“我思故我在” “I think, therefore I am”
The Importance of Canonical Link Element
Oct 11th
In sometime mid February this year, the three big search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN/Live) gang up to announce a coordinated effort and it is wise for us to take this matter seriously. It is about the canonical page and canonical link element.
Many people might not heard of this canonical page and canonical link element. So I just briefly explain what is it:
Due to the use of dynamic URLs, one single web page can have more than 1 valid urls (address) pointing to it. For example:
www.yoursite.com
yoursite.com
www.yoursite.com/
yoursite.com/
www.yoursite.com/index.html
yoursite.com/index.html
www.yoursite.com/Home.aspx
yoursite.com/Home.aspx
http://www.yoursite.com
http://yoursite.com
http://www.yoursite.com/index.html
http://yoursite.com/index.html
http://www.yoursite.com/Home.aspx
http://yoursite.com/Home.aspx
https://www.yoursite.com
Of which the official one (or your most preferred version) is www.yoursite.com. So the page at www.yoursite.com is call the canonical page. A canonical page is the preferred version of a set of pages with highly similar content.
However, if you don’t tell the search engines which one is your canonical page, they might not know which one it is, as such, they will just select one of the URL and flagged others as DUPLICATE CONTENTS!
That’s why now with the introduction of this canonical link element, you have to add the line of code in all your other non-canonical pages to identify your canonical page. Your problem can be solved by adding a <link> element with the attribute rel=”canonical” to the <head> section of the non-canonical version of the page. Adding this link and attribute lets site owners identify sets of identical content and suggest to Search Engines: “Of all these pages with identical content, this page is the most useful. Please prioritize it in search results.”
From the above example, this is how you specify your canonical link element in one of the non-canonical page e.g. https://www.yoursite.com:
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.yoursite.com”/>
Add this line of code to the <head> section of the non-canonical page.
If you are using CMS, you can just hardcode the canonical URL into the section (please make sure you test and confirm) so that any duplicate variants of that URL should still contain the correct canonical URL inside.
One more important point to take note is Google currently will take canonicalization suggestions into account across subdomains (or within a domain), but not across domains. So site owners can specify a canonical page on www.yoursite.com from a set of pages on yoursite.com or help.yoursite.com, but not on yoursite-blog.com.
Take a look at this video from Matt Cutts on the details on Canonical Link Element:
For those of you who use WordPress, there is a plugin by Joost de Valk – Canonical URL’s that you can install, very useful.
Matt Cutts Revealed a Secret Feature of Google Reader
Oct 10th
I found this video on Youtube where Matt Cutts revealed the hidden gems of Google.
It is call Google Reader – The Ninja Mode:
Got it? Can you see the Ninja?
If can’t, please try the following steps in sequence:
Press the “up” arrow twice
Press the “down” arrow twice
Press the “left” arrow once
Press the “right” arrow once
Press the “Left” arrow once
Press the “right” arrow once
Press the “b” key
Press the “a” key
Ok, now I hope you can see the Ninja!
It is actually the Konami code.
By the way, you can just enter the code again to make them invisible.
Have fun!
Bye Bye Meta Tags
Sep 29th
All this while we have been told to put in meta tags for the search engines to index our sites, but now no more. The old search engines like metacrawler, even Yahoo in the OLD DAYS, used to look at meta tags, and webmasters could get top listings by simply including Keyword and Description meta tags. This doesn’t happen anymore.
Due to the massive spam via meta tags and include hundreds of keywords and descriptions that are not even relevant to the page, the big search engines don’t consider meta tags as a basis for inclusion into their directories. The only tag that is important is the “Title” and “Description” tag.
Let’s hear it from the horse’s mouth:
Don’t waste your time. Search engines today do not look at meta tags like they used to. Meta tags are a thing of the past and they don’t help much these days.
Understanding Google Adwords Auction
May 9th
I found this quite interesting video by Hal Varian, Google’s Chief Economist, explaining the AdWords Ad Auction and shows you how your maximum Cost Per Click bid and Quality Score determine how much you pay for your clicks on Google.com. A good beginner’s introduction to the system.
Google Zeitgeist 2008 – Malaysiakini on No.1 Fastest Rising!
Feb 14th
Google Zeitgeist is an exercise that studying the aggregation of the billions of search queries that people type into the Google search box. Below are the lists for Malaysia, I’m not sure if it is the latest, but it is on Google Zeitgeist site right now.
Each of these lists shows the fastest rising searches, meaning these were the search terms that saw the largest increase in searches during 2008, as compared to 2007. Take a look below to get sense of the zeitgeist, or spirit of the times, in Malaysia for 2008!
Fastest Rising
- malaysiakini
- harakah
- tv3
- malaysia today
- rapidshare
- blogspot
- youtube
- malaysian insider
- beijing 2008
Most Popular
- youtube
- yahoo
- friendster
- utusan
- mp3
- games
- map
- lyrics
- myspace
Google News local searches
- ibiden asia
- anwar ibrahim
- datuk seri
- olympic badminton results
- chua soi lek
- malaysian election results
- malaysia budget 2009
- malaysia new cabinet
- permatang pauh election
- gamuda bhd
Local celebrities
- anwar ibrahim
- barack obama
- lim kit siang
- chua soi lek
- mahathir mohamad
- miley cyrus
- lee chong wei
- tony pua
- hannah montana
- siti nurhaliza
Local travel destinations
- terengganu
- pulau tioman
- genting highland
- port dickson
- melaka
- penang
- pulau perhentian
- bukit tinggi
- sunway lagoon
- selangor
Car brands
- perodua nautica
- toyota rush
- proton mpv
- proton blm
- honda city
- proton saga
- grand livina
- honda accord
- myvi
- honda civic
Source : Google Zeitgeist 2008
Gmail Trick
Feb 13th
Try this:
If your email address is janedoe@gmail.com, ask your friend (or you can use another mailbox) to send email to:
janedoe+pretty@gmail.com or
janedoe+cool@gmail.com or
janedoe+whatever@gmail.com …
Then you still can receive the email in the inbox of janedoe@gmail.com.
Fun isn’t it?
Faster Way To Get Adsense Approval
Feb 9th
Last week, I have tested 2 ways on Adsense application.
One is through Google Adsense Official Page and another one is through Hubpages.
The one on Hubpages got approval within 3 days but the one applying through Google Adsense Official Page is still pending, it is almost a week already.
I have heard if you apply through Blogger.com you would get very fast approval as well. Another option is Squidoo, another site similar to Hubpages. I think Google loves Squidoo as well.
I have read in the forum that for applicants from US, getting approval on Hubpages is almost instantly.
The more crap you put up with, the more crap you are going to get.