Archive for December, 2006
Google Webmaster Tools Now on 1and1 Internet Web Hosting
Posted by admin in 1and1 Internet, 1and1 Web Hosting, google sitemaps, google webmaster tools, seo on December 7th, 2006
I logged onto my 1&1 Internet Control Panel last week and noticed a new category: Marketing Center. One of the items in that category was “Google Webmaster Tools.” “Excellent,” I thought to myself.
The 1&1 Internet Google Webmaster Tools feature consists of an automated script that generates a file called google_sitemap.xml.gz, which is a compressed xml sitemap file, for the selected domain. It also submits it to Google for you.
The sitemap creation dialog gives you the following options to customize your sitemap file:
-Directory Selection
-File Category Selection
-Excluded Files
Once submitted you can update your sitemap once a day, and it will be resubmitted through the control panel. That’s about it.
This is a really stripped down version of Google Webmaster Tools. If you are just starting out, and want to get sitemaps up quick and easily, 1 &1’s Google Webmaster Tools feature could be the way to go for you. If you want more control over your sitemap and more detailed information on your sites performance and Google’s indexing of it, I’d recommend opening up a Google Account, and downloading GSiteCrawler sitemap generator.
Blogger Beta, Firefox, Greasemonkey, Magical Sheep and Technorati
Posted by admin in blog, blogger beta, blogging, firefox, greasemonkey, magical sheep, seo, tagging, technorati on December 6th, 2006
Check out my cool new Technorati tags at the bottom of my post. Wanna know how I got ‘em? Do ya? Well:
1. First I downloaded Firefox (ok, I already had it, but you can download it by clicking the link at the to of the page!).
2. Next I downloaded Greasemonkey - It’s a Firefox extension that allows you to run user scripts on any webpage to add functionality. For example you could add cool Technorati tags to the end of your blog posts.
3. The user script you want to use in your Mozilla browser, enabled by Greasemonkey is called Magical Sheep. Click on the button, open your Blogger Beta, and voila, you can now add ultra-neato technorati tags like you see below.
Submit Your Google Sitemap To Yahoo
Posted by admin in google sitemaps, seo, site feed, yahoo site explorer, yahoo site feed, yahoo sitemap on December 6th, 2006
Already have a Google Sitemap? Why not submit it to Yahoo too? First you’ll need to set up a Yahoo account and authenticate your site, much like you would on Google. Set up your site here:
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ (see my post on Yahoo Site Explorer)
Once your site has been added, they accept sitemap submissions here:
https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit
Once logged in, here’s what you’ll see:
Whereas Google asks you to enter your sitemap, but you can also enter your site feed, Yahoo asks you to enter your site feed, but you can also enter your sitemap. They just have to be different. Individual. Unique.
>
Once your sitemap is entered (or site feed, for you bloggers), you’ll be taken to your feed page, which looks very similar to the sitemaps page in Google Webmaster tools:

Like Google Sitemaps, it allows you to resubmit at will, and shows you when you last submitted, and when it was last uploaded:
I’ve heard talk the MSN will also accept sitemap submission in the near future. I’m waiting.
Blogging Basics - Part One
Posted by admin in blog, blogging, blogging basics, google adsense, tips, tutorial on December 5th, 2006
I’ve only been seriously blogging for a few months now, although I published my first post in 2004. I’ve learned a few things and taken some missteps, and I thought I’d share them with you. I’m not at the top of the learning curve , so please take that into consideration as you read.
The following tips assume that you are writing blog posts with the intent of drawing maximum readership. They cover factors that are on-page. Off-page factors will be covered in part two.
1. Forget about Google for the first 6 months. They are very snobby and won’t care about your blog at first. I used to think there was such a thing as optimizing for particular search engines. Now I have a pretty standard set of rules, based on quality content and putting the right keywords in the right places. If you do try to figure out algorithms and tweak your blog posts accordingly, concentrate on MSN and Yahoo for the first 6 months to a year.
2. Your main page is where it is happening. When you are first starting out, with a piddly page rank of 2 or 3, your main page is going to have the best shot at showing up in the SERPs. After the posts fall off the main page, they are much less likely to get hits. I’m still experimenting myself, but suffice it to say, don’t set your posts to drop off from the main page too quickly.
3. Start multiple blogs. If you think you may want to blog on many or a few different subjects, don’t put everything on one blog. The last thing you want is a big mish-mash of different subject matter, which will dilute your targeted content. As stated above, it takes a while for the big-boy search engine, Google, to see you as an established presence, so think things out and start as many blogs as you think are necessary to they can each get their own page rank, and when you are finally ready to roll and start gaining some blogging momentum, you’ll have several venues with decent visability, instead of just one.
4. Just start writing. When I first started blogging, I had no idea what I wanted to say. Writing a post was like pulling teeth. Gradually, however, as I gained practice at putting my thoughts to words, and seeing which type of subjects made good posts, writing because more effortless. You have to start though. Just do it. Pay your dues. Just delete your early practice posts when you start getting traffic, or you could be in for a bit of embarrassment.
Technorati Ping Problem Solved
Yesterday I wrote a post entitled Technorati Ping Problems on another blog. It described a problem I was having with a new blog promotion service I started using recently, Technorati. Information for one of the three blogs I have registered with them (this one) was majorly wacky.
I just received an email from Technorati support saying they made a “small adjustment” and everything should be working now. Sure enough, everything is looking good. My latest posts are up there, showing my index as updated 6 hours ago rather than 393 days. I emailed them just yesterday, so I’m impressed with their response time. Hopefully the problem is truely solved and I won’t be needing “small adjustments” on a regular basis.
Technorati appears to be a very useful and powerful service. They do have a problem related to pinging some blogs, but they are handling it. I think I’ll keep them
Usability 101 - Describe What You Do
Posted by admin in seo, usability, user-friendly on December 4th, 2006
As a result of attending the Silicon Valley Webguild’s Web 2.0 event at Google last week, I decided to spend some time this past weekend exploring some of the social networking and tagging sites that have been exploding since the whole Myspace shiznit hit the fan. I was amazed to see how bad the usability of some (not all) of these sites is.
If someone were ever to ask me the best single thing they could do to make their Website user-friendly, I’d say this:
Describe what you do on the homepage.
What is this Website? What can I do on it? Pretty simple. When I see a Website that does not follow this rule-of-thumb, I immediately assume they did not use a well-thought-out design process to build their site, and instead slapped it up there fast and cheap. I don’t have time to waste searching for what they do. I’m going to move on. exit page = entry page. pageviews = 1.
Blogger Censorship
Posted by admin in blog, blogger, blogging, censorship on December 3rd, 2006
I’ve heard rumors about posts on Blogspot.com being deleted without the author’s consent. I first heard of this in a website marketing article. I haven’t been able to find any more specific information on what the author of the marketing article was talking about, but decided to start a Wordpress blog on my business Website design site, in order to compare and contrast. The new TP Designs Website Design Blog is at http://www.tpdesigns.net/wordpress and will contain news about services, technology and special offers.
GSiteCrawler Website is Up
Posted by admin in google sitemaps, gsitecrawler, seo on December 2nd, 2006
Ok, I panicked. The GSiteCrawler Website is back up, and my download completion dialog just interrupted my typing. They may have been updating the Website, because there seems to be a lot more info on it than the last time I was there. All good.
GSiteCrawler Web Site is Missing
Posted by admin in google sitemaps, gsitecrawler, seo on December 1st, 2006
I just tried to fire up my GSiteCrawler program to update one of my Google Sitemaps and was informed via dialog box that my copy is only good until today, and I should go to http://johannesmueller.com/gs to download the current version. That URL redirects to http://gsitecrawler.com, which is now an empty page.
GSiteCrawler was an excellent, easy to use tool, and now it is gone. Whatever will I do. I guess it’s back to the Google Python program for now.





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