SEO Appraisal

Archive for April, 2010

Why You Should NEVER Pay For Backlinks or Link-Building

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

Paying for backlinks or link-building services is a bad idea. Tricky situation because you need links to help boost your page rankings. First, remember that Google adamantly prohibits any service whose sole purpose is to manipulate results. You must be strong. You must be well-informed and not easily-seduced by a PR-This and a PR-That.

How Link-Building Works

Link building is the process of placing your link on websites other than your own. This can happen naturally, artificially, or as a paid service. Natural backlinks occur when some other site decides to link to you because they consider your content relevant. Artificial links, as we call them, are links placed manually, typically in order to help optimize for search engines. Paid services charge you for artificial links with all sorts of promises.

How They Getcha

SEO companies offering paid backlink or link-building services use the same group of sites for their entire client base. What’s worse, most promise a minimum amount of links of sites, say, PR5 and higher for a flat rate. Ever check your backlinks? Ever use a PR Checker to see the actual PageRank of these pages? Probably not! Money in the toilet.

It Gets Worse!

Many SEO experts use your websites to help optimize their other clients. Would it shock you to learn there are links on your pages to your SEO expert’s other client sites? We’ve found links to furniture retailers from law firm websites being sold as high-quality, relevant, one-way backlinks. Not exactly.

No Outsmarting The Search Engines

They know who is linking to who.
They can identify who places the link.
Placing different links for 9 hours a day, every day, says you offer a paid service.
Subscribers to these paid services are instantly flagged for trying to manipulate their algorithms.
You use Google Analytics to track visitors and clicks. Google also uses Analytics to aggregate everyone’s data. You can’t hide.

Protect Yourself

There are a number of free tools that allow YOU to see all your backlinks. Even better, once you find these links, you can visit these links and see what your SEO expert has done. Did you pay for a backlink from highly-relevant PR5 page and end up with a ‘thanks, great post [url]‘ on a page about absolutely nothing? View our free tools page.

The Solution

The solution is not simple. Learning how to find you own backlinks is a skill and you may the time to acquire. At the very least, you must start by demanding PROOF from your SEO company or web designer. You could be financing questionable practices. If they are unable to provide proof of a valuable service, what are you paying for?

Do This Now

Go to Yahoo.com and/or Bing.com and type in link:yourdomain.com. It works for every domain and tells you who is linking to who. Then use the PR checker we link to on our free seo tools page and have a blast.

Tags: Backlinks, Link Building
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Wordpress As A CMS

Monday, April 5th, 2010

Using Wordpress as a CMS or Content Management System is a terrific idea we strongly support. We are proponents of using Wordpress as often as possible. A few limitations but near-endless possibilities.

You Don’t Need To Blog To Use Wordpress

Let’s clear the air. Wordpress was developed as a blogging software or blog-based CMS so any confusion is understandable. The truth is that Wordpress has such an impressive framework and design that it can modified and implemented in hundreds of different situations.

Some Wordpress Feature You Can’t Ignore

Completely free
Over 8000 free plugins and widgets
Thousands of free themes
Open-source
Offered by most hosts as a simple one-click-install (no HTML knowledge required)
Built-in permalink and linking structure manipulation and control (search engine-friendly links)
Can be hosted free like Blogger accounts
Can be lightly modified with basic HTML or CSS knowledge
Can be heavily modified with advanced HTML or CSS knowledge
Code that validates (theme-specific)
A world of online support options, forums and discussions
RSS-based publishing others can subscribe to
Adding new pages, content and images can be done without any programming language
Blog-based CMS that promotes fresh content
Upload new content by email or smartphone

If You Don’t Love Wordpress, You Haven’t Met

There’s a reason Wordpress is the #1 blog software or blog-based CMS. Other platforms like Joomla, Movable Type, Blogger (Blogspot) and BlogEngine.Net offer a number of great features. However, Wordpress offers a complete package, limitless support and tons of free stuff. You can’t argue with that.

Wordpress.org

Tags: CMS, Open-Source, Wordpress
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How To Compress CSS With PHP And ob_gzhandler

Sunday, April 4th, 2010

Compressing your CSS files is an easy way to increase your site speed. Due to the fact that many forms of compression require access to files most are unfamiliar with, this PHP-based method requires access to your CSS file only. Pretty neat.

CSS Compression Method: ob_gzhandler

Ob-gzhandler is an alternative to gzip that has a little less celebrity status but is equally as effective- more along the lines of a mod_deflate, let’s say. The reason we got into it was due to gzip restrictions on some servers we use. It’s a security precaution hosts may take and we fully support the practice.

The PHP ob_gzhandler Code:

Here’s the code we use. It starts ob_gzhandler, describes the language and file we want to compress and provides cache-control with an expires header in the far (enough) future that can be translated from seconds into a date and GMT time.

<?php ob_start ("ob_gzhandler");
header("Content-type: text/css");
header("Cache-Control: public");
$offset = 9600 * 9600 ;
$ExpStr = "Expires: " . gmdate("D, d M Y H:i:s",time() + $offset) . " GMT " ;
header($ExpStr);?>

How To Use It

Create a copy of your original CSS file and save it as a .html.php file. If you’ve never seen a file with two extensions, pause for a moment to take it all in- it’s not so bad. It should be named something like style.css.php. The next step is paste the code above at the very top (first line) of your css.php file. Programs like Dreamweaver will treat it as a PHP file so don’t expect all those helpful code suggestions and color warnings. All that’s left is to change the link in your website’s template to the new, ob_gzhandler-compressed, css.php file. Say that three times fast.

Using Wordpress?

A note to Wordpress users, the admin panel will not recognize a theme without a valid CSS file. This means if your only template CSS file is a compressed (.css.php) version, it will be omitted from the themes page. You will either have to leave a regular CSS file or you’ll have to remove the code from the top and .php from the file extension.

Tags: Compression, CSS, How To, ob_gzhandler, PHP, Site Speed, Wordpress
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Apache or Microsoft IIS Server?

Saturday, April 3rd, 2010

There are two main types of HTTP servers that websites are hosted on; Apache and Microsoft Internet Information Server or IIS. The debate over which server is better or more secure has been going on for years. It appears to us, and rightfully so, that Apache has emerge as victor.

What Server Are You Using?

A simple way to decipher whether your website is on an Apache or IIS server is to do an HTML W3C compliance check. In addition to validating your code, it will provide some details about a server. Visit this site and type your domain into the address bar. Make sure the option for verbose output is checked off. Once you hit ‘validate’ you’ll see some interesting server and page characteristics; all you’re looking for at the moment is server.

Typical results:

Server: Apache

Server: Microsoft IIS/6.0

Some other results you may see:

Server: Apache/2.2.14 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.14 OpenSSL/0.9.8l DAV/2 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635

Server: Microsoft IIS/7.5

Apache servers sometimes tell you a little more about the way they treat requests and provide information on available Apache handlers. Microsoft servers usually just tell you the version.

Why We Love Apache

There are many reasons we love Apache! For starters, Apache is reliable, secure and more favorable for search engine optimization. By that, we mean comparatively more favorable- more reliable, more secure and more SEO-friendly. Microsoft servers have a reputation for needing frequent, cumbersome security updates and patches- just like Windows. We love Windows… just not when it comes to hosting web servers. Another Apache sales pitch is its price tag: completely free and open-source.

Why SEO Loves Apache

As mentioned, there are a number of Apache Handlers that favor many search engine optimization techniques. Some strong points include simplified redirects, gzip compression and mod_rewrites. Having greater control over your server and how it processes HTTP requests is a huge asset when interacting with search engines and their robots. These handlers usually found in an .htaccess file.

A Thousand SEO Super Nerds Can’t Be Wrong

In general, search engine optimization companies and web designers stick to Apache servers and PHP programming. Apache is said to dominate with a 60% or higher usage rate. If you ask us, the only reason IIS servers still have a decent share of the market is because of the server functionality not relating to websites and rankings. Either way, Apache has made great strides. The first task of many SEO’s you hire is to move you from an IIS server to an Apache server with a PHP-based content management system (CMS). Running popular open-source blogging software like Wordpress is a nightmare on IIS servers and a breeze on Apache!

It’s Only A Matter Of Time

If your site is still hosted on a Windows server, it is likely only a matter of time before you switch over. A web designer or SEO company you hire will recommend switching over as a first step to higher rankings. If your current service provider is convincing you to stay with a Microsoft server, it’s because they can’t afford to upgrade or are too old-school to admit defeat.

Tags: .htaccess, Apache, Microsoft IIS
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How To Make A Favicon – Browser Icon

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

If your website doesn’t have a favicon, it most definitely should. Growing in popularity, these cute little images are the icons we see on browsers and browser tabs. It’s a great way to increase your branding power with minimal effects on site speed.

A Favicon? Where?

Here’s a snapshot of favicons on FireFox browser tabs

Here’s a snapshot of favicons on Chrome browser tabs

Here’s a snapshot of favicons on Internet Explorer browser tabs

See the SEO Appraisal favicon in 24 x 24 (opens in new tab)

Create Favicon In Photoshop

Go into Photoshop and create an image that’s sized 24 x 24 pixels in BITMAP format. (You’ll only get 16 x 16 on browser tabs but you’ll be able to use this icon for folders too. If you don’t select BITMAP when creating a new file, you will not be permitted to save as *.ICO.) Open up your logo in any format and copy and paste it into the 24 x 24 blank canvas. Use the transform tool to reduce your logo’s size in order to make it fit in. You may not want to reduce the size exactly to proportion in order to maximize space, so use your judgement. Transforming it will reduce its quality to varying degrees so feel free to go over some lines with a brush or pencil tool for more contrast. You may have to flatten your layers first. Hit ’save as’ and select the ICO format- not the regular PSD format it defaults to. Done.

Upload Favicon To Your Site

Here’s an easy piece of code that should be pasted in between the <head> and <\head> tags.

Use Favicon For Folders

We like to use icons for folders to give them a little more personality. The standard brown folder icon is played out. Open up any folder and go to View > Customize Folder > Change Icon. This will allow you to select the icon you just made and use it as the icon on a file or folder of your choice.

Tags: Favicon, How To, Site Speed
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How To Add Alt Attributes To Images

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

Until facial or image recognition software is perfected, search engine robots still need our help to identify and describe images on a website. A great SEO tactic is to use the ALT attribute in image tags to add a descriptive element which will allow search engines to classify our images.
Here’s a regular image tag:

Here’s an image tag with the ALT attribute:

As you can see, the 065b.jpg image file does not mean much to search engine robots until you add a descriptive element. Now we have a way to label or describe the image with meaningful keywords or keyphrases.

Multiple Benefits

The first benefit, as mentioned, is the associating a few descriptive keywords with your text so search engines can better understand your data. Anyone doing a search for the SEO Appraisal logo will now be able to find it. Unfortunately, 065b.jpg does nothing for us until we qualify it somehow.
The second benefit is accessibility. Anyone using a screen reader, typically the visually-impaired, will have text associated with images they are unable to view.
The third benefit is giving your website some context in the event of a server error or file loss. If the images on your website are unable to load properly, the ALT attribute will replace the image content.

Matt Cutts Video

Matt Cutts is a Google employee that shares all sorts of information related to search engines and Google. Considering he’s an active employee, his opinions and advice are always taken seriously. Here’s an informative video about the important of image ALT attributes.

Tags: Code, How To
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