July 28th, 2008
by
Brett Bumeter
I routinely run into questions about setting up 301 Redirects in situations that I have not encountered yet. When I run into these new challenges, I do a quick Google search and never find the same answer twice about 301 Redirects.
That said, today I had a quick refresher question about the SEO benefits of 301 redirects relating to pushing a www site to a non-www site (Canonical Situations).
I came across this excellent article at SEO-Consultant-Services.co.uk which answered the questions I was looking for and it also answered the typical questions that most people ask when they are looking for 301 redirect solutions. I have come across a number of similar articles on 301 Redirects in the past, but this one was easy to understand, easy to implement, and very comprehensive in covering all of those 301 Redirect tangents that will eventually confront a web site owner.
http://www.seo-consultant-services.co.uk/301-redirects-www-non-www-canonical-problems.html
I have no relationship to this site, they do not sponsor me in any way, but I would highly recommend web site owners to bookmark this link. You are going to need it someday, and Google as good as they are sometimes, rarely returns a reliable result on 301 redirects!
Note, the CSS was a little hosed up on this site when I visited. I’d guess that they updated the theme and did not check this older article on the new theme. Regardless the content is good. I prefer things to look good, but I’ll take great content any day.
June 3rd, 2008
by
Brett Bumeter
Remember that kind of cool feature in Google Maps that also makes your skin crawl every time you think about it? I’m not talking about the spy satellite view of your backyard that was just detailed enough to prompt Dick Cheney to have his own house pixelated out of existance.
No I’m referring to the Street View program that gives something that feels like a 360 degree view from any position on many streets in America.
Well, some cities apparently have some laws against this creepy, nifty feature and so they are being removed.
The city of North Oaks, Minn., can no longer been seen using Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Maps Street View.
Minutes of the City Council’s Jan. 10 meeting indicate that Google sent a driver in a camera-equipped vehicle to record images of the city’s streets last summer, in violation of the city’s trespassing ordinance. Mayor Tom Watson then contacted Google representatives and asked that they remove Street View of North Oaks images from Google Maps.
“All data files will be destroyed and not used by any Google companies or subsidiaries,” the meeting minutes states. Google was not immediately able to confirm that removed North Oaks images have actually been deleted.
“Street View only features imagery taken on public property,” said a Google spokesperson via e-mail. “While the Street View feature enables people to easily find, discover, and plan activities relevant to a location, we respect the fact that people may not want certain images featured on the service. We provide easily accessible tools for flagging inappropriate or sensitive imagery for review and removal.”
Minnesota Town Vanishes From Google Street Images — Google Maps — InformationWeek
I suspect that there might be a pair of PhDs and the lawyers from their department looking for work some where in Boston soon over this screw up. Maybe Google hadn’t heard of due diligence before or maybe they don’t mind shuffling a few people out of the company and adding to the available pile of Boston resumes.
April 24th, 2008
by
Brett Bumeter
This week I have had a some opportunity to go into the web and understand sound effects better. Sometimes sound effects are used on hover over buttons or are used as background music or effects for certain websites.
This normally runs on sites that are designed with flash, but can be used on any site. They are not necessarily popular for sites that are text heavy, but for sites that are designed specifically to advertise products or to host video or audio media they can be quite popular.
But just like any type of content, you have to insure that you own the media rights to the sound effects before you run them on your site.
This week while I’m in Laughlin Nevada (attending the Laughlin river run biker rally), I’m using the opportunity to record a number of sound effects with a stereo microphone and Sony digital recorder.
Amazingly, there is a complete little marketplace of sound effects for sale or lease. You can upload sound effects and resell the rights to them for prices ranging from a few dollars per license to hundreds of dollars. Recordings should be performed in wav format if possible or in some other high quality format.
You can literally record anything from your car engine idling to the dripping of your new Pedestal sinks to revving Harleys or boat engines or casino slot machine bells and whistles.
