So, who facilitated The Great Internet Blackout, on their website, with the best “Cool” factor and with the least browser problems?

Google changes the images used (Doodles) to represent their name on Google.com, quite often. So was blacking out the “Google” the best option?

Wikipedia blacked out and locked the whole english site. Their design was cool, but wasn’t consistent across platforms. The effect worked in the latest versions of Apple’s Safari (on Mac OS X), Google’s Chrome (on Linux & Mac OS X), Mozilla’s Firefox (on Linux and Mac OS X) and Opera (on Linux and Mac OS X). It also seemed to work just fine, in Apple’s Safari on the original iPad. However, it did not work correctly on the iPhone 4, when using Apple’s Safari or Opera Mobile. (We don’t use Micro$lop’s Windoz or Micro$lop’s Internet Exploiter, but I’ve been told, there were issues when viewing Wikipedia in some versions of Micro$lop’s Internet Exploiter.)

Was this the best way for Wikipedia?

Mozilla joined in The Great Internet Blackout, too, by replacing their entire landing page.

The Free Software Foundation (and GNU.org) did something very similar to Mozilla, with many of their websites.

Sapphire Solutions, Ltd., and Bamajr.com used a combination of WordPress plugins to achieve the blackout affect on our web sites.

The “Blackout” effect was implemented via the SOPA Blackout Plugin for WordPress, WordPress Plugin, designed by Sasha Gerrand.

The “Ribbon” in the upper, right-hand corner, was implemented via the Stop SOPA Ribbon, WordPress Plugin, designed by Konstantin Kovshenin.

Kudos to them both!

These effects work in the latest versions of Apple’s Safari (on Mac OS X), Google’s Chrome (on Linux & Mac OS X), Mozilla’s Firefox (on Linux and Mac OS X) and Opera (on Linux and Mac OS X). In addition, these effects work just fine, in Apple’s Safari on the original iPad and the iPhone 4, including the Opera Mobile app. (Again, we don’t use Micro$lop’s Windoz or Micro$lop’s Internet Exploiter, but I’ve been told, that these effects worked just fine on some versions of Micro$lop’s Internet Exploiter on Micro$lop’s Windoz XP.)

Who did it best?

Do you have examples from other sites?

While I will not go into much detail with this post, I will say, the way all Americans use the internet, will change drastically if SOPA/PIPA legislation is passed.

I’ve already written an article “Stop SOPA, Stop PIPA: The Great Internet Blackout” on http://bamajr.com/, so I’m not going into much detail here.

Take a minute to notice the “Stop SOPA” ribbon on our web pages. Read the article I listed above. Go to the links I provide, and let your voice be heard.

Many domain names used for the World Wide Web begin with www because of the long-standing practice of naming Internet hosts (servers) according to the services they provide. The hostname for a web server is often www, in the same way that it may be ftp for an FTP server, and news or nntp for a USENET news server. – Wikipedia

Sapphire Solutions owns the domain sapphiresolutionsltd.com and if we named the internet hosts according to the services they provided, we would have:

• A Web Site at www.sapphiresolutionsltd.com
• A FTP site at ftp.sapphiresolutionsltd.com
• A NEWS site at nntp.sapphiresolutionsltd.com

…and so on.

However, in today’s world of virtualized servers, SaaS and advanced routing, this type of naming is largely unnecessary. The routing equipment and servers being used can automatically determine whether or not a connection is intended for www, ftp, nntp or others based on the ports used.

Does the “www” play any role in SEM/SEO strategies?

No!

Does the “www” make it easier for search engines to find a web site?

No!

Can the “www” help improve my page rank?

No!

Does the “www” make it easier for people to get to my web site?

No!

Does electing not to use the “www” create any additional security risk?

No!

If anything, the “www” simply makes your web address longer.

I want to point out, naming schemes using “www” or “ftp” (and others) can be used as a way organize servers by name. It is possible for a company’s web site and ftp site to be on separate servers and networks, even in different locations. For this reason some companies continue to use the “www” or “ftp” in their server naming schemes.

Matt Cutts is a Software Engineer for Google. He works as the head of Google’s Webspam team. This means he plays a large roll in how search results are determined on the Google Search web site and probably has a lot to do with the Google Search Appliance.

When Matt says the Description Meta Tag is often used as the Snippet, in Google’s Search Results, I want to know more.

I’m pretty familiar with what a Snippet is, but others may not be. So, the first thing we want to do is to show what a snippet is and how it is used.

Here is an example of the Description Meta Tag being used as a Snippet:

This image was taken from the Improve snippets with a meta description makeover article on the Google Webmaster Blog. This is a very helpful article for those who need some insight as to what a Snippet is and how to write good content for the Description Meta Tag.

The Snippet can provide important information to people using search engines to find your web site.

Get the biggest bang for the Snippet buck, using the Description Meta Tag!

How many characters should be used in the Description Meta Tag?

This is the topic of a lot of conversation. I’ve seen numbers as low as 135 characters and numbers way over 200 characters. I’ve seen web sites using more and less. The most common line of thinking is to aim for a number between 135 and 155 characters. For example, the Snippet I showed above uses approximately 155 characters.

What counts as a character?

Everything is a character. Letters, numbers, spaces and punctuation should all be considered part of the total number of characters.

Is there anything I can’t use as a character?

As a general rule, you want to try to avoid the use of symbols outside of standard punctuation. Some people will use this area to display prices or weights, so some symbols are recognized. Whether or not symbols are recognized, they would still count towards your total character limit.

Is there anything I should avoid completely?

This area is potentially viewable any time your web site is displayed in search results. You do not want to scare away your potential customers. So avoid using the Description Meta Tag to talk about anything other than your own web site content. Avoid bashing other sites, products or services. Avoid trying to compare things. Avoid the use of links or web addresses. Avoid bad grammar, misspelled words and/or slangs, unless it is absolutely necessary. Avoid complicated, run on sentences.

I can see the draw. Someone sends an email, out of the blue, promising better search results, but its all just a big scam (read up on Search Engine Optimization Email Scams).

Try carrying on a conversation with these people. I’ve tried several times. I very simply ask:

How do you plan to get my web site on the front page of search results and what it will cost me?

I get a wide variety of answers about the cost. However, their “plan” almost always involves Meta Tags, specifically Keywords and a whole bunch of circular talk, in an attempt to confuse me.

To me, it is just easiest not to talk to these people (I wouldn’t have anything to write about, though). I even tell people, if you want to see if your SEM/SEO company actually knows what they are doing ask them about Meta Tags and what role Keywords play.

Why ask about this?

Simple!

Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking. This was such an important point, made by Matt Cutts of Google, he made it twice (once on the official Google Webmaster Central Blog and once on his own blog http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/keywords-meta-tag-in-web-search/).

Matt even posted a short video about it.

Google hasn’t been using the Keywords Meta Tag for years (over 10 years I believe). Google identified it early, as a significant risk for keyword spamming.

To top it off, Google isn’t the only search provider, not using the Keywords Meta Tag. Only some crawlers and indexing services still use them. Knowing this, should prove SEO ploys, claiming better search rankings using Keyword Meta Tags, are nothing more than scams.

While the Keywords Meta Tag isn’t used by the major search engines, it does still play a roll in locating information once a person is at your web site. They can be used in linking content from one web site to another.

So, here is a few tips on the META NAME=”KEYWORDS” section of your web site.

1. 150 total characters or less. This includes commas and spaces.
2. Use comma separated values.
   <meta name="keywords" content="sem, search engine marketing, seo, search engine optimization, sri, search rank improvement, search results" />
3. Do not use symbols in the values.
   <meta name="keywords" content="$em, $earch engine marketing, $eo, $earch engine optimization, $ri, $earch rank improvement, $earch results" />
   In this example, I used the $ to replace the “s” just to show you how some people use symbols to represent letters. Search Engines want letters.
4. Capitalization is completely ignored.
5. Duplicate words are most often ignored, but could be identified by crawlers and indexing services as KEYWORD SPAM. This can lead to your site being skipped or blocked by the service in the future.
   <meta name="keywords" content="search engine marketing, search engine, search marketing, search, engine, marketing, search engine optimization, search engine, search optimization, search, engine, optimization" />
   This is a perfect example of what keyword duplication can look like. Look at how many times some of the exact same terms were repeated.

In general, the five guidelines above, will help you get, all there is to get, from the meta name=”keywords” meta tag.

…webspam is junk you see in search results when websites try to cheat their way into higher positions in search results or otherwise violate search engine quality guidelines. – Matt Cutts – Google Search and Search Engine Spam

Today, Matt Cutts wrote an article titled Algorithm change launched, on his personal blog. He says:

The net effect is that searchers are more likely to see the sites that wrote the original content rather than a site that scraped or copied the original site’s content.

This newly modified algorithm reinforces how “Content is King” when considering a web site’s current search rank and future Search Engine Optimization plans.

Many times, when a web site’s search rank is lower than desired, Search Engine Optimization is thought to be the quick answer. People want immediate results for their web site, so they turn to companies promising immediate results through Search Engine Optimization.

This thought process is seriously flawed.

Optimizing anything sounds good and Search Engine Optimization is important. However, people need to understand it is the content and code which need optimized.

A promise of immediate results through Search Engine Optimization should be an immediate red flag. If a web site gets to the top of the search rankings overnight, it is likely to fall just as fast. Original content, on a well coded web site, will always win out in the end.

Correctly improving a web site’s search engine ranking takes time. Evaluate the content and code of the web site. Then set S.M.A.R.T.E.R. Goals, thinking in terms of months from now, not hours or days. If a web site is found in the bottom 10% of 2,000,000 results, it is unrealistic to demand front page results in 6 months.

Dec: 240-255
Hex: F0-FF

HTML Code for: Small eth w/ Icelandic, Small n w/ Tilde, Small o w/ Grave Accent, Small o w/ Acute Accent, Small o w/ Circumflex Accent, Small o w/ Tilde, Small o w/ Dieresis/Umlaut Mark, Division Sign, Small o w/ Slash, Small u w/ Grave Accent, Small u w/ Acute Accent, Small u w/ Circumflex Accent, Small u w/ Dieresis/Umlaut Mark, Small y w/ Acute Accent, Small thorn w/ Icelandic & Small y w/ Dieresis/Umlaut Mark.

* in Description means not defined in HTML 4 standard

Browser support: All

Sources:

http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spec_13.html

http://www.ascii.cl/htmlcodes.htm

Dec: 224-239
Hex: E0-EF

HTML Code for: Small a w/ Grave Accent, Small a w/ Acute Accent, Small a w/ Circumflex Accent, Small a w/ Tilde, Small a w/ Dieresis/Umlaut Mark, Small a w/ Ring, Small ae Dipthong (ligature), Small c w/ Cedilla, Small e w/ Grave Accent, Small e w/ Acute Accent, Small e w/ Circumflex Accent, Small e w/ Dieresis/Umlaut Mark, Small i w/ Grave Accent, Small i w/ Acute Accent, Small i w/ Circumflex Accent & Small i w/ Dieresis/Umlaut Mark.

* in Description means not defined in HTML 4 standard

Browser support: All

Sources:

http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spec_13.html

http://www.ascii.cl/htmlcodes.htm

Dec: 208-223
Hex: D0-DF

HTML Code for: Capital Eth w/ Icelandic, Capital N w/ Tilde, Capital O w/ Grave Accent, Capital O w/ Acute Accent, Capital O w/ Circumflex Accent, Capital O w/ Tilde, Capital O w/ Dieresis/Umlaut Mark, Multiply Sign, Capital O w/ Slash, Capital U w/ Grave Accent, Capital U w/ Acute Accent, Capital U w/ Circumflex Accent, Capital U w/ Dieresis/Umlaut Mark, Capital Y w/ Acute Accent, Capital THORN w/ Icelandic & Small Sharp s w/ German (sz ligature).

* in Description means not defined in HTML 4 standard

Browser support: All

Sources:

http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spec_13.html

http://www.ascii.cl/htmlcodes.htm

Dec: 192-207
Hex: C0-CF

HTML Code for: Capital A w/ Grave Accent, Capital A w/ Acute Accent, Capital A w/ Circumflex Accent, Capital A w/ Tilde, Capital A w/ Dieresis/Umlaut Mark, Capital A w/ Ring, Capital AE Dipthong (ligature), Capital C w/ Cedilla, Capital E w/ Grave Accent, Capital E w/ Acute Accent, Capital E w/ Circumflex Accent, Capital E w/ Dieresis/Umlaut Mark, Capital I w/ Grave Accent, Capital I w/ Acute Accent, Capital I w/ Circumflex Accent & Capital I w/ Dieresis/Umlaut Mark.

* in Description means not defined in HTML 4 standard

Browser support: All

Sources:

http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spec_13.html

http://www.ascii.cl/htmlcodes.htm