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Could this be the end of UK serps

June 29th, 2009

I’m not alone in moaning about the uk serps

Take a look at a few of these posts http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/020175.html and http://www.ppcblog.co.uk/google/big-geo-problems-still-exist-in-google-uk-serps plus many others..

Well.. Just now google have changed the UI on google.co.uk serps …

WARNING THIS IS NOT GOOD IF YOU FROM THE UK

So the serps are bad already.. yes we agree on the … but google are testing a new UI in chrome only “so far”..

Google have removed the 2 radio buttons with the options  ”the web” and “pages from the UK”

Here is a screen shot from firefox which seems not to be affected:

Here is the google.co.uk chrome home page:

Ok you might not think it “to bad” but one major thing is the serps..

As the radio button has gone google have replace it with “Show only results for United Kingdom” text link… This in a way take up more space and “could” help the uk serps out BUT not all serps have ”Show only results for United Kingdom” at the top..

The screen shot below shows the ”Show only results for United Kingdom” link at the bottom of a google.co.uk serp!

I really hope this doesn’t  stick as its seems to assume you looking for a no UK result well above a uk result and with the way the serps are already this isn’t going to help us in the UK!! :(

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Google pushing chrome on UK IE users!!

April 17th, 2009

Wow.. 

Google not just adding a little link to chrome at the bottom but a massive graphic at the top of the page…

Crazy…. 

Check out the screen shot or visit google.co.uk

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beta adwords interface warning.

April 14th, 2009

I started using the beta interface for google adwords on the 14th Feb 2009.. 

Still 50/50 if I like it or not.. some good bits some bad as always… 

Anyway.. Over the weekend I logged in and got a warning telling the interface will stick… 

Here it is:

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USA amazon Associates hit with a ban on PPC

April 7th, 2009

 

Seem not to of hit the UK in anyway that I can find as yet and nothing new on the amazon Associates blog in the uk which is good for us but not the folks out in the USA… 

 

Paid Search Traffic FAQ

 

Q: Will Amazon reinstate payment of referral fees to paid search Associates? 

A: No. This change to the Associates Program is not temporary.

Q: Does this affect paid search Associates who send users to Amazon’s European and Japanese websites? 

A: This change applies only to the Associates Programs in North America. If you are conducting paid search activities in connection with one of Amazon’s Associates Programs outside of the US and Canada, please refer to the applicable country’s Associates Program Operating Agreement for relevant terms and conditions.

 

Full info here:

 

https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/promo/paidsearch

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Twitter 1 in 15 people will follow an empty account.

February 13th, 2009

In the UK twitter is all over the news.. So i’m guessing I should post about it agian… 

See google uk trends here: Click here

 

Well yesterday I opened my 3rd twitter account for a new site launched 2 days… Add twitterfeed and we are away!!..

Great.. 

5 mins ago or so a new follower added themselves.. Now I normally ignore this but as it was such a new account with on 3 twits so far I went and had a look.. 

This is what I found:

So its someone that imho is spamming… The thing that interests me was the fact this account has 61 followers… 

A little bit of maths returns over 1 in 15 people will follow you for you following them even with a empty account…

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Xmas far bigger in the UK than NYE

February 9th, 2009

Diagram below show one of my sites that has steady highish traffic with no massive up’s or downs with mondays always with the most traffic hence a good site to look at for xmas/new year traffic. 

First arrow showing 25th Decemeber which is 1/3 of the traffic of new year eve and day (second red arrow). 

Click image to enlarge!

NYE and NYD are 1/2 of the avg traffic vs the 1/5 of traffic on xmas day.. Please note the site is UK focused..

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UK Snow!

February 4th, 2009

So most people around the world have heard about the snow in the uk that has shut down london this monday. Well we expect more tomorrow!

I love SNOW!! 

We don’t get much snow in the uk :( 

Thought I’d have a looky at google trends for the uk with the term “snow”.. 

check it out click here

One odd thing is google doesn’t pick up snow uk news of which is all the news we have really had this week.

One interesting thing is that Wales come no1 for snow searches when it has fewer people and hasn’t been hit that hard vs the over populated south of the UK… 

screen shot here:

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Google hates Wales (not the mammals)

February 3rd, 2009

Ok haven’t blogged for an age here… So now that I have a tiny amount of time I thought I’d blog a little now and again.. 

So google hates Wales… 

Well i’ve been away snowboarding for a week as per norm this time of year and brought the snow back to the UK with me :D … 

So today I thought I’d raise my PPC budget after dropping for the time i’m away.. “as per norm” .. 

Pretty simple.. I raise the daily cap.. done.. 

Me been being bored this am I have a looky at google “Campaign Optimiser” Which states :

Your campaign’s recent performance shows that some targeted locations perform better for you than others. We recommend that you focus on those regions that have higher Click-through rates than your current average.

The Sad/funny thing is I target the UK only with this campaign thus select uk.. Simple yes ? 

Well. Google thinks Wales is just no good for me..  Google suggest removing wales from my geo-targetting which would increase my CTR.. 

wired thing is it will increase CTR and result in less imp’s and clicks.. Odd.. 

Here is the map of the proposed locations: 

This is why removing wales is better :

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Cuil - We didn’t find any results for “gabs”

July 28th, 2008

Not so cool.. lol.

http://www.cuil.com/search?q=gabs

Bigger better but not listed..

Can’t seem to find any of my site indexed… Ah well..  good luck and all that..

 

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Pagination - php .htaccess paging code for seo

July 23rd, 2008

Over the last 2 weeks i’ve been working a lot on paging in php.

so… Pretty simple to get first last next and previous to work in php.

Looking at resources on the web I haven’t seen many paging php example including rewriting url for the search enignes so thought i’d put some code up here on my blog.. Hope it helps!

mysql_select_db($database, $con);

$query_prods = $query_list= “SELECT * FROM table”;
//echo $query_prods ;

$query_limit_prods = sprintf(”%s LIMIT %d, %d”, $query_prods, $startRow_prods, $maxRows_prods);
$prods = mysql_query($query_limit_prods, $con) or die(mysql_error());
$row_prods = mysql_fetch_assoc($prods);

The above code is a simple example of the php to create a recordset for the entire contents of “table”..

$maxRows_prods = 6;
$pageNum_prods = 0;

$all_prods = mysql_query($query_prods);
$totalRows_prods = mysql_num_rows($all_prods);
$totalPages_prods = ceil($totalRows_prods/$maxRows_prods)-1;

$queryString_prods = “”;
if (!empty($HTTP_SERVER_VARS['QUERY_STRING'])) {
  $params = explode(”&”, $HTTP_SERVER_VARS['QUERY_STRING']);
  $newParams = array();
  foreach ($params as $param) {
    if (stristr($param, “pageNum_prods”) == false &&
        stristr($param, “totalRows_prods”) == false) {
      array_push($newParams, $param);
    }
  }
  if (count($newParams) != 0) {
    $queryString_prods = “&” . implode(”&”, $newParams);
  }
}

The above part of the php paging code creates variables to create a simple mod-rewrite php paging.

<?php

$currentPage  = “some-keyword/”

if ($pageNum_prods > 0) { // Show if not first page ?>
            <a href=”<?php echo $currentPage; ?>”><img src=”first.gif” border=”0″></a>
            <?php } // Show if not first page ?> </p>
        <?php if ($pageNum_prods > 1) { // Show if not first page ?>
            <a href=”<?php echo $currentPage.”/”.($pageNum_prods - 1); ?>”><img src=”prev.gif” border=”0″ align=”bottom”></a>
            <?php } // Show if not first page ?>
      <?php if ($pageNum_prods < $totalPages_prods) { // Show if not last page ?>
            <a href=”<?php echo $currentPage.”/”.($pageNum_prods + 1); ?>”><img src=”next.gif” border=”0″></a>
            <?php } // Show if not last page ?>
   <?php if ($pageNum_prods < $totalPages_prods) {?><a href=”<?php echo $currentPage.”/”.($totalPages_prods); ?>”><img src=”last.gif” border=”0″></a><?php }?>

The above code shows image for first, next, previous and last however you can of course slam in some keywords here either in the alt tags or as text.. I’ll explain how in a bit..

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/somekeyword/([0-9]+)
RewriteRule ^(.*) /page.php?pageNum_prods=%1  [L]

The above is the .htacess for paging a php page called page.php in the root of the site. Please note “somekeyword” can be changed to theme the paging for example if the query returned all products that are ”red” then the folder could be called “red” to give a little seo help..

The above coding will result in yoursite.com/somekeyword/1 for page 1 yoursite.com/somekeyword/2 for page 2 and so on..

The above is a very simple basic script which I hope helps however now you can start to take it up a gear in regards to seo..

So paging has always been a issuse with SE as page 1 will return the same title des and k/w as page 2 and so on … so how to fix the dup content?

Well always consider the user so look at the result on the page..  Look at them as a human.. What is on the page? How could you describe it ?  The above php limits to 6 results per page..  those 6 items each have a title.. Now depenant on your data the is the key!..

Lets assume your in the RED section of the site so the query retrun all red items.. In the first 6 you have what type of items ? These items are the content of the page along with what that page links to.. By extract the type of items your be able to add them to title and desriptions..

So again assuming RED items include pens,ink,paper,paint… collect this data in array.. Now the key so make sure its reads well to the user. So something like “page 1 red items” could be change to “Red pens, ink paper and paint from xyz”

Basically your giving the user the title + description to what is on the page.. as above if page 2 contained card, cloth,fabric,thick paper .. The title would change from something like “page 2 red items” to “Red card, cloth, fabric and thick paper from xyz”

Of course using “,” in titles and description isn’t a great idea thus its worth looking into this wording dependant on your niche..

Hope that helps someone a little :)