Recently I upgraded my home PC to Windows 7 Beta. Yes you might think I am a sucker for punishment with Microsoft being notorious for releasing buggy software however many people are reporting that Windows 7 is supirior to Vista even in the Beta stages.

Anyway, while the Windows 7 experience has been quite pleasurable there have been a few gremlins to work around. The main one being trying to get Outlook 2007 to work with my Exchange email that is hosted by Fasthosts.

If you set up the email as normal once you start Outlook it repeatedly asks you for your password as if it is not recognising you as a user.
So after resorting to Outlook Web Access for the past couple of days I decided to pull my finger out and figer out what is going on.

Anyway I found a useful post on Vinodunny.com. With hosted exchange account names are normally in the form of name@domain.com, however internally on the Exchange Active Directory they will be stored in the format of ADSDomain\name_internetdomain. So therefore if you use the format of Exchange Active Directory for the username you will be able to set up your email.

Apparantly if access Outlook Web Access go to options and change password you will be able to see the correct username there.

Unfortunately for Fasthosts users this option is not there however if you use the normal username (ie name@domain.com) and change the authentication from “Basic” to “NTLM” it does appear to fix the problem.

This technically should not work as Fasthosts claim they use basic authentication however they may use NTLM authentication internally. Either way it appears to resolve the issue.

Over the last few months I have been noticing quite a lot of websites that make some fundamental errors. One of the ones that keep cropping up is failing to make a website resolve on the non www.  version.

I just went to blackpool.gov.uk to try and pay our rates bill and was greeted with an opendns error.

I don’t know about most people but I never type in a URL starting with www. and I am assuming this would be cause for significant confusion for the average person that does not know about these things.

Granted a lot of sites that suffer these issues are for companies/organisations that are not relying on the search engines for success but it is still a basic error that will probably be causing confusion.

I just checked the other sites blackpool.gov.uk links out to and quite a few of them suffer from the same issues including:

• blackpoolunlimited.com
• reblackpool.com
• visitblackpool.com

Please sort it out!

One of the common issues we, and SEOs in general, face when proposing work to potential clients and also for existing clients is that they want results immediately or in the case of existing clients they become impatient and want to know why a site is ranking after X months.

It is an understandable problem, if you have just paid for a brand new website you may of paid thousands of pounds and you want to be getting a return on your investment as fast as possible.

Let’s say we have just developed a website called dolphin-mobiles.co.uk selling Mobile Phones. Luckily we decided to take SEO into account when developing the site and we have an excellent site with keyword rich titles, unique descriptions, proper use of headers, and a text link based navigation that avoids duplicate content.

Then surely it is a realistic expectation to rank for “Mobile Phones” right?

Granted the term Mobile Phones is quite hard to rank for no matter what, but I couldn’t think of an example off the top of my head for a medium competitive term. However let’s say yes it is a realistic expectation, now the problem is why doesn’t that site rank for the term in 3-6 months?

If we look some of the top ranking sites for Mobile Phones we have o2, onestopphoneshop, directphoneshop, dialaphone and mobiles.co.uk.

Onestopphoneshop.co.uk currently has 90,620 external links pointing to the domain so surely if I got 90,621 links pointing to dolphin-mobiles.co.uk we would rank for “Mobile Phones” yeah?

No unfortunately not. Apart from the fact that not all links are born equal (10 good links might be better than 1000 spammy links) Google looks at other factors beyond what links you gain and how optimised your site it.

One of the main things Google is trying to avoid is web spam. A common feature of spammy websites is new domains and websites that have been live for a very short period of time. This therefore means Google likes older domains and websites that have been around for a long time.

If we look at onestopphoneshop.co.uk it was registered in 1998 and has an internet archive dating back to 1999 with the earliest archive being a site selling mobile phones. Therefore it is safe to assume this site will not be spam and deserves to rank higher than my brand new domain with no history.

The other factor that needs to be taken into account is the age of the back links themselves. Google is going to be mighty suspicious if my brand new website suddenly gets 90,621 links over 3 months so therefore it won’t rank the site for the chosen key term.

It is hard to identify the age of the links to onestopphoneshop.co.uk but if they have been acquiring keyword rich links from 1998 and these links have remained in place then it is clear to Google that this site but be about Mobile Phones and therefore deserve to rank for it.

The simplest analogy would be someone applying for a £150,000 a year job when s/he only has 6 months experience. Yes in theory the individual may have the skills to do the job but are you going to trust s/he is telling the truth? Someone with 10 years experience in a well known company would (in theory) a much safer option as s/he has a proven track record.

Obviously we are not suggesting it will take 10 years to get a site ranking however if you have a new website and new domain and want to compete in a competitive market it takes time, you need to prove to Google you deserve that position.

One of the main driving forces behind this issue is SEO companies claiming to achieve rankings in days, weeks or a few months. Yes it is feasible that you will get some long tail rankings in this time I am confident it wouldn’t take me that long to rank for “Cheap Nokia E90 Communicator Smartphone” however what benefit will that ever for a website?

SEO is a long term investment, with long term results. It takes time and money but in the end if it is done properly it will have a better return on investment than pay per click or traditional marketing techniques.

Why SEO takes time and effort

Some further reading:

SEO Is Not a One-Time Fix by Chris Boggs. Recommends that enterprise level contracts should be 3 years minimum

Search Engine Ranking Factors by SEOMoz. A guide of rankings factors including sections about the age of document, age of site, historical performance of the site, and age of links.

Link Value Factors by Wiep. Another excellent guide this time focussing on the factors involved in determining the value of a link. This also references age of the link and age of the domain.

Unrealistic SEO Expectations by Dolphin Promotions. Why ranking for highly competitive terms when you are not directly in that market can be unrealistic, and why focussing on increasing conversions is much more profitable

Dolphin Promotions are pleased to announce we will be hosting the Supercollider Art Exhibition at our new offices on 32 Clifton Street, Blackpool. The Exhibition is a selection of work from local up and coming artists including installations, photography, drawings, and sculpture.

Artists exhibiting work will include:

• Noel Clueit
• Karen Duckworth
• Tom Ireland
• Andrew Parziale
• Fiona Shaw
• Nisha Vidiavaloo
• Katie Wade

The preview show will be held tomorrow (Thursday 12th November) at 7:00pm and will be open on Saturdays and Sundays 1-5pm until the 30th November.

Entrance is free so feel free to come down and support your local artists.

Full Address of the show:

The 2nd Floor

32 Clifton Street

Blackpool

FY1 1JP

URL canonicalization is a common technique employed by SEOs to resolve duplicate content issues associated with having the same page display for multiple versions of the URL.
The main issues occur when a websites homepage resolves on up to 4 different URLs such as

example.com/
www.example.com/
example.com/index.php
www.example.com/index.php

The problem shows 4 different URLs to the search engines which can dilute the effectiveness of links and also potentially cause a duplicate content issue.
The aim of URL canonicalization is to redirect the different URLs into 1 standard URL. For most cases this would be www.example.com/.

This is all relatively common knowledge for SEOs and many applications such as WordPress have it built in. If you use PHP/Apache then canonicalization is a relatively simple process using .htaccess where you will find plenty of guides.

Unfortunately not everyone uses PHP/Apache.  If you use ASP/ASP.net or god forbid PHP on IIS then things become a little more complex. Actually 301 redirects on IIS are quite easy but for this you need access to the IIS server, and for most people this is not possible.
If you need to do URL canonicalization in ASP or ASP.Net then you need to add some code to the top of each page (or call it in with an include)

For ASP

<%

Dim domain_name, theurl, query_string, http_path,temp_num

'Get domain that the page is on

domain_name = lcase(request.ServerVariables("HTTP_HOST"))

'Check if URL is the www version

if left(domain_name, 3) <> "www" Then

http_path = request.ServerVariables("PATH_INFO")

' If other index page is used, such as index.asp

'the numbers in the right and len statement need to be changed, as well

'as the IF statment to indicate the index page.

If right(http_path, 12) = "/default.asp" Then

temp_num = len(http_path)-11

http_path = left(http_path,temp_num)

End If

' Sets the new URL settings with correct page

query_string = request.ServerVariables("query_string")

theurl = "http://www." & domain_name & http_path

'This section passes on the query string variables

if len(query_string) > 0 Then

theurl = theurl & "?" & query_string

end if

' Send 301 response and new location

Response.Clear

Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently"

Response.AddHeader "Location", theurl

Response.Flush

Response.End

end if

%>

For ASP.Net you need to use (via:x2line)

protected void Application_BeginRequest(Object sender, EventArgs e)

{

 HttpApplication app = sender as HttpApplication;

 string domainName = "example.com";

 if (app != null)

 {

 string host = app.Request.Url.Host.ToLower();

 string requestUrl = app.Request.Url.PathAndQuery;

 if (String.Equals(host, domainName))

 {

 Uri newURL = new Uri(app.Request.Url.Scheme +

 "://www." +

 domainName +

 requestUrl);

 app.Context.Response.RedirectLocation = newURL.ToString();

 app.Context.Response.StatusCode = 301;

 app.Context.Response.End();

 }

 }

}

It is worth noting that in the ASP example there is a small issue. The redirect doesn’t actually work for www.example.com/index.php to www.example.com as the value for “request.ServerVariables(“PATH_INFO”)” is the same for www.example.com/default.asp and www.example.com/ so trying to re-direct them will cause a to many re-directions error.

If there are any other guides to URL canonicalization guides for non standard scenarios (Such as Zeus Server!) feel free to post a link.

One of the biggest problems we face as an SEO company is a client having unrealistic expectations about what SEO can achieve. There are a lot of cases where it feels like clients seem to think SEOs have a direct line to Google and when they pay for work done we will get on the phone to Eric and Sergey and inform them we want X site ranking in X position.

As much as we wish this was true it is unfortunately not the case. The reality of the situation is Google is trying to provide the most relevant results for specific searches and in theory as an SEO company we aim to try and make a website selling “Blue Widgets” be as relevant as possible for the term “Blue Widgets”.

Unfortunately it is not always as simple as just making the site relevant for “Blue Widgets” there are quite frequently a LOT of other  website targeting the same term, so we need to somehow make this site more relevant that everyone else. This is then quite frequently accompanied by a client not being satisfied with ranking for “Blue Widgets” but they want to rank for “Widgets”. This can make things considerably more difficult.

If we take a more realistic example, let’s say we sell SIP Voip Phones, it would be a realistic expectation to be able to rank for SIP Voip Phones. Seeing as that is what we specialise in, then someone searching for SIP Voip Phones or SIP phones may find us in the top ten of Google and they will be content with the fact a relevant result.

However if the person searches for VOIP Phones and we rank in the top ten then does the site really deserve to be there? There are all sorts of VOIP Phones out there and I am assuming that the average person searching for VOIP Phones is more likely searching for a traditional VOIP phone or a SKYPE Phone, therefore having a site specialising in SIP Voip Phones ranking in the top ten of Google is NOT a relevant result.

This problem is them amplified if we wanted to rank for “Phones”. Yes we sell phones, but it is just not relevant at all to rank for that term, there are hundreds of types of phone, and SIP phones are a very specific niche so why would Google want our site ranking for phones? And the answer is they don’t want the site to rank for this term, and this is exactly what they are trying to stop.

Obviously this doesn’t mean we wouldn’t target “VOIP Phones” (we might not bother with just “Phones” though) but in reality it could be very difficult to rank for this term, and to some extent you end up playing a cat and mouse game with Google.  If there is a technique that improves rankings and SEO Company will likely use it (obviously) however at some point if Google feels people are using a technique to manipulate the search engines they will likely devalue the technique. This has happened with dozens of techniques over the years including directory submissions, mass article syndication, reciprocal links, selling links, along with various on site techniques such as having a high keyword density.

A more realistic and profitable approach is to spend less time obsessing about ranking for unrealistic terms and more time concentrating on improving sales, and specifically improving the conversions from search engine traffic to a certified lead or sale.

While getting the example site that sells SIP Voip Phones ranking for Phones may generate a lot of traffic is it likely that this traffic will really convert into a sale? Ok, yes a small percentage might, it would be more fruitful to spend time trying to improve the people searching for “SIP phones” into sales than it is spending time getting the site ranking for “phones”.

Opera recently carried out a report on websites that pass W3C markup validation. The study is part of the Metadata Analysis and Mining Application Project (MAMA) and tested 3,509,170 URLs with the W3C’s markup validator.

The study found that only 4.13% of the URL set passed validation (with 4.33% of the domains having at least 1 URL that passed validation).

While this is a relatively low figure it is an increase on previous years.

In December 2001, 2,034,788 URLs were tested, 14,563 passed, equalling a pass rate of 0.71%

In June 2006, 1,002,350 URLs were tested, 25,890 passed, equalling a pass rate of 2.58%

W3C Validation is arguably not that important, as it does not have an effect on functionality of the website, nor does it affect the rankings in the Search Engine Results Pages.

However it is regarded as important to help ease of maintenance, cross platform compatibility, and access by people with disabilities along with other benefits.

Having a website that is cross browser compatible will help improve traffic and sales conversions as the bounce rate of users viewing a site that appears “broken” will likely be considerably higher than a website that is fully functioning.

Having a website that is accessible to people with disabilities will help improve the number of people able to view your site, which in turn should help increase sales. It is also worth noting that a website that does not take into account people with disabilities is theoretically breaking the law as there is a legal requirement to conform to the disabilities discrimination act. At the moment in time there have been no known cases of these causing webmaster legal issues but as the web becomes more ubiquitous providing access to the disabled will likely become more important.

Well we have taken some time off from blogging as things have been so busy. Over the past few months we have been recommending clients to consider blogging as part of the promotions process. We find blogging one of the best methods to promote a site, Google loves fresh unique content and building links to an informative blog post is much easier than building links to a corporate page listing services, or a product page on an e-commerce site.

So we have decided to listen to our own advice and get back to blogging!

Well I am sure most people have already noticed we have not been posting. It is not out of laziness but we just have too much work on and we need to put our clients before our own projects!

I am hoping that once our SEO team is fully developed I will be able to have some time to do a little more blogging/research/experimenting and maybe even get involved with the SEO community a little more!!

Sorry for the lack of posts we have had quite a hectic year so far. Both the SEO and Web Design side of the business is extremely busy with out SEO clients grown by 3 fold so we have just not had chance to blog.

Due to our quick growth we have just signed a lease for new offices in the centre of Blackpool Town on Clifton Street (First Floor 32 Clifton Street). It is a nice spacious 1100 Sq Ft so we have plenty of room to grow. We also have a nice new staff room with a 50″ Plasma, XBox 360, and Nintendo Wii. I say staff room but you know it was only really for my benefit!

Unfortunately we haven’t actually had chance to do half the decoration or even put our branding and company details on the main doors yet! Once it is all sorted I will post pictures and details so people can actually find us.

For the time being we will be keeping our old postal address. The office is owned by European Transport Solutions who are friends of ours so our old office will still be available. We will eventually change our postal address but will do it gradually with new clients to avoid people getting too confused!