This is something for the geeks and SEO people. To have "nice" URLs the CMS must be capable of rewriting/translating them. If not, it can be done within the .htaccess-file to let the webserver do this task. In my eyes the webserver will do it faster, but several extensions for popular applications like Wordpress or Joomla will do it more comfortable. Get some insights into this topic by reading the SEOmoz post.

First, a quick refresher:  URL prettying and 301 redirection can both be done in .htaccess files, or in your 404 handler.  If you're not completely up to speed on how URL rewrites and 301s work in general, this post will definitely help. And if you didn't read last week's post on RewriteRule's split personality, it's probably helpful background material for understanding today's post. [more...]

SEOmoz is a great source for knowledge on SEO. Check out this article on how to get your new stuff indexed fast. PubSubHubbub is one thing to think about. What is "PubSubHubbub"? Check out the article.

When you're covering poppin'-fresh, trending, news-worthy content, there's no time to sit around whittling miniature canoes and waiting for Google to come crawl your site and index your new content. That sort of passive attitude will allow your competitors to dominate all of that awesome Query Deserves Freshness search traffic and make enough money to go buy real, full-size canoes whittled by fine Native American craftsmen.  You'll be poor and jealous, and we just can't have that. Watch this week's video to learn several near-magical strategies to get your fresh content indexed faster than meth-fueled panther (that's fast, people)! [more...]

You should have heard the "RewriteRule" term several times. Read the article at SEOmoz to dig into it and gain some serious knowledge to control the indexing of Google and other search-engines.

Apache webservers have a really cool and useful little feature called RewriteRule.  It's sometimes referred to as the Swiss Army Knife of URL manipulation, because it's got two very important, often-used abilities:

• URL rewriting: turning dynamic, parameterized URLs into readable, keyword-loaded URLs
• 301s: to tell the browser (or search bot) that a page has been moved

These are VERY different tasks, with VERY different results sent to the browser or search bot. [more...]

A long time, the meta-tags in the head-section of the document, where extremly usefull for SEO. In case of Google, this era has now officially ended. Here is the video of Matt Cutts, explaning why, on the Google Webmaster Blog.

Does that mean, we now can drop this field? I don´t think so. Since there are other search-engines outside (such as Bing), that still use them, or the opposite is not known.

I still recommend the use of the keywords field in the CMS of big companys, because it´s easier for an search engine optimizer to see, what keywords are relevant for the given article (or which the writer had in mind) and to monitor, if this article ranks for the keywords. The alternative would be, to use the tagging of the article for the keyword meta-tag. Or to use the field for tagging, if the CMS does not have this field. ;-)

Google besinnt sich auf eine alte HTML-Funktion, die in den letzten Jahren an Bedeutung verloren hat: Die “Sprungmarke”. Als man noch Inhalte auf langen Webseiten unterbrachte und nicht mehrere Unterseiten erzeugte, konnte man mit “dateiname.html#sprungmarke” an die relevante Stelle des langes Textes springen.

Diese Sprungmarken können nun in den Sitelinks der Suchergebnisse (SERP´s) mit einfließen. Hier der entsprechende Beitrag im Google-Blog.

Der Google Webmaster-Blog weist gleich darauf hin was zu beachten ist. Wer nicht mehr weiß, wie man solche Sprungmarken umsetzt, der sollte sich das Beispiel auf Selfhtml nochmal anschauen: Verweise definieren (passender Weise natürlich mit einer Sprungmarken-URL verlinkt. ;-)

The most obvious trend when it comes to SEO is “going local”. Ever since Google introduced Google Maps and Local Business Center and later added local search results to Universal Search displaying them on top of everything else businesses everywhere strive to be there. Additionally the proliferation of smartphones and netbooks accelerates this development even more.

You have to perform in local search and on sites that enable users to find local businesses in their respective area. Classic SEO is just not enough anymore for small business owners and location based big business [...]

A very good list of links to dig into the search-engine-optimization for local search.

Read the full article at: SEOptimise

Search is changing though, and there are always new elements coming into play. Since social media has come into its own, more opportunities and questions have come along with it. Now Microsoft is going for Google’s throat with a new search engine and an aggressive marketing campaign. What this means for the future of search market share is yet to be determined, but there’s no denying Bing is capturing some attention, and that means there are people searching with it. Altered your SEO strategy for Bing? Tell us why.

Chris Crum shows how to optimize for Bing and what social media can do for your SEO efforts. Check out the related articles at the bottom of the post.

Read the full article at: WebProNews

Did you know that the number of website hosts that have been submitting Sitemap files has almost tripled over the last year? It’s no wonder: the secret is out – as a recent research study showed, Sitemaps helps search engines to find new and changed content faster. Using Sitemaps doesn’t guarantee that your site will be crawled and indexed completely, but it certainly helps us understand your website better [...]

Google supports now Sitemaps up to 50.000 entries, so enough for the most websites. Also the webmaster tools have been updated. Check out the sitemap-options. There are also links to resources for coders, to produce the sitemap-files with the right syntax.

Read the full article at: Google Webmaster Central Blog