Sunday, November 16th, 2008
You know, I have been looking for an industry magazine for about a century now. It’s amazing how difficult my search has been.
One would think there would be hundreds of magazines out there geared towards people who work on the web. I mean, jeez, Google figured out how to target the “webmaster” community about 10 years ago and I think they hit the nail on the head.
For the uninitiated, the webmaster community is the group of people who have a lot to do with what goes on the web. If we didn’t have these folks, we would have a bunch of sales guys and a bunch of programming geeks getting a whole bunch of nowhere. The webmasters are those “middle of the road” folks who have some social ability as well as some technical ability and are able to speak to both the business side and the technical side. It’s a huge market and the population is growing every day.
For years, Google has had the good sense to target these individuals with all sorts of web tools and products. I can go on forever about who does well and who does not so well on the web, but my point here is that if Google has done it, where the heck is everyone else?
As a web guy, I get advertised to for a few things. Mainly hosting companies, domain names, software, etc…It’s most likely a heck of a lot more than I realize.
One thing I have been trying to do for the past few years is to really get involved with reading about the industry. I have been looking for a magazine. I mean, they have magazines that target butterfly catchers in Brazil. I thought a magazine for people who work on the web would be a no brainer.
A few years back, I almost got lucky. I found “Revenue Magazine.” This has been a pretty good magazine, but mainly targets the affiliate side of things on the web. It’s almost there and they do include many areas that I am interested in, but they are also lacking in many. I think they come out with a paper magazine about once per quarter, so there certainly is some downtime in between.
I recently discovered “Website Magazine.” Now, this is much more up my alley. Website Magazine is for the web guy or gal. If you like to get your hands dirty, this might be a good fit. I get emails about once per week with some pretty good articles and I just received my first paper magazine yesterday.
I must warn you, this is a fairly new magazine. The pages are quite thick, so you think there is more packed inside. I flipped through a few pages and soon realized that I was about half way through the whole thing. I am sure that more content is forthcoming though. I am patient.
In the meantime, I am at least satisfied that someone with a brain out there decided it was time to actually give a very hungry market what they are looking for.
Now, if I could just get someone to start delivering wood pellets…
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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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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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Monday, September 15th, 2008
This article was written by Jay G on behalf of BizLeeg, a popular business directory.
In the ever-expanding Internet age, it is sometimes difficult to sort through useless web pages to find the information you need. An online business directory helps you find the information you need quickly and easily on one convenient page.
Looking for a Specific Type of Business? Try a Local Business Directory
Are you looking for professional beekeepers or local florists? How about a seamstress to make you new custom drapes for your home? If you know the specific type of business you want to find, look no further than a handy online local business directory.
In the ever-expanding Internet age, it is sometimes difficult to sort through useless web pages to find the information you need. An online business directory helps you find the information you need quickly and easily on one convenient page.
If you are looking for a photographer or some other type of service that requires you to call multiple businesses to obtain price quotes, look to an online business directory. Because many different businesses are listed by category, you can quickly and easily find numerous photographers in your area all on one web page for your convenience.
Everything imaginable is listed on an online business directory, thanks to advertising from local merchants. Carpentry advice, legal forums, recipes for cooking, aviation information, real estate information and more can all be found on one handy site.
If you are a business owner, an online business directory is the ideal way to expand your advertising reach on the Internet. Some sites offer free membership that simply involves creating a user name and password. If you are really serious about expanding your online impact, upgrade your membership to reach more of your target market.
Using an online business directory for your advertising needs is a very cost effective way to get the word out about your goods or services. When people in your area need information from the directory, an ad for your business entices them to link to your page directly. This puts a prospective buyer in touch with your business immediately at any time of the day or night.
From retailers to service providers, to links that provide information on local weather and government offices, an online business directory has loads of content to attract visitors and drive traffic to your website. Usually, an online business directory also has a search feature, so users can specifically hunt down the type of merchant or service they are looking for in their area.
An online business directory is a trusted vehicle for your advertising message because it connects browsers with specific solutions. The prospective shopper is already in the market for the items or services you offer, so your ad simply serves as a well-timed suggestion in front of someone with an already present need.
As a forward-thinking business owner, it is important to take the time to add your website to prominent local business directories in your area. Keep in mind that if your competition is listed in a directory and your business is not, you are likely losing out on a percentage of new business because of a lack of visibility. Being at the top of your prospective client’s mind is more than half the battle when it comes to recruiting new business.
The best way to stay at the forefront of your market’s collective consciousness is to be visible at all times. This is especially true when a potential customer is ready to make a buying decision. Positioning yourself well in online business directories allows you to stay at the top of the short list of merchants that will ultimately get the job.
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Monday, September 15th, 2008
This article was written by Jay G on behalf of MotoClassifieds.US, a popular auto classifieds website.
Is selling a car privately a hassle? Not anymore. We already know about the popularity of classifieds sections in newspapers and magazines, but with the advent of websites devoted completely to online auto classifieds, things have gotten much easier. Gone are the days of having to wait until Monday morning to catch a customer service representative on the phone to place your ad.
Auto Classifieds – What are the Benefits? Do They Work?
That’s a pretty good question. For as long as I have been alive (and that’s 34 years), I have seen “Used Car For Sale†ads at every corner. These days, it’s one of the most popular online classified genres, not to mention being very popular with newspapers, magazines, radio and television.
Let me start this off with a short story. I had an “auto related†experience a few months ago.
In early January of this year, I was in the market for a new car. Since I have driven a Honda Accord as my two previous cars and a Honda Prelude as the one before that, I pretty much knew what I was going to buy. I dabbled with the thought of getting a BMW 5 Series, but I wasn’t ready for something so expensive. Maybe I’ll get the Beamer next time.
On January 3, I visited my local Honda dealer and was quite ready to drive home in something new. That day, I drove on the lot in a 1998 Honda Accord V6 and was planning on driving off the lot in a 2008 Honda Accord V6. Obviously, I was going to trade my car in. Before my trip to the dealer, I looked up the value of my 1998 Accord on KBB. They valued the car at around $3,500. I was slightly shocked, because I thought the car was worth more than that. I mean, this was my baby. This was the car I had taken such good care of over the years. But, if that is what the car was valued at, who was I to argue?
Upon choosing the make and model of the Accord I wanted to purchase, I entered negotiations with the salesperson. I was told that the dealership would give me $1,500 to trade in my 1998 Accord. As you could imagine, I got red in the face and threatened to walk out. They raised the price to $2,000, but I still argued for a bit. After a while, I realized they weren’t going to budge from that price, so I caved. Sound familiar? Has something like this ever happened to you?
Now, can you guess what everyone said to me after I told them of my experience? I’m sure you can. They said, “You know, you could’ve gotten a heck of a lot more money for your car if you had sold it yourself.†Gee, really? Of course I could’ve. I mean, everyone knows that dealers don’t give you as much as the car is worth. Why is that? It’s because of all the costs associated with prepping a car to sell on their lot. If it’s an older car, they can’t even sell it and it goes to auction. To be honest, I am not even sure what the dealerships do with some of the cars they take as trade-ins. I have heard stories about people getting $1 for the car they gave to the dealer.
So, I’ll admit that I could’ve made more money if I had sold my car privately. The question is why I, and so many others, lose money to trade their cars in. The answer to that question probably has something to do with convenience. We don’t want to deal with the hassle of a private sale.
Is selling a car privately a hassle? Not anymore. As I stated above, we already know about the popularity of classifieds sections in newspapers and magazines, but with the advent of websites devoted completely to online auto classifieds, things have gotten much easier. Gone are the days of having to wait until Monday morning to catch a customer service representative on the phone to place your ad. You can now access an auto classifieds website any time you want, from the comfort of your own home. You can write a description, upload a photo, add any features you want and pay by credit card within a matter of minutes. Some websites even offer the entire service for free. Either way, your ad will be live when you are finished. It will also be accessible to anyone from anywhere.
Now that we have that cleared up, let’s go over some of the benefits of selling your used car online:
- Convenience. Auto classified websites offer “any time, any place†type of convenience.
- Reach. By place your car ads online, you will virtually be reaching buyers across the globe. Too many people? Don’t worry; these websites have tools to narrow down a potential buyer’s search.
- Account management. You can place, edit and delete your ad any time you wish with your own private account management tool.
- Popularity. These days, more and more buyers are turning to the web to search for their new rides. Many of them don’t even (and never have) read the newspaper.
- Multiple ads. Many auto classifieds websites allow sellers to place multiple ads, oftentimes for a discounted price, or for even no cost at all.
- Help. Many websites have online tutorials or help pages that assist you in selling your car.
- Multiple venues. When you advertise your car on one classified website, oftentimes your ad will show on related websites as well. It’s these “viral†relationships that get much more exposure for your ad.
As you can see, there are many benefits to placing your used car for sale online. Do the online ads work? Well, that first depends on the ad itself. If you write a strong description, show a good photo and offer a fair price, I wouldn’t see why not. If everything is lined up, I would think you would have a successful sale within a matter of days or weeks.
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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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Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
Matt Cutts 3 Step Process to Building a Really Good Site
This post is a combination of transcribed content from video recorded at a PubCon 2007 evening session that featured Matt Cutts, my organization of that content, and related resource links for websites or articles Matt spoke about during his presentation.
The offices of today’s leading internet companies
Charl’s post showcases some really innovative workspaces at some of the hottest Internet companies today. These workspaces are generally informal and designed to bring people together rather than keep them locked away in their small, grey cubicles.
The Twice Shy Entrepreneur
A number of venture capitalists I’ve spoken with have said that too many “old guard†entrepreneurs are not being bold enough in their business decisions, and it’s hurting their startups.
Top 10 Worldwide Rising Search Terms – Google
Earlier this week Google released the fastest rising search terms in the US. I have received the fastest rising search terms Globally from Google and there are some interesting conclusions to point out.
Facebook Wakes To Find Its Members Making Money – G-A-S-P!
Looks like Facebook does nont like people making money off their own profiles.
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