Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
Obama wants to know: Why open source?
President Barack Obama is a smart guy. Where others zig, he zags. It’s perhaps not surprising, then, that he’s been asking around about the benefits of open source, according to Sun Chairman Scott McNealy, who has been asked by President Obama to author a white paper on the benefits the U.S. government can derive from open source.
10 Web Sites That Will Matter in 2009
You’ve probably never heard of many of them, but chances are you’ll be using some of these Web sites by the end of this year.
Obama inauguration marks new chapter for digital media
On March 4, 1901, a lone cameraman in the employ of Thomas A. Edison was dispatched to capture the swearing in of William McKinley. To posterity he delivered a total of 44 seconds of grainy footage showing a white-haired man on the Capitol steps solemnly, if indistinctly, raising his right hand.
Living free with Linux: 2 weeks without Windows
Can a dedicated Windows user make it for two weeks using only Linux? Preston Gralla tried it and lived to tell this tale.
10 Online Learning Tools for Students
Second semester has started and many students went back to college. If you are one of them check out this list of tools, it might help you with your studies. All applications are web based, simple to use and free.
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Sunday, October 12th, 2008
This is a follow up post to my previous posts about my friend’s Google ranking drop. As you may remember, his Google ranking was restored a few weeks after he blocked the proxy website from copying his entire website and submitted a Google reinclusion request. As you may have guessed, he was quite thrilled to see his SERP ranking shoot up again.
Well, as luck would have it, I received a phone call last night from my friend telling me that his website was bombing again. I Googled his favorite keywords and they seemed to rank fine over at my end, but he explained that he traffic stats from Google was flat. They nosedived a day or two ago. I chalked up the results I was getting to Google adjusting the results.
This new twist got me thinking. What in the world could be making this website’s ranking bounce around like this? Looking back, the proxy website may not have been 100% at fault. There has to be something else.
I began doing a little research and learned about few things about duplicate content. The reason I looked at that particular area is because there is absolutely nothing else I can find wrong with this website. Duplicate content seems to be a rather popular culprit.
I came across a pretty well laid out website called “Google Rankings Diagnostics” that describes a whole heck of a lot of issues you might be having with your website. This website validated what I pretty much already knew…that if you have multiple URLs (on a domain) with the same exact content, Google has trouble figuring out which page is the original and may throw all of them out.
I took a very close look at my friend’s website. Again, I took a unique line of text from his homepage and searched for it in Google (inside quotes). A funny thing happened. I saw the homepage result, but there were a few extra results as well, all on his domain. There were about 5 extra pages in total.
Now, some of these extra results have been there for years, so I don’t attribute the issue to those pages being duplicate content. What struck me was one of the extra pages.
A few months ago, my friend moved one of his pages. He put a 301 redirect in his .htaccess file, which was the correct thing to do. So now, the old directory where the page was held forwarded to a new page. It looked something like this:
Redirect 301 /olddirectory/ http://www.hiswebsite.com/newpage.php
The redirect worked fine, but here is what that extra page in the search results looked like:
http://www.hiswebsite.com/newpage.phpoldpage.php
Guess what page was showing at that URL…yup, the homepage. The dynamic nature of his website sends unknown page results like this to the homepage. This was a fluke. My friend forgot that there were pages inside the old directory he redirected to the new page. Every old page in that old directory was tacked on to the new page, like you see above. To make matters worse, there were a bunch of links from other websites pointing to the old pages in the old directory.
I am not sure if this would cause the ranking drops that he is experiencing, but the timing certainly lines up with when the issue began. It is also certainly considered duplicate content.
So, here is what I did to deal with the issue this time. I deleted the redirects in the .htaccess file and blocked the URLs of all those extra results in the robots.txt file. Hopefully, this will tell Google to not spider or index those pages and it will also tell Google that those links into the site are dead.
Now, we have to wait. I am not going to submit another reinclusion request to Google because I want to see if the ranking returns naturally. If it does, this was the problem for sure.
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Thursday, September 25th, 2008
This is a follow up post to my “Sudden Drop In Google Ranking post.
This morning, I checked the ranking of the website in question. To my surprise, the site had again ranked number 4 in the Google Search Engine Results. This was most definitely good news. In fact, all key phrases now ranked on page one of the Google SERPs.
I can only hope this persists. So, what did we do? Here is a short list:
- Noticed the website had dropped in Google ranking.
- Took a unique phrase from the website homepage and searched Google using quotes, “like this.”
- Found a direct copy of the website and discovered it had been “Proxy Hijacked.”
- Found IP address of website that Proxy Hijacked our website and blocked it using the .htaccess file.
- Submitted a “Reconsideration Request” to Google.
After about a week and a half, our website had regained its ranking in Google.
I read a long article about Proxy Hijacking and it mentioned that Google had fixed the problem. If this was the case with my friend’s website, this certainly isn’t true. While I can not be totally sure Proxy Hijacking caused this case of Google ranking loss, the facts seem to lead down this path.
What is my advice to you? Check either Google or Copyscape once a month to see if someone has taken text or Proxy Hijacked your website.
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Sunday, September 21st, 2008
We have no shortage of ideas when it comes to making money on the internet. If you would ever like to discuss them, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment. We will surely reply…simply because we love this stuff.
Now, I am generally going to talk about business ideas we wouldn’t get into for one reason or another, but rest assured, we have seen these type of ventures make money with very little start up cost. The reason I am only going to talk about ideas we won’t do is because we need to have some sort of competitive edge in the industry. We do a lot of profitable things “behind the scenes” to keep those prying eyes away. I guess you could call this the free stuff.
This idea is basically creating templates for successful web applications. If you are into launching websites, you probably are aware of the issues you can have when it comes time to make your new website look presentable. You know as well as I do, many of the web’s best applications come with a “bare bones” template and it’s up to the template designers to pretty these sites up.
Just to give you an example, I was looking for a premium Wordpress template a few days ago. I came across a few websites that had some good ones, but the designs fell off a cliff when I got to the second page of Google results. Actually, now that I think about it, there are only two design firms I am aware of that I would actually get my credit card out for.
So, knowing that there are about a zillion popular web applications out there and knowing that there is a demand for premium templates, don’t you think if would be a good idea to make some money while the opportunity is staring you in the face?
Ok, so how do you do it when you have absolutely no design experience? That’s easy. The internet is full of awesome design firms based in Russia and India. Get in touch with them, lay out your plans, have them complete the projects, but be sure to get the license to resell the end product. Then, start up your own blog with all your designs and get ready to sell. Open up a store front that sells digital media and do a little SEO. By the time you are done, you’re in business.
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Saturday, September 20th, 2008
As I wrote in a prvious post, duplicate content on your own website can come in the form of “www.mysite.com/†vs. “www.mysite.com/index.html.†The search engines see this same page as two different ones, but with identical content. As I also mentioned, most search engines are smart enough to figure out that these two pages are the same one, but still, they do share Pagerank.
What to do? That’s easy too. Just open up your .htaccess again and type in the following code:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index\.html\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^index\.html$ http://www.mysite.com/ [R=301,L]
You can do this with other pages that have the same problem as well.
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Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
Do you remember my article from yesterday about the sudden drop in Google search ranking for my friend’s website? Well, I just can’t stop thinking about it.
From what I have been reading, it seems as though my conclusion may be correct. At least I am hoping it is. If I ever conclude anything semi-concrete while thinking about Google, it’s a good day for me.
Ok, I found this very helpful and thorough website that pretty much described the exact problem my friend is having. It’s titled “Google Proxy Hijacking” and tells the whole story.
Here is what struck me as I think about this some more.
- My friend’s website has been live since 2004.
- The site seemed to be in the Google sandbox for the entire 4 years.
- For his most competitive keywords, he was ranking past page 20 on Google.
- About two months ago, he made some changes to the homepage copy as well as an HTML overhaul.
- About a month after that, the site ranked number 3 for his most competitive keywords.
- The site ranked on page 1 of Google for about a month.
- The site now sits at page 25 for its most competitive keywords.
Here is my theory. I think the website has been proxy hijacked for a number of years. This is what caused the poor rankings for such a long time. When the homepage text and HTML changes were made about 2 months ago, Google visited the site and found it unique. Google ranked the site well, due to this new unique content. During the month, Google noticed the proxy website was now a duplicate of my friend’s website once again and dropped the website’s ranking.
Does that make sense? From what I read on the website I linked to, it does.
Here are the similarities with what we are experiencing and what the author wrote on the other website:
- My friend’s website has never been banned.
- We did a quoted Google search for supposedly unique content on my friend’s website and a proxy website showed in the search results.
- The proxy URL looked like this: proxysite.com/cgi-bin/pxy/nph-pxy.pl/000010A/http/www.friendssite.com/
- The proxy site was an exact duplicate of my friend’s website.
Now, I am not sure if this is what caused my friends ranking to drop, but all the factors are there. The keywords we are talking about are very competitive, but the fact that his site showed so well in the search results for a month shows me that the potential is there.
I would appreciate your thoughts on this.
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Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
There may be cases when you would like to see what your webpage HTTP headers look like. Why? Well, because they are kind of important. As Wikipedia states, the HTTP headers define what the returned data looks like.
Still you ask, “Why in the world do I care about that?” Ok, I’ll keep going. The main reason I look at the HTTP headers is to find out what the HTTP status code is. The reason the status code is important to me is because this is the code the search engines use for a multitude of things.
Let me give you a little example, and this related to my previous post regarding the sudden drop in Google rankings. As I was doing research into what the problem may be for this particular website, I came across an issue where someone had recently put custom “404 Not Found” error pages up on some of their websites. Everyone knows that custom “404 Not Found” error pages are cool, but what some people don’t know is that if those 404 error pages show a “200 OK” (successful HTTP requests) code, the site may be in big trouble, SEO-wise. The reason for this is because there are going to be many “404 Not Found” error pages on a dynamic website. If you have your custom “404 Not Found” error page showing a “200 OK” response code, the search engines will think that all the instances of this page are duplicate. You know as well as I do, that spells trouble.
What’s worse is if you set your homepage as your “404 Not Found” page. Your homepage is going to return a response code of “200 OK.” That’s not good, because now you have multiple instances of your homepage…all duplicate content.
It’s my opinion that the search engines are smart enough to figure this out. The page (such as your homepage) with the highest Pagerank will prevail. Still, I have some websites that I am working on that have multiple instances of the homepage and they all have Pagerank, which isn’t good, because the duplicates are taking the Pagerank from the real page. Now, again, that’s my opinion.
Here are two tips:
- How to check your HTTP headers – visit this website or just Google “Website header check”
- How to set a particular page as your “404 Not Found” error page in your .htaccess file – Just place this code in the file: “ErrorDocument 404 /404.php” without the quotes. The 404.php file is the actual error page in this case.
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Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
Just in case you haven’t noticed your Google Pagerank lately, it is currently being updated as I type.
I was typing the last post in this blog a few minutes ago and noticed that it now has a Pagerank of 2. That’s twice of what it was at 1. The reason it’s only a 2 is because I have relatively few links to the blog and the domain name is very young. Some of my other sites picked up a few points.
Good luck and let me know if your site gained any PR.
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Friday, March 21st, 2008
The more I look around, the more I learn that the domain name business is big business.
As I told you yesterday, I am trying to scoop up a bunch of different extensions for the domains I already have. It’s working out pretty well, but I have hit a little bump. I already bought up most of the available ones and now I have to enter the market of second (or third) hand domains. That is when it gets expensive.
Let me give you a little example…a guy called me a few years ago to offer a .com domain that he was selling. This was a hot name and he was looking for $50,000 for it. I almost started laughing when he told me that. I think I offered him $300 and went off and did something else. As it turns out, I am kicking myself. I have a feeling I am going to be seeing this domain in action soon because someone out in Las Vegas just purchased it at auction for $135,000. Why was, or is, it worth so much? Well, it was first registered in 1996, so it has some age. Also, it rolls off the tongue extremely easily and is two very powerful keywords. It’s also quite descriptive. Those things alone give it a lot of value. I talked to the seller last night and he mentioned that he does have another .com for sale that I would be interested in. He wants $50,000 for it. This one is definitely not worth what the other one was, but it does give me pause. Honestly, if you can get a well known .com that was born back in 1996, $50,000 is not too much. You do need to do a little research first.
Yesterday, I put a bunch of bids in for multiple .com and .net addresses. I did receive an email back telling me I could buy a .net for $2,688. I am going to have the name appraised today to see if it has been blacklisted or anything like that. I believe it was first registered back in 2002, which isn’t bad.
What’s the benefit of purchasing a used domain name? The answer is Google. Google likes “aged” domains. You can set up a site and not have to wait for Google’s aging filter to do its thing. Also, there may be links to the domain already. So basically, if you get a used domain, you could set up a site and have it indexed very quickly to start making money fast.
I am going to buy a few more today and then call it quits for a while. The guy I spoke to last night is also looking for $50,000 for a little known extension that will become very popular. This is for the same domain as I was talking about above.
What I do know is this…if I buy a bunch of these names now and sit on them for a few years and let them age, I can send them to auction and sell them for some $$$. From what I have been learning, I do have quite an investment already. Just remember…if you are going to get into this, you need to buy domains that people will actually want in a few years. I am not sure how many people would be interested in kwaree.com. There are also huge price variations with what the name consists of, like one word, two words, hyphens, etc…
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Thursday, March 20th, 2008
I have been purchasing quite a few domain names lately. At last glance, I own 78 of them. Over time, I am taking any confusion out of who owns the real domain by scooping up as many different extensions as I can. I have noticed a disturbing trend of domains being bought and sat on…or cyber squatted. Well, this has been going on forever, but now they are buying even the not-so-popular ones. Little by little, I keep on buying them, until I have them all. Sure, it may take years (it already has), but I will get there. I check what’s available every so often.
I do limit myself to the more popular ones though. I go after .com, .net, .org, .us, .info and .biz. I also grab often mistaken spellings of the same extensions. Some may think this is a bit extreme, but I have stopped listening to people. My extremeness has gotten me this far.
Anyway, today I bought eleven new domains. They were .info and .biz. As I shop for these things, I often wonder what they mean. Are they for specific purposes, like they used to be? I will admit, the requirements to purchase a particular domain extension are becoming quite relaxed. I learned a bunch by looking through the list of internet top level domains.
If you take a look at this list, you will notice that extensions that used to be for a particular purpose is now open to everyone. The .govs are still for the government though. I think that anyone can buy a certain domain extension, but if challenged in court, you need to provide proof that you are what the domain is meant for.
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