May 16
Ηave уou еver browsed ѕome of thе profiles on LinkedIn аnd realised уou аre looking аt a potential gold mіne? Τhink of аll thoѕe professionals, СEO’s, ѕales people аnd аll othеr members. Ιf onlу уou ϲould tаp іnto thеir wallet аnd mіlk thеm drу, rіch bastards.
Ιf уou аre really interested іn learning how to mаke monеy uѕing LinkedIn rеad on.
LinkedIn іsnt аn еasy market but thеre аgain уou ϲould trу whаt ѕome moron suggested:
Wrіte аn еbook аbout “Ηow to mаke monеy uѕing LinkedIn” аnd ѕtart to ѕell іt hеre (on LinkedIn).
Ιf уou еven consider іt thеn уou аre thіck аs two planks, іn mу opinion anyway. Νo but seriously, іf уou really wаnt to mаke monеy аnd hаve pondered аll thе аbove thеn I wіll suggest thіs ѕite……ϳust for уou.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:06 am
For the past number of months (I’ve lost count) I have taken a back seat with anything related to publishing websites. Although I have been following hundreds of RSS feeds and reading my daily forums I haven’t been doing much with my own sites, including this blog. I can’t say that I have lost interest in the web industry or its community but I have been concentrating efforts with my ‘offline career’ in IT simply because I still have a passion for it. Nothing like troubleshooting things on the fly.
As part of my web catch up I’ve decided to link out to posts that have caught my eye, similar to Damien Mulley’s fluffy links series. I had to give mine a different name though and thought up, better late than never links.
First I need to say thanks to Blacknight for sponsoring the last Irish Webmaster meet up. It was great meeting some of the crazy webmasters out there such as Michael Wall (self proclaimed painter & decorator), Jason Roe who actually believed Michael was a painter & decorator and caffeine addict James of I accept cookies and Forbairt Media. It was also great to see James Farrell get some 1-1 advice from Loiue of Eire Web design about a Google ranking issue. Did you ever solve that issue James?
I also had a quick chat with Richard Hearne (Red Cardinal) about his interests in user Experience and testing. As always Richard provides brilliant advice which you can read in his post providing 5 simple user experience steps for VHI.ie I have to admit that I’ve learned a lot from that post.
Cormac Moylan’s announcement that Omniserve has a competitor for their Google Rapid Inclusion Tool caught my eye. I’ve been following Omniserve’s claims on how they get their clients into Google with particular interest so I wasn’t surprised to see someone launch FluffyLinkulator. If I can get the time I’ll probably do a full post on Omniserve’s Google Rapid Inclusion Tool and better ways on how to get a new site into search engines.
Hopefully I can rustle up another better late than never links post sometime this week. Pointless me promising a weekly occurrence at this stage.
June 4th, 2009 at 5:06 am
Another meet-up of webmasters in Ireland has been arranged by members of the Irish Webmaster Forums. These meetings are great opportunities to meet other online professionals and talk some shop, over a few pints of course.
So if you are in Dublin on August 9th and have some free time in the evening come along and enjoy the night.
When: August 9th 2008
Where: Harbour Master in Dublin
Time: Arrivals from 7pm onwards
Some of the webmasters that have confirmed they will be attending are:
Richard Hearne
Michael Wall
James Larkin
louie
garycocs
David Behan
Leo Fogarty
Michael Flanagan
Cormac Moylan (to confirm)
Dave Davis
Gavin Doolan
Michael Morris
Like previous webmaster meetings in Dublin this list will grow, keep an eye on the official thread for more attendees. I have yet to confirm if I can attend.
June 4th, 2009 at 8:06 am
Just a quick post on Dave’s brilliant interview with Aaron Wall of SEO Book who is one of the most respected consultants in the SEO industry.
I’ve learned a lot about search engines and optimisation from Aaron so it’s great to see a local Irish search marketing consultant get the opportunity to interview Aarron about the SEO industry and provide a great insight from one professional to another.
See the Redfly Marketing interview with Aaron Wall of SEO Book
June 5th, 2009 at 1:06 am
Barcamp Belfast is fast approaching (21st June) and I’m in two minds if I should attend or not. I should be in the North that weekend but I don’t fancy having to travel an overall 12 hours in one weekend and not even leave the country, flying to New York and back would take less time.
There are a few names on the guest list that I wouldn’t mind meeting up with for a small chat and certain powers above me are pushing that I volunteer to speak about Disaster Recovery & Protection.
If I am heading to Belfast you’d probably find me hanging around Michael Kitchen & Danielle McDougall of Aventure Web Host as I’ve few things to pick their brains about but also to try and grab the Micro server they are giving away for free I’ve been to their offices in Belfast on more than one occasion and they have always treated me to a really nice lunch. I’ll not go into all the help they have given me in the past but I will say they do what they do extremely well. It’s just a pity the boss man would prefer to sit at home and watch cartoons than to go out and meet up with some interesting people, like me.
I’ve also spied that Michael Wall from Codefixer Software will be attending and although I have never actually met him before we have previously exchanged emails on various subjects. Michael seems to be a sound bloke with a skill for coding so I’m sure it would be good to meet him face to face.
Anyone else that I should be keeping an eye out for?
June 5th, 2009 at 1:06 am
Have you ever browsed some of the profiles on LinkedIn and realised you are looking at a potential gold mine? Think of all those professionals, CEO’s, sales people and all other members. If only you could tap into their wallet and milk them dry, rich bastards.
If you are really interested in learning how to make money using LinkedIn read on.
LinkedIn isnt an easy market but there again you could try what some moron suggested:
Write an ebook about “How to make money using LinkedIn” and start to sell it here (on LinkedIn).
If you even consider it then you are thick as two planks, in my opinion anyway. No but seriously, if you really want to make money and have pondered all the above then I will suggest this site……just for you.
June 5th, 2009 at 2:06 am
If you are someone who likes playing around with tools then you’ll appreciate the good list of keyword tools provided by webdistortion.com under 10+ SEO keyword tools you cant live without.
For me these type of tools come well into play before even starting a new site, they provide a better idea on what words we should be covering within a site.
June 6th, 2009 at 1:06 am
Chitika has just announced a CPC store for your parked domains which allows us make better use of any domains that we might have gathering dust.
I like the looks of the CPC store and how easy it would be to ‘bounce’ visitors onto the products getting paid for the clicks. It’s a very clean design and has very little clutter making it easier to see exactly what is being presented.
The store itself is extremely easy to setup, a few clicks and it’s done. After the store is created change the domain’s nameservers to reflect the ones that Chitika supply.
I’m sure this new service is going to open a few windows of opportunity so it’s probably worth throwing some time at it. I’ve been using Chitika’s services for 2 years now and it’s not bad, excellent for those with a technology site or blog.
If you are not a Chitika member already you can signup here, recommended if you have dormant domains or a tech site.
June 6th, 2009 at 1:06 am
If it hadn’t been for my psycho dentist and an operation to fix the aftermath of a tooth extraction I would have made this post sooner. I would have used St Patrick’s Day as an excuse but I don’t take holidays and I know I’m not alone on that one.
On the subject of checking for broken links and deleting bad web pages I just want to give short coverage on putting your 404 Not Found page to good use.
Too many people forget that a 404 page is just as important as any other page on a website, why is it important? Simply because visitors still hit your 404 page so it’s better to serve them something useful rather than letting them hit a brick wall on your site.
The above screen shot is a typical example of a piss poor 404 Error page on a MS IIS Server. Believe it or not this screen shot is taken from a so called expert on-line marketing company based here in Ireland, tut tut Continuum.
Keep It Simple
If you search online for 404 Error pages (or something similar) you’ll find lots of advice on the best methods to use in serving a 404 error page. Probably the best advice is to keep it simple.
Tell the visitor the page is no longer available, give them the option to contact you but also direct them to either your homepage or sitemap and even have a search box for them to use. That seems to be the most popular advice that can be found on the web.
A 404 Error page can also be used to earn extra revenue but I’ll come back to that another day.
June 6th, 2009 at 2:06 am
If you haven’t figured it out yet this is a serious of posts continuing from where I left off back in November, after deleting over 140 blog posts.
With that being said, how do you delete your web pages or blog posts?
I’m a firm believer that simply deleting or removing web pages isn’t as simple as deleting it from the web server and walking away. A few minor adjustments need to be made, so that everyone & bots know exactly what has happened to the content.
One way of letting the search bots know what we’ve done with certain content is by making use of HTTP Status Codes such as:
200 OK
301 Moved Permanently
302 Found
304 Not Modified
307 Temporary Redirect
400 Bad Request
401 Unauthorized
403 Forbidden
404 Not Found
410 Gone
500 Internal Server Error
501 Not Implemented
People use all sorts of whacky configurations when a web page is deleted from the server but the correct status code to serve would be the 410 Gone error. This is debatable and not widely practised (more on this later).
Never use 301 Moved Permanently On Deleted Pages Or Error Pages
Its very common practice out there for people to redirect their error pages back into their home page, bad idea and here’s why:
Its misuse of the HTTP status codes
Telling bots content has moved when it actually hasn’t (confusing them?)
Confused bots can do horrible things
It could confuse people on why the page they requested has redirected back to the home page
OK so some over exaggeration there but hopefully you get my point on why it could be a bad idea using a 301 redirect on an error page.
Make Sure Not To Serve 200 OK Status Code For Deleted Content
As the status code says, 200 OK. This is the code for content being found on the web server. One common mistake is people failing to configure their error pages correctly so when a deleted page is requested and the error page is served it comes back with a 200 OK, this confirms the content is still there when its not. One way to check this is to use a tool such as HTTP Status Codes Checker and see what your error page displays by entering a false URL on your domain. There is plenty of information on-line regarding this issue, I particularly like this GSitecralwers article.
The 410 Gone Status Code
The requested resource is no longer available at the server and no forwarding address is known.
The 404 Not Found Status Code
The server has not found anything matching the Request-URI. No indication is given of whether the condition is temporary or permanent.
As you clearly see the above explains the exact difference between a 404 error & a 410, so why are most people using a 404 status code on a URL that has been deleted forever? Ah Shite, why am I even doing it?
Google Engineer Matt Cutts states:
So many webmasters misuse 404 vs. 410 that I don’t expect we’ll distinguish between them any time soon.
Right now I’m staring at 16 URL’s serving the 404 (Not found) status code. These are remainders of the blog posts that I had deleted late last year. The last recent date Google requested these URL’s is Feb 21, 2008 so they are still coming back looking for them, exactly how they should considering I haven’t indicated if it was a temporary or permanent deletion.
So will a 410 Error code stop Google from requesting those URL’s? I know I can use Google Webmaster Tools to remove URL’s from Google’s database but I’m more interested in the 410 Gone method for now and from Matt’s comment and other comments there are not going to be treated differently.
Mark Pilgrim gives a brilliant guide and interesting discussion on HTTP Error 410: Gone, even if it is a 5 year old blog post.
I’ve been looking at few sites seeing how people use the status codes and what information they provide for non-existent URL’s. It’s interesting to see how people pay very little attention to their own error pages which will lead me onto a follow up post on putting your error pages to good use, more specifically a 404 Not Found page. Take a look at mine, its very boring.
I know this is a very old topic but its something that has been sparking my interest since I’ve deleted my previous blog.
June 7th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
How often do you check for broken links within your website? If you don’t check for them then I think you are mad and why would I think that?
Most, if not all, sites/blogs require maintenance checks and this would include checking for broken links. Some people check them at different intervals but if my site or blog is constantly changing I prefer to run spot checks quite regularly, at least once or twice a month.
You can use a free tool such as Link Sleuth that can quickly scan web pages and come back with a status code report on the links. You can find a list of status code definitions that may appear on the report here.
Why bother checking for broken links?
When (not if) a broken link appears on your site or blog it effects 3 things, your visitors, the page/site you are linking to and the search engine bots.
The Visitor
We’ve all been there before. We run a search, found related content, read the content, and clicked a link within the page but only to find a dead URL that leaves us in a state of disappointment. It’s actually a personal hate of mine, clicking on a broken link that is, and I’m sure many other internet users hate it also. Having broken links on our sites isn’t visitor friendly so it’s the most important factor why we should be checking for them regularly.
The Page Or Site Being Linked
Links are the glue of the internet, without them most pages wouldn’t be found on the internet. If we have broken links on our sites we are not helping other pages & sites be more easily found so again, it’s important to check.
The Search Bots
When search engines bots crawl the web they use links to hop from one page to other or from one site to another, as I said links are on-line glue. It’s not being search engine friendly when links are broken and the bots are unable to continue the path you’ve laid out on your site. Having broken links on a page may or may not (assuming here) affect the search engine rankings for that page but they would certainly lower the quality score in regards to both visitors (again) and search engines.
If you haven’t done so already download Link Sleuth and run it. It’s very simple to use and yet very effective for finding broken links. The bigger your site or blog is the longer the crawl will take, be patient.