Page Speed And Ranking

seoindepth — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 08:39:12 +0000

The performance of a website on the internet is determined by many factors amongst which speed is the most important one. Now days, Google and other search giants are on a way to rank the website on the basis of their speeds. So, let us try to figure out the issues that we can fix from our end so that the speed of the website increases. We can optimize the CSS by shrinking it as well as reduce the size of the HTML and reduce server requests with sprites and suturing.

Optimizing and streamlining our web contents helps to increase the speed of display of all the elements.

To maximize the display speed we can do the following tasks:

Minimize HTTP requests.
Resize and optimize images.
Optimize multimedia.
Convert JavaScript behavior to CSS.
Use server-side sniffing.
Optimize JavaScript for execution speed and file size.
Convert table layout to CSS layout.
Replace inline style with CSS rules.
Minimize initial display time.
Load JavaScript wisely.

1. Some of the steps are mentioned in detail as follows:

Use container cells for descendant selectors:


...

    
        Burma
        Shave

and the result:

Burma
Shave

2. Convert graphical text to CSS text to save HTTP requests. So this:

Becomes this:

CSS Text

CSS Text

3. A common practice is to use spacer cells with a single-pixel GIF that is stretched to enforce the spacing distance. Here is an example from Nasa.gov:


Even rocket scientists can use some help with their HTML. A better way would be to use CSS to add spacing between cells:



images/common/spacer.gif">


Even better is to use relative “em” spacing to allow for changes in font size made by the user and div elements:

Content goes here
4. You can reduce the number of HTTP requests that your pages require by combining adjacent images into one composite image and mapping any links using an image map. Instead of multiple HTTP requests, this technique requires only one.
 5. By minimizing the HTTP request load, you can maximize the initial display speed of your content. So, this:



becomes this, by combining the CSS files into one file and the JavaScript files into one file:

 6. Cache Dynamic Files
header('Cache-control: must-revalidate');
header('Expires: ' . gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s', time( ) + 10800) . ' GMT');
 7. Eliminate JavaScript Includes:
For advertising, you can eliminate the extra HTTP requests required by the preceding methods by using a server-side include-based ad delivery system such as 24/7 Real Media’s Open AdStream
8. This technique uses server-side includes (SSIs) to include the banner ad directly into the page, saving an HTTP request.
Thesis Report of a Web Researcher:
Reference: http://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/web-page-performance-thesis/
Web Page Performance Vs. Server Performance
Unlike most research into web performance that deals with server and network issues, Chiew’s thesis focused on the performance analysis of web pages themselves. The key metric with web pages is response time. Instead of being the result of server and network conditions, Chiew treats response time as an attribute of web pages. To address response time, Chiew proposes a framework of measurement, modeling, and monitoring. These “3Ms” were addressed with corresponding software modules. Using this framework, web developers can assess that web pages can meet or reduce tolerable wait times to ensure higher user satisfaction with web sites.
The thesis tests the following hypothesis:

The response time of      downloading a Web page can be decomposed into its constituent components.
The particular Web page response      time will be affected by identifiable characteristics of the Web pages.
It is possible to provide      recommendations for resolving or relieving some of the identified      performance problems that may cause poor response time based on the      identified characteristics that affect Web page response time.
 
 


Why and How to optimize blogs?
seoindepth — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:42:43 +0000
Need for optimizing a blog:
According to a survey, it is proved that nearly 75,000 new blogs are newly created daily on the internet. With such a huge number of blogs as our counterpart, it is very difficult to maintain the pace of competition by just posting or by just adding content. To be alive in the competition it is highly recommendable that we have to use all the tricks and tactics to bring our blogs in the notice of the readers. To achieve this goal, we have an easy solution with us, yes it is the optimization technique that can help us. Herein comes the SEO in focus.
Optimizing the blog will surely help you to increase the traffic as well as improve the ranking in the regular search as well as the blog / RSS search.
Optimizing a blog is not that difficult as like as a website, that is because the blogging sites are good content management systems having a good scope for optimization for example say that we can use many readily available plugins as well as the tools.
 
Process Of Optimization
Start it by selecting a proper template. Some templates just blocks the search engines, so in these case you have to check all the flaws of the template.

Keywords: Make a good research for      using the best keywords. Keep users as well as search engine in point of      view. Many automated tools are available, which gives a good list of      keywords.
Use your primary keyword in your blog      domain
Use your primary key phrase in your blog      header tags and the title of your posts
Use your secondary keywords in the body      of your post
Use your keywords in the anchor text      of links
Make sure search engines can spider      your blog easily
Get backlinks from other blogs or      websites
Density: Try to study the density      of different search engines, as they vary a lot. If you want to focus      yahoo then the density can vary from 9-11%.For google its little lower may      be 3-5%. If you try to violate the specified densities to the search      engines then you can be either not ranked in the SERP’s or also can be      counted as a spamming member.
Proximity: Keep it genuine as per      the search engine in focus.
Meta:      These are given high preference by some search engines and given less      priority by the others. So use it properly without much stuffing.
RSS feeds: Try to provide buttons      for subscribing the feeds easily 
Try to provide the posts via emails.
Develop a good look and feel  by using proper color theme that suits the niche of the blog
Try to compel the users to read the further posts by using snippets. These is good because  the readers feels the eagerness when there is a cliff hanger.
Use good categories
URL structure plays a vital role in SEO, so optimize them by putting proper keywords
Buying a domain: Our own domain will always be good. 
Use Pinging:  Try to ping other sites as soon as you make a post
Try to link the source of information.
Also optimize the images, without stuffing the alt tags
Submitting to Blog Search Engines and Directories


         

Some Common Blogging Terms
seoindepth — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:39:20 +0000
Let us have a look at some common terms generally used in the field of blogging. Many of us are unaware of these terms. Being a SEO, it is very necessary to have at least some ideas of these terms:

Atom : Feed of any post. Same as RSS


Auto casting : It is an automated form of pod casting that allows readers to generate audio versions of text blogs from RSS


Audioblog : Here the posts are made up of voice recordings which also includes some text used for metadata


Blawg : Its a law blog.


Blog Carnival : It’s a blog that contains links to other articles covering the same topic


Blog Client : It’s a software used to manage the post as well as edit them directly from Operating System which don’t need a browser.


Blogger : The owner of the blog or one who runs a blog


Bloggies : It’s a famous award given for blogging


Blogroll : It’s a list of recommended sites generally present in the sidebar


Blogware : Many softwares used as content management system used for creating and maintaining  the blogs


The BOS s : Largest International blog awards


Collaborative blog : Blog focused on a single issue where multiple users enjoy posting permission. It is also known as group blog.


Comment spam : Advertising in the comment section using html link tags.


Desk Top Blogging Client : Its off-line blog management tool


Flog : It’s a combination of “fake” and “blog”. i.e. we don’t know the writer of the blog.


J-blog : It’s a journalist blog or also a blog with jewish focus


Milblog : It’s a military blog i.e. written the members or military service.


         

Good Blogging Techniques
seoindepth — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:59:26 +0000
The language used in blogging must be kept very simple. It must be written just like we write an email. Say for example we are writing a mail to our mom, the way that we will start will be something like, “hi mom, today I discovered a new technique to improve the hair loss problem.” After these removing the salutation will give you a good punch line to start the discussion. Just follow such lucid language.

 Using news: If you are going to start a blog related to any company or any typical field, then try to collect a good news related to that issue. Spend half of your blog summarizing the aspects in that news and then remaining part is left for your opinion regarding that news, what all changes must be there and what you feel. You must not forget to cite a link to the news site so as to increase the trust of the information.
People love listening stories: Try to expose your ideas in the format of story rather then in a simple tips version.
Create a list of ideas you have in your mind. Try to present it in some hierarchical format because people love lists as they are prone to it. List helps us to be focused on the issue and we can also keep the issues out which we don’t want to discuss.
Know your topic: Start a topic which you know or which you can easily explain because you are trying to help others on that topic and if you yourself are ignorant about the depths of the topic then the reader can easily point it out.
Give credit: If you are using ideas of some one else’s blog or post then don’t forget to link that blog which will help to maintain the genuineness of the information.
Length doesn’t matter: If your ideas related any topic are not very long then keep it as it is and unnecessary don’t try to make it long by just putting any irrelevant data. People always prefer short but proper rather then long and improper.
Keep search engine in mind: If your blog is not indexed then it wont create an impression on the readers, so try to optimize it using the SEO technique in a spam free way and aloof of keyword stuffing. Provide links wherever needed is a good technique.

How to select a topic for blog posting for today:

 Try to figure out the hottest trend in the market: In recent few years twitter has flourished a lot so many of the public are using it. You try to figure out any topic from it and start your flow of information.


 Ask the audience: Suppose you are a part of any community say like on twitter then always try to ask your followers or friends that what do they want to read. Thus, you can directly notify them that you have prepared a write up of their choice which can provide you potential readers thus increasing your blog’s familiarity.


 Stand on strong shoulder: Keep a watch on the best bloggers online and study their blogs, if you find anything interesting or fancy in it then create an opinion blog for that topic. It will give you a good boost.



         

URL Redirects
seoindepth — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:29:29 +0000


While driving on the road many  may have faced a road diversion which is done due to some improper functioning or due any such reason.Same is the case with  URLs.Whenever there are some flaws in the working of any site or any changes are to be applied then the use of redirects is beign done.
These was  just a generalized scenario.Being a SEO or a good netizen you all must be familiar with the technical aspects of the redirection.
Issues that urges the need of redirects

The first reason is the necessity of the owner of a website to show the domain where he has moved his pages.
The other reason is just when there are collaboration between the websites.Here,it is necessary to route the users of both the merging sites to a specific new location or URL which has the merging effect of both the sites.
Whenever any domain is renamed then it is necessary to notify the users.But, if the users are unaware then it is good to redirect them directly which can be even not recognized by the user.

Reasons why we do re-directs

Nowadays world is being flown towards nano technology i.e every thing is becoming smaller and smaller.The consequences of such technology will one day make it possible to carry your entire planet in a brief case.How funny,isnt it?But it can be true.The reason to mention it here is that,one of such reason is a result of redirection i.e to get a shorter URL instead of a longer.In the field of internet it is recommended to have a shorter URL.Such option is provided by URL redirects.
It is also used as a replacement for changing URLs.For some websites which are free to be edited,it happens that the content remains same but the url can be changed.Here, the problem is faced by such users who have bookmarked those urls.To overcome these problem,url redirects is used.
One use of it is for black hat purpose i.e using 302,it can be used to steal page ranks.Usually it was possible some time ago but nowadays the search engine providers have over come such issues by just penalizing the sites using these technique.Cloaking is also done using the redirects.
The redirects are also used for fooling the users and making them feel of the site they wished to visit but in reality it is not the one they intended.Thus, giving rise to phishing.

How to implement redirection?
There are many ways to obtain the task of redirection.The most popular and oldest one is to refresh meta tags.However, nowadays many other advance techniques are used.Let us have a look at them.

Simple redirect

These technique is used as an option for those browsers who do not support the automatic redirects.Here the user can reach the destination by just following the link given in the anchor tag.Let us check how does it look like?
Visit:Your Best Guide In SEO

Using HTTP status codes

The client must take additional action to complete the request.This class of status code indicates that further action needs to be taken by the user agent in order to fulfill the request. The action required may be carried out by the user agent without interaction with the user if and only if the method used in the second request is GET or HEAD. A user agent should not automatically redirect a request more than five times, since such re-directions usually indicate an infinite loop.
300 – Different Options
It mentions that the user can have any option out of the many available.For example different extensions of a file,different languages  etc.
301 – Permanently moved
These technique is used to show a change of location i.e if the domain has changed then we can redirect the old domain to the new one.It is also used to resolve the formation of canonical issues i.e by taking different combination of our  url like with www,without www,different cases all these can be solved by just redirecting to a proper url of out site.
Different ways to implement 301 redirect

Use .htaccess for redirection:

If we use Apache server,the .htaccess files are used for redirection.The coding is done in Apache config files or the .htaccess file.Lets have a quick look at the types of the .htaccess pages.

.htaccess for Static pages :

Here,we have to code within the .htaccess file by downloading it to our root directory,make the changes and again reload it.
2.  .htaccess for Dynamic pages:
For dynamic pages we need the id fo the page that i sbeing used along with the url.

Refresh meta tag & HTTP refresh header:

Its a feature introduced by netscape.It specifies the url of the new page which is replaces the old one after some defined period of time.Here we need to specify the time out i.e the interval after which the url has to be changed.If the timeout is 0,it is said to be 301.
Here ,the code is placed in the head tag of HTML file.But,these method is considered as a poor technique by the W3C standard because it doesn’t  communicate any information about the original & new source to the browser and W3C never prefers auto-refreshing pages as many browsers doesn’t support it.

Java scripts redirects:

As many browser doesn’t support java as well as due to security resons it is not very prominent.

Cold fusion redirect:
Frame redirects:

Here,a HTML frame is created which has the url of the target page.Here,the address of the frame document appears as the url and not of the target page.Usually ,it is used as a cloaking method i.e a black hat technique.

Redirect Loops:

Here,multiple redirects are being used for a single domain, say for example www.abc.com(improper) is redirected to www.abc.org(proper) then it is further redirected to en.abc.org.It is called as loops of redirect.The maximum limit for such redirects is 5.




         

Content goes here

Seoindepth's Blog

Page Speed And Ranking

CSS Text

CSS Text

Why and How to optimize blogs?

Some Common Blogging Terms

Good Blogging Techniques

URL Redirects