![[ Google Analytics ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2010/misc-chunks/google-analytics.png)
Many bloggers, designers, and developers take advantage of Google’s free Analytics service to track and monitor their site’s statistics. Along with a Google account, all that’s needed to use Google Analytics is the addition of a small slice of JavaScript into your web pages. For a long time, there was only one way of doing this, and then in 2007 Google improved their GATC code and established a new way for including it in your web pages. Many people switched […] Continue reading »
There are several ways to instruct Google to stay away from various pages in your site: Robots.txt directives Nofollow attributes on links Meta noindex/nofollow directives X-Robots noindex/nofollow directives ..and so on. These directives all function in different ways, but they all serve the same basic purpose: control how Google crawls the various pages on your site. For example, you can use meta noindex to instruct Google not to index your sitemap, RSS feed, or any other page you wish. This […] Continue reading »
![[ Dynamic Flow ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2009/misc-chunks/dynamic-linkage.jpg)
In my recent guest post at The Nexus, I discuss Google’s new nofollow policy and suggest several ways to deal with it. In that article, I explain how Google allegedly has changed the way it deals with nofollow links. Instead of transferring leftover nofollow juice to remaining dofollow links as they always have, Google now pours all that wonderful nofollow juice right down the drain. This shift in policy comes as a terrible surprise to many webmasters and SEO gurus, […] Continue reading »
Anyone plugged into the Web these days has heard about how Google has supposedly changed the way it deals with nofollow attributes. According to a number of speculative reports, Google will no longer apply unused nofollow PageRank to other links on the page. So, let’s say that you have some sites that have been PageRank “sculpted” by way of strategically applied nofollow tags. For example, you may have nofollowed all of your comment, footer, or sidebar links. Ever since Google […] Continue reading »
One way to prevent Google from crawling certain pages is to use <meta /> elements in the <head></head> section of your web documents. For example, if I want to prevent Google from indexing and archiving a certain page, I would add the following code to the head of my document: Continue reading »
I really hate bad robots. When a web crawler, spider, bot — or whatever you want to call it — behaves in a way that is contrary to expected and/or accepted protocols, we say that the bot is acting suspiciously, behaving badly, or just acting stupid in general. Unfortunately, there are thousands — if not hundreds of thousands — of nefarious bots violating our sites every minute of the day. For the most part, there are effective methods available enabling […] Continue reading »
With the recent Feedburner service outage, many sites across the Web experienced severe drops in their Feedburner subscriber counts. Apparently, Google is requiring all Feedburner accounts to be transferred over to Google by the end of February. In the midst of this mass migration, chaotic subscriber data has been reported to include everything from dramatic count drops and fluctuating reach statistics to zero-count values and dreaded “N/A” subscriber-count errors. Obviously, displaying erroneous subscriber-count data on your site is not a […] Continue reading »
Ever wanted to provide automatic language translations of your web pages without installing another plugin? Here is a valid, SEO-friendly technique that takes advantage of Google’s free translation service. All you need is a PHP-enabled server and you’re good to go. Just copy and paste the following code into the desired location in your page template and enjoy the results. Once in place, this code will produce translation links for eight common languages for every page on your site. Grab, […] Continue reading »
I recently added OpenSearch functionality to Perishable Press. Now, OpenSearch-enabled browsers such as Firefox and IE 7 alert users with the option to customize their browser’s built-in search feature with an exclusive OpenSearch-powered search option for Perishable Press. The autodiscovery feature of supportive browsers detects the custom search protocol and enables users to easily add it to their collection of readily available site-specific search options. Now, users may search the entire Perishable Press domain with the click of a button. […] Continue reading »
A great way to save bandwidth is to take advantage of Google’s AJAX Libraries API to serve your favorite open-source JavaScript libraries. Here is how Google explains it in their official documentation: The AJAX Libraries API is a content distribution network and loading architecture for the most popular open source JavaScript libraries. By using the google.load() method, your application has high speed, globally available access to a growing list of the most popular JavaScript open source libraries. Continue reading »
There are two possibilities here: Yahoo!’s Slurp crawler is broken or Yahoo! lies about obeying Robots directives. Either case isn’t good. Slurp just can’t seem to keep its nose out of my private business. And, as I’ve discussed before, this happens all the time. Here are the two most recent offenses, as recorded in the log file for my blackhole spider trap: Continue reading »
![[ Robin Leach of 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous' ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2008/css-implement/lifestyles.jpg "Somehow, 'happy' just doesn't say it..")
A great way to improve your CSS skills is to check out the stylesheets used by other websites. Digging behind the scenes and exploring some applied CSS provides new ideas and insights about everything from specificity and formatting to hacks and shortcuts. Learning CSS by reading about ideal cases and theoretical applications is certainly important, but actually seeing how the language is applied in “real-world” scenarios provides first-hand knowledge and insight. While there are millions of standards-based, CSS-designed websites to […] Continue reading »
![[ Aaron Wall ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2008/misc-chunks/aaron-wall.jpg)
Aaron Wall on SEO, the future of the Web, Google dominance, and life as a professional taste tester As someone who keeps a close eye on the mystical world of Search Engine Optimization, one of my favorite sources of information is SEO-guru Aaron Wall. Aaron is the author of the immensely popular SEOBook.com, where he shares his knowledge, ideas, and opinions on a wide range of SEO-related topics. I have always admired the direct, informative way in which Aaron presents […] Continue reading »
Hmmm.. Let’s see here. Google can do it. MSN/Live can do it. Even Ask can do it. So why oh why can’t Yahoo’s grubby Slurp crawler manage to adhere to robots.txt crawl directives? Just when I thought Yahoo! finally figured it out, I discover more Slurp tracks in my Blackhole trap for bad spiders: Continue reading »
![[ Best Title Separator ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2008/misc-chunks/best-title-separator.jpg)
While writing my previous article on creating the perfect WordPress title tags, I deliberately avoided discussing the use of separators in titles. I feel that the topic is worthy of its own article, enabling a more thorough exploration of the details. Title separators are the symbols, punctuation, and other characters used to distinguish between various parts of the page title. For example, a title may include the blog name, post title and blog description, with each element separated by a […] Continue reading »
![[ Thumbnail: Google W3C Invalidation ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2008/google-check/google-invalidation_mid.gif)
Consider the Google home page — arguably the most popular, highly visited web page in the entire world. Such a simple page, right? You would think that such a simple design would fully embrace Web Standards. I mean, think about it for a moment.. How would you or I throw down a few lists, a search field, and a logo image? Something like this, maybe: Continue reading »
