Carolyn Shelby

Mod_rewrite doesn’t look at arguments? D’oh!

Posted on 09. Jun, 2009 by Carolyn Shelby.

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When I converted my old, kloodgy Web site into WordPress last year, one of the reasons I did so was because my restaurant review script was no longer supported and had some ginormous security holes. It was open to all kinds of cross-site script injection and it was becoming a one to two hour a day chore to keep it running.

The new solution (WordPress) is fabulous, but now I have a couple hundred inbound links that are broken. Trying to get all of the links updated by the other sites was a losing proposition, so my next step was to put some 301 redirects into my friendly neighborhood .htaccess file and transfer all the link love to the new pages.

Easy (normal) 301 redirects via .htaccess
Normally, a 301 redirect in your .htaccess file would look like this:
Redirect 301 /old/url.shtml http://domain.com/new/filename
or if we’re being fancy…
RewriteEngine on RewriteBase / RewriteRule ^old/url.shtml$ new/filename [R=301,L]

Normally, the examples above are perfect for redirecting incoming links from old, defunct pages to the new, correct location of the file. The problem I ran into is that my pages were dynamically generated; i.e., they all shared the same URL, and which review was presented to the user was determined by an argument passed in the URL after the file extension.
http://www.domain.com/cgi-bin/script.cgi?review=bobs_shrimp_hut

To address this, I figured I would just [...]

Popularity: 33% [?]

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SEO 101 Call-In Show Tonight

Posted on 01. Jun, 2009 by Carolyn Shelby.

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On the Monday, June 1st live broadcast of SEO 101, we will have four tickets to give away for the Market Saint Louis “Look At Me” seminar in St. Louis, MO on Thursday, June 11. The tickets are normally $249, but we’ll be giving them away to the four callers who give us the best reasons why their business needs this seminar.

Think of this as sort of like those essay contests the English teachers used to make everyone participate in, but the differences are 1) we won’t take off points for poor grammar or spelling (because this is all about style and ability to persuade!) and 2) the prize is way cooler than some lame $50 savings bond that you can’t do anything with for 20 years.

BEHOLD, the Details

Listen to SEO 101 tonight at 9p Central
Call (646) 716-6190
When you’re on… give us your most compelling reasons why YOUR business needs and can use the information and tools you’ll learn at the seminar.

Just remember, the seminar is near St. Louis, Missouri. You have to be able to get yourself there and home again because we’re only supplying admission to the event ;)

Popularity: 7% [?]

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‘Look At Me’ Seminar – Market Saint Louis

Posted on 10. May, 2009 by Carolyn Shelby.

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I just confirmed that I’ll be speaking in the St. Louis, Missouri area on Thursday, June 11th at the Market Saint Louis “Look at Me” Seminar. It’s a single day event in Glendale that will cover everything from bringing business owners up to speed on search engine marketing and SEO concepts and trends, to search engine friendly web site design and how to get into social media marketing.

In addition to the talks, there will also be a “Ask the Experts” panel and a two hour networking event (with a bar — naturally) and the sponsors are also giving each attendee a complimentary SEO audit of their business Web site.

I believe there are just under 50 tickets left for this event, so if you’re in the St. Louis area, hurry and register (now!)

Title: Look At Me Seminar – Market Saint Louis
Location: Glendale, Missouri
Link out: Click here
Description: The “Look at Me” seminar will help you understand the power of online marketing, and how it will boost your bottom line significantly. This event is tailored entirely for business owners in the Saint Louis area that want to get in front of online customers, but don’t know how.
Start Time: 9:00
Date: 2009-06-11
End Time: 18:00

Popularity: 11% [?]