Archive for category Search Engine Optimization
Quick and Easy Web 2.0 Link
Posted by steve in General, Search Engine Optimization, Webmaster on August 27, 2012
In SEO many times quick and easy is a sure way to get a penalty on your site. This isn’t always the case though. There are a few sites out there that provide value while offering a link back to your site.
The site I am talking about right now is AboutUs.org. It’s a directory of websites where you simply talk about your site. You can include things such as contact info and a brief overview.
Initially you will find that your link is NoFollow. Which is the way you tell Google you don’t trust the link. It’s good that they do this, as you don’t want directories linking dofollow to the many spammy sites out there. The link can be changed to dofollow with a little bit of work though.
First, you will want to edit your page and update it to contain all the info you can. A short description, title, tags, and contact info are a great way to start. Follow these guidelines here: http://www.aboutus.org/How_to_improve_AboutUs_pages
Once you have updated your site you can read this page: http://www.aboutus.org/DoFollow to see what steps you need to take to get the links changed to dofollow.
An example of one of my most recent sites is here: http://www.aboutus.org/ParkingGames.com. You can see it’s just a basic overview of the site, providing some contact info and a nice little image.
Quick and easy links back to your site are few and far between. AboutUs.org is a good start to getting the word out about your website.
Redirect to www with htaccess
Posted by steve in General, Search Engine Optimization, Webmaster on March 23, 2010
Many webmasters don’t take any steps to ensure their website is accessed with http://www.example.com and not http://example.com. One reason to do this can include the presentation of your site in Google’s search results. Another reason is when you don’t control what address is presented, Google will make the decision for you. This can lead to issues with duplicate content, splitting of page rank and other SEO benefits, along with confusion when monitoring results in tools like Google Webmaster Tools.
When a person links to your site, they may simple link to http://example.com. Another person may link to http://www.example.com. This would be like looking at money.cnn.com vs www.cnn.com. Google treats these as different websites and can be harmful to the overall rankings for your site. It is generally a good idea to decide if you want to redirect non www to www.
The solution to this is a rather easy htaccess rule. To setup a htaccess rule you would create a file called .htaccess
in the root folder of your website, sometimes referred to public_html/, or htdocs/.
To enable mod_rewrite, enter this line first if it doesn’t exist already:
RewriteEngine on
Then you would put this below:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
RewriteRule .* http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
The first line reads the HTTP_HOST, and determines of the first 3 characters are www or not. If they are not, it continues onto the second line.
The second line takes the HTTP_HOST requested initially, and simply adds www. to it. The R=301 says that this is a HTTP code 301 permanent redirect, and the L tells the code to stop the rewriting process here and don’t apply any more rewrite rules.
To sum it up, a simple .htaccess
file to redirect non www to www would be:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
RewriteRule .* http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
It is also possible to redirect www.example.com to example.com. The code below will do that:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.+)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]
I hope this simple mod_rewrite rule will help when you decide to redirect non www urls to www, or the other way around.
Ranking In Google
Posted by steve in Search Engine Optimization on May 14, 2009
Well that didn’t take long. It was four days since I launched this site, and google pushed me up to #1 for the keyword: Steve Fortuna. It really wasn’t very hard at all. I purchased this domain September of 2008, and had a simple ‘coming soon…’ page up. I just had to convince Google to crawl the page again, and that the content was relevant.
Being that I had the domain that fully matched the search term I was targeting, it was pretty easy. That’s always a major consideration when deciding what domain to purchase. Trying to throw at least one keyword you’re trying to target in the domain is always helpful. It’s not required, of course, but helps quite a bit. stevefortuna.com ranked #1 for the keyword ‘Steve fortuna’ very easily. A couple links in with the anchor text ‘steve fortuna’ was all that was needed.
Deciding whether you want to go with a keyword domain or a brandable domain is just simply a matter of your goals. If you’re looking for quick ranking for low competition keywords, a keyword domain would be key. But if you’re going take the time to build a brand, go with a domain you like – something brandable. Two examples of these are of course, stevefortuna.com, with intended target for: steve fortuna, and then hubits.com, with intended target: free arcade games.
Sulumits Retsambew
Posted by steve in Search Engine Optimization on May 11, 2009
Sulumits Retsambew is the target keyword for a new search engine optimization contest hosted by NetBuilders.org. For those that aren’t familiar with SEO contests, it’s essential a competition to outrank others in Google, or any other search engine depending on the specific contest.
The term sulumits retsambew written backwards is webmaster stimulus. This is NetBuilders way of running a “stimulus package” for webmasters. The contest started March 15th, and runs through August 15th. Which is quite a while for a SEO contest. But also a good way to judge the effects of SEO over time. Will blackhat methods win, or will pure whitehat SEO come out on top? Only time will tell.
The prizes for the contest are as follows: $1000 for first, $500 for second, and $250 for third. $1000 is a nice payout and would be nice to grab for anyone.
Currently my entry in the sulumits retsambew contest is WebmasterStimulus.org. All the exact keyword domains were taken by the time I got started. I’m hoping all the mention of the term webmaster stimulus on all the sulumits retsambew sites will convince google that they are related, and in turn give the WebmasterStimulus.org domain a lot of weight based on the keywords in the domain. This may already be the case as I’m currently in second position.
I am relatively new in the SEO world. I midly got interested in it about six months ago, but really didn’t make any progress or really understand what I was doing until a few months ago. It will be interested to see how my skills will stand up against the experts.
I found what I consider a real nice template for the site WebmasterStimulus.org, and decided to use it on this blog as well. I’m sure you have by now noticed the similarities.
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