it would never work.
Original form validation script here
Favicon for your site in 4 easy steps.
Posted on April 13, 2008
Filed Under Design | Leave a Comment
What is a favicon? It’s actually the little icon that see in the browser.
Here’s how to create one for your website:
1. Open photoshop. Open a new document and set the size to 16 pixels by 16 pixels.
2. Create your icon. Save your icon let’s but save it as favicon.jpg
3. Rename it to favicon.ico
4. Upload it to the root directory on your website.
That’s it wasn’t it easy?
Getting content for your blog
Posted on April 8, 2008
Filed Under Blog promotion | Leave a Comment
Let’s be truthful today, we are all very busy and have a hard time finding time for everything and sometimes, just sometimes your blog is the last thing on our minds.
So how do you find the time and the topics for your blog?
Today, I thought I would share some of my experience about how I come up with content. I don’t have any earth shattering ideas to share just some common sense ones.
1. Read blogs. And not to copy their topics. Sometimes, I will read a blog post and someone will discuss an issue which I may either agree or disagree. In the chance I disagree I usually write a post about my point of view. Obviously referencing the orginal poster.
This creates a conversation and people may comment on your post with their opinion or post in their own blogs.
2. Write your passion. Write your life. OK let’ s see you’re a stock broker, that’s what you do for a living well don’t try and write about Sweden on a daily basis. ( Especially if you live in Canada ). You have to blog about things you are either really passionate about or things you live-work and breathe on a daily basis.
If you do that, you will find topics on a daily basis that you should write about. For example, I am a webmaster and when I run into an issue that I think other people might also run into I blog about it.
As an example, I was reading a post over at Xemion.com - a place I also blog, about content for you blog and I thought it would be a good topic for me to put my take on how I get content on my blog.
I would love to hear other people’s ideas on where they get their content ideas!