Using 301 redirects to avoid duplicate content
It has been brought to my attention that having a website that is accessible with and without the “www.” before the domain name is BAD!!! The reason for this is that search engines will consider this as two seperate sites that have duplicate content. The other problem is that an index.html file would also be seen as seperate page to a search engine. In order to understand this a little better, see the example below:
- http://bfxmedia.com
- http://bfxmedia.com/index.html
- http://www.bfxmedia.com
- http://www.bfxmedia.com/index.html
In the example above, all of those different URLs would have displayed the same page. In order to resolve this problem, use this Redirect Check SEO Tool. After you submit your website for testing, it will run through all the variations of the URL and give you the status code for each one.
To redirect all traffic from http://bfxmedia.com to http://www.bfxmedia.com, you would add the lines below to your .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.bfxmedia\.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.bfxmedia.com/$1 [R=301,L] |
Although, that didn’t work for me because of the way my subdomains are redirected. I had to use this instead:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^bfxmedia.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.bfxmedia.com/$1 [R=301] |
To redirect http://www.bfxmedia.com/index.html (and all other default page variations) to http://www.bfxmedia.com, you would add the lines below to your .htaccess file:
For the example site bfxmedia.com, I have corrected all the problems and now only one URL displays my “home” page. All the other variations are safely redirected.
Useful Links:
Redirect Check SEO Tool
SEO advice: url canonicalization
Canonical and Duplicate Versions of Content
BidVertiser - Get $20 in FREE clicks
Last week I received an email from a company called BidVertiser and they were promising $20 in free clicks. Normally I would just delete the email and move on, but for some reason this one was different. After reading it, I saved the email and actually decided to try it out sometime. So, two days ago, I setup an account and added one of my sites. The site is basically a combination of AdWords and AdSense all in one place. Publishers can place ads on their sites like AdSense and advertisers can create ads and have them included on the publisher’s sites like AdWords.
Signing up was easy and creating an ad for my site was just as easy. I picked my categories and set my max bid at $0.10 per click. After everything was setup, my ad was pending for about a day or so. Once my ad became active, they sent me an email letting me know. I logged in to see how it was doing and I was seriously surprised when I saw that my ad already had thousands of impressions. I only had a couple clicks, but with that many impressions, it looked promising.
As of right now, about 1.5 days of being active, my ad stats are:
Impressions = 82,286
Clicks = 34
CTR = 0.04%
Cost = $2.40
CPC = $0.07
I’ve got $17.60 left in free credits and if the cost per click stays the same, that’s about 250 clicks left. If I decide to continue with this method of advertising, I might build a landing page to send the traffic to instead of sending to the home page of my site.
In my opinion, for the time/effort spent, you really can’t beat the deal at BidVertiser.
Promote your Website with BidVertiser. Get $20 in FREE clicks!
Build your own PC air filter
If your computer is anything like mine, it sucks in a lot of air and with that air comes a lot of dust. I’ve got two 80mm fans in the front and two 80mm fans in the back plus the 120mm PSU fan. Since the side of my computer has a Plexiglas window, I can see all the dust that accumulates inside the case. Not only is it ugly, but it’s really not good for your computer’s parts. When dust gets around the processor, power supply and other components, it blocks the vents and overheats the computer. As it works harder to keep itself cool, it slowly degrades hardware performance which shortens the life of the computer.
Every couple of months, I like to take my computer outside and blow it out with bottles of compressed air, but I wanted to figure out a way to cut down on the dust even more. With my computer case, there’s a recessed area in the front panel that’s in front of my intake fans. This provided an excellent area for a custom air filter.
I went to Lowe’s and picked up a cheap furnace filter and cut it to fit. You can see in the picture below how it fits in there. I’m not sure if it makes a difference, but I put the wire mesh side on the outside.
Now, most of the intake air is pulled through the air filter before it enters my computer case. There’s still some places that the dust sneaks in, but this catches a majority of it. You can see a comparison in the picture below. The air filter on the bottom is brand new and uncut and the one on top was used in my computer for about two months.
If your case isn’t designed like mine, you may have design a air filter with a different size/shape. I hope this helps someone else keep their computer clean, cool and happy!
Useful Links:
Attack of the Killer Dust Bunnies
Create a Dust-Free Environment
Display Google Ad after the first post
I don’t use Adsense on this blog, but I do use it on other sites of mine. I can’t remember where I found this, but I did save the code and instructions.
1. Create a file named “google-ad.php” containing your Adsense code.
2. Upload the file in the directory with your other template files.
3. Open your home.php template file and change it to the following code:
<?php if (have_posts()) : ?> <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); $loopcounter++; ?> <?php if ($loopcounter <= 1) { include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/google-ad.php'); } ?> <?php endwhile; ?> <?php else : ?> <?php endif; ?> |
If the $loopcounter is less than or equal to 1, then it includes your google-ad.php which contains your Adsense code.
Reorder your taskbar with Taskbar Shuffle
I am very particular about the order of windows on my taskbar as I work on my computer. I always keep Firefox in the left most position on my taskbar. I’ve always wished that I could just switch them around like a Firefox tab. Well, now I can with Taskbar Shuffle. Taskbar Shuffle is a simple, small, free utility that lets you drag and drop your Windows taskbar buttons to rearrange them.
After installation, you can double-click the icon in the tray to bring up the options screen.
Here’s a shot of what it looks like when you actually move a program in the taskbar:
Get Notified When We Post Updates
Become one of our 