Social Network Theory
I am soft launching a blog about social stuff called social network theory. Not so much Digg spamming sorta stuff, but tips and ideas about how social networks work from my limited understanding thusfar.
We've got a special guest on Whiteboard Friday this week: Rand! After a few weeks of awesome stuff from our guest stars, Rand was missing the limelight and wanted to get back in front of the camera.
So what's the topic? Indexation issues. What do you do when you have a large (or ginormous) site and thousands of your pages simply aren't getting indexed? Well, a lot of times it means you lose clicks and lose business, but there are ways to solve this problem...watch and learn.
I'm hoping this post will become the first in a series of posts from me, talking more about SEO from a developer's perspective. A lot of the posts around tend to be more centered on SEO from a marketing perspective. If you have anything you'd like to see covered, please leave a comment and I'll do my best.
The work done by developers rarely hits the headlines but can often be the difference between success and failure in an SEO project. The following list may not be groundbreaking but then SEO often isn't. I think the following all fall under the heading of advanced common sense...
The way developers think makes us a special bunch and can give us an advantage in a number of tasks that a typical SEO will do regularly. Here is my list of things where thinking like a developer gives you an advantage over the more creative types.
1) Realise that you can get a long way with a great site
I think there is a tendency for SEOs to dive in and start trying to gain exposure and links, often overlooking the massive improvements that can be gained from fixing things closer to home. Ensuring the basics are right should be the first step in any SEO project. In so many projects there are fundamental issues with the website that need to be fixed before the site will really reach its potential.
Even if you aren't going to be making these changes, as a developer identifying the issues and suggesting alternatives is slap bang in the middle of your skill set. I hate to let the secret slip, but getting these things right is not rocket science, and often boils down to plain old common sense. A great start would be to read the illustrated guide to building a search-friendly website.
2) Develop stuff!
It turns out if you are good at building widgets you can cause quite a stir. Widgets, quizzes and online tools, sounds like something a developer would knock up (read carefully craft).
I'm sure that if you sat down for an hour you could think of something that would make the life of people in your industry better. Maybe you can make them more efficient, or just make life a little more enjoyable for them. Providing tools to other people in your industry is a fantastic way of helping to build inbound links. The inbound links to the seo tools and the IP Location Lookup tool in particular is no coincidence.
3) Test, tweak, rinse, repeat.
I don't imagine I'm the only developer that spends my life testing things. Rarely does a program work first time. It turns out these skills aren't as common as you'd think. I always tell the story of when I was in my final year of a computer science course and earnt some pocket money by being a lab demonstrator. Every week, without fail someone would ask me to help them fix a compile error along the lines of. "Missing ; on line 152". Every week I replied with "Can you look at line 152, do you see anything missing?".
Anyway, me reminiscing isn't helping you become a great SEO. However understanding how to test stuff does. Rather than relying on hearsay, gossip and forums that are out of date, why not setup some tests. Does a h1 tag actually help? Don't take my word for it, set up two websites that are all but identical. Make up a random keyphrase, put it in a h1 on one site, and in a p tag on the other and see what happens. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you should ignore what is being said, and re-invent the wheel, but there are a massive number of things that would benefit from a test. Ok, you want an example, I'd like to know what works better for geo-locating a website - microformats vs address?
4) Reverse engineer other sites
I've just talked about testing and how these skills are not as common as you'd think. Another area where these skills are immensely valuable is when you are reverse engineering another site. An inquisitive mind and a few good tools will get you a long way.
For those of you not used to this sort of detective work, i'd recommend starting off by installing the user agent switcher, upgrading the user agents list and set your browser to identify as Googlebot. Now simply sit back and get on with your job. Within hours I guarantee you'll see something weird happening. Now simply work out what is happening. Once you know what is happening, all you have to do is think about what the website is trying to accomplish. I promise you, no-one codes cloaking based on user agent by accident.
Other things to try, include disabling javascript and blocking all cookies. Try this on all your clients, if things go a bit funky, then you can jump in and save the day.
Finally for the real geeks among you, try browsing with lynx. A site that works well with lynx, both technically and in terms of the users is likely to work fairly well for the search engines. Quite often a site will 'work' but will be so badly architected that it may as well be in flash. I've said it before and I'll say it again, a well architected site is worth its weight in gold, both to the search engines and to the users of the site.
5) Become a blackhat!
If all else fails turn blackhat. Most of the blackhats I've met are developers at heart. Blackhat is all about doing something dodgy (by which I mean against google's t&cs) once, then working out how to get a computer to do it whilst you sleep. Link farms, comment spam, write once, computer repeats for you. No content to write, no networking to do, hang-on, why am I still whitehat?
Apart from the "doing something dodgy" part, that last paragraph can also be applied to whitehat. By automating tasks you do on a regular basis, you can end up doing more work with less effort.
6) Don't be afraid to learn
As a developer I feel like I never stop learning. There is always another api to get your head round. When presented with often badly written documentation, most people run a mile. A developer on the other hand jumps in, tries stuff and eventually hacks something together (the fact that this needs to be deleted and re-written, but never is, is neither here nor there). The difference between a developer and a 'normal' person is that a developer presses buttons to see what happens. A 'normal' person is scared to press a button in case they break something.
So go ahead, and learn something new. Why not get your head around some stats. Perhaps you could 'knock up a online regression tool' while you're at it.
The last point is the one area where a developer (in general) pretty much sucks. Networking, speaking to people, putting yourself out there. I know it's hard but having a trusted network is a massive shortcut to being a truly great SEO.
7) Break the stereotype
One of things I'm least good at is networking, online. I have a twitter account but I don't say much. I'm self-concious about what I say, so I often write replies, re-write them then delete them. However if you really want to become a great SEO building up a network is a fantastic way of opening doors and getting your name out there. Luckily I can just piggy back on the networking that Will and Tom do.
I think it is worth saying that the way to become great at anything is to play to your strengths. I long ago realised that I am far better placed, sat in my corner coding stuff than trying to be overly creative.
So, lets get some debate going. What else do developers do better than everyone else?
Daily Search Forum Recap: July 4, 2008
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web....
Happy Fourth of July!
Happy Fourth of July to all those who celebrate it, and even those who don’t!
Lots of search engines and websites have special logos for Independence Day—don’t you like how Marketing Pilgrim is red, white and blue today? I know I’m a fan.
But I found a little Easter egg (holiday confusion?) in Google Street View [...]
Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: July 4, 2008
I thought I post this week's video recap on July 4th, because it is a special day. Happy July 4th Americans! In this week's video I show off the various July 4th logos from Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, and other...
Happy July 4th from the Search Industry & JohnMu of Google Takes Break
Happy July 4th everyone! We have special logos and themes from across the search industry, including a special logo from Google, Yahoo and even a pretty neat theme from us, the Search Engine Roundtable. Here is the logo from Google:...
Happy July 4th everyone! I wanted to share with you some of the logos from across the industry and let everyone know that we won't be posting much here today. So see you all Monday and enjoy the day!
Search Engine Optimization Plagiarism Runs Rampant on Blogs
Jill Whalen (whose birthday is today -- wish her a happy one!) wrote a very logical article at High Rankings about the problem of SEO plagiarism. She explains that numerous not-so-established SEO types are regurgitating a lot of articles online...
Google Maps Survey: You Can Earn $100 By Participating
Do you reside in the US or Canada? Do you want to improve Google Maps? Google is looking for volunteers for a study which would involve you either going to Google's offices (if you're able), performing a study online, having...
Google's finally added a privacy link to its home page, explaining in 613 words why the company apparently can't have more than 28 words on its home page. So important is this number that adding the privacy link was an issue that had to go up two Google's cofounders. Please. On the same day that the privacy of Google's YouTube users was seriously threatened, what Google needed more were 613 words from one or both of the founders saying the company would take every step to protect its users. But on that subject, nada.
Since writing my WTF! US Court Declares You Have No Privacy On YouTube article, more information has come out suggesting that Google will be able to turnover information to Viacom about what's watched on YouTube without having to say who exactly who was watching it. Nor, does it seem, that Viacom itself wants that level of detail. So perhaps a bullet will be dodged on the privacy front. More below, including some direct answer from Google.
Daily Search Forum Recap: July 3, 2008
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web....
Composite SEO 
