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Google Offers Fresh Advice on SEO

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Sep 29, 2010; Category: Business, Search/SEO, WordPress; Tags: Google, Google Analytics, Local Search; No Comments

Google gets a bit cute (the idea for the “Googlebot” holding flowers comes from a post on Google’s blog entitled First Date with the Googlebot; unless you’re kind of a geek, don’t bother reading the post), but they offer some solid advice in their recently updated Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. If you care about searchbots’ ability to find and rank your website favorably, download it and then read it. And then alter your approach to SEO accordingly.

In 32 pages, the guide covers SEO Basics, Improving Site Structure, Optimizing Content, Dealing with Crawlers, SEO for Mobile Phones, and Promotions and Analysis. It also outlines best practices in each of these areas.

If your website functions as a marketing tool for your business or organization, you can’t afford not to be knowledgeable about SEO. If you have a WordPress-based website, the information in Google’s SEO Guide, and a Google Analytics account that you use to monitor your website, you have all the tools you need to turn your website into a search engine magnet.

And if you need help with any of this, you know where to find me.

Handling Duplicate Content with the Canonical Tag

Author: Guest Author; Published: Jul 1, 2009; Category: Design/Development, Guest Post, Search/SEO; Tags: Design/Development, Google; 2 Comments

Note: This is a GUEST POST by Edward Kung, owner of Seedin Web Development, a company in Vancouver, British Columbia, which provides complete web development solutions.

One of the biggest problems faced by search engines is duplicate content on the internet. Usually the content belongs to the same website but is placed on the different web pages. So when search engines perform a search they come up with 10 different pages with different URLs but the same content. SEO companies have also been plagued by the same problem.

Recently major search engines like Google and Yahoo! have come up with a new way to deal with the issue of duplicate content: the canonical tag. The canonical tag is the latest tool in the fight against the duplicate content on the internet.

How to Use the Canonical Tag

The canonical tag is applied to the URLs of the web pages that hold duplicate content. Since they are to be included in the head each of the duplicate pages, you will be simply adding the preferred version of a URL. You actually instruct the search engines that the URLs in question should direct to the preferred URL designated in the canonical tag.

The canonical tag is included in the desired web page’s head section, specifying the preferred URL in the following format:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.xyz.com/aboutus.html" />

The tag can only be used on pages that reside on a single site. The pages may be in subdomains as well as sub folders. You can use either absolute or relative links, but search engines strongly recommend that you use absolute links to eliminate chances of errors.

The tag is transitive in nature. For an instance, if URL X marks Y as canonical, and Y in turn marks Z as canonical, Z will be treated as canonical for both X and Y. For example: If test1.xyz.com points to canonical URL test2.xyz.com and test2.xyz.com points to canonical URL final.xyz.com. Then final.xyz.com would be treated as canonical for both test1.xyz.com and test2.xyz.com.

By using the canonical tag, all the links to all the URLs with duplicate content are simply consolidated into one URL which has been specified as canonical. This URL will be considered as a "strong hint" by search engines. The canonical tag will help search engines like Google with the task of identifying duplicate URLs.

Search engines will also understand that duplicate URLs with canonical tags are all actually referring to the URL that you want the visitors to see. Such URLs are known as canonical URLs.

Why Your Primary Business Email Account Should be Gmail

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: May 3, 2009; Category: Business, Communication; Tags: Email, Gmail, Google; 9 Comments

The world of email has changed dramatically in the last few years. Gmail has left Earthlink-like email services so far behind that I don’t understand how or why people continue to use them, unless it’s just that they don’t understand the benefits and anticipate a painful experience in making the change. While it takes a little bit of time (10 minutes, maybe) to make the change, the benefits are huge.

I’m going to focus on brief comparisons between Earthlink email services and Gmail, because I have personal experience with both. To be fair, Yahoo has Ymail, very much a "me-too" service similar to Gmail, but I know less about that. If you have a warm spot for Yahoo, you might want to look at Ymail instead. One comparison I can’t make is in reliability; I just don’t have the information necessary to make that comparison. However, I can tell you that Google is extremely reliable, and that I can recall only one hour-long episode of slowness in more than two years. I don’t recall any serious reliability problems with Earthlink, either.

Also, let’s distinguish between Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and email providers. Earthlink (and many companies like them) provides both ISP and email services. Gmail is strictly email service. If you use Gmail, you will still need an ISP such as Earthlink, Comcast, etc., to allow you to connect to the Internet. However, having a particular ISP is no reason to use their email service.

Cost

Gmail is free. $0. No money down, no money monthly, no money, period. Earthlink’s email service is part of their ISP service, so you don’t actually save money by not using their email service, assuming you use them as your ISP. Essentially, cost is the same for email service in both cases.
Edge: It’s a draw

Storage

Gmail currently allows more than 7.3GB (that’s 7,300MB) of storage. After more than 2 years using Gmail, I’ve used less than 25% of that space. Earthlink has dramatically increased its storage since I last saw it a couple of years ago: to 100MB. For additional cost (I cannot find the amount; Earthlink’s website has a lot of asterisks and small, light-colored text), you can increase the amount to 300MB.
Edge: Gmail by more than 70x

Ease of Using Company Domain Email Addresses

The email address I give out to people is an evowebdev.com address. I simply forward that email address to my Gmail account. More importantly, Gmail allows me to respond to people using the evowebdev.com address, even though it is actually being sent from Gmail (there is a confirmation email sent when setting that up to prove you own the non-Gmail address). I have 3 active domain-based email addresses that I forward to Gmail, and I get them all in one place. You can forward your domain-based email to your Earthlink account, but good luck responding from Earthlink with anything but your earthlink.net address.
Edge: Gmail

Spam Protection

When I switched to using Gmail, part of my motivation was to curb the amount of spam I had to deal with each day. Before using Gmail, 70-100 spam emails per day was the norm. With Gmail, I might see 1-2 per day. Earthlink offers spam protection, but you have to configure it, monitor it, and check to make sure you aren’t dumping email that isn’t spam into the spam bucket. And after all that, unless you choose Earthlink’s "nuclear" option and consider everything spam until you approve it (does that sound like a royal pain, or what?) you will still get more spam than you would with Gmail.
Edge: Gmail, easily

Search Capability

Gmail, from Google. Do I really need to say more? Gmail simply has the most sophisticated email search on the planet from the people who redefined search. And, with several years worth of emails to search through, it’s a good thing. I truly don’t know what Earthlink’s current search capabilities are, but there is no way they could match Google.
Edge: Gmail, big-time

Other Stuff

The comparisons stop there. But there are other reasons to have a Gmail account, like having access to dozens of Google business applications that enhance your ability to collaborate (Google docs, Google calendar) and analyze traffic and promote your website (Google Analytics, Adsense, Adwords). Of course you can use these services without using Gmail, but that would be kind of like having a piece of pie, but refusing the ice cream that goes on top. And replacing the ice cream with tofu. Yuck.