Eli the Computer Guy

Archive for the ‘SEO’ Category

Does Google count Twitter links towards Page Rank?  Does using Google Analytics help your site’s rankings?  These types of questions are asked countless times everyday.  Trying to read the Google documentation can lead to eye strain and complete confusion.  Now I have found a great resource that tells you exactly what Google wants from your website.

Google Webmaster Central Channel on YouTube offers HOURS of 1-3 minute question answer videos.  The presenter, Matt Curtis, is very easy to watch and understand.  Just about every question I have ever had about how Google does Page Rank is answered in a clear and concise way.

If you care about SEO you NEED to watch these videos.  Check them out at http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleWebmasterHelp

It’s official.  Google cares about how fast your website loads.  There is now even a tab in Google Webmaster Tools to show you the speed your website loads and the history of speed changes.

Speed can be effected by the capabilities of the server that hosts the site, and the bandwidth of the hosting provider.  It can also be significantly effected by how the website is actually coded.  Many simple changes can bring about significant speed improvements.

Google has created a tool called Page Speed that analyzes how your website loads and then gives you suggestions on how to improve your coding. 

It’s a good little tool, but realistically you should only play with this if you are really interested in web programming.  The suggestions it will give you are things like “Minify CSS”, and, “Combine External Java Script”.

You can take a look at it at http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/index.html

P.S.

Make sure to also download the Firebug Plugin to make Page Speed work.  I missed that step and couldn’t figure out why Page Speed wasn’t working.

One of my associates brought up the thought that the speed of a website helps determine it’s page rank.  He noticed that after I switched to hosting my own site that EliTheComputerGuy.com shot up in the search results.  He also noticed that one of his friendly competitors who runs the same type of business shows up below him, and the only apparent difference is the speed of the hosting providers.

It does make sense if this is part of Google’s calculation.  It stands to reason people want to see sites that load faster then others. 

I have a website that I have not been maintaining for a few months now.  It’s one of the standard travel blog type sites that has been online for years.  The site is not functional at the moment and one day I noticed that it was still getting traffic.  As a business person I was wondering what I could do with this wasted traffic and thought, “what about forwarding it all to the site I’m currently working on?”

Now my new site is not only getting the direct traffic from the old site, but Google searches are sending them there too (If you search for “High Ropes Course Review” you’ll end up at EverymanIT.com).  It’s a cheap way to get traffic.

If you combine this with some kind of Autoblog system you might have a really good tool.  Imagine creating 10 different Autoblog sites.  These sites automatically create content and are indexed by Google.  Then everyday you simply forward all of the traffic from 1 of the Autoblog sites to the site you care about.

By having a number of different sites, and rotating them at least once a day you reduce the chance that Google is going to incorrectly index the site that you care about as the Autoblog site, and risk Google Blacklisting.

Today I was bored and decided to send some random friend requests in Facebook like I do every few days.  I went to the “Computer” group page and clicked on a few names.  I have done this numerous times before and normally send off 10-20 requests.  This time after approx. 5 requests a message box popped up stating that Facebook felt that I was violating one of their fair use policies and that if I did not stop my account would be suspended.

Although I was surprised to see this it does seem to show that Facebook is taking a more proactive stance on combating spammers.  I have seen numerous complaints in the past that people had their accounts suspended with absolutely no notice as to why it was happening.  This type of warning message is a great way to alert users as to potential violations before they cross the line.