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The 301 Redirect

Monday, 26 April 2010 14:25 administrator

What is 301 redirect?

301 redirect is the best method to preserve your current
search engine rankings when redirecting web pages or a web
site. The code "301" is interpreted as "moved permanently".
After the code, the URL of the missing or renamed page is
noted, followed by a space, then followed by the new
location or file name. You implement the 301 redirect by
creating a .htaccess file.

What is a .htaccess file?

When a visitor/spider requests a web page, your web server
checks for a .htaccess file. The .htaccess file contains
specific instructions for certain requests, including
security, redirection issues and how to handle certain
errors.

How to implement the 301 Redirect

1. To create a .htaccess file, open notepad, name and save
the file as .htaccess (there is no extension).

2. If you already have a .htaccess file on your server,
download it to your desktop for editing.

3. Place this code in your .htaccess file:

redirect 301 /old/old.htm http://www.you.com/new.htm

4. If the .htaccess file already has lines of code in it,
skip a line, then add the above code.

5. Save the .htaccess file

6. Upload this file to the root folder of your server.

7. Test it by typing in the old address to the page you've
changed. You should be immediately taken to the new
location.

Notes: Don't add "http://www" to the first part of the
statement - place the path from the top level of your site
to the page. Also ensure that you leave a single space
between these elements:

redirect 301 (the instruction that the page has moved)

/old/old.htm (the original folder path and file name)

http://www.you.com/new.htm (new path and file name)

When the search engines spider your site again they will
follow the rule you have created in your .htaccess file.
The search engine spider doesn't actually read the
.htaccess file, but recognizes the response from the
server as valid.

During the next update, the old file name and path will be
dropped and replaced with the new one. Sometimes you may
see alternating old/new file names during the transition
period, plus some fluctuations in rankings. According to
Google it will take 6-8 weeks to see the changes reflected
on your pages.

Other ways to implement the 301 redirect:

1. To redirect ALL files on your domain use this in your
.htaccess file if you are on a unix web server:

redirectMatch 301 ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com
redirectMatch permanent ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com

You can also use one of these in your .htaccess file:

redirect 301 /index.html http://www.domain.com/index.html
redirect permanent /index.html http://www.domain.com/index.html
redirectpermanent /index.html http://www.domain.com/index.html

This will redirect "index.html" to another domain using a
301-Moved permanently redirect.

2. If you need to redirect http://mysite.com to
http://www.mysite.com and you've got mod_rewrite enabled on
your server you can put this in your .htaccess file:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=permanent,L]

or this:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Tip: Use your full URL (ie http://www.domain.com) when
obtaining incoming links to your site. Also use your full
URL for the internal linking of your site.

3. If you want to redirect your .htm pages to .php pages
andd you've got mod_rewrite enabled on your server you can
put this in your .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule (.*).htm$ /$1.php

4. If you wish to redirect your .html or .htm pages to
.shtml pages because you are using Server Side Includes
(SSI) add this code to your .htaccess file:

AddType text/html .shtml
AddHandler server-parsed .shtml .html .htm
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes
DirectoryIndex index.shtml index.html

The Last SEO Defending META Keywords as an Optimization Tactic

Friday, 19 March 2010 21:32 administrator

With more than 10 years managing online content and optimization of said content and SEO, I have come to enjoy many of the efficiencies that SEO has brought. Most of the efficiencies I speak of all deliver scalable incremental gains. So why in this multi cross-functional world have we decided to quite using META keywords? META keywords have been in use for literally as far back as I can remember. Throughout the years as Google has refined its algorithm and redistributed quality scores based on new and improved calculation methods, the META keyword tag as a function of driving increased organic search value has eroded. That is to say if your only value of the META keywords field is utilizing its content to improve keyword targeted rankings. To this point I disagree. I do not disagree that the search engines have reduced this value to null. Where I disagree is moreover in the overall business (and global SEO) initiatives.

I continue to follow what I have always consider best SEO practices by completing the META keyword field. This is important to organizations that have multiple content owners or multiple resources making page level updates. Storing the keywords that copywriters and content owners need to target on the page streamlines the entire content development process as well as alleviates any unnecessary confusion. For me, this is enough to keep this as a best practice.

I have heard from so many SEO's that this is essentially a bad practice because competitors can see what keywords we are targeting. Once again I do not agree with this rationale. For small scale competitors or very small start ups it may be the case that hey are looking at your META keywords and attempting to copy your target words.Â I do not believe these companies to be at the crux of this conversation though, and as I attempt to delineate the numerous ways that a competitor will monitor or base what keywords a company is targeting, it seems a bit redundant attempt to try to hide what keywords one is targeting by not placing them in the keyword field. After all, any players that have enough natural search traffic to worry about probably already have an SEO manager or an agency keeping track far more data than META keywords.

In closing it is important to remember that even the most rudimentary SEO function like META keywords can have profound effects on the organization and internal processes. Simply placing META keywords into the container they were meant to be in can remove unneeded documents and processes from the execution team and will aslo ensure that the correct words are being targeted. This can have a nice halo effect on the SEO program as a whole.

Last Updated on Friday, 19 March 2010 21:52

2010 retail Search Marketing Trends

Saturday, 30 January 2010 02:33 administrator

January 29, 2011

Throughout the offer-driven holiday sale season, two major trends stood out and will continue drive consumer attention throughout 2010. On 'Free Shipping Day' 2009; six-hundred online companies participated in Free Shipping offers with hook ranging from $150 minimum purchase to no minimum purchase. In 2008 three-hundred online retailers participated in 'Free Shipping Day'.Â The search volume for brand related promotion codes, coupons, and free shipping has all but sky rocketed. If you don't believe me try for yourself. Just go to Google.com type your favorite online retailer brand name and watch what Google recommends. I have also recently noticed direct links in the recomendation box for certain brands like Best Buy. As the economy continues to heal, retailers will be forced to meet the expectations consumers now have for free shipping.

The same technologically savvy thriftyÂ group that has utilized reward clubs and online coupon sites has also enjoyed the emergence of supreme Comparison Shopping Engines. As Google continues to test Product Search / Base / Froogle feed results in the Web search results, and Bing offers cash back incentives, the traffic in comparison shopping is steadily increasing. Comparison Shopping is here to stay, and quickly going mobile.Â

Google Interview Questions

Tuesday, 10 November 2009 04:11 administrator

Ever wonder what kind of questions a company like Google might ask you on an interview? You have heard all of the stories of the outlandish questions and the culture that surrounds everyone's favorite technology company. Read dozens of probable Google questions from hiring managers and people that have interviewed with Google.

Google Interview Questions: Product Marketing Manager

Why do you want to join Google?
What do you know about Google's product and technology?
If you are Product Manager for Google's Adwords, how do you plan to market this?
What would you say during an AdWords or AdSense product seminar?
Who are Google competitors, and how does Google compete with them?
Have you ever used Google's products? Gmail?
What's a creative way of marketing Google's brand name and product?
If you are the product marketing manager for Google's Gmail product, how do you plan to market it so as to achieve 100 million customers in 6 months?

Google Interview Questions: Product Manager

How would you boost the GMail subscription base?
What is the most efficient way to sort a million integers?
How would you re-position Google's offerings to counteract competitive threats from Microsoft?
How many golf balls can fit in a school bus?
You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?
How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?
How would you find out if a machineâ€™s stack grows up or down in memory?
Explain a database in three sentences to your eight-year-old nephew.
How many times a day does a clockâ€™s hands overlap?
You have to get from point A to point B. You donâ€™t know if you can get there. What would you do?
Imagine you have a closet full of shirts. Itâ€™s very hard to find a shirt. So what can you do to organize your shirts for easy retrieval?
Every man in a village of 100 married couples has cheated on his wife. Every wife in the village instantly knows when a man other than her husband has cheated, but does not know when her own husband has. The village has a law that does not allow for adultery. Any wife who can prove that her husband is unfaithful must kill him that very day. The women of the village would never disobey this law. One day, the queen of the village visits and announces that at least one husband has been unfaithful. What happens?
In a country in which people only want boys, every family continues to have children until they have a boy. If they have a girl, they have another child. If they have a boy, they stop. What is the proportion of boys to girls in the country?
If the probability of observing a car in 30 minutes on a highway is 0.95, what is the probability of observing a car in 10 minutes (assuming constant default probability)?
If you look at a clock and the time is 3:15, what is the angle between the hour and the minute hands? (The answer to this is not zero!)
Four people need to cross a rickety rope bridge to get back to their camp at night. Unfortunately, they only have one flashlight and it only has enough light left for seventeen minutes. The bridge is too dangerous to cross without a flashlight, and it's only strong enough to support two people at any given time. Each of the campers walks at a different speed. One can cross the bridge in 1 minute, another in 2 minutes, the third in 5 minutes, and the slow poke takes 10 minutes to cross. How do the campers make it across in 17 minutes?
You are at a party with a friend and 10 people are present including you and the friend. your friend makes you a wager that for every person you find that has the same birthday as you, you get $1; for every person he finds that does not have the same birthday as you, he gets $2. would you accept the wager?
How many piano tuners are there in the entire world?
You have eight balls all of the same size. 7 of them weigh the same, and one of them weighs slightly more. How can you find the ball that is heavier by using a balance and only two weighings?
You have five pirates, ranked from 5 to 1 in descending order. The top pirate has the right to propose how 100 gold coins should be divided among them. But the others get to vote on his plan, and if fewer than half agree with him, he gets killed. How should he allocate the gold in order to maximize his share but live to enjoy it? (Hint: One pirate ends up with 98 percent of the gold.)
You are given 2 eggs. You have access to a 100-story building. Eggs can be very hard or very fragile means it may break if dropped from the first floor or may not even break if dropped from 100th floor. Both eggs are identical. You need to figure out the highest floor of a 100-story building an egg can be dropped without breaking. The question is how many drops you need to make. You are allowed to break 2 eggs in the process.
Describe a technical problem you had and how you solved it.
How would you design a simple search engine?
Design an evacuation plan for San Francisco.
There's a latency problem in South Africa. Diagnose it.
What are three long term challenges facing google?

Last Updated on Tuesday, 10 November 2009 04:18 Read more...

Farewell - Yahoo! Search Submit Pro

Wednesday, 21 October 2009 03:15 administrator

Yahoo's paid inclusion within their organic search engine results, also known as Yahoo Search Submit Pro or YSSP if you are into jargon, will be retired at the end of the year. For many online direct response online retailers, the YSSP program was a great performer. It is no secret that the organic algorithms between Google and Yahoo varied greatly, leaving SEO's with the ultimate question: Optimize for Google or Yahoo? For all SEO's that I know, this was an easy answer. Optimize to Google's high volume and let the paid marketers buy Yahoo paid inclusions. Win... Win...

Â The YSSP out-performed most paid campaigns in terms of ROI, as it was seen by most as an organic result. So why then are they saying farewell to their old friend? This is of coarse due to the new Yahoo! / MSN (Bing) partnership. After January 1, Yahoo! will begin serving Microsoft's Bing search engine results. Those sites that are not indexable or crawlable will no longer be able to rank on the first page of Yahoo organic listings. An increasing factor in the value of this is also the incrimental increase in Bing funneled results. With Yahoo!, MSN, and Bing and serving the same results, SEO's will, for the first time, find it worth while to optimise to a non-Google algorithm. It is not to say that steps will be taken to enhance a landing page or site in a way that would detract from Google SERPs, but more likely emphasis will be made to utilize optimization strategies that will improve SERPs cross-channels. The SEO in me is definately excited about this new challange and the new learnings that can be made by SEOing for a semantic search algorithm like Bing. However, the SEMer in me will definately miss the old days of high ROI from this once successful paid channel. Farewell old friend YSSP... Thanks for all of the revenue you have brought me.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 21 October 2009 03:28

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