For anyone who is serious about search engine optimization knowing about 301 redirects is a MUST.  I searched and searched all over for the “bottom line-tell me how to do it” examples of the 301 redirects and found the information confusing. 

SO, I want to share with you the bottom line code you will need to implement into the .htaccess file.

FIrst, the code to get your non www’s always redirecting to the www’s is as follows:

Here’s the code:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

(Make sure your Apache installation has mod_rewrite enabled.)

As long as your Apache installation has mod_rewrite enabled then you should be able to use this fix on almost any host.

Second:  If you have any old page urls that are being replaced by new search engine friendly ones, but do not want to lose your page rank then here’s the code for that:

redirect 301 /old/oldurl.html http://www.newurl/new.html

MAKE SURE you DO NOT include the http://www.whatever.com  ONLY USE whats after the .com starting with the / or it will not work!  Also make sure to only put ONE space inbetween everything!

There you go!  That is as simple as it gets…or atleast as I can make it!

Remember why we do the 301 redirect:

Mainly for Google.  Google does not like a bunch of error pages and if you have alot of 404 error pages that do not exist anymore (maybe after doing a redesign, or introducing new SEF naming conventions) then its harder for Google to crawl and you can lose the page rank the page has.  With the 301 redirects you do not lose PR and you will not have to worry about duplicate content issues with your www and non www’s.  That alone is worth doing it!

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A great new extention that Firefox has shows the number of inbound links from places like DMOZ, dir.yahoo.com, .edu’s, .gov’s, age of site and alexa ranking.

This is a really great tool for anyone wanting to see how they are doing in these areas.  Also it will allow you to see where the competition is.  This tool is great because it shows you the number of QUALITY links..  Not the worthless ones that really don’t do anything for you. 

I would highly recommend to any SEO, or internet marketer to download!  Thanks to http://www.seocompany.ca for sharing this with everyone!

Here is the link to download the ILQ Toolbar extention for Firefox

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Just wanted to share something I think is pretty cool. 

I love blogging!  Back when I first started blogging in February after attending the SES NYC06 I did it just because it was something up to that point, (SEO related) for my sites that I had not done.  I have learned the power of Blogging in just a few months even here on this site.  Over 1000 subscribers, and traffic gone from 250-500 to 2000 uniques a day. 

I had my site Money With Google as a sales copy site forever promoting an ebook I wrote several years ago.  (I mainly wrote the ebook to figure out what info-marketing was)  Well about two weeks ago I converted the ”sales copy site” into a blog about making money with ad programs.  My traffic has jumped 75 percent! Sales of the book, which have been minimal have started to sky rocket too!  CTR has gone up about 10 percent as well on my publisher ads that are on the site. 

I credit this to increased traffic from search engine and blogging search engines that crawl every time I post!  Traffic and sales I never would have got if I did not start blogging. 

The point here?  No matter what your site is about you MUST start a blog, and give the search engines reasons to keep coming back to you.  Fresh content is key as long as its related to what you are doing on your site.  Try it and you will understand why I am amazed everytime I look at my stats!

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A Matt Cutts dress up doll website! PRICELESS! Enjoy and here is the link: http://www.cartoondollemporium.com/mattcutts.html

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Create your own customized toolbar like Google Toolbar, or Yahoo for example. You can brand it with your name and logo. You can also create default links to your website and blogs. It can help create credibility and return visitors!

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Well this weekend was a blast!  I finally got to check out the new Miller Motor Sports Speedway out in Tooele, Ut.  I was there with my brother Lee Siltala (of Bondurant), Bob Bondurant (the racing legend himself), and a Utah legend (and creator of Miller Motor Sports Speedway Larry H Miller.  Here is a few pictures of the day!  Its always fun doing what I do cause no matter what there is someone I will meet that wants some web design, or search engine optimization done!  So although it was mostly fun … there was a little bit of work going on!  Enjoy the pics!

Telling Bob Bondurant Stories!  (viewable Larry H Miller on Left, and me on right)

Bob likes!!!  He got to test drive the 120k ford racing mustang.

Here I am just checking out the raceway!

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This is a great take on Adsense and how Googles program has made garbage profitable.

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Just wanted to share a new tool (atleast this is new to me) I found for WordPress users.  If you know what social bookmarking is then you will understand how cool this is.  I found a site that offers a plugin with all of the main social bookmarking site icons.  It makes it easier for the reader of the article to identify and share with others in thier community.  Without having to do all the hunting for it here is the download link:  Sociable 1.2

When you go to install it (after you unzip it), you need to install the ENTIRE folder (into the plugins folder on your ftp) called “sociable” that it creates.  Its very simple to use and understand, just click on the main posting for this one to see what it looks like.

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What you pick for a domain name really does matter and I want to dive deeper into why.

First of all you are branding yourself and company. If you do not pick wisely it could hurt you in the long run. For example; if you chose something other then a dot com it could be hard to get people to remember the extention when telling them your domain name. Keep in mind you do not have the marketing/branding budget of Ebay, Yahoo! or Amazon. They can call themselves whatever they want cause the have the money to. For a smaller budget its best to stick to a keyword or phrase that will get people searching for your site…(or better….just typing it in.)

Another example, a new site I recently have been putting together for a friend has a company called Utah County Sprinkler, and it just so happens that searches are done for that exact phrase (as well as Utah Sprinkler just cause its in the domain). Just by owning the domain name, eventually he will be on top of the search engines for atleast that phrase. Very powerful. Lucky that domain name was still open. Now there is alot of domain names that are already taken and may be more expensive to obtain, but well worth the money spent on them!

You can search out available and expiring domains here through a site called DomainsBots … this is a great tool to help you find the best domain name possible! Don’t pick out something that has an extention other then a dot com, and don’t make the domain name so long as to lose your breath saying it! Keep it simple and if possible find a keyword that is searched for and is an open domain!

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What exactly does it mean to have a search engine friendly website builder?

I get this question atleast once a week so I figured it would be worth a post.  In many cases would-be internet business owners have to make a choice at some point what they are going to do when it comes to building a website.  Are they going to hand code it?  Are they going to use an html editing prgram such as Dreamweaver?  Are they going to use a web building template program?  Most I deal with chose the later…a web building software or template program of some sort!

When chosing a template builder you need to make sure that it has a few features that will make being found on the search engine easier for you.  Here is a list of a few:

• Search Engine Friendly URLS (no sessional ID’s with long character streams that don’t make sense
• Unique meta for each page including title tag, meta description and meta keywords
• Shopping cart meta ready (each product can have its own unique meta attatched with it)
• Able to include alt tags, title attribute tags and any other tag that makes the search engine more easily understand the content on the page.

These are the big ones.  If you can make sure that the builder you chose does most if not all of these, it will help you get crawled easier by the engines and rank better.

So there you have it, next time you hear … “make sure its search engine friendly“  thats what its all about!

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