luni, 29 noiembrie 2010

Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics


Six Year Old Skateboarder

Posted: 29 Nov 2010 08:24 AM PST

His name is Asher Bradshaw, and he is definitely going pro.

His front teeth are missing as his baby teeth fall out and he is getting his new front teeth in now. He never did a faceplant.


Black Friday 2010

Posted: 29 Nov 2010 02:31 AM PST

The day after Thanksgiving is known as "Black Friday" in the USA. It traditionally begins the Christmas shopping season. On this day people can buy many specials with discounts thus they are eager to wait the whole night in below freezing temperature outside stores in order to be the first ones to get inside the door and grab gifts and presents at the lowest prices. A lot of Americans go shopping on "Black Friday", one of the reasons it is named "black" is because of the long lines in the stores.






































Source: telegraph.co.uk


Video Game Cakes

Posted: 29 Nov 2010 12:19 AM PST

Everyone has had those lame custom cakes on their birthday, but you never had one quite like these!


















































Underclothes to Protest TSA X-Ray Scanners

Posted: 29 Nov 2010 12:06 AM PST

If you don't like the idea of the introduction of TSA X-ray scanners in airports, you can protest with these underwear and undershirts with 4th Amendment metallic ink-prints.


































Source: cargocollective


Hot For Teacher

Posted: 28 Nov 2010 11:00 PM PST

Check out the sexiest teacher in China. Her name is Zhu Songhua and she was named China's sexiest female teacher. I never even knew that you could vote on your teacher as the sexiest. Do you think the children that attend her elementary classes learn anything, or spend the time dreaming and drooling over her pretty face?




















































































Source: mop


Winter in Russia

Posted: 28 Nov 2010 10:57 PM PST

The aftermath of an ice storm in Petrozavodsk, Russia.














The Largest Vehicle Recalls Ever (Infographic)

Posted: 28 Nov 2010 10:40 PM PST

In 2010, recalls by automakers seemed to populate the news every week. Once Toyota had their major recall issues in the beginning of the year, it seemed that they continued to spread across every brand. This graphic from our friends at Showroom Logic takes a look through history at biggest recalls ever.

More Infographics.

Click to Enlarge.


Source: showroomlogic


SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog


The Wonderful World of SEO Metatags

Posted: 28 Nov 2010 01:07 PM PST

Posted by Kate Morris

meta tags css code

Meta tags are the beginning of most SEO training, for better and worse. I contemplated on how to introduce this topic because we always hear the bad part of meta tags, namely the keywords meta tag. One of the first things dissected in any site review is the misuse of meta tags, mainly because they are at the top of every page in the header, therefore the first thing seen. But we don't want to get too negative, meta tags are some of the best tools in a search marketer's repertoire.

There are more meta tags than just description and keywords, though those two are picked on the most. I've broken down the most used (in my experience) by the good, the bad and the indifferent. You'll notice that the list gets longer as we get to the bad ones. I didn't get to cover all of the meta tags possible to add, but there is a great Meta Tag resource you should check out if you're interested in what is out there.

My main piece of advice is to stick to the core minimum, don't add meta tags you don't need as they just take up code space. The less code you have the better. Think about it like this, your page code is like a set of step by step directions to get somewhere, but for a browser. Extraneous meta tags are the annoying 200 feet line items in directions that tell you to stay on the same road you were on!  

The Good Meta Tags

These are the meta tags that should be on every page, no matter what. Notice that this is a small list, these are the only two that are required, so if you can work with just these two, please do. 

  • Meta Content Type - This tag is necessary to declare your character set for the page and should be present on every page. Leaving this out could impact how your page renders in the browser. A few options are listed below, but your web designer should know what is best for your site.
     <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
     <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> 
  • Meta Description - The infamous meta description tag is used for one major purpose, to describe the page to searchers as they read through SERPs. This tag does not influence ranking, but is very important regardless. It is your ad copy that will determine if the user clicks on your result. Keep it within 160 characters, and write it to get the user's attention. Sell the page, get them to click on the result. Rand wrote a great article in 2007 on meta descriptions that goes more in detail.

Edited In: I left out the title tag as it doesn't "start" with meta, but it is still technically a meta tag. You should always have a unique title tag on every page that describes the page. Check out this post for more information on title tags

The Indifferent

Different sites will need to use these in specific circumstances, but if you can go without, please do.

  • Robots - One of the largest misconceptions is that you have to have a robots meta tag. Let's make this clear: In terms of indexing and link following, if you don't specify a meta robots tag, they read that as index,follow. It is only if you want to change one of those two commands that you need to add meta robots. Therefore, if you want to noindex but follow the links on the page, you would add the following tag with only the noindex, as the follow is implied. Only change what you want different than the norm.
     <meta name="robots" content="noindex" />
  • Specific Bots (Googlebot) - These tags are used to give a specific bot instructions like noodp (forcing them not to use your DMOZ listing information) and noydir (same, instead the Yahoo Directory listing information). Generally the search engines are really good at this kind of thing, but if you think you need it, feel free. There have been some cases I've seen where it's necessary, but if you must consider using the overall robots tag listed above.
  • Language - The only reason to use this tag is if you are moving internationally and need to declare the main language used on the page. Check out this meta languages resource for a full list of languages you can declare.
  • Geo - These meta tags, last I heard, are supported by Bing, but not Google (you can target to country inside Webmaster Tools). [Updated: Matt Cutts speaks of the tag here, they don't really look at it still] There are three kinds: placename, position (latitude and longitude) and region
     <META NAME="geo.position" CONTENT="latitude; longitude"> <META NAME="geo.placename" CONTENT="Place Name"> <META NAME="geo.region" CONTENT="Country Subdivision Code">
  • Source - The new kid on the block, this is a tag (really two tags) that Google is testing out (thanks to the tip from my coworker Justin Briggs). It's mainly for news providers so that they can help the search engines understand who the original news source is and which ones are syndicates. The news world and search world are trying so very hard to get along, glad to see this one pop up. 
  • Keywords - Yes, I put this on the indifferent because while no good SEO is going to recommend spending time on this tag, there is the small possibility it could help you somewhere. So please leave it out if you're building a site, but if it's automated there is no reason to take it out.
  • Refresh - This is the poor man's redirect and really should not be used if at all possible. You should always use a server side 301 redirect. But I know that sometimes things need to happen now. But Google is NOT a fan
  • Site Verification - Your site is verified with Google and Bing right? Who has the verification meta tags on their homepage? These are sometimes necessary because you can't get the other forms of site verification loaded, but if at all possible try to verify another way. Google allows you to verify by DNS, external file, or by linking your Google Analytics account. Bing still only allows by XML file or meta tag, so go with the file if you can. 

The Bad Meta Tags

There is nothing that will happen to your site if you use these, let me just make that clear. They are a waste of space though, even Google says so (and that was 5-6 years ago!). If you're ready and willing, it might be time for some spring cleaning of your <head> area. 

  • Author/Web Author - This tag is used to name the author of the page. It's just not necessary on the page.
  • Revisit After - This meta tag is a command to the robots to return to a page after a specific period of time. It's not followed by any major search engine
  • Rating - This tag is used to denote the maturity rating of content. I wrote a post about how to tag a page with adult images using a very confusing system that has since been updated (See the comments). It seems as if the best way to note bad images is to place them on a separate directory from other images on your site and alert Google.
  • Expiration/Date - Expiration is used to note when the page expires, and date is the date the page was made. Are any of your pages going to expire? Just remove them if they are (but please don't, keep updating content, even contests, make it an annual contest!). And for date, make an XML sitemap and keep it up to date, that is so much more useful!
  • Copyright - That Google article debates with me here, but look at the footer of your site. I would guess it says "Copyright 20xx" in some form. Why say it twice?
  • Abstract - This tag is sometimes used to place an abstract of the content and used mainly by educational pursuits. 
  • Distribution - The distribution value is supposedly used to control who can access the document, typically set to global. It's inherent that if the page is open (not password protected like on an intranet) that it is for the world. Go with it, and leave the tag off the page.
  • Generator - This is used to note what program created the page. Like author, useless. 
  • Cache Control - This tag is set in hopes of controlling when and how often a page is cached in the browser. It's best to do this in the HTTP Header
  • Resource Type - This is used to name the type of resource the page is, like "document." Save yourself time, as the DTD declaration does it for you. 

Stock Photo by Shutterstock


Do you like this post? Yes No

Seth's Blog : A few seats reserved for a fundraiser

[You're getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin's blog.]

A few seats reserved for a fundraiser

My post last week about an upcoming publishing seminar got a great response... we sold out in less than a day. A few people asked if they could weasel their way in—a great idea for a fundraiser, no?

I'm using a silent auction to generate end-of-year donations for the Acumen Fund. There are six seats available and you can bid on them here. Bidding closes on Thursday, December 2nd at midnight.

  • Email to a friend

More Recent Articles

Don't want to get this email anymore? Click the link below to unsubscribe.


Click here to safely unsubscribe now from "Seth's Blog" or change your subscription, view mailing archives or subscribe

Your requested content delivery powered by FeedBlitz, LLC, 9 Thoreau Way, Sudbury, MA 01776, USA. +1.978.776.9498

 

Open for Questions: DREAM Act with Cecilia Munoz

The White House Your Daily Snapshot for
Monday Nov. 29,  2010
 

Open for Questions: DREAM Act with Cecilia Munoz

Today at 3 p.m. EST, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Cecilia Munoz will be hosting a live chat to discuss the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act is designed to stop punishing innocent young people for the actions of their parents, by giving them the chance to obtain legal status either by pursuing a higher education, or by serving in the U.S. armed forces for the country they’ve grown up in and love as their own.

Submit your questions and watch live.

Photo of the Day

First Lady Michelle Obama, with daughters Sasha and Malia, welcome the arrival of the official White House Christmas tree at the North Portico of the White House, Nov. 26, 2010. Standing with them are Chris and Brandi Botek of the Crystal Spring Tree Farm in Leighton, Pa., where the 18 1/2-foot Douglas fir was cut. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

In Case You Missed It

Here are some of the top stories from the White House blog.

More than 900,000 White House Visitor Records Online
As part of his commitment to transparency, President Obama ordered that White House visitor records be released. This White House has released over 900,000 records to date.

Weekly Wrap Up: “Tomorrow Will Be Better Than Today”
A quick look at the week of November 22, 2010.

A Few Interesting Things About the White House's Email List
Recently the White House asked our email list to give us feedback on the email and online programs. Check out some of the results.

Today's Schedule

All times are Eastern Standard Time (EST).

10:00 AM: The President receives the Presidential Daily Briefing

10:30 AM: The President receives the Economic Daily Briefing

11:00 AM: The President meets with senior advisors

11:35 AM: The President delivers a statement to the press WhiteHouse.gov/live

12:30 PM: Briefing by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs WhiteHouse.gov/live

3:00 PM: Open for Questions: DREAM Act with Cecilia Munoz WhiteHouse.gov/live

5:30 PM: The Vice President swears in Senator-elect Mark Kirk of Illinois

WhiteHouse.gov/live Indicates events that will be live streamed on WhiteHouse.gov/live.

Get Updates

Sign Up for the Daily Snapshot 

Stay Connected

 

 
 
This email was sent to e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com
Manage Subscriptions for e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com
Sign Up for Updates from the White House

Unsubscribe e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com | Privacy Policy

Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House

The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111 
 
 
  

 

SEOptimise

SEOptimise


Is Google Instant aimed at killing “I Feel Lucky” & making more money?

Posted: 09 Sep 2010 01:17 PM PDT

By now I’m sure everyone’s all seen and had a play around with the new Google Instant search interface. There’s lots of early reaction to this on the web, my own included on Econsultancy yesterday.

Obviously the main goal behind this is to provide results much more quickly and look to improve a searchers overall user experience. But has anyone else noticed that the “I feel lucky”, while still listed on the homepage, is actually now redundant?

Google Don't Be Evil
Image credit: Flickr

In my opinion, the majority of Google’s changes and updates look to achieve one of two things:

  1. improve the relevancy of results for searchers, and
  2. make more money

Ideally both!

However, Google Instant is about increasing speed and reducing the user journey required for searchers. But interestingly it looks like it will make them more money too.

By providing results as soon as you start typing, the new search function now bypasses the “I feel lucky” button, which has cost Google an incredible estimated $110 million dollars in potential revenue in the past! Any good conversion optimisation specialist (or accountant) would tell you to remove that button – which is effectively what Google have done. The only way you can click the “I feel lucky” button now is for an empty query string on the Google homepage, and this just takes you to the Google logos page.

So that’s clearly a great way of generating extra revenue and that’s all before taking into account the extra paid search ads being served for each query and the potential extra interstitial clicks generated while mid-query.

Also, for Google – the main reason they are such a huge money-making machine is their huge market share? As I mentioned in my Econsultancy comments, if Instant has a negative reaction this could be a good time for users to switch (most likely to Bing). So how this affects the user has to be the main objective first and foremost. Increasing the average value per searcher is also a goal they will be keen on improving further, and rightly so, but it does little to their revenue if the market share drops as a result.

So what do you think, is a major increase in revenue a key and intentional part of Google’s thinking in the launch of Instant?

© SEOptimise – Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. Is Google Instant aimed at killing “I Feel Lucky” & making more money?

Related posts:

  1. 40 Google Instant SEO, SEM & Analytics Resources
  2. My Thoughts On Google Instant
  3. ASK Restaurants Making a Meal Out of Their SEO Strategy!