book

Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP: A Developer's Guide to SEO

Name: Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP: A Developer's Guide to SEO
ISBN: 9780470100929

by Jaimie Sirovich, Cristian Darie

April 2007

Intermediate to advanced

382 pages

9h 9m

English

Wrox

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Copyright
About the Authors
Credits
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Who Should Read This BookWhat Will You Learn from this Book?Contacting the AuthorsConventionsSource CodeErratap2p.wrox.com
1. You: Programmer and Search Engine Marketer
1.1. Who Are You?1.2. What Do You Need to Learn?1.2.1. SEO and the Site Architecture1.2.2. SEO Cannot Be an Afterthought1.2.3. Communicating Architectural Decisions1.2.4. Architect ural Minutiae Can Make or Break You1.3. Preparing Your Playground1.3.1. Installing XAMPP1.3.2. Preparing the Working Folder1.3.3. Preparing the Database1.4. Summary
2. A Primer in Basic SEO
2.1. Introduction to SEO2.1.1. Link Equity2.1.2. Google PageRank2.1.3. A Word on Usability and Accessibility2.2. Search Engine Ranking Factors2.2.1. On-Page Factors2.2.2. Visible On-Page Factors2.2.2.1. Page Title2.2.2.2. Page Headings2.2.2.3. Page Copy2.2.2.4. Outbound Links2.2.2.5. Keywords in Page URL and Domain Name2.2.2.6. Internal Link Structure and Anchors2.2.2.7. Overall Site Topicality2.2.2.8. Invisible On-Page Factors2.2.2.9. Meta Description2.2.2.10. Meta Keywords2.2.2.11. Alt and Title Attributes2.2.2.12. Page Structure Considerations2.2.3. Time-Based Factors2.2.3.1. Site and Page Age2.2.3.2. Link Age2.2.3.3. Domain Registration Length2.2.4. External Factors2.2.4.1. Quantity of Inbound Links2.2.4.2. Quality of Inbound Links2.2.4.3. Relevance of Inbound Links2.2.4.4. Link Churn2.2.4.5. Link Acquisition Rate2.2.4.6. Link Anchor Text and Surrounding Copy2.2.4.7. Reciprocal Links2.2.4.8. Number of Links on a Page2.2.4.9. Semantic Relationship among Links on a Page2.2.4.10. IP Addresses of Cross-Linked Sites2.2.4.11. TLD of Domain Name for a Link2.2.4.12. Link Location2.2.4.13. Web Standards Compliance2.2.4.14. Detrimental "Red-Flag" Factors2.3. Potential Search Engine Penalties2.3.1. The Google "Sandbox Effect"2.3.2. The Expired Domain Penalty2.3.3. Duplicate Content Penalty2.3.4. The Google Supplemental Index2.4. Resources and Tools2.4.1. Web Analytics2.4.1.1. Google Analytics2.4.1.2. Other Web Analytics Tools2.4.2. Market Research2.4.2.1. Yahoo! Site Explorer2.4.2.2. Google Trends2.4.2.3. Alexa Rankings2.4.3. Researching Keywords2.4.4. Browser Plugins2.4.5. Community Forums2.4.6. Search Engine Blogs and Resources2.5. Summary
3. Provocative SE-Friendly URLs
3.1. Why Do URLs Matter?3.2. Static URLs and Dynamic URLs3.2.1. Static URLs3.2.2. Dynamic URLs3.2.3. URLs and CTR3.2.4. URLs and Duplicate Content3.3. URLs of the Real World3.3.1. Example #1: Dynamic URLs3.3.2. Example #2: Numeric Rewritten URLs3.3.3. Example #3: Keyword-Rich Rewritten URLs3.3.4. Maintaining URL Consistency3.4. URL Rewriting3.4.1. Installing mod_rewrite3.4.2. Testing mod_rewrite3.4.3. Introducing Regular Expressions3.4.4. URL Rewriting and PHP3.4.5. Rewriting Numeric URLs with Two Parameters3.4.6. Rewriting Keyword-Rich URLs3.4.7. Building a Link Factory3.4.8. Pagination and URL Rewriting3.4.9. Rewriting Images and Streaming Media3.5. Problems Rewriting Doesn't Solve3.6. A Last Word of Caution3.7. Summary
4. Content Relocation and HTTP Status Codes
4.1. HTTP Status Codes4.2. Redirection Using 301 and 3024.2.1. 3014.2.2. 3024.3. Removing Deleted Pages Using 4044.4. Avoiding Indexing Error Pages Using 5004.5. Redirecting with PHP and mod_rewrite4.5.1. Using Redirects to Change File Names4.5.2. URL Correction4.5.3. Dealing with Multiple Domain Names Properly4.5.4. Using Redirects to Change Domain Names4.5.5. URL Canonicalization: www.example.com versus example.com4.5.6. URL Canonicalization: /index.php versus /4.6. Other Types of Redirects4.7. Summary
5. Duplicate Content
5.1. Causes and Effects of Duplicate Content5.1.1. Duplicate Content as a Result of Site Architecture5.1.2. Duplicate Content as a Result of Content Theft5.2. Excluding Duplicate Content5.2.1. Using the Robots Meta Tag5.2.2. robots.txt Pattern Exclusion5.2.2.1. More robots.txt Examples5.2.2.2. robots.txt Tips5.2.2.3. Generating robots.txt On-the-Fly5.2.2.4. Handling robots.txt Limitations5.3. Solutions for Commonly Duplicated Pages5.3.1. Print-Friendly Pages5.3.2. Navigation Links and Breadcrumb Navigation5.3.2.1. Using One Primary Category and robots.txt or Meta-Exclusion5.3.2.2. Changing Up the Content on the Various Permutations5.3.2.3. Some Thoughts5.3.3. Similar Pages5.3.4. Pages with Duplicate Meta Tag or Title Values5.3.5. URL Canonicalization5.3.6. URL-Based Session IDs5.3.7. Other Navigational Link Parameters5.3.8. Affiliate Pages5.3.8.1. Using Referrers and Cookies instead of Query String Parameters5.3.8.2. Using Excluded Affiliate URLs5.3.9. Redirecting Parameterized Affiliate URLs5.3.9.1. Example #15.3.9.2. Example #25.4. Summary

6. SE-Friendly HTML and JavaScript
6.1. Overall Architecture6.2. Search Engine-Friendly JavaScript6.2.1. JavaScript Links6.2.2. DHTML Menus6.2.3. Popup Windows6.2.3.1. Implementing Popup Navigation6.2.4. DHTML Popup Windows6.2.5. Crawlable Images and Graphical Text6.2.5.1. The "sIFR" Replacement Method6.2.5.2. Stewart Rosenberger's Text Replacement Method6.3. Search Engine-Friendly HTML6.3.1. HTML Structural Elements6.3.2. Copy Prominence and Tables6.3.3. The Table Trick Explained6.3.4. Frames6.3.5. Using Forms6.4. Using a Custom Markup Language to Generate SE-Friendly HTML6.5. Flash and AJAX6.5.1. The Blended Approach6.6. Summary
7. Web Feeds and Social Bookmarking
7.1. Web Feeds7.1.1. RSS and Atom7.2. Creating RSS Feeds7.3. Syndicating RSS and Atom Feeds7.4. Other Sources of Syndicated Content7.5. Social Bookmarking7.6. Summary
8. Black Hat SEO
8.1. What's with All the Hats?8.2. Bending the Rules8.3. Technical Analysis of Black-Hat Techniques8.3.1. Attack Avoidance8.3.2. HTML Insertion Attacks8.3.3. Avoiding Comment Attacks Using Nofollow8.3.4. Sanitizing User Input8.3.5. Requesting Human Input8.3.6. 301 Redirect Attacks8.3.7. Using a 302 Redirect8.3.8. Using robots.txt to Exclude redirect.php8.3.9. Using a Database-Driven Solution8.3.10. Content Theft8.3.11. On Buying Links8.3.12. Digital Point Co-op, Link Vault8.4. Summary
9. Sitemaps
9.1. Traditional Sitemaps9.2. Search Engine Sitemaps9.2.1. Using Google Sitemaps9.2.2. Using Yahoo! Sitemaps9.3. Generating Sitemaps Programmatically9.4. Informing Google about Updates9.5. The Sitemaps.org Standard Protocol9.6. Summary
10. Link Bait
10.1. Hooking Links10.1.1. Informational Hooks10.1.2. News Story Hooks10.1.3. Humor/Fun Hooks10.1.4. Evil Hooks10.2. Traditional Examples of Link Bait10.3. Interactive Link Bait: Put on Your Programming Hardhat!10.4. Case Study: Fortune Cookies10.5. Summary
11. Cloaking, Geo-Targeting, and IP Delivery
11.1. Cloaking, Geo-Targeting, and IP Delivery11.1.1. More on Geo-Targeting11.1.2. A Few Words on JavaScript Redirect Cloaking11.1.3. The Ethical Debate on Cloaking11.1.4. Cloaking Dangers11.1.5. Using the Meta Noarchive Tag11.2. Implementing Cloaking11.3. Cloaking Case Studies11.3.1. Rendering Images as Text11.3.2. Redirecting Excluded Content11.3.3. Feeding Subscription-Based Content Only to Spiders11.3.4. Disabling URL-Based Session Handling for Spiders11.3.5. Other Cloaking Implementations11.4. Implementing Geo-Targeting11.5. Summary
12. Foreign Language SEO
12.1. Foreign Language Optimization Tips12.1.1. Indicating Language and Region12.1.2. Server Location and Domain Name12.1.3. Include the Address of the Foreign Location if Possible12.1.4. Dealing with Accented Letters (Diacritics)12.2. Foreign Language Spamming12.3. Summary
13. Coping with Technical Issues
13.1. Unreliable Web Hosting or DNS13.2. Changing Hosting Providers13.3. Cross-Linking13.4. SEO-Aware Split Testing13.5. Detecting Broken Links13.6. Summary
14. Case Study: Building an E-Commerce Store
14.1. Establishing the Requirements14.2. Implementing the Product Catalog14.3. Summary
15. Site Clinic: So You Have a Web Site?
15.1. 1. Creating Sitemaps15.2. 2. Creating News Feeds15.3. 3. Fixing Duplication in Titles and Meta Tags15.4. 4. Getting Listed in Reputable Directories15.5. 5. Soliciting and Exchanging Relevant Links15.6. 6. Buying Links15.7. 7. Creating Link Bait15.8. 8. Adding Social Bookmarking Functionality15.9. 9. Starting a Blog and/or Forum15.10. 10. Dealing with a Pure Flash or AJAX Site15.11. 11. Preventing Black Hat Victimization15.12. 12. Examining Your URLs for Problems15.13. 13. Looking for Duplicate Content15.14. 14. Eliminating Session IDs15.15. 15. Tweaking On-page Factors15.16. Summary
16. WordPress: Creating an SE-Friendly Blog
16.1. Installing WordPress16.2. Turning On Permalinks16.3. Akismet: Preventing Comment Spam16.4. Sociable: Social Bookmarking Icons16.5. WP-Email: Email a Friend16.6. Chicklet Creator Plugin16.7. Sitemap Generator Plugin16.8. Google Sitemaps Plugin16.9. Digg Button Plugin16.10. Pagerfix Plugin16.11. Eliminating Duplicate Content16.11.1. Pull-downs and Excluding Category Links16.11.2. Excerpting Article Content16.12. Making the Blog Your Home Page16.13. Summary
A. Simple Regular Expressions
A.1. Matching Single CharactersA.1.1. Matching Sequences of Characters That Each Occur OnceA.1.2. Introducing MetacharactersA.1.3. Matching Sequences of Different CharactersA.2. Matching Optional CharactersA.2.1. Matching Multiple Optional CharactersA.3. Other Cardinality OperatorsA.3.1. The * QuantifierA.3.2. The + QuantifierA.4. The Curly-Brace SyntaxA.4.1. The {n} SyntaxA.4.2. The {n,m} SyntaxA.4.3. {0,m}A.4.4. {n,m}A.4.5. {n,}
Glossary

Content preview from Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP: A Developer's Guide to SEO

Chapter 16. WordPress: Creating an SE-Friendly Blog

WordPress is a very feature-rich and extensible blogging application that, with a bit of tweaking, can be search engine-friendly. It is entirely written in PHP, and it can be modified and extended in the same. Duplicating even its core functionality in a custom application would take a lot of time — so why reinvent the wheel? Furthermore, many plugins are readily available that extend and enhance its functionality.

Because the blog has been mentioned as a vehicle for search engine marketing so many times in this book, it seems fitting to document the process of setting up a blog with WordPress. You will also install quite a few WordPress plugins on the way.

Please note that this is not a comprehensive WordPress tutorial: although we present step-by-step installation and configuration instructions for the specific topics that we cover, we assume that you will do your own additional research regarding additional customization and other plugins you may require.

Note that we encountered a few problems with some of the presented plugins during our tests in certain server configurations.

Note

At the time of this writing, WordPress 2.0 is the current generally available release. WordPress 2.1 is on the way (in beta), and certain of these directions and plugins will be obsolete or in error for version 2.1. Please visit http://www.seoegghead.com/seo-with-php-updates.html for information regarding updated procedures for WordPress 2.1.

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Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP: A Developer's Guide to SEO

by Jaimie Sirovich, Cristian Darie

Chapter 16. WordPress: Creating an SE-Friendly Blog

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