WordPress Performance January 12, 2010
Posted by learnseofree in WordPress SEO.add a comment
Were you aware that WordPress modifies your root .htaccess file when you install it? The code that is placed in your .htaccess for WordPress is actually very inefficient. Jim Morgan at Webmaster World posted a great solution for optimizing the needed .htaccess code to improve WordPress performance.
The default .htaccess code installed with WordPress is as follows:
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress
Jim suggests changing this to
# BEGIN WordPress
RewriteEngine on
#
# Unless you have set a different RewriteBase preceding this point,
# you may delete or comment-out the following RewriteBase directive
RewriteBase /
#
# if this request is for “/” or has already been rewritten to WP
RewriteCond $1 ^(index\.php)?$ [OR]
# or if request is for image, css, or js file
RewriteCond $1 \.(gif|jpg|css|js|ico)$ [NC,OR]
# or if URL resolves to existing file
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
# or if URL resolves to existing directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
# then skip the rewrite to WP
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ – [S=1]
# else rewrite the request to WP
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
#
# END wordpress
It’s the following statements in the default WordPress .htaccess code that can be very inefficient:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
Evidently depending on how your servers are configured and the amount of traffic, these calls often require a disk read for each… That’s 2 reads per pass times 2 passes for a total of 4 disk reads using the default .htaccess code from WordPress. Jim’s optimizations eliminate the 2 reads from the 2nd pass when a WordPress page is requested, and it eliminates all 4 disk reads when image, JavaScript, and CSS files are requested.
This “tweek” to the .htaccess file cut my page load times in half.
Site Performance Feature Added To Google WMT Labs December 3, 2009
Posted by learnseofree in Google SEO.add a comment
Yesterday, Google has added a new Site Performance feature to Google Webmaster Tools (WMT) Labs. I think this is a telling sign of things to come.
When I attended Pubcon 2009 in Las Vegas last month (an excellent search engine marketing conference for those who have never heard of it), after the last session there was a “Google/Bing Smackdown” in the keynote hall. Matt Cutts represented Google in the smackdown, and it was here that he stated that many at Google were lobbying to add page load times as a ranking factor in Google’s ranking algorithm. He made it sound as if they are only considering it at the time, but I, personally, feel it’s a done deal. It’s likely already part of the Caffeine update that will roll out to all data centers after year end.
Placing importance on site performance (more specifically, page load times) makes a lot of sense if you think about it. Google will spin it as a way to improve the user experience on your site. However, I believe they have more selfish reasons behind the change.
If Google can entice webmasters to improve page load times, they get an instant win at no cost to themselves. Faster page load times mean that Googlebot can crawl more pages per minute. With the web ever increasing in the number of sites and pages, this is going to be crucial to Google “keeping up” with the growth going forward. It is a big part, I believe, of why the re-architected the Google crawling/indexing/ranking infrastructure – to allow crawling, indexing, and ranking more pages faster.
As I mentioned already, IMO site performance/page load times is likely already built into the Caffeine ranking algorithm. I think Cutts was just trying to get webmasters used to the idea at Pubcon by suggesting it was only being “considered” at the moment.
Title Tags: Maximum Length and Valid Keyword Separators December 2, 2009
Posted by learnseofree in Testing SEO Theories.add a comment
I am currently conducting a test on another site to prove or disprove certain opinions I have about the title tag. There was a discussion that took place on an SEO forum about the topic yesterday.
What was being discussed about title tags?
The original poster started out asking what was the best character to use to separate keyword phrases in the title tag. His options were comma (,), the pipe symbol (|), or ampersand (&).
I explained that my experience is that typically none have any real advantage over the others since the title likely gets normalized before it is used in any ranking algorithm. And by “normalized” I mean that the search engines likely remove all punctuation and special characters from the title and convert it to lowercase. Although I didn’t mention it in my response, ampersand may be an exception since it has an alternate meaning of ”and”. I went on to say that I prefer hyphens as a separator, but I didn’t elaborate as to why.
Later in the thread the discussion moved away from the keyword phrase separator to a discussion of the maximum length of the title tag. A poster implied that Google ignores everything after position 66 of the title and that Yahoo ignores everything after position 100 or 120. With this i disagreed. Do I have evidence? Nope… just gut call… common sense.
So I decided to run a little test on the maximum length and keyword phrase separators for a title tag. I’ll post the results here once the page has been indexed. There is often no better way to learn SEO free than thru observation and experimentation.
How To Learn SEO October 23, 2009
Posted by learnseofree in Learning SEO.add a comment
One very common question on search engine optimization (SEO) forums is, “How do I learn about SEO?” If you have no clue where to begin then read on.
Introduce yourself to SEO by reading a book
The best way to start your education journey is to read a book. I know people on those SEO forums typically respond to the question with, “You’re in the right place! Just read the forums and blogs and you’ll be an expert in a few days!” NOT! These are the same yahoos that will tell you that that you that changing the content on your page will increase its PageRank.
Start learning SEO by first reading a book on the subject. There are many good books on SEO starting to come out. Pretty much any of them will do. Even reading one of the “Dummies” books on search engine optimization should suffice.
The goal is to get the fundamental terminology and concepts under your belt so that when you do start reading forums and blogs, you know how to call bullsh*t when so called “experts” give out bad advice.
Follow the SEO industry leaders online
Once you have a book (or two or three) under your belt, the next step is to delve into the online world of forums and blogs. But you need to do so with care. There is a LOT of misinformation on the Web in regards to search engine optimziation. Do NOT believe 99% of what you read.
So much of what is said online about SEO in forums and blogs is total BS being spouted out by people in 3rd world countries who hardly speak the language, much less understand even the most basic of SEO concepts. They have learned a dozen buzzwords about SEO, have declared themselves SEO experts. and are now spreading their misinformation online in hopes of duping someone into hiring them as an SEO so they can make a few bucks to save them from their miserable, impoverished lifestyles. These are NOT the people you want to follow or even listen to.
You should be following the industry leaders: Aaron Wall, Danny Sullivan, Rand Fishkin, etc. – even people like Matt Cutts from Google’s spam team who is not necessarily an SEO, but provides a lot of insight into how the search engines work and rank URLs in their search engine results pages (SERPs).
Only after you’ve spent months learning about SEO should you venture out into personal SEO blogs and SEO forums like digitalpoint.com which are typically trolled by LOTS of bad SEO “experts” giving out bad information. But you need to already have a solid base of search engine optimziation knowledge before going there so that you can distinguish between the 0.01% of useful information and the other 99.99% of pure bad information (or remedial information) that is spewed forth there on a daily basis.
SEO conferences
Pubcon is a conference put on once or twice per year by webmasterworld.com. It is an EXCELLENT conference. I’ve been the last several years and don’t plan to ever miss it if I can help it. Not only are the 4 sessions great, but the networking opportunities there are incredible.
Though I’ve never been, I have heard similar stories about the Search Engine Strategies (SES) and Seach Marketing Expo (SMX) conferences as well.
Your quest for SEO knowledge
Good luck on your learning journey. The quest for SEO knowledge should be never ending. It is a constantly changing field of expertise. And to be a good SEO you need to make it your mission to constantly be learning about it.
Yahoo! Search Submit Program (SSP) is Dead! October 16, 2009
Posted by learnseofree in Yahoo! SEO.comments closed
Run out and tell all of your friends that the Yahoo! Search Submit Program (SSP) will cease to be by year end. The program has always been controversial to say the least since it was first conceived.
This little known paid inclusion program commonly known at Yahoo! as SSP has been available for years. When it first came out Yahoo! sold it as a way for companies to boost their organic rankings at Yahoo! for certain keywords if they were willing to pay to be included in the program. This could be done through a yearly subscription model (Search Submit Basic service) or pay-per-click model (Search Submit Pro service). But for many web sites, the boost in rankings and ROI were worth the advertising costs.
Basically, with SSP participants could specify a list of keywords for which they were willing to pay to receive good rankings. For each keyword they could specify a custom title and snippet to show in the SERPs and up to 3 addition URLs that would show as links under the organic listing.
The program was later said to NOT boost rankings since it was seen as sort of a conflict of interest. But it has been proven time and again that participating actually does help organic rankings for the subscriber at least for those keywords they request.
Anyway, good or bad… the Yahoo! Search Submit Program is about to be officially retired. I’m sure this is in large part because of the announcement that Bing will one day soon be powering Yahoo! search results.
