Semantic Markup – Why Should You Use It?

Your markup should have meaning. Markup your content appropriately (e.g. put your address and phone number in the address element) and it becomes much more readable to search engines and other software used for data extraction. Using only div and span elements leaves much to be desired, semantically speaking. These elements are certainly indispensable, however, there are some cases where there are more meaningful elements to use. For example:

  • Use h1 as your page title; use h2 and on appropriately as sub-headings on the page. This provides an outline of your document.
  • Use lists (dl, ol, ul) instead of manually placing numbers or bullets.
  • Use address for any contact information on your page, including physical address, email address, phone numbers, and whatever else you would consider to be contact info.
  • Use table on data best represented in rows and columns. Use thead and th to markup the column headings and tbody for the data itself.

Check the HTML spec for additional meaningful elements and get to work! 🙂

You can use the W3’s handy Semantic Data Extractor tool to test your new semantic web site to give you an idea of how it would be seen by software.

That does it for now. See you next time! Until then, read SEO and Validation.

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Valid Flash Embed – Make That YouTube Embed Valid!

Hola! It’s been a while. I’ve got another gripe, and this time it’s with Flash embed code!

Most of the embed code I see for Flash movies is invalid, usually containing the non-existent embed element or some-such. Even the code provided by YouTube for embedding videos contains embed. This can easily be thrown out and will—probably most of the time—instantly make your code valid.

Here’s an example (in XHTML) of a valid Flash embed that works in at least IE6+, Firefox, and Safari:

<object data="flash.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="320" height="240">
<param name="movie" value="flash.swf" />
</object>

That’s all there is to it. Adjust the parameters and add additional param elements as necessary. If your Flash movie requires variables, just add an extra param as follows:

<param name="flashvars" value="arg1=foo&amp;arg2=bar" />

If you place additional elements inside the object element, it will act as a fallback, displaying if the Flash plugin isn’t installed. For example:

<object data="flash.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="320" height="240">
<param name="movie" value="flash.swf" />
<img src="fallback.jpg" alt="Flash Didn't Load!" />
</object>

That’s all for now. Happy coding!

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301 Redirect on Windows Server

I see a lot of complaints from SEO and Internet Marketing agencies about the hoops they jump through to get Windows Server admins or hosts to create 301 redirects for clients. It is really not difficult at all. I decided to outline the steps so the next time one of you has an issue with a web host you can just copy this info and send it to them or link to it 😉 That might make them feel pretty dumb, but it will get the job done.

IIS6:

Redirect a single file.

  1. Open IIS Manager and locate the website
  2. Right click the file you want to redirect and choose properties
  3. Change the selector to “A Redirection to a URL”
  4. In the “Redirect To:” box type the new URL
  5. Put a check in “A permanent redirection for this resource” (this results in an HTTP status code of: HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently)

That’s it!

Redirect an entire domain name – website.

  1. Open IIS Manager and locate the website
  2. Right click the Website you want to redirect and choose properties
  3. Select the “Home Directory Tab”
  4. Change the selector to “A Redirection to a URL”
  5. In the “Redirect To:” box type the new URL
  6. Put a check in “A permanent redirection for this resource” (this results in an HTTP status code of: HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently)

OPTIONAL: Check “The exact URL entered above” if you want all pages redirected to the home page of the new domain rather than relative pages in the new domain.

IIS 7:

Redirect a single file.

  1. Open IIS Manager and locate the website under sites
  2. Right click the website and choose “switch to content view”
  3. In the right hand pane locate the file you want to redirect
  4. Right click the file and choose “switch to features view”
  5. Important! Verify that it shows the correct file name at the top of the screen
  6. Under the IIS section open “HTTP Redirect”
  7. Put a check in “Redirect requests to this destination” and type in the new URL
  8. Change the status code to “Permanent 301”
  9. Click Apply (this results in an HTTP status code of: HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently)

That’s it!

Redirect an entire domain name – web site.

  1. Open IIS Manager and locate the website under sites
  2. Important! Verify that it shows the correct website name at the top of the screen
  3. Under the IIS section open “HTTP Redirect”
  4. Put a check in “Redirect requests to this destination” and type in the new URL
  5. Change the status code to “Permanent 301”
  6. Click Apply (this results in an HTTP status code of: HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently)

OPTIONAL: Check the “redirect all requests to exact destination (instead of relative to destination)”

New in IIS 7:

For those that understand XML and the web.config file you can add a line similar to the following in the <configuration> section rather than using IIS Manager:

Domain redirect:

<system.webServer>
<httpRedirect enabled=”true” destination=”http://www.my-new-site.com” httpResponseStatus=”Permanent” />
</system.webServer>

File Redirect:

<location path=”my-old-file.htm”>
<system.webServer>
<httpRedirect enabled=”true” destination=”http://www.new-domain.com/my-new-file.htm” exactDestination=”true” httpResponseStatus=”Permanent” />
</system.webServer>
</location>

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* copy and pasting the web.config examples could result in the wrong quotes which will cause an error. Re-type your quotes.

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Stupid Cannon Game Comments

Love it or hate it, let us know what you think of the Stupid Cannon Game.

Return to the Stupid Cannon Game

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Google Under Attack – Serious Money!

News and Search – The Winner Is?

Recently Google has been taking heat from some of the media moguls like Mark Cuban and Rupert Murdoch. If you are out of the loop on this one then read “Rupert Murdock to Block Google“. The question is how will it affect search? Will they get shut out from some content? Is it just a ploy, a business tactic to get Google and Microsoft to pay up? For the small players and the general public it’s hard to comprehend the size and scope. I see a lot of chatter and opinions but it reminds me of a day trader trying to give Warren Buffett advice. It’s the same when average bloggers try to debate the likes of Cuban and Murdoch on big business. Some of it is obvious Google fanboy speak or on the other end the haters, but in the middle are some really smart bloggers in the search community that are giving opinions based on zero experience in the big game. You may have helped a million dollar company but we are talking, in Rupert’s words “serious money“. We will see what happens but for now I’m not completely counting out a paywall business model although I don’t see it being good for either side. I would push my chips toward Google and Bing paying up for the feeds just like they did with Facebook and Twitter. That looks like a profitable model that the big boys could work out. But it’s all a crap shoot to me, I have zero experience with “serious money“.

Raw Data and Privacy – What’s the Value?

On a smaller scale we also have some chatter about raw data and the cost. Some of the industry leading SEO and SEM talent are  talking about the value of the data that is being given away for free. When someone types in a search term it is mind boggling what gets crunched and how fast the results are produced. Plenty of these result algorithms have been built with personal data and business data from a number of sources. Google builds free services and “trades” them for your data, in a sense. People are starting to ask which party is getting the better deal. Free mail, free analytics, free apps, not really. You are trading privacy and numbers that are worth more than the time and effort it takes Google to build the “free” products.

There is also the concern that giving up your data on a PPC account can cost you more money. Think about it, without Google Analytics then G only knows when someone clicks your ad and where it lands. With GA script on your site they can see the entire transaction process after the click. Like they say, nothing is free.

AdSense and PubCenter

A new battle is brewing between rivals Google and Microsoft. Microsoft is now in Beta for their competing product that could rival AdSense. With the hope of better customer service and higher payouts this could bring some much needed competition. Currently publishers are playing with fire if they depend on AdSense for most of their revenue. If you wake up one day and you are deactivated by Google then you are out of business. Currently Google prefers to be vague and for the most part, ignore those that have their accounts deactivated. It would be great if the competition opens up new channels of support and a little help when you truly don’t know why they deactivated you. Looking at Microsoft’s AdCenter site you can easily find customer service and support numbers and they encourage the use. There have been complaints about recent AdSense payout cuts too so this might be a plus for Microsoft. If Microsoft can get enough advertisers to choose their ad network then this is really big news and could result in “serious money”.

Support Experience

Microsoft AdCenter (Good): A warm body answered within 30 seconds and was able to answer a question about linking accounts without transferring the call.

Google AdWords (Slow): We have waited 4 days for a level 2 to determine why there is a landing page glitch for a client where they can’t get an ad to show at any price. Google’s own tools say the keywords are targeted and relevant. The first thing we did was to verify they are within guidelines. They run a legit vacation rental web site with their own rental property. They are not resellers and have zero ads on their site. As I’m writing this I find out that the issue has been resolved. How did I find out? I checked the campaign and sometime after my second request for an update the ads started showing but guess what? Not a single reply or response from Google. Forget finding out what was wrong, they didn’t even acknowledge it was fixed. This small business had no ads for 5 days.
Note: I changed the rating to slow from poor. We did finally receive a response and Google admitted the landing page was evaluated incorrectly by the system. Everything is working now.

Google AdSense (Poor): No answer to requests about disabled accounts. Repeated attempts to get a reinstatement go unanswered. Google implies that everyone is disabled for click fraud when they might be disabled for poor content or maybe something as simple as having the words “pick a link” as link text. Please fix this system before it becomes “serious money“.

Update: Another Blow? Microsoft extends their search deal with FaceBook, adds Bing features and will power search for FB outside the USA too. Read more about it at Search Engine Land

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