It looks like the latest pagerank update is currently underway.
Based on previous updates this could take several days to complete and stabilise.
Some people will probably be very happy, while others won't be ....
Such is the way
Based on previous updates this could take several days to complete and stabilise.
Some people will probably be very happy, while others won't be ....
Such is the way
SeoMoz are running a survey on search marketing / SEO
I tried to complete it earlier, but my connection was a bit flaky!
I tried to complete it earlier, but my connection was a bit flaky!
I've seen a few posts from people on forums over the last few weeks complaining that GoogleBot is misbehaving and chewing up silly amounts of bandwidth.
Unfortunately it's all too easy to pretend to be GoogleBot (or any other bot for that matter) simply by spoofing the UserAgent string ie. telling the world that you are something that you aren't.
So how can you tell if a bot really is from Google?
One of the official Google blogs has the answer - DNS lookups:
Basically you need to check that the forward and reverse DNS entries are valid ie. that the A and PTR records are from Google...
That's a bit of a pain, but will save you headaches if you're seeing strange activity in your logs...
Unfortunately it's all too easy to pretend to be GoogleBot (or any other bot for that matter) simply by spoofing the UserAgent string ie. telling the world that you are something that you aren't.
So how can you tell if a bot really is from Google?
One of the official Google blogs has the answer - DNS lookups:
Basically you need to check that the forward and reverse DNS entries are valid ie. that the A and PTR records are from Google...
That's a bit of a pain, but will save you headaches if you're seeing strange activity in your logs...
According to media sources Google is set to expand its European base in Dublin again.
The internet giant is understood to be expanding its staff numbers in Dublin by a further 500 employees over the next two years.
Further details in Ireland's Sunday Business Post
The internet giant is understood to be expanding its staff numbers in Dublin by a further 500 employees over the next two years.
Further details in Ireland's Sunday Business Post
Both Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox support extensions which add functionality to the browser.
Personally I prefer Firefox and since I don't use Windows that much I don't have the option of using IE7 that often.
One of the more interesting extensions that I've come across recently is called SEO Quake.
The plugin is available for both Firefox and Internet Explorer and gives a webmaster, marketer or SEO access to a wealth of information about the sites you are visiting, search engine results and whole lot more.
For a full range of features and an explanation of how they work have a look at the article on the developer's site
Personally I prefer Firefox and since I don't use Windows that much I don't have the option of using IE7 that often.
One of the more interesting extensions that I've come across recently is called SEO Quake.
The plugin is available for both Firefox and Internet Explorer and gives a webmaster, marketer or SEO access to a wealth of information about the sites you are visiting, search engine results and whole lot more.
For a full range of features and an explanation of how they work have a look at the article on the developer's site
Over the past couple of years the major search engine players have granted access to a suite of tools to help webmasters not only submit content to the indices, but also to manage which data is indexed and how it is handled.
Google and then Yahoo adopted sitemap protocols that allow for the automated submission of an entire site's contents
At first the tools on offer were fairly rudimentary, but over time the amount of data has grown and grown.
To make a start you'll need accounts with both Google and Yahoo!
Yahoo has their SiteExplorer, while Google has their Google Webmaster Tools. Sign up and explore them.
Google and then Yahoo adopted sitemap protocols that allow for the automated submission of an entire site's contents
At first the tools on offer were fairly rudimentary, but over time the amount of data has grown and grown.
To make a start you'll need accounts with both Google and Yahoo!
Yahoo has their SiteExplorer, while Google has their Google Webmaster Tools. Sign up and explore them.
Losing traffic through laziness or silly mistakes is simply unacceptable.
What am I referring to?
If your site resides at www.domain.tld and you've been marketing it successfully both online and offline people will forget about the "www" part. It's only natural.
While back in the mid 90s most sites were ONLY available via www.domain.tld that's no longer the case.
(there was some odd RFC that a lot of people referred to for this reason)
So the first thing you should do is check that both www.domain.tld and domain.tld point to your site.
There's no technical reason why your hosting provider can't set that up for you. If they tell you that they can't then you should really look elsewhere.
The one possible problem that you might face is that robots might treat the "www" version of your site and the non-www one as two separate sites. They shouldn't, but it can happen.
The simple solution to this is to force people (and spiders) to use either one or the other using a redirect.
Richard has a case in point with regard to the NCH in Dublin that could so easily be fixed! Others have fixed theirs already.
What am I referring to?
If your site resides at www.domain.tld and you've been marketing it successfully both online and offline people will forget about the "www" part. It's only natural.
While back in the mid 90s most sites were ONLY available via www.domain.tld that's no longer the case.
(there was some odd RFC that a lot of people referred to for this reason)
So the first thing you should do is check that both www.domain.tld and domain.tld point to your site.
There's no technical reason why your hosting provider can't set that up for you. If they tell you that they can't then you should really look elsewhere.
The one possible problem that you might face is that robots might treat the "www" version of your site and the non-www one as two separate sites. They shouldn't, but it can happen.
The simple solution to this is to force people (and spiders) to use either one or the other using a redirect.
Richard has a case in point with regard to the NCH in Dublin that could so easily be fixed! Others have fixed theirs already.
For those of us who have been involved in the online industry since the mid-90's The Open Directory Project (DMOZ) will always have a special place.
Of course for anyone involved in SEO it's not merely a matter of nostalgia, as DMOZ "feeds" many of sites and search engines. Getting a listing on DMOZ might not be the holy grail, but it's still considered valluable.
Jay Westerdal's most recent article, however, underlines a serious issue with the system where editors maybe abusing their powers to grant listings or remove them entirely.
Of course for anyone involved in SEO it's not merely a matter of nostalgia, as DMOZ "feeds" many of sites and search engines. Getting a listing on DMOZ might not be the holy grail, but it's still considered valluable.
Jay Westerdal's most recent article, however, underlines a serious issue with the system where editors maybe abusing their powers to grant listings or remove them entirely.
Funny, but could it happen?
The only real way to track your SEO success is by looking at your traffic logs or a more human readable version of them.
Since Google Analytics does not offer realtime statistics (it was actually offline this morning when I tried to add a new website to my account) it makes sense to have alternatives.
One such alternative is Firestats
I mention some of its features on my main blog.
In order to integrate it with a PhpLinkDirectory install you need to know a small bit about the Smarty Templating engine which the script uses.
First of all you need to install a standalone copy of Firestats. If you've managed to install PhpLinkDirectory, then this should not be an issue, however full instructions are available on their site.
Once you are up and running you simply need to include a call to firestats on all your pages. The default code is a standard php include eg.:
< ?php include('/home/www/www.yourdomain.com/web/firestats/php/firestats-hit.php')?>
which needs to be added to all pages within the head tag.
To do this open header.tpl, which you'll find in your templates directory.
At the very top of the file you should see:
< !DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
Immediately after that add the following line (edited to fit your site):
{php}include('/home/www/www.yourdomain.com/web/firestats/php/firestats-hit.php');{/php}
If you browse your site and then refresh your Firestats you should start to see hits and information.
Enjoy!
