Up until this point, I have shared 125 available domain names from my list of 300+ that are excellent candidates to be used by local small businesses. See names 1-25, 26-50, 51-75, 76-100, and 100-125. This list covers numbers 126-150.

If your small business is new to the local web, welcome.  You should know there are tons of good options out there for registering a .com, usually for around $7/yr, and countless places willing to host your website – ad free – starting around $4/month.  (Read: Don’t be suckered into high prices.)

If you have questions about registering a domain at the lowest cost, or setting one up for e-mail, Mktg Dept and a handful of other local webbies are always willing to meet over a cup of Wichita coffee.

Disclaimer: Please do not register a Wichita domain name only to attempt to resell it. My studies show that most people in Wichita are NOT willing to pay extra for a name that is already taken.

© That Smith, 2009. | Permalink | One comment
Post tags: Available Domain Names, internet marketing, keyword optimization, SEO, small business, wichita

I was recently reminded of the lists and someone asked that I share more, so here are Available Wichita Domains 101 – 125.

I ask that you only register one if you plan to use it.  Buying one in hopes of making a profit will just waste your time, because people in Wichita will not pay for a name that’s taken.  If you have questions about registering a domain at the lowest cost, or setting one up for e-mail, Mktg Dept is always willing to help.

If you find this list helpful, be sure to check available Wichita domains 1-25, 26-50, 51-75, and 76-100 for more.

Let me know if you are looking for a particular domain name for Wichita, because I have a list of soon to be available names, and a few for sale as well.

© That Smith, 2009. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: Available Domain Names, internet marketing, keyword optimization, SEO, small business, wichita

This tutorial will teach you how to track visitors using simple PHP. If combined with JavaScript as done with Open Analytics or an e-commerce platform as done on Drop Cart, you can track a whole lot more.

Step 1: Figure out what you want to track

[ ] IP Address
[ ] City & State
[ ] Web Browser
[ ] Operating System
[ ] JavaScript Capabilities
[ ] Cookie Capabilities
[ ] Page Visited
[ ] …

Step 2: Figure out what your server can handle

[ ] GD/GD2
[ ] MySql
[ ] SQLite
[ ] Browscap

If you have GD installed:

$im=imagecreatetruecolor(1,1);imagecolortransparent($im,imagecolorallocate($im,0,0,0));header(‘Content-type: image/png’);imagepng($im);imagedestroy($im);

Otherwise:

header(‘Content-type: image/png’);echo gzinflate(base64_decode(’6wzwc+flkuJiYGDg9fRwCQLSjCDMwQQkJ5QH3wNSbCVBfs
EMYJC3jH0ikOLxdHEMqZiTnJCQAOSxMDB+E7cIBcl7uvq5rHNKaAIA’));

Step 3: Do the tracking

This part’s up to you. Decide how you want to save or send the data you track (MySQL,SQLite,E-Mail,Text Message) and do it.

Here’s an example of how you might track e-mail receipts using a hidden image:

This method uses SQLite3 and PDO so they will have to be enabled in php.ini

The .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

RewriteRule ^([A-z0-9]{6})\.png$ /tracker.php?id=$1 [L]

The database:

CREATE TABLE “hits” (“id” TEXT, “ip” TEXT, “page” TEXT, “timestamp” INTEGER)

The PHP file:

<?php
header(‘Content-type: image/png’);echo gzinflate(base64_decode(’6wzwc+flkuJiYGDg9fRwCQLSjCDMwQQkJ5QH3wNSbCVBfs
EMYJC3jH0ikOLxdHEMqZiTnJCQAOSxMDB+E7cIBcl7uvq5rHNKaAIA’));
$db=new PDO(‘sqlite:’.dirname(dirname(__FILE__)).’/openanalytics.sqlite’);
$db->prepare(“INSERT INTO hits (id,ip,page,timestamp) VALUES (?,?,?,?)”)->execute(array($_GET['id'],$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'],
$_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'],time()));
?>

The e-mail:

Hi Mom!
<img src=”http://openanalytics.org/AbCd56.png” alt=”Open Analytics” height=”1″ width=”1″ />

And there you have it.  A simple application that will tell you every time your mom opens your message.  Whenever you want to track a new message just make up a new 6 character filename and use the code again.

© That Smith, 2008. | Permalink | 5 comments
Post tags: Analytics, hidden images, open source, open source analytics, PHP, SQLite, tracking

Many of the tips are already well known, and can be found in one form or another on copy-and-paste-job blogs, but I am going to go a step further and explain why each tip is important, and what would happen to your blog if you don’t follow it.

The common themes among today’s tips are the incorporation of keywords and stopping duplicate content.

1) Allow Search Engines

Allowing search engines into your blog is a no-brainer, but many people who are just starting with WordPress forget about this traffic blocker. This is typically set when you install WordPress:

And can be changed in the Privacy section of your WordPress settings:

If you do not allow them your site will not be listed in search engines.

2) Customize Permalinks

Permalinks is another word for the URL of your blog post. When you first set up WordPress these show up in the form of:

http://thatsmith.com/?p=582

Which doesn’t tell visitors much about the post. If you just installed WordPress, the second thing you should do is go to Permalinks under WordPress settings and change the structure of the permalinks to something friendlier:

This will give you addresses in the form of

http://thatsmith.com/2008/11/wordpress-seo-tips/

Which is better on the eye, includes keywords, and tells the visitor and potential visitor what the post is about. Not changing the structure of your permalinks won’t hurt you any (unless you follow tip #4), but it will not help your chances of increasing traffic either.

3) Optimize your page titles

The third thing you should do is edit your theme to optimize your page titles. The default theme always places the title of your blog first, which is ok if you only care about ranking well for your blog name, but does nothing to help you rank for other terms.

<title><?php bloginfo(‘name’); ?> <?php if ( is_single() ) { ?> &raquo; Blog Archive <?php } ?> <?php wp_title(); ?></title>

• WordPress Blog
• WordPress Blog » Blog Archive » Hello world!
• WordPress Blog » About

Change the title of all your pages in one fell swoop by replacing the title above in header.php with:

<title><?php wp_title(”); if ( is_home() ) { bloginfo(‘name’); ?> – <?php bloginfo(‘description’); } if (is_archive()) { ?> archive<?php } elseif (is_search()) { ?> Search for <?php echo $s; } if ( !(is_404()) && (is_search()) or (is_single()) or (is_page()) or (function_exists(‘is_tag’) and is_tag()) or (is_archive()) ) { if (!(is_page())) { ?> -<?php } ?> <?php bloginfo(‘name’); } ?></title>

Your page titles will now appear as:

• WordPress Blog – Just another WordPress weblog
• Hello world! – WordPress Blog
• About WordPress Blog

4) Optimize your robots.txt

WordPress doesn’t ship with a robots.txt file. The reason we want one is to eliminate duplicate content in search engines. If you don’t know what duplciate content is or why it’s bad, look it up. In short, duplicate content is when your post shows up in more than one place.

If I post “Hello World”, that post is visible on the index, under /2008/11/hello-world/, /category/uncategoried/, /2008/, /2008/11/, /tag/hello-world/ (if set), plus not to mention /?p=1, /?cat=1, and so on. This means my one post has to compete with itself in search engines at least 5 times unless I do something about it. This is where robots.txt and meta tags come in.

Create a new file in Notepad named robots.txt and paste the following:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin
Disallow: /wp-admin
Disallow: /wp-includes
Disallow: /wp-content/mu-plugins
Disallow: /wp-content/plugins
Disallow: /wp-content/cache
Disallow: /wp-content/themes
Disallow: /trackback
Disallow: /feed
Disallow: /comments
Disallow: /category/*/*
Disallow: /tag/*/*
Disallow: */trackback
Disallow: */feed
Disallow: */comments
Disallow: /*?*
Disallow: /*?
Allow: /wp-content/uploads
Allow: /files

# Google Image
User-agent: Googlebot-Image
Disallow:
Allow: /*

# Google AdSense
User-agent: Mediapartners-Google*
Disallow:
Allow: /*

# Internet Archiver Wayback Machine
User-agent: ia_archiver
Disallow: /

# digg mirror
User-agent: duggmirror
Disallow: /

Now, upload it so it’s visible at yourdomain.com/robots.txt

This file tells search engines do not index addresses in the form of above. If you did not change your permalinks in Tip 2 then everything is blocked by Disallow: /*?*, so you should probably go change them now.

Again to express the importance of robots.txt, if you write a post about something you really want to rank for, such as “WordPress SEO tips”, you will not rank well if you do not follow this tip because your one post is visible and will be indexed at more than one address.

5) Add robot meta tags

Robots.txt files are good because they tell search engines not to look at those pages, but as you see in the picture above, they do not block everything. Pages such as /2008/, /2008/11/, /page/2/, /search/hello-world/, and so on are still crawled and indexed. This is where Meta Tags come in.

Just before </head> in your header.php file add:

<?php if((is_single()||is_page()||(is_home()&&!is_paged()))&&!is_attachment()) { ?>
<meta name=”googlebot” content=”index,follow” />
<meta name=”robots” content=”all,index,follow” />
<meta name=”msnbot” content=”all,index,follow” />
<?php } else { ?>
<meta name=”googlebot” content=”noindex,noarchive,follow” />
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex,follow” />
<meta name=”msnbot” content=”noindex,follow” />
<?php } ?>

This is similar to what’s been posted on other WordPress SEO tips, but has two important differences.

First, attachment pages are no longer indexed. This is important because if you have a keyword-rich post at /wordpress-seo-tips/ and a popular attachment, you do not want /wordpress-seo-tips/attachment-page/ competing with your post.

I forgot about the attachment pages when I posted my GrandCentral Firefox Addon and ended up getting a large chunk of traffic directly to one of the images.

Second, index pages (/page/2/, /page/3/, …) are not indexed. This reduces the amount of duplicate content even further.

6) Plan your post titles

When writing quality content, or just simply rambling, a well formed post title can go a long way. The post title ends up being both a header tag in the page and the page title, which is what shows up to possible visitors in search engines.

Use descriptive titles that include strong keywords, but also keep it short so potential visitors will take time to read it. Problogger has always done a good job of providing tips on how to write good post titles as well as a workshop. When I write post titles and page slugs I also try to put myself in the shoes of potential visitors and think about what they might search for. This technique hasn’t failed me yet.

7) Don’t skip the slugs

Page slugs are equally as important as a good page title. As we all know, there are 2-3 parts that make up every search result in Google. 1) the page title, 2) the meta description or page snipplet (optional), and 3) the page URL.

This image reminds me I should probably set a META description for my JavaScript SEO tips post.

The page slug is used to set the address of the page and is also seen in search engines. This gives you a second chance to assign keywords to your posts, and again should be descriprive of what the page contains. I typically use my second choice for the page title as my page slug.

Bonus Tips:

Use the All in One SEO Pack to generate meta keywords and descriptions

9) Use the Sitemap Generator plugin to create a sitemap

10) Optimize your image filenames

On BEER dad I get a ton of traffic because the images in my posts. A lot of it comes from carefully selecting alt descriptions, but the bulk is because I always give good-descriptive-names-to-each.jpg. Image filenames are just like page slugs and should be given careful consideration because they also show up as part of the search result.

© That Smith, 2008. | Permalink | One comment
Post tags: Advice, robots.txt, SEO, tips, Wordpress

About a month ago I had the privilege of getting to switch a client’s existing site of 500+ nasty looking .cfm’s to 510 prettier, search engine friendly URLs.

The real trick was doing so while still keeping their current ranks in tact, because their existing pages already ranked well in search engines and had a ton of incoming links. I also wasn’t being paid to rewrite each and every page.

There are plenty of tutorials available that explain how make pages with search friendly URLs, but from what I found not one covered how to do it if you do not want to change your existing pages.

This tutorial covers a trick I learned that will allow you to permanently redirect your old URLs to new, friendlier ones, and have those still load the same existing file at the old, ugly URL.

Essentially what this tutorial does is show you how to:

1. Make your existing URLs permanently redirect to new search friendly URLs
2. Make each new pretty URL redirect back to the same ugly URL page
3. Make each page load… keeping the new friendly URL

It’s not hard to make a new site with search engine friendly URLs, because with new sites the ugly URLs that run the pages are never seen. Therefore you don’t have to worry about what happens when someone types one in. Because of this, it’s a good idea to always start a new site with pretty URLs.

With existing sites however, it’s important to make sure all URLs are accounted for, otherwise the ranks you had on the old URLs will be lost and you will be penalized for duplicate content.

What you have to do in this case is tell the old URLs to point to the new URLs, and then the new URLs where the file is that needs to be loaded. If your old URL also happens to be the name of the file (as was the case with this client) you are typically out of luck and have to rename all of the files (unless you know me).

Here is an example of my trick:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

# Force no-www preference
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^thatsmith\.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://thatsmith.com/$1 [R=301,L]

# Force www preference
#RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.thatsmith\.com$
#RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.thatsmith.com/$1 [R=301,L]

# Fix never-ending redirects
RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} 200
RewriteRule .* - [L]

# Make the ugly addresses look pretty
RewriteRule ^index\.html$ / [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^ugly\.html$ /pretty/ [R=301,L]

# Make the dynamic addresses pretty too
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^id=1$
RewriteRule ^products\.php$ /wheat-beer/? [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^id=2$
RewriteRule ^products\.php$ /coffee-beer/? [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^id=3$
RewriteRule ^products\.php$ /beer/seasonal/? [R=301,L]

# Make the pretty addresses load the same content
RewriteRule ^pretty/$ /ugly.html [L]
RewriteRule ^wheat-beer/$ /products.php?id=1 [L]
RewriteRule ^coffee-beer/$ /products.php?id=2 [L]
RewriteRule ^beer/seasonal/$ /products.php?id=3 [L]

# Add the trailing slash if missing
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.+[^/])$ /$1/ [R=301,L]

There’s a lot of money in SEO and being able to quickly give existing sites search friendly URLs. Because of this I’m not going to go into great detail of how the .htaccess file works, but I will point out the important parts. I will leave learning mod_rewrite and regular expressions as well as unpaid troubleshooting up to you.

If you know what a .htaccess file does then you will recognize that the top of it turns the Apache rewrite engine on and declares the base directory. The second and third part is strictly for good SEO and forces either yourdomain.com or www.yourdomain.com. All SEO’s should know that under no circumstance should the same content load at more than one address.

The fourth section is what keeps the script from never-ending redirects. Without this block telling the server to stop redirecting, your server will keep redirecting from old URL to new to old and so on. Firefox will eventually give you the “redirecting in a way that will never complete” error if you forget this step.

Fifth, the old static pages are permanently redirect to the new friendly URLs, and sixth, the dynamic pages are as well. These will need to be tweaked when passing more than one parameter.

Seventh, the server is told to go back to the file at the ugly URL to load the content, but no redirect header is sent so the address will not change. Then finally the server is told to add the trailing slash if someone forgot to type it in.

My friendly URLs demonstration contains this .htaccess file to show this method actually works. Notice the links are all in the form of the older URL’s but when visited or indexed they will show the pretty URLs.

By switching the URLs of my client’s site to ones containing relevant keywords I was able to move them several places in search engines for nearly all their products. They now have a PR 5 although there is still a lot more that can be done to their site.

© That Smith, 2008. | Permalink | 3 comments
Post tags: Advice, friendly URL's, mod_rewrite, SEO

Recently I was working on a new web service that requires users to add a line of JavaScript to their website, and from there the service loads all the other necessary files and automatically does its thing after the page loads.

The problem I ran into was I wanted to make it so I only have to give them one line of code, and so it would run automatically without any click or action on their part. Essentially, I needed one script that would both load the other scripts and run them automatically once everything was ready.

If you know anything about JavaScript, then you have probably already found that this is near impossible. Reason being, you can do one or the other from a single block of JavaScript, but not both.  Browsers also act differently, so one method doesn’t always work on all browsers.

For example, let’s say we want to load jQuery and then use it to show a hidden element. To do this normally we would use:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1/jquery.min.js”></script>

Followed by:

<script type=”text/javascript”>
$(“#showme”).show();
</script>

Of course this means we have to add more than one line of code. What I wanted was more along the lines of:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1/jquery.min.js”></script>
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”run.js”></script>

Except in a single block of script.

I will save you the trouble of explaining the trials and errors I went through and why external JavaScript libraries cannot be loaded and run from a single script block, and will instead show you the cross-browser solution I came up to make:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”init.js”></script>

Dynamically load multiple external scripts and then run them once everything is ready, without onload, onclick, or another unwanted method after the page loads.

You can see a demonstration of my solution at Dynamically Load and Run JavaScript Demonstration.

My solution is to call the above line of script which contains:

var scripts=[];
scripts.push(‘http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1/jquery.min.js’);
scripts.push(‘jquery-thickbox.js’);
scripts.push(‘run.js’);
for(src in scripts)
document.writeln(‘<scri’+'pt src=”‘+scripts[src]+’” type=”text/javascript”></sc’+'ript>’)

Or the minified version:

(function(scripts,src){for(src in scripts)document.writeln(‘<scri’+'pt src=”‘+scripts[src]+’” type=”text/javascript”></sc’+'ript>’)})(['http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1/jquery.min.js','jquery-thickbox.js','run.js']);

What this does is add three new script elements to the document while the page loads, each able to call functions declared in those before it because it’s inside a seperate <script> block.

This solution has been tested in various versions of Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer, and has been updated to work with Chrome and Safari as well.

My older version which relied on document.createElement occasionally failed in Webkit because the browser continued to run embedded scripts before those dynamically added in DOM.  This update should work better.

Feel free to use either version above to dynamically load additional external scripts from one javascript file.

© That Smith, 2008. | Permalink | 2 comments
Post tags: how to's, JavaScript

Directions for the visually impaired:

1. Click Profile to go to your profile.
2. Click the Info tab.
3. Click the Edit button which appears when you hover Basic Information.
4. Change your birthday.
5. Press Save.

© That Smith, 2008. | Permalink | 15 comments
Post tags: how to change your birthday on facebook, how to's

This list covers domain names 76 – 100 of 300. If you find this list helpful, also be sure to check available Wichita domains 1-25, 26-50, and 51-75.

Each of these domains were available at the time of writing this list and can be purchased for $6.95 / year from GoDaddy using the promo code OYH3.

As always, I urge you to only register these domains if you or someone you know will use them, because regional domains such as these have essentially no resell value. Buying them in hopes of becoming rich is pointless.

I also ask that you do not repost these lists without my consent.

SEO Tip:

Each of my lists also includes a free SEO tip. I promised this one would be less technical, and it is.

As you know, the goal of search engine optimization is to give your site the best ranking possible in search engines in hopes of bringing in more traffic and therefore more revenue.

One of the most important things that goes into search engine rankings, and sometimes the only thing running through the mind of a potential visitor, is the title of the page they are about to click.

The title of your page is what search engines use as the link potential visitors see when searching. If your title is not descriptive or irrelevant you will have a hard time ranking in search engines, and if it’s misleading or poorly worded potential visitors may be weary of clicking.

A good rule of thumb is to use the title of your page (or blog post) to describe your content, using keywords you feel visitors will understand and potentially use when searching for your content. There is no set formula one should use when coming up with a good page name, my point is to simply consider it when writing your content.

If your pages currently have titles such as “HOME”, “PRODUCTS”, “CONTACT”, “LINKS”, and “ABOUT”, try changing them to something more descriptive and see how it effects your search traffic.

Another thing to consider when titling your pages is where you place your site or company name. A lot of small businesses tend to place their company name or website address first, before the page title. This is good if you care more about ranking for your company name than the content of each page, but usually this is not the case.

A well known company will have no problem ranking for their own name.

Instead of titling your page, for example: That Smith – Available Domain Names, change it around so potential visitors see what the page is about first. Optimized example: Available Wichita Domains at That Smith. This will also help your rankings in cases where the full title of the page is not displayed.

Carefully choosing your page titles along with the placement of keywords and your site name can go a long way when optimizing your website, but there are plenty of other things to consider.

For further information on optimizing your small business website, wait until the next installment of my list or contact me and ask about my SEO qualifications.

© That Smith, 2008. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: Available Domain Names, internet marketing, keyword optimization, SEO, small business, wichita

The other day I was working on a client’s page to bring them into the 21st century by redirecting their existing URLs to SEO friendly ones, and in doing so I had to update much of the source written by their designer to make their relative URLs actually work (‘page.cfm’ -> ‘/page.cfm’).

This particular project didn’t require doing anything more than updating the addresses, but while glancing at his JavaScript I noticed several mistakes he made that went against the optimization of the page. Lucky for me this usually means more work.

My experience tells me the majority people who work(ed) on my clients’ sites know nothing about SEO and little about JavaScript. The older the page the more mistakes I find. The following are common SEO mistakes unfamiliar people make when writing JavaScript.

Making a popup

Code used:

<a href=”#” onClick=”popUp(…);”>…</a>
<a href=”js:popUp(…);”>…</a>
<img src=”thumbnail.jpg” onClick=”showImage(…);”>

Mistake:

The SEO problem with the above samples of code is that nothing useful is given to search engines when they crawl the page.

popUp() and ShowImage() are functions defined elsewhere in the page, but where the SEO comes in is the link. Robots don’t read JavaScript, and none of the lines above tell the search engine what is being loaded. Therefore the popped up page or image is never indexed.

This is what could be done to solve this:

<a href=”/page-to-be-popped-up” onClick=”popUp(…); return false;”>…</a>
<a href=”/page-to-be-popped-up” onClick=”popUp(…); return false;”>…</a>
<a href=”/fullsize-image.jpg” onClick=”showImage(…); return false;”><img src=”/thumbnail.jpg” alt=”…” /></a>

Robots completely ignore the onClick portion which makes the first set of examples useless, however by adding a link to the item popped up we make it so robots and visitors that block JavaScript still end up where we want them.

Adding return false; makes it so the actual link isn’t loaded for everyone else.

A simple function I have used is:

<script tyle=”text/javascript”>
function popUp(el) {
window.open(el.href);
return false;
};
</script>

<a href=”/page-to-be-popped-up” onClick=”popUp(this);”>…</a>

This ensures my link or image is still loaded and indexed when JavaScript is blocked.

Navigation

Code used:

<a href=”#” onClick=”jumpTo(‘…’);”>…</a>
<a href=”js:location.href=’…’;”>…</a>
<img src=”…” onClick=”location.href=’…’;”>

Mistake:

Here we see the same kind of issue as before, but this one tends to be more common. A modern reason why someone would write a link like this could be to run a tracking script before sending someone to the new page. I especially see this a lot on industrial sites where one of my client’s advertises.

The problem with this is the page linked is not accessible to search engines and older browsers, and the link is not counted when ranking the final page.

To resolve this try this code:

<a href=”/local-page.php” onClick=”jumpTo(this.href); return false;”>…</a>
<a href=”http://other.site/some-page.html” onClick=”trackIt(this.href);”>…</a>

Again, we’re doing the same thing we did in the popup example, but with a simple link.

This is a funny thing to do, but I’ve seen it done on pages where the designer wanted an alert to popup before sending the visitor to the next page. When doing this, always take robots and alternative browsers into consideration.

An example I use tells Google Analytics to track the link to one of my other domains as an internal link:

<a href=”http://thatsmith.net/” onClick=”pageTracker._link(this.href); return false;”>…</a>

Adding new content

Code used:

document.write(‘…’);
document.createElement(‘…’);
document.getElementById(‘…’).innerHTML=”;

Mistake:

The last SEO mistake people make using JavaScript is a tough one to overcome, but needs to be considered if search engine optimization or accessibility is important. When using JavaScript to add new content you need to consider these two things:

1. Is the dynamic content important enough it should be indexed?
2. Do you want non-JavaScript browsers have access to it?

If you said yes to either question then JavaScript may not be the best way to deliver the new content. Depending on what it is, there are a few ways to ensure everyone sees it.

Solution:

Instead of using document.write or createElement, place the content in a div, span, or tag it otherwise with an ID and use JavaScript to hide it after the page has loaded. Then, when you want the content to be displayed use more JavaScript to make it appear. jQuery is good at this, so is display=’block’.

This ensures the content is still visible to search engines and old browsers, and makes it appear on demand to everyone else. Search engines do penalize for hidden content, but usually only when you fail to provide a method to display it. I have sliding content on multiple pages and have never been punished.

If you are using innerHTML to simply switch what is displayed, and don’t require AJAX to do so, you can achieve the same thing with an accordion or hidden div. This also ensures the content is visible to search engines even if they can’t click to display it.

If you have questions you are welcome to contact me. I suggest you all try navigating your site while JavaScript is disabled to see if you’ve made any mistakes (use the Web Developer addon for Firefox to disable it).

Short version of this post: remember to provide a way for robots to access your content.

© That Smith, 2008. | Permalink | 3 comments
Post tags: Advice, JavaScript, SEO

If this is your first time viewing my lists, be sure to check out available domain names 1 – 25 and Wichita names 26 – 50.

Also included on those lists are SEO and internet marketing tips for small businesses, a disclaimer that explains why you should only register these names if you intend to use them, and a code you can use to register them for $6.95/year.

My last internet marketing tip covered how to add your new website to search engines and included an SEO tip on only allowing each page to have one unique address. That tip highlighted the importance of not pointing multiple domains to the same pages, which is what my employer did in the past.

SEO Tip:

Equally important is making sure your pages load with either www or no-www (www.thatsmith.com or thatsmith.com), and not both. This is essential for good internet marketing because search engines will count them as unique addresses and will split your ranking between the two pages.

To resolve this, you need to decide if you want your pages to be seen at www.yourdomain.com/page or just yourdomain.com/page. If you are using Apache Web Server, create a text document in your root folder named .htaccess containing one of the following:

To force no-www -

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
	RewriteEngine On
	RewriteBase /

	RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^443$
	RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^thatsmith\.com$
	RewriteRule ^(.*) http://thatsmith.com/$1 [R=301,L]

	RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} ^443$
	RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^thatsmith\.com$
	RewriteRule ^(.*) https://thatsmith.com/$1 [R=301,L]
</IfModule>

To force www -

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
	RewriteEngine On
	RewriteBase /

	RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^443$
	RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.thatsmith\.com$
	RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.thatsmith.com/$1 [R=301,L]

	RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} ^443$
	RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.thatsmith\.com$
	RewriteRule ^(.*) https://www.thatsmith.com/$1 [R=301,L]
</IfModule>

Of course be sure to replace thatsmith with your domain name, otherwise all your pages and incoming links will send your visitors to me.

The code above does several things, first it tells your web server (Apache) to turn on the rewrite module if it exists. It then asks if the page is being requested through a regular (http) or secure (https) connection, and checks to see if the domain is in the form you decided on (www vs no-www).

If the domain requested doesn’t match, or doesn’t include your www preference, it tells the browser or search engine the page they are looking for moved permanently and gives them the new address.

This transitions the visitor seamlessly to the new address and informs the search engine to display and rank the page according to your preference.

When the same pages load on multiple domains and subdomains you have an issue with non-canonical URL’s. This degrades your ranking in search engines. You can check your site for non-canonical URL’s by typing yourdomain.com and www.yourdomain.com and seeing if the page loaded is the same, but addresses are different.

The above is just one way to fix this issue, but doesn’t solve the issue of when http and https addresses point to the same page. I will share more on that in a few weeks, and a less technical internet marketing tip next time.

© That Smith, 2008. | Permalink | 2 comments
Post tags: Available Domain Names, internet marketing, non-canonical URL's, seo optimization, wichita