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Hey guys,
Just wondering if anyone has used/tested Akamai's new 'Edge Redirector' cloudlet?http://www.akamai.com/html/technology/edge-redirector.html
It seems like it would be a better/faster option than redirects at the server level via htaccess.. thoughts?
Thanks!,
Woj
Hi Carla - Thanks for doing that! I agree, their site is not very SEO friendly. Their big mistake is running the whole site (essentially) from one page. Which mean that every page is duplicate or a duplicate subset of the main set.
We looked at only incorporating a handful of elements from the site (well really only the URL switching as you scroll down & ensuring we have unique content).
For example, we have a parallax /features page which has an overview then each feature as you scroll. If you go direct to /features you get the overview only. If you go direct to /features/feature-1 then you only get info about that feature.
We're playing around with a few of the technologies that site uses & will run some experiments. Fun!
Hi Carla - thanks for your response. I guess, my main question is related to the specific technique they used in the Flower Beauty site example. Is it ok to dynamically change the URL as you scroll? If you view the source of each URL you get unique meta data... it's a cool technique if it's ok with the SEs, which so far appears to be the case.
A client of mine is redesigning their site using a vertical Parallax & upon doing some research I've stumbled across Drew Barrymore's site: http://flowerbeauty.com/ - which also uses Parallax.
What I like in particular is that the site changes URLs as you scroll down. If you go direct to one of those URLs you'll notice unique meta data (albeit poorly optimised). All pages are indexed fine in Google (https://www.google.com/#bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&fp=f8873f78dfbb8c5e&q=site:flowerbeauty.com)
I'm just wondering if this is considered ok as the user experience is good and they're not doing anything manipulative, however, there's duplicate content and a potential case of cloaking at hand.
I think this approach may be ok for my client for a product features page or a global office locations page since I can break up the sections nicely and split a really long page featuring a lot of content into separate URLs. Whereas Flower Beauty have done it across the whole site... i.e. one page of HTML = the whole site.
What do you guys think?
That looks like a very useful plugin Keri 
Yes & you can also run the site via a Content Distribution Network (CDN) like Akamai that distributes the site content via a server located near the user.
For example, a user from Miami would get your website content delivered to their browser from a server in Miami rather than from your host in Canada - but like I mentioned, budget could be a restraint - this is taking it to the next level 
CDNs can be quite good too as they deliver content quicker from a machine closer to the request (if budget permits)
Agree with Egol & John - also, create unique & interesting content for each of the location pages
Sure, here's the mod_rewrite guide straight from the horse's mouth
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/misc/rewriteguide.html
Here's a nice beginner's guide:
http://www.addedbytes.com/for-beginners/url-rewriting-for-beginners/
...with a little cheatsheet for some of the common commands:
http://www.cheatography.com/davechild/cheat-sheets/mod-rewrite/
Redirect the old URLs to similar themed pages or home page to preserve some of the link equity. Think about a user's experience also if they clicked one of the links from those sources.. better to serve them something if it's in your control to keep them happy
You could create a structure like this:
This is just one approach but it depends on your site structure. One constant remains, however... create unique & compelling content
Ryan is absolutely spot on.. you can create some redirection rules in the .htaccess (assuming the site's on apache)
something along the lines of..
RewriteRule ^([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})/([0-9]{2})/(.*)$ /$4 [R=301,NC,L]
RewriteRule ^category/(.*)$ /$1 [R=301,NC,L]
(of course if totally depends on your site structure & I'd test these on a staging server if possible)
Define your business objectives first - this should be based on some sort of conversion on the site rather than total traffic numbers. Then look for ways to get targetted traffic.
That canonical is fine - they're essentially saying that all those pages are the same content - applies to all "Sort By" filters too - better to have the 2 URLs consolidated into one in the SERPs
.. btw, what's with all the whitespace characters in the source code? :S
Also, if you have none present, Google will make up it's own based on what's on the page - sometime not always the right context - if you include your own, you're more likely to have control of what's displayed.
Agree with Anthony - a unique meta description should be present on each page. Won't help with rankings but will help with click-through-rates
Go for quality & diversity Consider what sort of links will last the test of time & also create kick-ass content that will attract natural links
I noticed you have a lot less internal links - what is the anchor text distribution of these and what % are from body content as opposed to nav/footer/sidebar links? Compare against competition - this can sometimes be an overlooked factor
Check out Google's latest "handling" of pagination using rel=canonical, rel=next + rel=prev
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njn8uXTWiGg
You can now:
Page 1:
Page 2:
Page 3:
Page 4 (say last page):
Another option is to have a "view all" page which lists all products & you can point a canonical to that page from all pages within the set
Hope that helps
Hi Jason,
Unfortunately the campaign link doesn't work but typically the duplicate content issues in Magento will arise around category (when refining search criteria) & product pages (when selecting different options - collar size, shirt material, color etc).
For example, all these URLs contain the same Title & Meta Description but essentially display the same textual content:
A canonical tag will help attribute a single URL as the content originator
Other options could be to control the refining via JQuery or nofollow those links. It all depends on more thorough investigation of course
Hi Sha - I think you meant Serge not Woj
But yes, good pick up - I omitted that detail in my hasty reply
301 - try this (in it's simplest form):
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.yoursite.com/$1 [R,L]
301 = permanent redirection
302 = temporary redirection
If the change is permanent then 301
The htaccess rewrite looks fine
Thanks, this is what I was originally leaning towards:
I agree - so basically best recommendation would be to roll-out the change everywhere? Places, Youtube, LinkedIn, Twitter profiles etc etc
What about using some microdata (http://schema.org/Corporation) - could that help?
A company who spells their name in all lower case, uses their name spelled exactly this way in titles & meta descriptions & throughout all of their site's content pages - will it affect rankings (particularly since the company name isn't a recognised word)?
For example, let's say the company is called "twintrest"
Which <title>would be better:</p> <ul> <li><span style="background-color: initial;">A) </span><span style="background-color: initial;">Twintrest - It's Like a Twitter & Pinterest Cocktail or</span></li> <li><span style="background-color: initial;">B) twintrest - It's Like a Twitter & Pinterest Cocktail</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="background-color: initial;">I am leaning towards "A" because the crawler would recognise "Twintrest" at least as a noun, where as in B it could be misconstrued as a spelling mistake.</span></p> <p>Also, in content it would need to be italicised right? <span style="background-color: initial;">So both these would be ok:</span></p> <ul> <li><span style="background-color: initial;">You should use Twintrest because it rocks. or</span></li> <li><span style="background-color: initial;">You should use </span><em style="background-color: initial;">twintrest </em><span style="background-color: initial;">because it rocks.</span></li> </ul> <p>But not:</p> <ul> <li><span style="background-color: initial;">You should use twintrest because it rocks</span><span style="background-color: initial;">.</span></li> </ul> <p>Is it worth pointing out?</p> <p>I've noticed that jcpenny spell their name in lowercase and use this format in their meta tags, however, they are a well established brand. Is there any evidence to suggest that lowercase may even be advantageous since a lot of searches are carried out in lowercase?</p></title>
The key is to make the meta descriptions unique - if they are not important then the rule which grabs the first sentance would work fine (as you suggest).
Another rule (so it reads better) is to limit it to say, 135 chars, have some smarts in place to ensure you don't end the sentance mid word & then append the end with "... Read more here" or something relevant to your site.
So the template could look like:
"<first 135="" chars="" of="" first sentence not="" ending="" mid-word="">... Read more here."
(even if it does end mid word it would be better than having duplicated descs since the pages aren't important) </first>
hope that helps!
Is there a way you can separate the videos onto unique pages with some text (e.g. transcript) accompanying each vid?
This way you may be able to also keep the one featuring them all.
It's just saying to Google that the page it's on is the originator of the content
Yes, after you run the initial report there's an option to "Run Full Report" in the "Ranking Analysis for: " box where you can enter your own URL and get more detailed metrics
Do you have multiple SEO plugins running? Maybe the template has canonical settings out the box?
See lines 65 & 82on the home page.. there are 2.. I'm leaning towards template if I had to guess
and = & (much of a muchness really)
I'd go with "&" i the directories if that's what's in the logo so consumers get familiar / see consistency with the brand - also it's shorter
Agree with Vahe. Also, warnings are not necessarily errors but meant to raise flags for you to check the site to see if everything is meant to be there.
An incorrect rollout of canonicals (e.g. if every page on your site has the home page as the canonical) can result in a lot of pages being removed out of the index.
Regarding the 301s, check all pages for links to other internal pages & look at any links that have a trailing slash at the end and change to remove the trailing slash, e.g. these are 2 different URLs:
Yet "/category/planning-events/" 301s to "/category/planning-events"
The non www version 301s to the www version too.. so check if there are any internal links to:
and change to:
The "&" character is typically reserved for the querystring portion of the URL
I'd avoid using "and" or "&" in url's except for in the TLD if it's critical for the brand
Also, another tip.. if you use "and", make sure it doesn't get confused with the surrounding words, e.g.
(sorry, no real-word example came mind lol - except for the old expertsexchange.com URL)
I wouldn't.. private link networks are becoming more public by the day as Google improves their algo...
Rethink your strategy & look at social media & other types of link building (e.g. create some compelling content)
I would be curious to see some answers on optimising for baidu (apart from needing to learn Chinese!)
I assume most of the principles would be the same:
There should be a unique heading on each page to give crawlers a good start on determining the topical relevancy of the page.
Heading tags should only be used as headings (think about how you would layout a document or thesis.. you would structure the text ordered with
In this case, it looks like there is a unique
As a traffic source there has been some recent news suggesting that it has contributed to an increase in sales in the retail sector - if you're in the retail category then I think it's definitely worth including in your overall online strategy (particularly if you're based in the US)
Here are some related articles:
Hope that helps!
I see you have canonicals in place Gotta love Magento
I'd suggest to rebuild the site using HTML5 & some JS for effects & font rendering - currently there is only 1 URL for the entire site but there is a whole lot of content that could be created into pages (separate page per model with bio & links to their Google+ accounts etc).
Following on from Andy's ideas around social - you really need to leverage from social media sharing buttons on each model page.. I'm sure you'll be able to get their mums & wives liking the pages
Is it possible, at all, to install Wordpress on the server at all under a subfolder, e.g.: mysite.com/blog ?
I've taken over a site before that had CMSMS running and Word Press - the main site was running at the root level & wordpress was installed to run under the sub folder.. there are ways to make the 2 systems (and others) talk to each other
The sub folder approach would ensure that all domain equity is preserved and the developer should be able to incorporate a "widget" on the home page that displays a few links to the most recent headlines.. if not then maybe they should learn how to code
Agree with the music user experience too (at least offer an option to turn the sound off - as is offered inside the site) - I recently got married & that Christina Perri song was part of the ceremony so it didn't bother me as much but it could be a potential reason for some bounces, as Ryan mentioned.
Expansion on Facebook & other social channels could be very good & low cost mediums for you to gain an audience. Start with your existing clients and leverage from their friends & family. Tag the models too (they can always be removed if unwanted)
And yes... stunning photos - you're very talented!