Here’s another quick question from one of our readers:

Q:

Will syndicating a link to your posts on an established Twitter account improve how quickly those pages get indexed, and are they also more likely to be kept in Google’s main index (not in the dreaded supplemental) and therefore rank a bit better?

A:

Twitter links are no-follow which means search engines don’t follow them – therefore they have no impact on your backlink count or how quickly you get indexed.

They can indirectly generate backlinks (people find a link in a tweet they like & independently blog about it – creating a dofollow backlink).

Twitter’s main strength is as a targeted traffic driver to your website.

Tags: faster indexing, search engine optimisation, seo, syndication, twitter

Missing www. in front of URL in Google Search Results. Help!

Question

If you search for my site on google (here) it’s the fourth one down.
However, the url on the bottom of it doesn’t have a www. in front of it.

Why is this and how can I fix it?

Answer

Have you set up a redirect to the non www. version via htaccess or a redirect on your server?

Sign up for a Google Webmaster account & there’s a setting within the control panel where you can specify which version Google should use.

As an aside, always set up a redirect (301, permanent) from one to the other … this prevents canonical (and potential duplicate content) issues in the search engines.

Top Level Domains (TLDs) and SEO

Question: I am aware that content is the best way to go for SEO. With content I have managed to get 1st place in google for some good keywords, even on a blogger domain.

I also am aware that the domain name can play a HUGE role in SEO, I have ranked well for certain keywords, with ok content and ok backlinks with .info domains.

My QUESTION is will it help with SEO if I get an exact keyword domain on a non tld country domain, for example insurance.se etc.

Thanks for your help.

Answer:

TLDs only play a part when it comes to targeting specific Google’s (.co.uk, .com.au, .de etc.) however with a non-specific TLD you can always tell Google which you’d like to target via Google Webmaster console … just with a country specific TLD it’s done automatically – you don’t have the choice.

In terms of TLD “power” no one TLD has any more power than another (Eg. It’s a myth that .org carries more weight simply because of the TLD).

The advantage with having a keyword included in your domain is that your keyword becomes a natural part of the link – most non-SEO people use mysite.com as their anchor text – and if your keyphrase is included by default then it’s a win-win!

Tags: tld, top level domains

Does a users choice of browser, and more specifically how compatible a site is with multiple browsers, influence Google’s PageRank algorithm (how much PageRank a website is ‘awarded’)?

The simple is no.

PageRank is based on the number of links pointing to your site & how reputable those links are (how much ‘weight’ they carry in Google’s eyes.)

In other words, PageRank is based on how many links & the quality of those links towards your website. To quote Google’s Matt Cutts “it is completely independent of the content of your site”.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t take cross-browser compatibility (ensuring your site works on multiple browsers) in to account … of course you should!

In fact I’d argue that ensuring your site is compatible in all common browsers (and all fairly new versions of those browsers) is much more important than explicitly worrying about PageRank (see my article on why PageRank doesn’t matter).

Tags: browser, google, pagerank, seo thunder

Personal details of 100 million Facebook users have been posted publically online.

The list is available as a freely downloadable file from the file sharing site Pirate Bay & has already been downloaded over 3000 times.

Facebook has responded by saying that all the information it contains is already available via publically browsing a users page or via a basic search engine search. “No private data is available or has been compromised,” Facebook said.

What makes this content truly useful though is the manner in which it is presented. It is ordered and collated in such a manner as to be useful & searchable.

So, no private data but this still highlights the amount of information that people freely (arguably unaware they’re doing so) on sites like Facebook by leaving the default privacy settings.

Tags: 100 million, facebook, privacy, profiles

Zopim Chat

Zopim Chat (non affiliate link) is a live chat feature, much like Facebook chat, which allows users to quickly and easily connect with customer service, technical support or sales representatives directly from the website.

Apart from the obvious advantage of quick, instant service, the admin section of the chat provides all sorts of other useful information and features such as chat logging and live updates about which page a user is currently viewing – making technical support and sales enquiries very easy indeed as you know exactly what the customer is looking at.

Crucially live chat is a modern and informal communication method. It has none of the formality of a letter or phone call & therefore users feel instantly more relaxed & open.

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Metrics

Much like emails or phone calls, good solid metrics must be in place when using live chat facilities:

• How long should a customer be expected to wait?
• Is it acceptable to take a customers details and call them back, or is a live & instant response expected?
• How are more traditional metrics measured such as conversion rates?
• How do you deal with competitors / distributors looking for informaton that they may be restricted to (but can gain access by posing as a customer) ?

The answers to these questions may well vary between industries but in my opinion they are very similar to a phone call. If you don’t have enough information to hand, it’s very natural to ask for details and call them back.

Remember, this is about being open, informal & honest with visitors. Forging genuine relationships on their level and being as helpful as possible while still maintaining a business / sales related approach to the conversation (upselling should still always be encouraged).

A chat function can instantly catapult your site into the top percentile of memorable sites simply because it’s new, useful, incredibly easy to use and as yet hasn’t been widely adopted.

If you aren’t using a chat function, you certainly should be.

Oh & did we mention that installing zopim chat is as easy as embedding two lines of code on each page? No complex installs or server maintenance & great prices on upgraded accounts.

It also work on smartphones such as the iPhone & Blackberry via IM – stay in touch with your clients wherever you are!

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Issues

The only issue we’ve found with Zopim is that it does seem to slow down IE6 significantly. In a perfect world no-one would still be using a browser that is almost a decade old, but we don’t live in a perfect world and there is still a small percentage of users on IE6.

Our recommendation? Check your stats before implementing this if you have a high proportion of IE6 users as you don’t want to ruin their experience because they’ll simply leave your site.

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Summary

A fantastic piece of software, the free user account should be enough for many small businesses & the small upgrade fees for larger accounts more than justifies itself as a communication line to your customers.

Can be slow with IE6.

Overall – 4/5 Stars

Tags: chat, communication, customers, live chat, marketing, technical support, zopim

(Another) Attack on Facebook Privacy Policy

Tags: facebook, Germany, ilse aigner, privacy, social media, social networking

Facebook is 500 Million Strong

Sometime this week Facebook will hit the 500 million user mark.

This makes it bigger than the combined population of the USA & Canada.

To celebrate they will be launching Facebook stories a demonstration of the way Facebook has changed people’s lives.

Each story will be limited to around 420 characters (the current limit for status updates) and if you’re story is more popular than others (has more ‘Likes’) then it’ll be visible amongst other most popular stories (think Trending Topics on Twitter).

Facebook already have a way you can submit your own story.

The question is, with Facebook continuing to grow and dominate the social networking landscape, what will it take for people to move elsewhere?



Tags: facebook, seo thunder, social media, social networking

Being Sunday, this post is a little bit late but as ever it’s great!

First track is a 2010 modernisation of a trance classic, maintaining all the essential items of the original and improving the rest. A brilliant track.

Ralphie B – Massive (Midway Remix)

Bonus

Because we’re not all about dance music, here’s an absolute classic that is guaranteed you pick you up no matter how delicate you’re feeling on a Sunday morning

The Beatles – Come Together

Ralphie B (Midway) Myspace

The Beatles website

Tags: #oftw, one for the weekend

I’ve recently watched & read two things that got my thinking about privacy & visibility on the internet.

Erasing David is a true documentary about a father who decides to go “underground” and avoid detection for a month. He hires a team of private investigators to track him down. I don’t want to give too much away but suffice to say it didn’t take as long as you may think!

The other was the book -  Roadside Crosses by Jeffery Deaver. Both of which I highly recommend whether you buy from Amazon (above links), beg, borrow or download (steal) them.

Both deal with privacy and the amount of information that is accessible to anyone with a laptop and an internet connection.

Albeit fictional, Roadside Crosses creates a world where someone is groomed, targeted & tortured purely from the information they post about online.

We all know people who we know post far too much information online about themselves … but don’t you think we’re all guilty of this to a certain extent?

Remember how weird it was to see your house & street for the first time on Google Maps / Google Earth? Well that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

Google have a free tool where anyone can signup and choose to be alerted (via RSS or email) whenever a webpage, social network (Facebook, Twitter, Myspace etc.)  contains a particular keyphrase.

Professional internet marketers use this to monitor their brand, product or names of key individuals within the company. But unscrupulous users can just as easily use it to keep tabs on anyone they choose.

I’ll use myself as an example

I mention my name on the About page.  From the title tags of the main domain you could guess that I’m based in Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK. Therefore you can also probably find my personal Facebook page, where you can see a picture of me.

I have my profile set to private but imagine if you had left open to public viewing … you’d have access to my photo’s, videos, friends, siblings, parents, date of birth, hometown and age.

Not to mention my wall postings which may or may not be professionally comprimising / embarrasing.

So What?

Well exactly, so what? Let’s remember that you’ve got Google Alerts running on me … so I post on a forum about goat herding (using my email address as the registered address for the account). You now know that I’m into farming / herding goats & from that forum I link to another blog where I posted a comment about how much I hate my job. (I use this for illustration purposes only – I love my job )

Remember, the post on the goat herding forum was posted under a different username, it never mentioned my real name or anything to do with my occupation or location but you found it because I’d used the same email address … which I thought was kept private, but wasn’t.

From this forum post I link to a picture where you see my out in the fields with my goat and it has a picture of my car in the background. Simple, you now have my car make, model & numberplate.

You can now ring the DVLA and request all sorts of information on me because by now you know my:

• Name.
• Age.
• DOB.
• Hometown.
• Email.
• Parents / Siblings (could guess at my password / security question).

There are other ways to get further information such as social engineering but that’s for another day.

The point of this post wasn’t to scare you off the internet, but to make you aware of how much information someone can gather about you, for free, should they wish.

A rule of thumb I always use … every time you hit a key, someone, somewhere can see what you’ve written. Always assume that the information you share will be visible by everyone, forever.

Tags: internet privacy, privacy, visibility