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luni, 18 iulie 2011

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

Multiple XML Sitemaps: Increased Indexation and Traffic

Posted: 17 Jul 2011 01:56 PM PDT

Utilizing XML sitemaps and sitemap indices is an advanced tactic that we recommend to all of our clients at Distilled. In fact, Rob wrote an exceptional how to post on this topic earlier this year, looking at diagnosing indexation issues using sitemap structure. We knew it was a good way to track indexation better than using site: but would you believe me if I said it can increase traffic to your site as well?

It can. And we have proof from a client that is willing to share their story. Thanks a bunch to Razoo, a site that helps others raise money for charity, for letting me use them for this post.

Added Clarification: Adding a multiple sitemap structure does not guarantee better indexation or more traffic, but it CAN have that affect. Razoo did have sitemaps implemented before, but they were not updated and did not reflect the site's content. The results shown at the end of this post are after they implemented new sitemaps.

This tactic is not just for large sites, it can be used by sites of any size because we are always growing right? Right. And it is a tactic that should be employed from the beginning if possible, the earlier the better. The more data you have on indexation the better. But more than just data, the earlier you give the search engines a clear path to your content the better. So let's start from the beginning and go over sitemaps and sitemap indices.

From One to Many

There are standard single XML sitemaps: one file of XML code explaining to the search engines what pages are important. This is a set of instructions to the search engines, and are more guidelines rather than rules. Here is an example from the sitemaps.org site of standard protocol.

From sitemaps.org

Whether you are starting fresh or taking one 50,000 URL sitemap to many, it may seem daunting. That code seems daunting even. Did you know that a sitemap can consist of a text file with just URLs? That can be it. And that can be submitted as a sitemap. #justsayin Complexity is not the issue here, this is all about organization.

The best way to break that out to many sitemaps is a matter of how your site is structured. Do you have a blog based system with categories and content in each category? Do you have sets of products? Or many locations for your business?

Simple: Groups of 100 pages per sitemap (or 1000, or 10000, but try to keep it smaller)
Better: Static Pages (homepage, about, etc.), Products, Blog
Best: Static, Categories, Subcategories, Locations, Blog by Date, etc.

The key will be to structure your sitemaps by how deep your pages go and by section. For instance, if I were to take a site about Unique Doll Clothing and design a sitemap structure from that site I would do:

*Main Sitemap
- Static Pages
  - Home
  - About
  - Shipping
  - Gift Certificates
- *Doll Footwear
  - Doll Shoes
    - Category Page
    - Backless Canvas Mules
    - Balloon Shoes
    - Etc.
  - Doll Boots
- Doll Dresses
- Doll Pajamas
- *etc.

Sitemap Indices

In the example above, the asterisk next to the name is indicating that the sitemap file is an index, not a sitemap as mentioned above. Sitemap indices are sitemaps to point to other sitemaps. This what makes your life easier and more structured. If you loaded each section of your site as a separate sitemap, that's fine, but rather annoying to page through on webmaster tools. If you were to use indices, you could drill down and see more detail in specific areas. Let me show you.

Level 1: Main Sitemap Look in Webmaster Tools

Level 2: Notice the "Format" in the upper left.

The second screenshot shows that Google knows that we are looking at a sitemap index, not a sitemap file. If this company went further, they'd be able to see even more detail. The more you parse the data, the more you know about what isn't being indexed. Rob described this as a tree-structure. Note: you can't put page listings in a sitemap index, they are just carriers of sitemaps. You can get all the gorey details of how to write a sitemap index on the sitemap.org site, so I won't bore you with that.

Just wanted you to see why they are helpful. Sitemap indices help:

Indicate where indexation issues are.
Allow an overview look (the numbers for sitemap.xml) all the way down to specific areas. Great for reports!
Show the search engines what your site structure is supposed to be.
Identify possible duplicate content. (Have a section for doll shoes and doll boots? Those might cause duplicate content if they share products and their URLs are different)

Please note that an intricate structure is not necessary to get the results Razoo saw. This is just better for you and the things I mentioned above. There has been some confusion on this so I wanted to clarify.

Remember that case study I talked about with increased traffic? You wanted to see that right? Time is now, because they are the ones that used it to help with indexation and structure. They just happened to have the best metrics ever from implementing this. Have better metrics? I'd love to hear how this has worked for you!

Case Study: Razoo

Razoo is not my client, it's Mike Pantoliano's client and they recently saw an awesome spike in traffic. We checked it to be sure nothing else could be the cause and for sure, it was the use of XML sitemaps. See the chart below (smiley courtesy of Mike). The arrow is where the sitemaps were implemented.

I checked the stats again tonight, and sure enough, for over two weeks now, it's still going up.

We looked into it and sure enough, the number of pages sending traffic shot up, more than doubled (486 to 1240). The same with keywords sending organic search traffic, more than doubled (548 to 1347). Nothing could be attributed to a fluke keyword or page, just everything went up. This is the power of good indexation and giving the search engines some help.

So take some time to think through your site and it's structure. Talk to your IT team and see if they can break up the XML sitemaps into a tree structure. It'll help you diagnose issues down the road (indexation and duplication) and may even bring an influx of traffic as the search engines find content they might not have found before. The power of backroads. *big smile*

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Standing Up on Behalf of Consumers

Monday, July 18, 2011

Standing Up on Behalf of Consumers

A year ago, in the wake of the financial crisis that pulled the economy into the worst recession we've seen since the Great Depression, President Obama passed financial reform to help tackle the problems that led us into the recession in the first place.

As the President described today, the law did three things: "First, it made taxpayer-funded bailouts illegal, so taxpayers don’t have to foot the bill if a big bank goes under. Second, it said to Wall Street firms, you can’t take the same kind of reckless risks that led to the crisis. And third, it put in place the strongest consumer protections in history."

President Barack Obama announces the nomination of former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, right, as the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) during a statement in the Rose Garden of the White House, July 18, 2011. At left is Elizabeth Warren, interim director of the CFPB. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

As part of financial reform, President Obama put one consumer watchdog, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in charge with the sole task of "looking out for regular people in the financial system."

The President got the idea from Elizabeth Warren, who has spent the past year setting up the bureau and starting the process of setting up protections for consumers – like making sure loan contracts and credit card terms are simpler and written in plain English and ensuring men and women in uniform are protected against fraud and deception in financial practices.

Today, President Obama nominated Richard Cordray as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In his remarks, the President spoke about the tens of millions of dollars lobbyists and lawyers have spent this year trying to undo progress by weakening the laws that protect consumers:

The fact is the financial crisis and the recession were not the result of normal economic cycles or just a run of bad luck. They were abuses and there was a lack of smart regulations. So we’re not just going to shrug our shoulders and hope it doesn’t happen again. We’re not going to go back to the status quo where consumers couldn’t count on getting protections that they deserved. We’re not going to go back to a time when our whole economy was vulnerable to a massive financial crisis. That’s why reform matters. That’s why this bureau matters. I will fight any efforts to repeal or undermine the important changes that we passed. And we are going to stand up this bureau and make sure it is doing the right thing for middle-class families all across the country.

Middle-class families and seniors don’t have teams of lawyers from blue-chip law firms. They can’t afford to hire a lobbyist to look out for their interests. But they deserve to be treated honestly. They deserve a basic measure of protection against abuse. They shouldn’t have to be a corporate lawyer in order to be able to read something they’re signing to take out a mortgage or to get a credit card. They ought to be free to make informed decisions, to buy a home or open a credit card or take out a student loan, and they should have confidence that they’re not being swindled. And that’s what this consumer bureau will achieve.

Also, in case you missed it, today Elizabeth Warren published an op-ed endorsing Richard Cordray’s nomination and discussing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s transition this week to a real, live agency with the authority to write rules and supervise the activities of America’s largest banks.

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A Big Week for the New Consumer Agency

Your Daily Snapshot for
Monday, July 18, 2011

A Big Week for the New Consumer Agency

Today the President will announce his intent to nominate Richard Cordray to serve as the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. You can watch the announcement live at 1 p.m. EDT at WhiteHouse.Gov/Live.

Also, read an op-ed from Special Advisor Elizabeth Warren about Mr. Cordray and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's transition this week to a real, live agency with the authority to write rules and supervise the activities of America's largest banks.

Photo of the Day

President Barack Obama, Ruby Bridges, and representatives of the Norman Rockwell Museum view Rockwell’s "The Problem We All Live With,” hanging in a West Wing hallway near the Oval Office, July 15, 2011. Bridges is the girl portrayed in the painting. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Seth's Blog : From Asimov to Zelazny

From Asimov to Zelazny

When I was in high school, I read every single science fiction book in the Clearfield Public Library. Probably 250 books altogether.

I don't think I had a big plan, I was mostly looking for something to do. What I discovered, though, was that domain knowledge, edge to edge knowledge of a field, was incredibly valuable. It helped me understand where the edges were, and it gave me the confidence to be selective, to develop a taxonomy, to see what was going on.

As the deluge of information grows and choices continue to widen (there's no way I could even attempt to cover science fiction from scratch today, for example), it's easy to forget the benefits of acquiring this sort of (mostly) complete understanding in a field. I'm not even sure it matters which field you pick.

Expertise is a posture as much as it is a volume of knowledge.

Reading every single trade journal, for example, or understanding the marketing, engineering and sales of your field--there are countless ways to go deep instead of merely paying lip service to the current flavor of the moment.

• Email to a friend •

duminică, 17 iulie 2011

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Trichet Repeats Nuclear Threat to Reject Greek Bonds as Collateral; Verbal Discipline or Big Bluff?
Details Cast More Suspicion on Latest European Bank "Stress Tests"
Ireland Deputy Prime Minister Requests "Nanny State" Common Bond Solution to Solve Crisis; ECB Policymaker Weidmann, Opposes Common Bond Solution

Trichet Repeats Nuclear Threat to Reject Greek Bonds as Collateral; Verbal Discipline or Big Bluff?

Posted: 17 Jul 2011 08:18 PM PDT

For the nth time, Trichet says ECB would reject Greek bonds as collateral.

"If a country defaults, we will no longer be able to accept its defaulted government bonds as normal eligible collateral," he told the newspaper in an interview to be published in its Monday edition.

"The governments would then have to step in themselves to put things right ... the governments would have to take care the Eurosystem is presented with collateral that it could accept."

"There is an absolute need to improve 'verbal discipline'. The governments need to speak with one voice on such complex and sensitive issues as the crisis," Trichet said.

Verbal Discipline or Big Bluff?

Does anyone believe Trichet? Would the ECB dump its holdings of Greek bonds in a panic market?

I am suspicious about the wording "normal eligible collateral".

What about abnormal collateral, conditional collateral, temporary collateral?

The idea that verbal discipline works is nonsense. One look at sovereign debt yields in Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and Italy is proof enough.

I believe Trichet will look for some excuse to not dump Greek bonds into a panicked market should the rating agencies rule Greek debt in default. Regardless, the sooner the market puts Trichet's verbal discipline to the test, the better off Europe will be.

If Trichet is really serious, so be it. A Greek default will not be the end of the world.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Details Cast More Suspicion on Latest European Bank "Stress Tests"

Posted: 17 Jul 2011 03:36 PM PDT

As stress test detail come in, the more ridiculous the latest results look.

For example, the four largest French banks have $425 billion in loans to institutions and individuals in Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain. That is on top of whatever sovereign debt they are holding.

Please consider the Wall Street Journal report It Isn't Just Sovereigns Stressing Europe's Banks

During Europe's 15-month financial crisis, investor and analyst fears have centered largely on banks' holdings of sovereign debt issued by governments in financially shaky countries such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal. If those countries were to default, it could saddle banks and other holders of their bonds with big losses.

But Friday's test results shed light on another potential problem for Europe's banks: huge piles of residential mortgages, small-business loans, corporate debt, and commercial real-estate loans to institutions and individuals from ailing countries. As those economies struggle, the odds of rising defaults grow.

As of Dec. 31, its four largest banks—BNP Paribas SA, Crédit Agricole SA, BPCE Group and Société Générale SA—were holding a total of nearly €300 billion ($425 billion) in loans and other debt issued to institutions and individuals in Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain, the countries that are among Europe's most troubled. That's largely a result of some of the French banks having big retail- and commercial-banking operations in Greece, Italy and Spain.

The French banks' portfolios of commercial and retail loans in those countries dwarf their holdings of sovereign debt. For example, the four banks have a total of about €51 billion of loans to Spanish customers, according to the Journal's analysis. That compares with about €15 billion of Spanish sovereign debt, according to a separate analysis of stress-test data for the Journal by research firm SNL Financial. In Greece, whose economy is in a tailspin, the French banks have €33 billion of various types of loans, more than three times their sovereign-debt holdings.

It's a similar story in Germany. The dozen German banks that disclosed their stress-test results were exposed to €174 billion of commercial and retail loans to Greek, Irish, Italian and Spanish borrowers as of Dec. 31. They are holding an additional €70 billion of sovereign debt issued by those countries, according to SNL.

Some banks opted not to disclose details of their loan portfolios. For example, Lloyds Banking Group PLC is in the process of shutting down its Irish banking business, which has cost the big British bank billions of pounds in loan losses. But in its stress-test materials on Friday, Lloyds didn't provide a breakdown of loans to countries other than the U.K. and the U.S.

A Lloyds spokeswoman said the bank's Irish loans are included in a catch-all category marked "other."

Banks can only get away with the catch-all "other" bucket if loans represent 5% or less of a bank's portfolio. So why does Lloyds want to hide the details?

Regardless, the main problem is a mountain of debt in all the wrong places: Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain. The odds of all of that debt being paid back when the economies of those countries are in shambles is roughly zero percent.

For more on the stress test sham, please see More BullSweet Stress-Free Tests of European Banks

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Ireland Deputy Prime Minister Requests "Nanny State" Common Bond Solution to Solve Crisis; ECB Policymaker Weidmann, Opposes Common Bond Solution

Posted: 17 Jul 2011 06:54 AM PDT

The battle lines are forming for and against "nanny state" common bond solutions that would have German taxpayers covering the liabilities of other countries in a so-called "transfer union".

Please consider Ireland seeks euro bonds as part of crisis solution

Ireland would like to see the euro zone issue common bonds as part of the solution to the bloc's debt crisis, the Irish deputy prime minister said on Sunday.

Euro zone leaders will meet in Brussels on Thursday to discuss ways of halting the threat of contagion to Italy and Spain from Greece's rumbling debt crisis.

Gilmore said it was to Ireland's advantage that European leaders were now looking at the crisis as a euro zone problem rather than an issue for individual countries.

"I believe that will work to Ireland's advantage because solving the European problem will help solve the Irish problem."

Ireland hopes a new plan to tackle the crisis will mean the terms of its own 85 billion euros ($120 billion) EU-IMF bailout package will be loosened, including a cut in the average 5.8 percent interest rate on its European loans and longer loan maturities.

Euro zone finance ministers agreed last week to make the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF), the euro zone's rescue fund, more flexible, but the details have yet to be worked out.

ECB Policymaker Weidmann, Opposes Common Bond Solution

Please consider Greek debt cut won't solve problem: ECB's Weidmann

Cutting Greece's debt will not solve the country's problems, ECB policymaker Jens Weidmann was quoted as saying on Sunday, adding Athens needed to raise its productivity instead.

"Greece consumes considerably more than it produces, the public budget shows high deficits," Weidmann, head of Germany's Bundesbank and who sits on the European Central Bank's Governing Council, was quoted as saying.

"As long as that doesn't change, a hair cut will not really improve anything," he said, Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported.

On Saturday, German magazine Der Spiegel reported -- citing unnamed German finance ministry sources -- Greece could cut its public debt by 20 billion euros ($28.2 billion) if it bought back sovereign bonds at market prices as part of a rescue.

Wolfgang Franz, head of Germany's "wise men" economic advisers, told Focus magazine on the weekend a hair cut was "inevitable and justified."

"One possibility would be that the current EFSF euro rescue mechanism swaps -- at a significant discount -- Greek bonds into bonds it issues and guarantees," Franz was quoted as saying.

The ECB has signaled it remains fiercely opposed to any form of default. The bank is fearful the problems that have hurt Greece, Ireland and Portugal could spread to other indebted euro zone members if a default were triggered.

Weidmann also said he opposed common euro zone bonds.

"The result would be that European, especially German, taxpayers must cover Greece's state debt. That would be a step into the transfer union that Germany has rightly rejected so far," he said.

Right Place to Crash the Plane

I have talked about the European Nanny State Eurocracy on several occasions, mist recently yesterday, so it is interesting to see these stories today. For an up-to-date recap of the growing support for the Nanny State, please see Right Place to Crash the Plane; Time Running Out for Europe; Nanny State or a Breakup?

In general, Germany is opposed and countries deep in trouble are for common bonds. However, common bond and fiscal unions are against the Maastricht Treaty that created the European Union.

So far Jean-Claude Trichet has treated the treaty like toilet paper, but Trichet will be gone in October, and changes like common bonds and a fiscal union are well beyond rule changes the ECB could get away with.

The big Nanny State clash is coming.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Seth's Blog : What you should worry about

What you should worry about

You''ve heard this question a lot. It's what a novice asks an expert. He's planning something or launching something and he wonders, "Should I worry about..."

Actually, it doesn't pay to worry about anything.

It might benefit you to pay attention to something or to learn about something, because that will help you make a better decision when then time comes.

If it's not something you can decide about, if it's not something you can avoid, then all you can do is worry. And what's the point of that?

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luni, 18 iulie 2011

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

From One to Many

Sitemap Indices

Case Study: Razoo

Standing Up on Behalf of Consumers

A Big Week for the New Consumer Agency

Seth's Blog : From Asimov to Zelazny

From Asimov to Zelazny

More Recent Articles

duminică, 17 iulie 2011

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Seth's Blog : What you should worry about

What you should worry about

More Recent Articles

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

luni, 18 iulie 2011

From One to Many

Sitemap Indices

Case Study: Razoo

More Recent Articles

duminică, 17 iulie 2011

More Recent Articles

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

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