Web Development Insight

The title tag is one of the more important items in not only search engine attraction but user attraction, too. Typically the title’s contents are displayed on a SERP (search engine result page). Also the title is shown in the browser title bar and when a bookmark is created.

Unfortunately, blog software treats the title tag in different ways. Some do not even create a title tag while some put in various entries.

In WordPress the default title is the blog name followed by page information. The problem with this is that the closer to the front the more important the information according to search engines. Plugins exist, such as optimal title, to make the blog title and individual post titles better suited for search engines.

Check your blog and individual posts (look at page source) to make sure the title tag has what you think it has. You may be surprised.

I was checking under Google webmaster tools > Diagnostics > Short meta descriptions and was surprised (not really) at how many deficient meta tag descriptions there were. So I reread my own reference on meta description and started really thinking about the one or two sentences. Since this is what many people (and search engine bots) see in search results, spending 5 minutes a page is not unreasonable.

Check your meta descriptions – you may be unpleasantly surprised.

Was I the only one using a web ring? I cannot think of the last time I saw a web ring on a web site or blog – especially a professional one. They were all the rage in the 90’s but now they are pretty much dead. Today I decided to can the web ring from <a title=”The home cooking gourmet” href=”http://www.dougthecook.com”>dougthecook.com</a>. It has not made any noticeable difference on incoming traffic, so goodbye web ring.

Doug

Many of the sites I do are php only which offers many advantages. One is the copyright notice can be updated programmatically instead of manually. Here is the snippet of PHP code I use (the define is put into a config file):

define(STARTCOPYRIGHTDATE, "2009");
$thisyear = date("Y");    // YYYY

if(0 == strcmp($thisyear, STARTCOPYRIGHTDATE))
    $gcopyrightdate = $thisyear;
else
    $gcopyrightdate = STARTCOPYRIGHTDATE . '-' . $thisyear;

If the site uses html files, there are a few ways to do this. One is to use a server side include file. The include file has to be manually changed then uploaded to the server. Once there, all files using it are up-to-date. This is nice because every file on the website does not have to be updated.

The last way I mention is to use an include file or, if you have a template, put the copyright notice in it. The drawback is every file will have to be uploaded to the server.

Doug

I was checking the source code to a web page when I came across mce_href links embedded in the anchor tags. Also, I saw other attributes with the mce_ prefix.

These mce_href and others have nothing to do with search engine optimization, but are the result of the TinyMCE JavaScript-based content editor. These pages were previously probably edited with WordPress, community server, Drupal or another CMS system where the TinyMCE editor is integrated.

I now remember copy and pasting the content from a WordPress blog I had. Now it is time to clean them out.

Certain email addresses are reserved for a specific use. Their primary function is to make it easy for the administrators of various servers when they need to contact the most responsible person for a particular service.
The following names are reserved for this use:

* postmaster@mydomain.com
* abuse@mydomain.com

postmaster

The most responsible person for these services are most likely a system administrator or webmaster. The postmaster is responsible for any and all email that is sent through a system connected via the Internet. The most common reason that the postmaster will be contacted is when there is either a misconfiguration of the mail-server, or it is generating unsolicited bulk email (usually through a virus or Trojan).

Several RFC (request for comment) require a postmaster@mydomain.com account:

• RFC822 6.3
• RFC1123 5.2.7
• RFC2821 4.5.1

abuse

Though not required by any RFC, it is common to have an abuse@mydomain.com so administrators, or anyone for that matter, may contact you if your email is being abused.

I have both of mine forwarded to a catchall email account.

One drawback of having “known” email addresses is spammers know the common ones (like postmaster, abuse, info, test, …) and will try and exploit them.

Doug

The idea behind robots.txt is to keep honest robots out of certain areas of a web site. One file not to include in robots.txt is…robots.txt. The bots need to read robots.txt to find out their restrictions. A robots.txt is assumed to exist in the root directory of a web site.

Another file to leave out of robots.txt is the sitemap file: generally sitemap.xml and/or sitemap.xml.gz. It is imperative that the bots find this file so they can pare down the amount of indexing needed.

Other files not to exclude from bots are verification files: the ones created to prove you have access to the web site. Some common applications are Google sitemap verification, McAfee Site Advisor, and Yahoo Site Explorer.

Doug

The idea behind the PayPal verification seal is to provide a would-be PayPal customer verification that the PayPal account is in good standing. Click on the verification seal, login to PayPal, and find out the status of the account. The instructions on how to put the seal on a website and how to use it have been obfuscated at PayPal.

The friends at Yahoo group NetBusinessSuccess have figured out how to do this.

1. Download the PayPal seal and put a link to it on your web page.

2. Make the seal clickable to the following URL (change the email address to your PayPal email address)

<a href="http://www.paypal.com/us/verified/pal=abc@mydomain.com"></a>

3. The code should look similar to this:

<a href="http://www.paypal.com/us/verified/pal=abc@mydomain.com">
<img src="http://mydomain.com/images/pp-verification-seal.gif"
 alt="PayPal Verification Seal" width="100" height="100" /></a>

Note at this juncture that PayPal verification is only for United States accounts.

[addition 21 Feb 2007]
If you need to hide your email address from spambots here is a tool to do that:

Email Address Encoder

Doug