Browsing articles from "October, 2010"

Is the iPhone selfish?

Oct 8, 2010   //   by admin   //   News / Blog  //  No Comments

So has it ever occurred to you that that small rectangular electronic device that you love and cherish and feel you couldn’t live with out might have actually been designed to create this dependence. That feeling of a void when you realize in the car that you have left  your phone on the kitchen counter or when you are on an airplane and can’t access email, or when, the most likely scenario, those five blue horizontal bars dwindle away.

Don’t get me wrong, I fall into this category often. A few weeks ago I started thinking about the purpose behind the iPhone. It is really to give you instant gratification and information wherever you are and whenever you want. It has created a world in which I can just focus on me, my interests, my desires, and my passions; and it all fits compactly into my pocket.

As I take inventory of my own apps, I have realized that almost all of them are simply for the convenience of my personal life. What if as developers, designers, and creative and innovative minds we began thinking about the social power that we could harness from this technology? I truly think we could find ways to equip and support the communities we live in and beyond. I will discuss this topic further in a soon to come writing and will add a link, but wanted to at least broach the topic.

Let me pose another question. Have you ever been at a party where the room is a bit awkward and you immediately break out your phone to avoid uncomfortable conversation with people you don’t know? I know I have. Has your phone become a security blanket and allowed you to escape from making new relationships and learning things about the people literally standing right next to you? I know that many say that mobile technology is the way of the future, and I also think it is going to amazing things, but at what costs? I challenge you and myself to not let these amazing devices become an isolation room. Try and make a conscious effort to engage with the wide world outside the web.

If you have ideas, comments, or experiences I’d love to hear them!

Intro to the Blogging World

Oct 2, 2010   //   by admin   //   News / Blog  //  No Comments

This section of the site is for one reason really – to share knowledge. Through these posts I hope to raise questions, challenge thoughts, and give examples of things I have experienced and learned. If you have any questions or disagree with anything that is posted feel free to comment and let me know. This should really be a place where we all give and learn from each other. Hopefully these articles are useful to you!

Hiding and removing content from Google crawl and search engine results

Oct 1, 2010   //   by admin   //   News / Blog  //  No Comments

So a few months ago a ran across an issue where some content was accessible via Google searches that was supposed to be private. It was extremely important that the information be pulled off of the site as soon as possible. As we all know, operating on Google-time can be a bit subjective. After a bunch of research and digging I was able to piece together a few solutions to get information removed from Google search engine in a pretty quick turn around. The only reason I publish this now is if for some reason you run into a similar issue.

The first Option and probably the quickest remedy

1. Log in into your sites Google webmaster tools account, https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools (If you don’t have an account, create one and follow the steps after the registration to Verify the account, it is FREE. Really you should have a Gmail account for some many other reasons, but that is grounds for an entirely different discussion)

2. Once logged into Webmaster Tools, click on Site Configuration – Crawler Access – Remove URL
3. Click on New Removal Request
4. Add URL you want to be removed from Google (screenshot is below)

Here is another guide to help you remove items from Yahoo! http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/siteexplorer/siteexplorer-46.html

Option #2

Open robots.txt file located in the root directory of the server. Check to see if you have one by typing www.yoursite.com/robots.txt

**If you don’t have a robots.txt file, create one by simply opening MS Notepad blank document and add the following text:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /some-directory/some-random-file-name-example.doc
Allow: /

If your want to block some specific file and a directory with files:

User-agent: *
Disallow: / some-directory/any-subdirectory/
Disallow: /directory/some-random-file-name-example.doc
Allow: /

Name this file robots.txt and upload to your site’s top-level directory (this will take care of all Search Engines, including Google, Yahoo, Bing… ) To check if it is LIVE type www.yoursite.com/robots.txt to see the contents of the file.

Option #3
Include <META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW”> on the page where they have these links to the documents (NOTE: the page with the links will also be removed from index)

If you do not want to remove the page with the links and only want to remove files <META CONTENT=”INDEX, NOFOLLOW”>

NOFOLLOW prevents the Googlebot from following links from this page. Things to consider: You need to place this tag <META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”INDEX, NOFOLLOW”> on every page that links to the documents that you want to be removed.

Proper location for this tag is in the HEAD section of the HTML document (see example)

<html>
<head>
<title>…</title>
<META CONTENT=”INDEX, NOFOLLOW”>
</head>

After these changes are made and Google has crawled the site again, the content should naturally drop out of the Google index. For the best and fastest results, you should try to do all three of these. Again, this doesn’t necessarily mean that your information is secure. My suggestion would be if you don’t want people to find it or if it is too sensitive, you should probably reconsider why it is being posted online in the first place.

Again, I do hope that this can be a resource to individuals that encounter a need or issue with web page removal. Let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tips and Cheat Sheet

Oct 1, 2010   //   by admin   //   News / Blog  //  No Comments

So I had recently remembered that last year in an effort to try and get a team organized and focused on SEO I had put together a quick SEO tip sheet. In thinking about this, the goal was to have a one page document that would enable content owners and website owners to optimize their sites and content with one sheet of guidelines. I thought this would be a nice addition to this blog – but after going through the sheet realize there are many things that I would now include and detail out further. I will attempt to do this eventually, but for now, here is the starting point. Hope this helps someone. Download SEO One Page of Tips

SEO: Search Engine Optimization Fact Sheet

Fact & Fiction

  • SEO is not FREE: requires time, education and resources
  • 86% of clicks on Google are from organic search, 14% from paid search. **recently updated – trend changing according to http://www.seomad.com/SEOBlog/google-organic-click-through-rate-ctr.html ; Still the goal should remain organic
  • Google friendliness = friendly to other engines (Google #1… Google owned YouTube #2, Yahoo! #3)
  • When possible use CSS & HTML for drop menus / only rely on Javascript for interactivity
  • Use hyphens to separate words and file names instead of underscores
  • Meta descriptions are somewhat important; only for click through
  • Meta Keywords – no real value seen by Google, MSN/Live, Yahoo, and Ask.com
  • Try keeping CSS and Javascript in external folders to avoid more code than copy

Indexation:

  • Make sure your site has an XML sitemap
  • Make sure your ‘404 File Not Found’ page returns a hard 404 header
  • Make sure your robots.txt is not misconfigured
  • Canonicalization: One source – one destination
  • Keep duplicate pages out of the index by standardizing URLs, eliminating unnecessary variables, using 301 redirects when needed and CSS styling for printer friendly

Page Visibility

  • HTML Page title: the most important visible text. The first bolded line in a SE result.
  • Make sure page title is clear, compelling, accurate that summarizes the objective and content of the page. Try to include location in title if possible
  • Don’t include useless phrases – words you know you will win; Utilize terms that are strategic and competitive. Lead with the most important keywords
  • Don’t duplicate titles: Duplicate content cannibalizes pages. Use Google search query to find duplicates: site:____intitle:____
  • Incorporate keywords into title tags, hyperlink text, headings (H1 & H2), alt attributes, place high in content of a page where this is more weight given. Take out an useless wording
  • Check your Page Rank http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php
  • Check your site download speed: http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/
  • Use Google Webmaster Tools: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
  • Develop great content, submit to authoritative & topical site, local directories; use social bookmarking sites, syndicate RSS, use blogs, etc.

Tools and Resources

A lot of this information from these sites, speakers and conferences