What is URL Canonicalization?
Posted by reviews on Mar 12, 2008
First of all, what is canonicalization? Canonicalization (abbreviated c14n) is a process for converting data that has more than one possible representation into a “standard” canonical representation.
Example:
[[Egg_salad]] [[egg salad]] [[ egg_salad ]]
As you will notice, each of these are slightly different from one another.
In terms of the URL it is the interpretation of variations of the same url, as seen below. The concern is that Google sees the different variants of the same url in the same way. It’s important to create consistency across your website URLs so you
From Matt Cutt’s Page
Q: What is a canonical url? Do you have to use such a weird word, anyway?
A: Sorry that it’s a strange word; that’s what we call it around Google. Canonicalization is the process of picking the best url when there are several choices, and it usually refers to home pages. For example, most people would consider these the same urls:
- www.example.com
- example.com/
- www.example.com/index.html
- example.com/home.asp
But technically all of these urls are different. A web server could return completely different content for all the urls above. When Google “canonicalizes” a url, we try to pick the url that seems like the best representative from that set.
Q: So how do I make sure that Google picks the url that I want?
A: One thing that helps is to pick the url that you want and use that url consistently across your entire site. For example, don’t make half of your links go to http://example.com/ and the other half go to http://www.example.com/ . Instead, pick the url you prefer and always use that format for your internal links.Q: Is there anything else I can do?
A: Yes. Suppose you want your default url to be http://www.example.com/ . You can make your webserver so that if someone requests http://example.com/, it does a 301 (permanent) redirect to http://www.example.com/ . That helps Google know which url you prefer to be canonical. Adding a 301 redirect can be an especially good idea if your site changes often (e.g. dynamic content, a blog, etc.).
Essentially, you would want to canonicalize the following situations:
- Canonicalize the domain (e.g. redirect non-www and IP address to www)
- Canonicalize my index pages (redirect “/index.html” to “/”)
- Remove spurious query strings (e.g. example.com/1234? to a static html page)
- Correct any typos in type-in URLs
- Correct outdated or otherwise incorrect query strings
- Correct invalid inbound links
- Suppress the fix-up redirect if the resulting URL does not resolve to an existing file
- Adjust capitalization of the URL to all lowercase. In some cases, this matters.
Ways to Find Your PPC Niche (Adsense, etc)
Posted by reviews on Oct 24, 2007
Many of us want an income in which we can “set it and forget it”, such as creating websites that may have great content, but also brings in some steady income along the way. How do you find good ways of determining what is searched for and what is bought?
There are a number of good ways to find revenue niches for your sites.
You can take a look at Google Trends which is Google’s report of what is hot.
With Hot Trends, you can see a snapshot of what’s on the public’s collective mind by viewing the fastest-rising searches for different points of time. You can see a list of today’s top 100 fastest-rising search queries in the U.S. You can also select a recent date in history to see what the top rising searches were and what the search activity looked like over the course of that day. We update Hot Trends hourly.
It’s a great way of seeing what is happening at the peak of a wave.
Another handy tool for seeing what is selling well is to look at Ebay’s What’s Hot page in Seller Central.
Selling success often translates into being at the right place, at the right time, with the right product. Check back often to stay on top of the latest promotions and hot items on eBay.
Ebay also lists Hot Items by Category, has an Ebay Pulse, and many other options on the above page.
John Hold had a great suggestion;
I find the best tool to use is the google search box. Not on googles home page but in your browser. I use firefox and have a google search box in the header. what you do is just type in any one letter like “f”. it will automatically fill the search box with first, all the searches you’ve made starting with that letter but under that will be “suggestions”, that’s what you want to look at. with “f” you’ll find “facebook, firefox, friendster, etc etc”. these are the top searched for sites. next type in a second letter like “a”. Now you see the most popular search terms that start with “fa” like”family guy, fandango, etc”. I then typed in “t” so that my first three letters are “fat”. After “fat people, fathead” you’ll see some good niche material like fate, fatigue, fatty liver, and fatima. Now click on a search term (niche) that you think will pay good and look at the ads that show and how many there are. From that info you decide if it’s worth going after.
The possibilities are indeed endless. I just typed in “str” for kicks and found these 3 niches, stress, strep throat and stroke. Bet any of those could pay some big adsence bucks. Knock yourself out!
Another is to try to get your hands on Google’s monthly list of most searched for terms or the monthly highest paying words for PPC. These lists can be a challenge to get, but can be insightful.
The last suggestion is to simply read magazines, ezines, and newspapers for the latest news or research being done. You may be able to get a jump on your competition just by using the ‘old noodle’ (your brain)!
Improving Search Engine Results Page (SERP) Rank
Posted by reviews on Oct 1, 2007
Wikopedia describes the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) as “the listing of web pages returned by a search engine in response to a keyword query. The results normally include a list of web pages with titles, a link to the page, and a short description showing where the keywords have matched content within the page. A SERP may refer to a single page of links returned, or to the set of all links returned for a search query.”
The SERPs are the single most important thing with respect to search engines and optimizing your website, and in particular, the individual pages. The SERPs are the “free” way of getting targetted traffic to your site. The usual alternative is paid advertising, which is anything but free. Search Engine Optimization is the science (or art) of optimizing a website for the best SERP results possible for range of potential search terms that the webmaster is trying to improve upon for the SERPs. The higher the position on the page, preferably the first page, of the SERP the better. Most search engine users only look at the top choices on the first page.
Each search term, such as “reviewer” or “reviewer of sites“, will have different results for the respective search engine. You will even notice that the results may change from day to day for the exact same search term on the specific search engine. There are many variables to consider when optimizing your site and pages, including how and what your competition is doing on their end for the given search terms. In my opinion, the best methods for improving your SERPs for the specific search terms is to do the following:
- Use the Firefox plugins SEOQuake and Niche Watch to analyze your (and your competition’s) keyword density for a specific page, determine the amount of backlinks (preferably from pages with related content), number of indexed pages, keyword occurrences on the page, page rank, all in anchor, all in title and all in text rank for both domain and webpage information.
- Continue to add original content on your site, especially articles relating to the specific keywords.
- Give descriptive titles to the content and web pages relating to the keywords.
- If possible, use search engine friendly url’s, such as “http://www.example.com/seo/all-about-seo.html”.
It does take time to work your way toward the top of the SERPs, especially if the keywords have a lot of competition, so you will need to be patient. The important thing is to not do anything that could get you penalized by Google, since it is usually the SERPs for your site that takes the hit.
F Shaped Reading Pattern of Web Content
Posted by reviews on Sep 3, 2007
A study recently conducted by Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice showed a startling reading pattern of web users. Instead of being the assumed line by line, left to right pattern, readers often glance through the content in an F shaped pattern. This is of particular importance to website designers that are concerned about the readers clicking on ads or reading specific information on a page.
Using special eye tracking equipment (as seen below), they studied the reading patterns of 238 web users. The equipment includes cameras and infrared emitters, which are hidden behind the dark areas above and below the screen. In addition, they had a webcam mounted on the side to capture the users facial expressions.
As the web user reads the page, they often read the first, and sometimes second, paragraph, but then glance along the left side and down, thus making an F shape. A heat map is displayed in the images below. The red, indicating the most heavily viewed area, while yellow indicates the even less, and blue displaying the least viewed area. You will then notice the pattern of the letter “F”.
In the next image, which is an About Us page, you will notice that the reader did not read further than two paragraphs before beginning to skim. Unless the very beginning of the next paragraphs grab their attention or they find the first two particularly intriguing, you will probably lose them on this page.
In the next image you will see how they viewed a common shopping cart design.
Notice how the reader fixated on the numbers? They also just glanced over the imagery on the page. This may be something to consider in your websites, particularly if is an ecommerce site.
You may also notice that the users only glanced at the cross-selling offers. Any attempts to cross-sell would have to be eye catching and immediately obvious of its value to the user. This study could be very pertinent to all webmasters and marketers trying to sell a product or an idea.
Press Coverage:
USA Today
‘Sneak Peek’ Into Net Surfers’ Brains
Poynter Institute
What Makes Web Images Attractive
If you wish to order their new book, you may use the following link: Eyetracking Web Usability (Voices That Matter)
Also, you should check out their other highly regarded book Prioritizing Web Usability (VOICES)