Developer Shed Weekly SEO News for 2008-08-22

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August 22, 2008 Welcome to the latest out-of-this-world issue from SEO Chat! Okay, maybe we aren't quite that stellar, but the item we're highlighting for you this week from eWeek is. The era of private spaceflights and space tourism is on the horizon, and Intel is eager to climb aboard. If you like to aim for the stars yourself, you might want to give it a look. We think you'll enjoy the assortment of articles we ran for you this week. On Wednesday we published one of our popular reviews, this time of Youlicit, a start-up that hopes to change the way you think about search. Would you be interested in browsing the web with a tool beside you that turns up web sites similar to the one you're on? Youlicit seems to think so. On Tuesday we shared with you more than thirty ways to do something near and dear to every SEO's heart: link building. We're pretty sure you'll find a few tricks on that comprehensive list you haven't thought of yet! Finally, on Monday, we encouraged you to get out your mops and buckets (digitally speaking) and clean up your contact us page. After all, your customers want to be able to find you just as much as you want to find them. Speaking of which, the SEO-related tutorials we're highlighting for you this week from Tutorialized are all about getting found. Learn how to build links, increase the targeted traffic to your web site, even make your brand stand out with SEO. Be sure to check out the other tutorials we have on Tutorialized too; you'll see that we have something for just about everyone! Don't you hate it when even a simple question in SEO has a complicated answer? It's a reality of the field. You'll find that point reflected very well in this week's thread. Check it out and share your views. Finally, if you make your living as an SEO, you may well see your clients making the same mistakes over and over again. If you want to save a little time and hassle, this week's Spotlight, just for readers of our newsletter, is for you. It lists a few of the things you should check first on a new client's web site. Deal with these SEO issues and you will be that much closer to seeing them climb to the top of the SERPs. You will notice below that we have highlighted the Your Move Contest, brought to you by Moblin .org. Winners will be eligible to win free Mid Devices, $1000 USD, and two tickets to any open source event in the world. You can find more info about this great contest here! As always, thanks for reading. Until next time, SEO Chat Staff

ARTICLES Youlicit Invites Us to Rediscover Search Link Building Methods Clean Up Your Contact Us Page! SEO on Tutorialized SEO Thread of The Week SEO Chat News Spotlight TOOLS Get Our Content on Your Site with DevText! New Articles, Right To Your E-mail Developer Search NEW! Download a free trial of IBM WebSphere Message Broker V6.1 Download a free trial version of WebSphere Message Broker V6.1, an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) built for universal connectivity and transformation in heterogeneous IT environments. WebSphere Message Broker distributes information and data generated by business events in real time to people, applications, and devices throughout your extended enterprise and beyond. Learn more. Hello World: WebSphere Service Registry and Repository Manage, govern, and share services across your organization by using WebSphere Service Registry and Repository. Follow the hands-on exercises to learn how to navigate the Web interface to publish, find, reuse, and update services. Learn more.

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It's edgy! It's irreverent! It's all about technology! It's News You Can't Use, and you won't want to miss it! View this week's edition to learn the answers to these burning questions: Is that Avon calling? No, that's just the Trojan man. How do I know? It's not hard. Can you really make a living playing Guitar Hero? Sure, in the same way you can make one flipping burgers. Want some fries with that shake? Do video games make you smarter? All those years of Parappa the Rappa are finally paying off. What is the video of the week about? The Wii Fit, that is what. Watch the video!

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Youlicit Invites Us to Rediscover Search by Terri Wells 2008-08-20 Google owes its success to automated search algorithms, but many niche sites and search engines put their faith in the "wisdom of crowds." Youlicit approaches search from this angle. Founded in 2006, the "discovery engine" hopes to show you parts of the web you will like based on what you already like. Youlicit uses something called collaborative filtering to reduce information overload. They focus specifically on user-annotated web data. Some examples of sites they collect information from include Del .icio .us, a social bookmarking site; Digg; Amazon; and similar kinds of sites. They also collect data from their own users. And while the company maintains a web site with a search box, they seem keen to promote their RSS feed, widget, and web browser toolbar (all of which are free, of course). But why? Youlicit seems to want to give you its services in the background, while you engage in your normal web surfing. If Youlicit finds a site that is similar to the one you are on, it lets you know. You can then see what sites Youlicit turned up with a click of your mouse. Read Youlicit Invites Us to Rediscover Search

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Link Building Methods by Ivan Strouchliak 2008-08-19 Links are the core of your search engine optimization campaign. Quality, authority and trust-building links are tough to get. Here we outline 35 methods you can use to attract links to your website. Why Links? Links are essential and natural connectors of the web. It is fairly easy for search engines to analyze links and judge the quality of a website based on the quality and quantity of its incoming links. Unlike on-page factors, links are harder to manipulate. Users abandoned former search leaders AltaVista, Excite, AllTheWeb, Hotbot and others because they could not maintain spam free indexes and return useful websites. It is harder to manipulate links and easier for search engines to keep their results spam free and relevant. Links will stay at the core of search algorithms, so it is important to learn how to get them. Read Link Building Methods

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Clean Up Your Contact Us Page! by Terri Wells 2008-08-18 Would you buy from someone you could not contact? Most people would not. It makes you wonder why so many businesses on the web hide their contact information. If you want to increase your conversions, you need to stop hiding and start making it easy for your customers to reach you. The entire purpose of a Contact Us page is to help people contact your business, in a variety of different ways if possible. You can also use the Contact Us page to tell visitors why they might want to contact your business. For example, if your company produces content and you are always looking for freelancers, your Contact Us page can include the email address for an automatic mailer that replies with special instructions (send resume, writing clips, information about your background, etc.). There are certain pages that visitors expect to be able to reach in one click from any page of a web site, such as the home page. The Contact Us page is one of these kinds of pages. It is not enough that you put contact information on the bottom of your pages; many visitors are not going to bother scrolling down. If they do not scroll down and find your information, it is every bit as bad as if you did not put it there in the first place. So make it obvious and easy to find by giving your contact information its own page and a prominent link, either in your left-side navigation or across-the-top navigation (or both!). Read Clean Up Your Contact Us Page!

Check out the amazing tutorials from IBM developerWorks and see what all the buzz is about! IBM Rational Project and Portfolio Management certification training e-kit Get free PMI training in the IBM Rational Project and Portfolio Management certification training e-kit. As a member of the Project Management Institute's (PMI's) corporate council, IBM has more than 12,000 PMI-certified project managers and has been honored for its educational programs. Now, you can learn more about the difference that IBM's project management curriculum makes with six free courses based on IBM's best-practices processes and tools. Download the updated IBM Web 2.0 Developer eKit today! Take advantage of open, flexible Web 2.0 technologies, like social software and mash-ups. The IBM Web 2.0 Developer eKit has been updated with the latest best practices & technologies from IBM. The eKit is available at no charge and provides resources to help you effectively build and apply Web 2.0 technologies to gain a competitive advantage. This eKit includes podcasts, developerWorks articles, demos, webcasts, case studies and alphaWorks emerging technologies. Rational Asset Manager eKit Learn how to do more with your reusable assets with the free Rational Asset Manager eKit. The eKit includes demos on how Rational Asset Manager tracks and audits your assets in order to utilize them for reuse. Plus you'll find white papers and a Webcast that discuss the challenges of a Service Oriented Architecture and how Rational Asset Manager can provide quick and effective solutions. IBM Rational ClearCase Innovator Series Learn from the best! Find out how developers use Rational ClearCase to be more flexible, innovative and deliver higher quality code in the Rational ClearCase Power Users eKit. This complimentary eKit provides a collection of materials, like articles, whitepapers, and demos that can help you become a power user of Rational ClearCase. Download the free Web Application Security eKit Discover how IBM Rational AppScan Standard Edition can help you detext vulnerabilities in your web applications in the Web Application Security eKit. IBM Rational AppScan is a leading suite of automated web application security solutions that scan and test for common Web application vulnerabilities. The new Web Application Security eKit provides you with valuable resources, including white papers, demos, and additional information on the benefits of testing your Web applications. IBM Rational Systems Development Solution eKit With IBM Rational Systems Development Solution, you can deliver products faster with higher quality. Within this kit, Read the "Model Driven Systems Development" white paper to see how to improve product quality and communication. Then check out the rest of the e-Kit to learn more about important topics that can affect the success of any software project through customer examples, tutorials, informative Webcasts, and best practices for designing, building and managing systems. From start to finish, at every stage in your projects, Rational Systems Development Solution can help your company reach its full potential. Download a free trial of Lotus Quickr 8.0 Visit IBM developerWorks to download a free trial version of Lotus Quickr 8.0, which enables collaboration by transforming the way everyday business content such as documents, rich media, photos, and video can be shared. Lotus Quickr makes it faster and easier to share content of all types (not just documents) within virtual teams. It is designed to make it easier to collaborate across organizational boundaries, while continuing to work within the context of familiar desktop applications. Evaluate IBM Lotus Sametime Standard V8.0 Visit IBM developerWorks to download a free trial of the latest release of IBM Lotus Sametime Standard V8.0. Lotus Sametime Standard V8.0 is a platform for unified communications and collaboration that combines security features with an extensible, open solution including integrated Voice over IP, geographic location awareness, mobile clients, and a robust Business Partner community offering telephony and video integration.

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Tutorialized is dedicated to programming, designing, and many other tech related tutorials. Submit Your Tutorial Today! 4 Easy Ways to Increase Targeted Web Site Traffic Four simple steps that you can take if you want to increase targeted traffic to your website. Read the tutorial. Confessions of an Underground Link Building Ninja Advanced Link Building Strategies to increase your rankings. Read the tutorial. How to Design a Site That Will Attract Traffic? Planning on having a professional website built for your business and want to know how to get traffic? Read the tutorial. Online Branding by way of SEO Brand - a trademark or a unique name to identify your product or a manufacturer. Read the tutorial. Balance Inbound and Outbound links for Page Rank Distributions Here are several techniques you can use for page rank distributions. Read the tutorial. Secrets Behind Link Building On reading this post you should be able to do link building with simple steps. Read the tutorial.

How can this SEO Newsletter be better? What do you like or dislike about this issue? Is there a topic you want to learn more about? What issues in search engine news are important to you? We'll consider your suggestions and ideas for improvement, so please email us. Email us.

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So many SEO questions have one answer: "it depends." This week's thread gives yet another example of this, for something you'd think would be more cut and dried. Be sure to stop by the thread and add your two cents! Long or short page titles? AragornSG Does anyone know if Google prefers short titles containing only keywords related to the search, or are long titles which also contain other words treated equally? pro_seo You need to look at it from both the search engine perspective and usability perspective as well. Normally, a shorter title with keywords is preferred since every additional word added to it dilutes the importance of the keyword. BUT Thinking from a user's perspective, which one do you think will receive more clicks: Title 1 - Nike Shoes For Sale Title 2 - Nike Shoes For Sale - Up to 30% Discount on Select Products No matter what you decide to keep, maintain the 65 characters limit else your title will appear with a trailing ..... Prof .stan You're right, we have to think in terms of user behavior and your website services. There is not a specific formula; what you add in your title mainly depends upon what you want to sell through your website. Actually your website title reflects your service. Posts from this thread may have been abridged or removed. Forum members are responsible for the content of these posts. Read the full thread.

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SEO Projects: What to Check First The members of our SEO Chat forums make it a point of pride to be helpful to newcomers to the field, whether they're site owners trying to nudge their babies a little higher in Google or considering a career change into doing SEO full time. This is why posts like the one I'm going to summarize for you from Gary Beal, known in our forums as GaryTheScubaGuy, are fairly common but very appreciated. It's a twelve point checklist which he recommends any SEO run on a new client's website to identify issues and make it easier to eliminate a few common things before throwing yourselves and your site to the wolves. There's not enough room to hit all twelve points here, so you'll definitely want to check out the thread, which I've linked to at the end of this piece. But I can hit a few highlights. First, you want to check the site for broken links. Gary recommends running Xenu Link Sleuth to accomplish this task. You need to identify all internal and external broken links, as well as internal redirects. These can cause penalties, 404s, and related problems. They'll make search engine spiders and visitors stumble, and you'd be surprised how many of these can build up over time. Second, you want to find out if the site is in a bad neighborhood. You will have to check the site's IP; again, there are tools for this. You need to know whether the site has a neighbor that is a spammer or porn-focused or may otherwise draw a penalty. If so, your client's site might get tarred with the same brush. Third, go to Google's Webmaster Tools and clear up any potential canonical issues with your domains. By this I mean deciding whether your site is http:// www .yoursite .com/ or just yoursite .com. Google and other search engines see those URLs as connecting to different sites, which could raise duplicate content issues. Also, those who link to you may use both forms, meaning that your link juice is getting split or wasted. Set up a 301 redirect to the domain you choose to make definitive. Those are just three of Gary's excellent tips; there are nine more, along with lots of commentary and further explanation from Gary and others who've joined the thread since it was started a little earlier this month. If I've whetted your appetite for more, be sure to stop by the thread to continue your education. Read the full thread

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