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Thanks for the feedback!  And definitely let us know if you do the cross-domain canonical.

GoDaddy's cheap accounts are hosted on Windows, and you have no access to the server to do 301 redirects, etc.  There's also some kind of caching so changes might not "take" immediately.  Overall it's a real pain, and not Wordpress-friendly at all.

I agree with these guys that the link structure is what matters.  Some of my sites have pages 3 levels deep, but direct links from the top of the home page so they get plenty of link juice from that.

A good reason for a flat architecture is simply to have a short, sweet URL that's easy to remember and share.

It might also just be a byproduct of the CMS that they're using, where product or article pages are given top-level URLs, and category pages are just interstitial pages of links.  One advantage of this is being able to re-categorize -- create new category pages and retire ones that aren't paying off -- without having to move/redirect the actual product pages.  I do this a lot, for both article and product sites.

Kevin and Eric,

Performance issues aside, I prefer the simplest URL structure:

http://sitename/postname

Unless you really need advanced categorization, siloing, etc., bringing your content up one level and having shorter URLs is always better, IMO.

After seeing the Whiteboard Friday about cross-domain canonical, I got to thinking about how do this with Blogger.  Not being too familiar with Blogger templates, or how much control you really get, I started Googling around.  I found this:

• http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Search-Engine-Optimization-Help/Move-a-Blogspot-Blog-to-Another-Host-using-Link-Rel-Canonical-Tags/

• http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Search-Engine-Optimization-Help/Finish-Moving-Your-Blogspot-Blog-to-Another-Host-with-Link-Rel-Canonical-Tags/4/

Basically, put a script into your Blogger template, with a link rel canonical for each page you want to redirect.

It looks good to me, but I haven't tested it so I can't be sure.

I agree with Egol all the way.  However I'm less concerned about Google abandoning Blogspot than wanting to move to another platform, and being able to re-create and redirect all my pages, links, and rank.  With your own domain you can do this, but as a subdomain on blogspot.com it might not be possible.

Redirecting blogspot.com sites came up in another thread recently.

I use Bluehost a lot.  They're a great value for a basic (shared) hosting package, with good support.  No complaints.

I'll second what EGOL says if you have more than a few thousand users per day.  In that case you'd probably want to go to a CDN.

I agree with all of this, however I have yet to deal with a site that would benefit more from self-hosting than having a presence on YouTube, Vimeo, etc.  In fact I've convinced clients to move their videos off their own sites, with good results.  This may not be right for everyone, but for the majority it seems to be.

As far as direct SEO benefit goes, if your videos are optimized well they can show up directly  on the SERPs.  They're more likely to get the traffic and links they need for this on YouTube, etc.

Clement, those are all good points.

Probably the second scenario but this assumes a simple site built around that keyword.  If it's ranking well for that keyword because the domain is strong from other factors, then it's more complicated.

All good advice.  No difference between pages and posts.  It's all about how they're linked to.

For #1, if your pages are linked to in the nav bar, from every page on your site, that would explain them ranking higher than posts that aren't as well linked-to.

If you're relying on category links, your posts will be 3 levels down, at http://yoursite/category/yourcategory/yourpost.  You can improve this with a plugin or some code to strip out the /category base, to get http://yoursite/yourcategory/yourpost -- but that's still 2 levels down.  Best to link directly to important posts -- from the home page, or a well-targeted page, as in #2.

Thesis has a sidebar widget to show the latest posts from a category.  These are direct links.  If the widget doesn't fit your design, you can do it with a line or two of PHP.

If you want to link from a targeted page, as in #2, Thesis has a field to add text/html to a category page, turning it into a regular page with a list of posts.  But you'll still have that pesky /category base, unless you strip it out with a plugin or some code.

You can also add posts or a category page directly to the Thesis nav bar, which lets you link to whatever you want.

Unless there's a compelling reason not to, always set your Wordpress permalink structure to just %postname%

I agree with all of this, however I have yet to deal with a site that would benefit more from self-hosting than having a presence on YouTube, Vimeo, etc.  In fact I've convinced clients to move their videos off their own sites, with good results.  This may not be right for everyone, but for the majority it seems to be.

As far as direct SEO benefit goes, if your videos are optimized well they can show up directly  on the SERPs.  They're more likely to get the traffic and links they need for this on YouTube, etc.

I agree with these guys that the link structure is what matters.  Some of my sites have pages 3 levels deep, but direct links from the top of the home page so they get plenty of link juice from that.

A good reason for a flat architecture is simply to have a short, sweet URL that's easy to remember and share.

It might also just be a byproduct of the CMS that they're using, where product or article pages are given top-level URLs, and category pages are just interstitial pages of links.  One advantage of this is being able to re-categorize -- create new category pages and retire ones that aren't paying off -- without having to move/redirect the actual product pages.  I do this a lot, for both article and product sites.

Has anyone tested social media buttons, to see which types, styles, and placements get the most clicks?  Should they go at the top of an article, or are they OK at the bottom?  Should the icons definitely have labels?  Display # of tweets and Likes?  How big should they be?

My preference is for discrete buttons with a smallish, plain icon and a label.  I don't display tweets or Likes, unless it's a healthy number.  And I still think a "share by email" icon is important.  I put them at the bottom of the article, to keep the home page uncluttered and lead the eye into reading the article.  I'm also concerned about leaking rank from the homepage, especially for a site that's still establishing itself.  But if moving buttons to the top gets more shares, that's probably better.

Is there a Wordpress plugin that you really like?  (I haven't found one yet - I'm still hardcoding my social media buttons.)

Opinions are great, but test results are better!  Can anyone share?

After seeing the Whiteboard Friday about cross-domain canonical, I got to thinking about how do this with Blogger.  Not being too familiar with Blogger templates, or how much control you really get, I started Googling around.  I found this:

• http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Search-Engine-Optimization-Help/Move-a-Blogspot-Blog-to-Another-Host-using-Link-Rel-Canonical-Tags/

• http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Search-Engine-Optimization-Help/Finish-Moving-Your-Blogspot-Blog-to-Another-Host-with-Link-Rel-Canonical-Tags/4/

Basically, put a script into your Blogger template, with a link rel canonical for each page you want to redirect.

It looks good to me, but I haven't tested it so I can't be sure.