My previous post on the new Google features was published today (June 5th) at 11:48am

The screenshot of the search result below was taken about 5 minutes ago.  I’m not certain why this post was indexed so quickly while others remain un-updated. It definitely calls for experimenting.

Search Results from June 5th, 2009 at about 12:45 pm PST

I do know that blogs tend to get indexed a bit more quickly than standard sites with a fixed navigation path to static content. My theory is that blogs are current, and so, more relevant. It seems to be working for me, which is exciting. I’ve seen nothing but steady growth since I started this blog a couple of weeks ago.

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on June 5, 2009 at 1:03 pm, filed under Search Engine Optimization and tagged Blog, Google, SEO, Tips. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Canonicalization is a big word, essentially meaning standardization or normalization.  In the context of SEO, it’s best described by Wikipedia.

URL normalization (or URL canonicalization) is the process by which URLs are modified and standardized in a consistent manner… wikipedia

Even more simply, it’s a set of rules written in regular expressions that instruct browsers to redirect your site from http://yourdomain.com to http://www.yourdomain.com (or the opposite, I like the www – but it doesn’t matter in the practical sense)

The point is to make sure that all links resolve to one url.  By default, there are four possible versions of your home page that someone could link to.

http://yourdomain.com

http://www.yourdomain.com

http://yourdomain.com/index.php (or html, or htm)
http://www.yourdomain.com/index.php (or…)

That’s at least four.  Some content management systems, like Joomla, create multiple links your home page – so it’s not unreasonable to have more than four.

Canonicalization, in my opinion, is an effort of vanity. Google won’t penalize you for having multiple links, and I’ve not seen a lack of proper canonicalization affect the typical small business site adversely.  Still, if you have the time, it’s worth the ten minutes it takes to set this up.

Here’s how to canonicalize your site to resolve to the ‘www’ version

1.Open up an FTP client and navigate to the public_html directory of your website (I use FileZilla)
2. Download the .htaccess file
3. Insert the following code (replacing yourdomain.com with your own site)

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /([^/]+/)*index\.(html|php)\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^(([^/]+/)*)index\.(html|php)$ http://yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

4. Upload the file to the public_html directory.

That’s it, your site should resolve properly.  That didn’t take long, did it?

If you’re especially lazy, you can download my htaccess sample script - just remember to change yourdomain.com to your sites URL before you upload it.

Have a more complex situation?  Contact me for help or post a comment below.

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on May 30, 2009 at 2:28 pm, filed under Search Engine Optimization and tagged SEO, Tips, Web Design. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.