Dayshift

How to use the canonical link tag

Having duplicate content has been a long lived problem for people with parameter heavy sites or with multiple versions of the same content scattered across many pages.  There has never really been an easy way to highlight your preferred URL when you have scattered and similar content.   Over on the Google's webmaster blog, they recently posted instructions on how to use the <link> tag to specify the version you prefer.

How is this useful?  Two common scenarios that they mention and that I've personally experienced are the use of tracking parameters and result set ordering parameters.  

Let's say you have a product page called black-beans.php, but you have the need to append tracking parameters for some reason.   You might end up with black-beans.php?tid=4UZ66?ref=moms_site, black-beans.php?tid=4UX04, etc..     With the <link> tag you can let Google (and any other search engine that adopts this standard) know which should be the 'official' singular version of this content.   Here's what your tag would look like:  <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.site.fake/black-beans.php" />

site.fake vs www.site.fake?
Historically, you would use .htaccess to 301 redirect one version to the other (typically the site.fake to the www.site.fake).    Google claims to honor the canonical <link> tag across sub-domains.  Using the <link> method might be the only way some people can solve this issue if they don't have the proper access or environment.

IMHO, this is a really cool new feature!

  

10 SEO Tips For Developers

If you're a web developer with very little SEO experience and have been asked to make your site/pages SEO friendly, then you either asked for more detailed specs or went straight to Google to find out how.   Below is a quick list of common sense SEO tips for developers new to the concept.

First of all, SEO is an ever-evolving field.   A list of tips/tricks today might be outdated and even funny a couple of years from now.   The tips below should stand up to the next few years of search engine evolution.   This list is NOT exhaustive, just some fundamental suggestions for technical or on-page SEO.

1. Remember that there is no secret magic trick to SEO!
   A long time ago, you could easily trick the search engine to thinking your page was more valuable than it really was...but that time died away.   Even if a magic trick did exist right now, it wouldn't last very long.   Learn what Black Hat SEO is, and avoid being guilty of it if you want long term results. 
2. Always build for users, not for machines.
   Search engines are getting smarter by the day.  They are even starting to take user behavior into account and will likely continue doing so more & more over time.   If a real person finds the site useful, then the search engine will also.   I know this is a very general tip, but it's an important philosophy to adopt.
   
3. Remember that a web page is a living thing. 
   Do NOT delete or change the location of a page without using a 301 redirect!  Your pages build value over time, especially if there are back-links pointing to it.  A 301 redirect will tell the search engines that your content has moved permanently. 
4. Use text, not numbers in your URIs.
   If you're serving up content dynamically, don't create URIs like this: file.php?id=3.    Learn how to use ModRewrite and use text in the URI so that the page look more like a distinct file instead of some dispatch file with parameters.  Doing this gives you another opportunity to reinforce the context of your content.
5. Include meta keywords and meta description.
   Even though meta keywords and descriptions aren't really used by Google anymore, some smaller search engines still rely on them.   It's always a good idea to have both on all your pages when possible.  
6. Keep your directory structure simple and consistent.
   Your directory names should provide context clues.  For example, www.site.fake/content/basket-ball.php is not as useful (for humans & search engines) as www.site.fake/sports/basket-ball.php.  This isn't absolutely crucial, but if you have the freedom and control to implement it, do so.
   
7. Make sure pages are well interlinked.
   Interlinking your pages is very important.  You need to keep it balanced though.  You definitely don't want to link from every page to every page.   Here are a two good rules of thumb for interlinking
   
   • link to pages that are similar in context
   • when possible, place the links inside of the text content of the page.  This helps reinforce the context
8. Avoid using tables for layout. 
   It's OK to use tables for tabulated data, but you should always use CSS for layout.   There are many reasons for this, some related to SEO and many related to overall efficiency and good design practice.  Some example SEO benefits are:
   
   • the search engine has to digest less markup. 
   • it's easier to keep your important content high up in the source code.
9. Keep body content as high up in the source code as possible.
   I'm not sure this is as important as it used to be, but it does help to emphasize the important content if you keep it high in the source code.  At one point in time the search engines had a limit to the number of lines it would read on a page.  I would imagine that this was due to technical resource limits.   If that was the case, I'd imagine these limits have practically disappeared.
   
10. Create a sensible sitemap.
    
    • Don't stuff your sitemap page with 100+ non-contextual links. 
    • Use your sitemap to reinforce your content structure.  
    • If you have a heirarchial structure, show it here.  
    • If you have categories, don't list every article/page under each category.  Just list the most recent or most important.  If your linking to your category page and it links to your articles, then that's probably sufficient.

Useful Project Management/Collaboration Tools

I was thinking about making a list of useful project management/collaboration tools, but I stumbled upon this blog post while eating my morning cereal.   About 2 years ago I was searching desperately for tools like these and came up pretty disappointed.   The only good that came from that search was Basecamp, which I've used pretty extensively.   Google docs is also a must have...if you trust Google with your privates ;)

Based on his recomendation, I'm off to play with Klock.  I need a new Air app to toy around with.  

Developer By Day

I'm a web developer by day, and what I do at night is my own damn business.   I'm fortunate to have gained some very unique experience during my 6-7 years of developing.   I've been a contractor, a manager, a code monkey and a consultant.  All of which have shaped me into a pretty resilient and productive team member.   The one area where I don't have a lot of breadth is my toolset of languages.  I am a faithful PHP/MySql developer and for the past 2 years I've worked exclusively with the MVC framework CodeIgniter.   I've toyed around with ActionScript a bit and recently started to develop a taste for Flex.     Working with Heysan for the past year has given me more depth with PHP and Codeigniter, but since our interface is tailored for mobile devices, the level of CSS/JavaScript I've encountered has been minimal at best.

I really enjoy working with PHP, and I'm not going to stop anytime soon.  My entrepreneurial desires are starting to flame more and more over time and I think I have the perfect toolset for experimenting with creative web apps and content sites.  I want the focus of this blog to be tidbits of inspiration and jewels of experience I come across that inspire me to create, build business, or just do things with more common sense.

My name is Aaron and I work the dayshift :)