Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts


Dynamic URLs vs. Static URLs







The Issue at Hand

Websites that utilize databases which can insert content into a webpage by way of a dynamic script like PHP or JavaScript are increasingly popular. This type of site is considered dynamic. Many websites choose dynamic content over static content. This is because if a website has thousands of products or pages, writing or updating each static by hand is a monumental task.

There are two types of URLs: dynamic and static. A dynamic URL is a page address that results from the search of a database-driven web site or the URL of a web site that runs a script. In contrast to static URLs, in which the contents of the web page stay the same unless the changes are hard-coded into the HTML, dynamic URLs are generated from specific queries to a site's database. The dynamic page is basically only a template in which to display the results of the database query. Instead of changing information in the HTML code, the data is changed in the database.

But there is a risk when using dynamic URLs: search engines don't like them. For those at most risk of losing search engine positioning due to dynamic URLs are e-commerce stores, forums, sites utilizing content management systems and blogs like Mambo or WordPress, or any other database-driven website. Many times the URL that is generated for the content in a dynamic site looks something like this:

http://www.somesites.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=12345&sort=date

A static URL on the other hand, is a URL that doesn't change, and doesn't have variable strings. It looks like this:

http://www.somesites.com/forums/the-challenges-of-dynamic-urls.htm

Static URLs are typically ranked better in search engine results pages, and they are indexed more quickly than dynamic URLs, if dynamic URLs get indexed at all. Static URLs are also easier for the end-user to view and understand what the page is about. If a user sees a URL in a search engine query that matches the title and description, they are more likely to click on that URL than one that doesn't make sense to them.

A search engine wants to only list pages its index that are unique. Search engines decide to combat this issue by cutting off the URLs after a specific number of variable strings (e.g.: ? & =).

For example, let's look at three URLs:

http://www.somesites.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=12345&sort=date

http://www.somesites.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=67890&sort=date

http://www.somesites.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=13579&sort=date

All three of these URLs point to three different pages. But if the search engine purges the information after the first offending character, the question mark (?), now all three pages look the same:

http://www.somesites.com/forums/thread.php

http://www.somesites.com/forums/thread.php

http://www.somesites.com/forums/thread.php

Now, you don't have unique pages, and consequently, the duplicate URLs won't be indexed.

Another issue is that dynamic pages generally do not have any keywords in the URL. It is very important to have keyword rich URLs. Highly relevant keywords should appear in the domain name or the page URL. This became clear in a recent study on how the top three search engines, Google, Yahoo, and MSN, rank websites.

The study involved taking hundreds of highly competitive keyword queries, like travel, cars, and computer software, and comparing factors involving the top ten results. The statistics show that of those top ten, Google has 40-50% of those with the keyword either in the URL or the domain; Yahoo shows 60%; and MSN has an astonishing 85%! What that means is that to these search engines, having your keywords in your URL or domain name could mean the difference between a top ten ranking, and a ranking far down in the results pages.

The Solution

So what can you do about this difficult problem? You certainly don't want to have to go back and recode every single dynamic URL into a static URL. This would be too much work for any website owner.

If you are hosted on a Linux server, then you will want to make the most of the Apache Mod Rewrite Rule, which is gives you the ability to inconspicuously redirect one URL to another, without the user's (or a search engine's) knowledge. You will need to have this module installed in Apache; for more information, you can view the documentation for this module here. This module saves you from having to rewrite your static URLs manually.

How does this module work? When a request comes in to a server for the new static URL, the Apache module redirects the URL internally to the old, dynamic URL, while still looking like the new static URL. The web server compares the URL requested by the client with the search pattern in the individual rules.

For example, when someone requests this URL:

http://www.somesites.com/forums/the-challenges-of-dynamic-urls.html

The server looks for and compares this static-looking URL to what information is listed in the .htaccess file, such as:

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule thread-threadid-(.*)\.htm$ thread.php?threadid=$1

It then converts the static URL to the old dynamic URL that looks like this, with no one the wiser:

http://www.somesites.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=12345


You now have a URL that only will rank better in the search engines, but your end-users can definitely understand by glancing at the URL what the page will be about, while allowing Apache's Mod Rewrite Rule to handle to conversion for you, and still keeping the dynamic URL.

If you are not particularly technical, you may not wish to attempt to figure out the complex Mod Rewrite code and how to use it, or you simply may not have the time to embark upon a new learning curve. Therefore, it would be extremely beneficial to have something to do it for you. This URL Rewriting Tool can definitely help you. What this tool does is implement the Mod Rewrite Rule in your .htaccess file to secretly convert a URL to another, such as with dynamic and static ones.

With the URL Rewriting Tool, you can opt to rewrite single pages or entire directories. Simply enter the URL into the box, press submit, and copy and paste the generated code into your .htaccess file on the root of your website. You must remember to place any additional rewrite commands in your .htaccess file for each dynamic URL you want Apache to rewrite. Now, you can give out the static URL links on your website without having to alter all of your dynamic URLs manually because you are letting the Mod Rewrite Rule do the conversion for you, without JavaScript, cloaking, or any sneaky tactics.

Another thing you must remember to do is to change all of your links in your website to the static URLs in order to avoid penalties by search engines due to having duplicate URLs. You could even add your dynamic URLs to your Robots Exclusion Standard File (robots.txt) to keep the search engines from spidering the duplicate URLs. Regardless of your methods, after using the URL Rewrite Tool, you should ideally have no links pointing to any of your old dynamic URLs.

You have multiple reasons to utilize static URLs in your website whenever possible. When it's not possible, and you need to keep your database-driven content as those old dynamic URLs, you can still give end-users and search engine a static URL to navigate, and all the while, they are still your dynamic URLs in disguise. When a search engine engineer was asked if this method was considered "cloaking", he responded that it indeed was not, and that in fact, search engines prefer you do it this way. The URL Rewrite Tool not only saves you time and energy by helping you use static URLs by converting them transparently to your dynamic URLs, but it will also save your rankings in the search engines.
SEO Experts Mumbai, India, Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimization - Vivek More


SEO and Comment Spam: A Cautionary Tale


If you’re SEO and social media strategies run afoul of best-practices, you might have a bigger problem than diminished Google rankings: Your brand's reputation might take a very public hit. That's what happened after Adam Singer received this comment at his Future Buzz blog:


"Small businesses should focus more on the quality of their marketing campaigns because consumers are, indeed, conducting more research now than ever before. [Company] has tools that can help you monitor your results and offers insight on your campaign success! Here is a link to some of the [products] from [company]." [Editor's note: We've redacted the company and product names; Singer did not.]


Singer wasn't pleased. "It is inappropriate of you to leave a comment like this when the discussion section is respected by everyone else who contribute thoughtful, valuable comments and not simply try to push their wares," he noted. "You are trying to take but not give."


He approved the comment to make his point, and—hoping to begin a positive conversation—sent a snarky-but-friendly tweet to the offending company. "Thanks … for link spamming my blog comments. You'll provide a great example of what not to do for readers tomorrow."


The company's social media manager sent Singer a conciliatory email about "working to find the right balance between authentic social media engagement and SEO best practices."


It soon became clear, however, that the company was using a "shady" SEO vendor that operated independently of its in-house social media team. "Their separate digital teams clearly have no idea what anyone is doing," says Singer. "Except the Web, of course, sees it all."


The Po!nt: Engage with caution. No matter who makes your SEO decisions, or why they're made, social media

SOcial Media Experts mumbai, SMO King India, SEO Experts, SMM Expert

6 Beginner SMO Tips for Social Media Marketers

However, I want to shift our focus to the more conventional social media networks such as Digg, Sphinn and StumbleUpon by exploring 6 solid tips to help you rake in the benefits of Social Media.

We have never really looked into SMO, except perhaps the general post that was including the in “Blog Optimization Series“, so this shall be a first in-depth post for Blogussion

Let’s get straight into :)

1. Build a network.

I’ve explored this tip in the Blog Optimization Series, but it’s a major part of making it big on social media networks. Social Media Networks are exactly as their name suggests; it’s about being SOCIAL. Which means, in order to even make your presence felt by others – you need to add an avatar (not necessarily a picture of yourself, but something memorable.), make connections with fellow Diggers or Stumblers and invite them to join your network. This one tip alone will influence the lion’s share of your success.

2. Write a List-Post.

Social Media-activists absolutely love list-posts! Just like this one. Darren Rowse from ProBlogger also covered this quite some time back, but what he said still applies today – strong as ever. It’s not only Social Media networks that love list posts, but almost anywhere in general. Just take a look at our “Popular Posts” on to the right; majority are list posts. In fact our most popular post is a list on the best lists on the blogosphere! Just goes to prove a point…

3. Write something controversial.

Just like list-posts; Diggers, Stumblers and others alike love reading about something that cause a bit of a commotion. My post on “Did Google’s FeedBurner Crash and Burn?” is probably our most controversial post on Blogussion. Being controversial, it’s something Alex and I have subconsciously avoided given our status (especially our age) in this blogosphere, but if you can pull it off correctly – there are plenty of rewards to be reaped!

4. Adjust to the readers’ needs.

Reaching your targeted audience is the key, but before you do – you must adapt to their needs. I’ve realized that writing my blog-posts here at Blogussion don’t get noticed on networks such as Digg or Sphinn because of perhaps the type or style of writing that I use. This doesn’t worry me for Blogussion, but in my experimental blogs – I’ve found that short and concise posts + image-dominant posts are the most successful on these networks.

PS: This is a debatable pointer because altering your writing techniques can bring blow a a major blow to your blog. Your readers will definitely re-act to it, so keep in mind that your current readers are your first priority.

5. Titles, Titles, everything is in the Titles!

Users on such networks such as Digg, Stumble, Sphinn and many others don’t really spend time reading every single submission. So, it’s in your best interest to convince them that your news article is worth their precious time. The only weapon you have to achieve this is to create an appealing title. It’s the first thing they see, and perhaps the last thing they see from you. Make it catchy, make it interesting – just get them to click it!

6. You must give, to receive.

Don’t expect to do all of the above and make it to the front-pages. It’s not enough because these networks are a two-way relationship. Get out there and get active! Start digging or stumbling your friend’s stories that genuinely interest you (and perhaps articles of people you don’t know either, they all count). The more you get involved in that social network’s community; the more likely you are to achieve your goals.

Social Media Optimization (or SMO) has been an area that I have been looking to explore for quite some time now. We’ve discussed about Twitter recently; both the negative side of Twitter and also 7 ways you can effectively market it.
SEO Experts Mumbai, India, Freelance Social Media Optimization, PPC

Duplicate Content Filter: What it is and how it works

Duplicate Content has become a huge topic of discussion lately, thanks to the new filters that search engines have implemented. This article will help you understand why you might be caught in the filter, and ways to avoid it. We'll also show you how you can determine if your pages have duplicate content, and what to do to fix it.

Search engine spam is any deceitful attempts to deliberately trick the search engine into returning inappropriate, redundant, or poor-quality search results. Many times this behavior is seen in pages that are exact replicas of other pages which are created to receive better results in the search engine. Many people assume that creating multiple or similar copies of the same page will either increase their chances of getting listed in search engines or help them get multiple listings, due to the presence of more keywords.

In order to make a search more relevant to a user, search engines use a filter that removes the duplicate content pages from the search results, and the spam along with it. Unfortunately, good, hardworking webmasters have fallen prey to the filters imposed by the search engines that remove duplicate content. It is those webmasters who unknowingly spam the search engines, when there are some things they can do to avoid being filtered out. In order for you to truly understand the concepts you can implement to avoid the duplicate content filter, you need to know how this filter works.

First, we must understand that the term "duplicate content penalty" is actually a misnomer. When we refer to penalties in search engine rankings, we are actually talking about points that are deducted from a page in order to come to an overall relevancy score. But in reality, duplicate content pages are not penalized. Rather they are simply filtered, the way you would use a sieve to remove unwanted particles. Sometimes, "good particles" are accidentally filtered out.

Knowing the difference between the filter and the penalty, you can now understand how a search engine determines what duplicate content is. There are basically four types of duplicate content that are filtered out:

1. Websites with Identical Pages - These pages are considered duplicate, as well as websites that are identical to another website on the Internet are also considered to be spam. Affiliate sites with the same look and feel which contain identical content, for example, are especially vulnerable to a duplicate content filter. Another example would be a website with doorway pages. Many times, these doorways are skewed versions of landing pages. However, these landing pages are identical to other landing pages. Generally, doorway pages are intended to be used to spam the search engines in order to manipulate search engine results.

2. Scraped Content - Scraped content is taking content from a web site and repackaging it to make it look different, but in essence it is nothing more than a duplicate page. With the popularity of blogs on the internet and the syndication of those blogs, scraping is becoming more of a problem for search engines.

3. E-Commerce Product Descriptions - Many eCommerce sites out there use the manufacturer's descriptions for the products, which hundreds or thousands of other eCommerce stores in the same competitive markets are using too. This duplicate content, while harder to spot, is still considered spam.

4. Distribution of Articles - If you publish an article, and it gets copied and put all over the Internet, this is good, right? Not necessarily for all the sites that feature the same article. This type of duplicate content can be tricky, because even though Yahoo and MSN determine the source of the original article and deems it most relevant in search results, other search engines like Google may not, according to some experts.

So, how does a search engine's duplicate content filter work? Essentially, when a search engine robot crawls a website, it reads the pages, and stores the information in its database. Then, it compares its findings to other information it has in its database. Depending upon a few factors, such as the overall relevancy score of a website, it then determines which are duplicate content, and then filters out the pages or the websites that qualify as spam. Unfortunately, if your pages are not spam, but have enough similar content, they may still be regarded as spam.

There are several things you can do to avoid the duplicate content filter. First, you must be able to check your pages for duplicate content. Using our Similar Page Checker, you will be able to determine similarity between two pages and make them as unique as possible. By entering the URLs of two pages, this tool will compare those pages, and point out how they are similar so that you can make them unique.

Since you need to know which sites might have copied your site or pages, you will need some help. We recommend using a tool that searches for copies of your page on the Internet: www.copyscape.com. Here, you can put in your web page URL to find replicas of your page on the Internet. This can help you create unique content, or even address the issue of someone "borrowing" your content without your permission.

Let's look at the issue regarding some search engines possibly not considering the source of the original content from distributed articles. Remember, some search engines, like Google, use link popularity to determine the most relevant results. Continue to build your link popularity, while using tools like www.copyscape.com to find how many other sites have the same article, and if allowed by the author, you may be able to alter the article as to make the content unique.

If you use distributed articles for your content, consider how relevant the article is to your overall web page and then to the site as a whole. Sometimes, simply adding your own commentary to the articles can be enough to avoid the duplicate content filter; the Similar Page Checker could help you make your content unique. Further, the more relevant articles you can add to compliment the first article, the better. Search engines look at the entire web page and its relationship to the whole site, so as long as you aren't exactly copying someone's pages, you should be fine.

If you have an eCommerce site, you should write original descriptions for your products. This can be hard to do if you have many products, but it really is necessary if you wish to avoid the duplicate content filter. Here's another example why using the Similar Page Checker is a great idea. It can tell you how you can change your descriptions so as to have unique and original content for your site. This also works well for scraped content also. Many scraped content sites offer news. With the Similar Page Checker, you can easily determine where the news content is similar, and then change it to make it unique.

Do not rely on an affiliate site which is identical to other sites or create identical doorway pages. These types of behaviors are not only filtered out immediately as spam, but there is generally no comparison of the page to the site as a whole if another site or page is found as duplicate, and get your entire site in trouble.

The duplicate content filter is sometimes hard on sites that don't intend to spam the search engines. But it is ultimately up to you to help the search engines determine that your site is as unique as possible. By using the tools in this article to eliminate as much duplicate content as you can, you'll help keep your site original and fresh.
SEO Experts in Mumbai, SEO Guy, SMO Experts in Mumbai- India, SMO King in India

32 Ways to Use Facebook for Business Marketing

Facebook’s not just for keeping tabs on friends and filling out quizzes — it can also be used as a highly effective business tool. It’s great for marketing your products, landing gigs and connecting with your customers.

32 ways to use Facebook in your business.

Manage Your Profile

  1. Fill out your profile completely to earn trust.
  2. Establish a business account if you don’t already have one.
  3. Stay out of trouble by reading the Facebook rules regarding business accounts.
  4. Install appropriate applications to integrate feeds from your blog and other social media accounts into your Facebook profile. (Although you should be careful before integrating your Twitter feed into your Faceboook profile, as a stream of tweets can seem overwhelming to your contacts.)
  5. Keep any personal parts of your profile private through Settings.
  6. Create friends lists such as “Work,” “Family” and “Limited Profile” for finer-grained control over your profile privacy.
  7. Post a professional or business casual photos of yourself to reinforce your brand.
  8. Limit business contacts’ access to personal photos.
  9. Post your newsletter subscription information and archives somewhere in your profile.

Connect and share with others

  1. Obtain a Facebook vanity URL so that people can find you easily.
  2. Add your Facebok URL to your email signature and any marketing collateral (business cards, etc.) so prospects can learn more about you.
  3. Post business updates on your wall. Focus on business activities, such as “Working with ABC Company on web site redesign.”
  4. Share useful articles and links to presentation and valuable resources that interest customers and prospects on your wall, to establish credibility.
  5. Combine Facebook with other social media tools like Twitter. For example, when someone asks question on Twitter, you can respond in detail in a blog post and link to it from Facebook.
  6. Before traveling, check contacts locations so you can meet with those in the city where you’re heading.
  7. Research prospects before meeting or contacting them.
  8. Upload your contacts from your email client to find more connections.
  9. Use Find Friends for suggestions of other people you may know to expand your network even further.
  10. Look for mutual contacts on your contacts’ friends lists.
  11. Find experts in your field and invite them as a guest blogger on your blog or speaker at your event.
  12. Market your products by posting discounts and package deals.
  13. Share survey or research data to gain credibility.
  14. Use Facebook Connect to add social networking features to your web site.
  15. Suggest Friends to clients and colleagues — by helping them, you establish trust.
  16. Buy Facebook ads to target your exact audience.
  17. Read up on Facebook Beacon to see if it might be useful for you.

Use Network, Group and Fan Pages

  1. Start a group or fan page for product, brand or business. Unless you or your business is already a household name, a group is usually the better choice.
  2. Add basic information to the group or fan page such as links to company site, newsletter subscription information and newsletter archives.
  3. Post upcoming events including webinars, conferences and other programs where you or someone from your company will be present.
  4. Update your group or fan page on a regular basis with helpful information and answers to questions.
  5. Join network, industry and alumni groups related to your business.
  6. Use search to find groups and fan pages related to your business by industry, location and career.