Let’s say, arguendo, that you have already decided to change your primary domain. What do you plan to do with your old, no longer going to be used, domain?

Ideally, you should 301 redirect the old domain to the new domain. If you’re completely rebuilding your site from scratch and all of the old URLs are going to change, it’s still a good idea to 301 the old domain to the new domain. It’s an even better idea to 301 all of the old URLs to new, equivalent pages on your new site.

This advice assumes that you have:

1. Had your site long enough for it to have accumulated some decent inbound links. If your current site has absolutely no backlinks then we can talk about the pros and cons of 301′ing; however, in most circumstances, you want to 301 the old URLs to their new equivalents.
2. Not done anything stupid with your site, like gotten it banned from the engines or blacklisted in some way. If the domain is completely burned, then ditching it and running far far away is probably your only course of action. To people that fall into this category, I’m not talking about you, so feel free to move along.

Hoard your old domains like cute kittens. On second thought, don't actually hoard kittens. It's mean and you'll end up on a TLC reality show.

Operating under the assumption that you’ve had your site for a fair bit and it’s got some backlinks and you’re not a dirty spammer/evil-doer…

Do NOT just let the domain expire and definitely do not release it before the end of its registration. Even if you’re not going to use it for just a 301…. even if you’re not going to use it AT ALL… your best bet (in almost all cases) is to keep it.

I know it will cost you $8 a year to maintain a domain you’re not using, and yes, I do know we’re in a recession. The facts are that some very bad things can happen if you release a used domain into the wild.

Bad™ Things That Can Happen

A competitor might get it. If your old domain was keywords only, and there’s nothing trademarked or trademarkable about it, there is absolutely nothing preventing a competitor from snatching up that domain and using it as their own, or 301ing it to THEIR site to take advantage of all of the inbound links you just flushed down the toilet.

If your old domain contained trademarks, you might be able to get it back, but the cost of filing a UDRP is upwards of $10,000 DOLLARS. It’s only 800 pennies a year to hang onto the domain and prevent the whole mess in the first place.

Besides, you’d have to notice someone is doing something they shouldn’t in the first place. If don’t care enough to renew the domain so you can sit on it, you probably won’t bother checking to make sure it isn’t being used by someone else, either.

Someone who doesn’t like your business might start using it. Recently, I discovered that a local chapter of a national not-for-profit organization was being impersonated online and that the fake site was being used as “proof” of the damaging claims the impostor was making on social networks and forums. Most people aren’t savvy enough to go check a domain registration to confirm the legitimacy of a site, so with the right illegally used logos and a cheap shared hosting account, this guy was able to set up a site that looked and read like the “real” site and even had backlinks to it from real government sites and other civic organizations.

The worst part about this story is that a couple years ago, someone else at the real organization had also noticed the fake site and spent the (large sum of) money to file a UDRP — and WON — but then no one kept tabs on the domain and it was allowed to expire again and the same guy went and re-registered it and put everything back the way he had it before.

Want to know the worst part of the story? (Yes, there actually is something even worse…) The domain they gave up (twice) had their full name in it. The new domain is all initials. 8 letters strung together that make no sense to anyone except to the people at the non-profit. All that hassle, and they would have been far better off keeping the original domain in the first place. :(

Someone who has no clue who you are, but is much better at marketing than you are might pick it up. Again, especially if your old domain had no trademarks in it, there is nothing stopping someone else from grabbing that domain and using it (and taking advantage of any accumulated backlinks you had).

The Moral of the Domain Story

Once the domain is registered by someone else, it is highly unlikely you’re going to get it back without giving up a sizable chunk of change — either to the new owner, or to a lawyer. It is much easier to just pay the 8 bucks a year.

This post is courtesy of CSHEL Chicago SEO
Why Keeping That Old Domain is Important

As promised, here’s the recap of the recent Chicago SEO Meetup: Harnessing WordPress…

The first thing we covered were reasons why people and businesses might choose WordPress over other platforms like hand-coded HTML, Drupal, ASP, Joomla, etc.

• WordPress has a large and very active development and support community

  Why is this important? This usually translates to more/neater widgets and plugins, better/easier to get support, and because it’s so popular you’ll have an easier time finding people who can help you out if you need help. (Ask me about RedDot some day if you’d like an example of why you should go with a platform that more than 4 people in the US know anything about).

• WordPress has really well written documentation for the DIYers

  This probably doesn’t need explanation… basically, if you ever want to try to understand or fix something on your own, you want to be able to easily find and understand the documentation. There are some software developers who write in weird prose that is only discernible by middle-earthen elvish attorneys — WordPress’s codex is not like that.

• WordPress is easy to use, even by the technologically challenged.

  If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball… Same basic principle, but much less painful. If you need a platform that can be updated/used by people on your staff who are uneasy with the concept of blogging or aren’t as technologically clueful as you might like, WP is a great option because the interface is intuitive. If you can use Word, you can use WordPress.

The biggest argument against choosing WordPress was security related. Is WordPress more insecure than other platforms? — Not inherently… if it seems like there are more problems, I would argue that it’s due to there being so many people using WordPress (and perhaps not maintaining it properly or using questionable plugins/themes). There are things you can do to mitigate security concerns if you have them, but for the most part, if you’re responsible about maintenance and security practices, you’re not taking an unreasonable risk by choosing WordPress.

On to the SEOing….

Much of the SEO related items that were discussed were not WP specific, but were just general best practices — write good titles, unique meta descriptions on every page, good anchor text, etc.

The WP specific items that were discussed and plugins that were recommended included:

• Don’t over-bling your blog — Be judicious about the types and quantity of plugins you’re using. Too many can cause conflicts (which will make things malfunction), or slow your load time to the point that your rankings suffer, or open you up to security issues (Do you check the source code of the plugins you download and install? Are you checking to see who the programmer is?).
• SEO Smart Links (Plugin) — To auto-insert internal links, this is a useful plugin… (if you’re too lazy to do them manually). Just be careful to not overdo it. Keep it to one or two internal links per post (ESPECIALLY if the posts are on the short side).
• Premium Themes like Thesis, WooThemes and Genesis — In addition to automating much of the design drama that most bloggers or non-technical users don’t care to futz with, these themes also build in a lot of the SEO work as well. This minimizes the number of additional SEO plugins and scripts you’ll need to install, which reduces the chances of conflicts and problems.
• Learn how to modify your own template files — If you’re not going to spring for a premium theme, I strongly strongly strongly urge you to learn how to edit and modify your own template files. You can edit your files to handle some of the mundane SEO work that would otherwise be handled by a plugin, and as mentioned before, the more plugins you have that need to process the data, the more overhead and the slower your site will load. It’s really not difficult to edit the header file to always stick the name of your site at the end of the title, or to insert the the_excerpt() function into the meta description to always have unique page descriptions, etc.

This post is courtesy of CSHEL Chicago SEO
Recap of Chicago SEO Meetup: Harnessing WordPress for SEO

We’ll be covering things like “Why WordPress (over other platforms)?”, recommended classes and tools for learning to use WordPress effectively, tips for creating content and plugins to use for helping SEO efforts and improve rankings, and more.

We are not (at this time) 100% sure there will be a projector, so you may want to plan to take notes. Specific tools, plugins and recommendations will be posted online for later consumption, and I might try to bring handouts (if anyone is interested).

The September Chicago Search Engine Optimization Meetup is scheduled for 2:00pm on Saturday, September 25, 2010 at the Budlong Woods Branch of the Chicago Public Library.

This post is courtesy of CSHEL Chicago SEO
Chicago SEO Meetup: Harnessing the Power of WordPress

The initial phase of usability enhancements focused on behind-the-scenes technology and laid the groundwork for future growth.

“In February, we kicked off our improvement plan by implementing new systems that allow dynamic content serving, significantly increased the site speed and provided the room we needed to grow and continue improving,” said Mark Achler, CEO of Spine-health.

As part of the new software roll-out, the entire library of more than 2,000 physician written and peer-reviewed articles, plus the blogs and contributions of 10,000+ active users were ported into a completely new content management system.

“This second phase is exciting because it’s a truly visible sign of the progress we’ve been making. We’re very excited to continue expanding and enhancing our content and functionality to better serve our members and visitors,” Achler added.

Spine-health serves nearly 1,000,000 unique visitors per month, and features in-depth content, written by physicians and peer-reviewed, on pain topics specifically related to spine and back conditions. Spine-health is considered an authority on topics like back pain, chronic pain, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, lumbar and cervical spinal stenosis and co-morbidities of those conditions such as depression, stress and sleep problems.

Spine-health can be found online at http://www.spine-health.com/

This post is courtesy of CSHEL Chicago SEO
Spine-health launches new design, usability enhancements

So why would you want to start a social network?
In addition to adding coolness and generating additional traffic for your site. Branded social networks help build your brand by creating a community for your users and fans. The users connect with other like-minded people and while bonding with each other… they emotionally bond with the brand… that turns users into fans and fans into brand evangelists.

Let’s not forget that a social network also creates additional ranking opportunities for your site. More content, more potential spots to occupy on the SERPs.

So why is Lovd so special?
Lovd is a) really cool looking and fully featured right out of the box, b) FREE, c) open source, and d) supposedly very easy to install and run — if you’re familiar with Ruby On Rails. I say supposedly only because I am absolutely NOT familiar with RoR, and will have to defer to Steve’s expert opinion on that topic.

If you’re interested in adding a unique facet to your site, and you (or a geek you love) are familiar with Ruby on Rails, go check out Lovd — check the system requirements, demo, features, etc — then download it and give it a spin. It’s open source and you can’t beat the price :)

This post is courtesy of CSHEL Chicago SEO
SEO 101: Starting Your Own Social Network

There’s apparently some big financial scandal going on in Paris. According to a story that appeared today on FT.com, the police searched a broker’s desk, confiscated his computer and detained him… because he’s listed as a friend of a co-worker (Jérôme Kerviel, CFA — guy at the center of the scandal) on Facebook.

Seriously.

Mr Zabraniecki is understood to work as a cash equities broker at SG Securities, part of the corporate investment division, executing trades for the equities derivatives desk, where Jérôme Kerviel, the man at the centre of the scandal, worked.

Police also searched Mr Zabraniecki’s desk and confiscated his computer and some documents.

Mr Zabraniecki was among Mr Kerviel’s friends listed on Facebook, the social network website. He is 29 years old and joined SocGen in March 2002, according to social network websites.

Note to self: Be a little more picky about which friend requests I accept from now on.

Since when is it relevant to report when people are friends on Facebook? I suppose it is relevant when it’s really the only incriminating thing the police could use as an excuse to go searching your place of business and arresting you… which begs the question… since when does being friends on Facebook equal guilt by association?

I mean, if I’m friended by someone who gets popped in California for carrying a personal consumption quantity of weed in his car, does our Facebook association then give the police probable cause to come to Illinois and search my car and home?

Just crazy. Glad I don’t live in France.

This post is courtesy of CSHEL Chicago SEO
Friends on Facebook equals guilt by association?

The Sitch…

Light voluntarily joined a forum and, by doing so, agreed to the Terms of Service of that site. Then he voluntarily wrote a post and put it up on the forum. Now for some reason, that post is causing him some level of grief (for reasons he refused to share), and he wants the post removed from the forum. He contacted the forum owner and requested to have the post deleted and the forum owner declined. Light then drafted his own Cease and Desist letter and emailed it to the forum owner. The forum owner then banned him. So now, Light is planning to sue the forum owner for copyright infringement.

The Analysis…

There is no copyright infringement here. Read the Terms of Service or Terms of Use on most forums or services where users contribute content and you’ll see that the forum owners tend to like to have the right to re-use, edit, re-purpose, etc. things that gets posted to their site. “But I have automatic copyright protection!” Yes, but only until you agree to give up some of your rights by clicking on the “I have read and agree to the terms….” button. This is why it’s important to READ things before agreeing to them or signing anything.

Example Terms Of Service from a Forum

From WebProWorld’s Legal Notice…
User Submissions Not Privileged
Any material, information or other communication you transmit or post to this website (“Submissions”) will be considered non-confidential and non proprietary. iEntry shall have no obligations with respect to your Submissions. iEntry and its designees will be free to copy, disclose, distribute, incorporate and otherwise use your Submissions and all data, images, sounds, text and other things embodied therein for any and all commercial or non-commercial purposes. You are prohibited from posting or transmitting to or from this website any unlawful, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic or other material that would violate any applicable law.

I suspect the homemade Cease & Desist Demand didn’t win Light any points with the forum owner either. In general, you don’t email C&D letters. Additionally, (unless you are a lawyer or you’re using a professionally written boilerplate) you don’t write your own C&D letters. A poorly written C&D may as well be scrawled in cheap wax crayon on the back of a sheet torn from a spiral notebook and signed, “Rabid, Litigation-Happy Nut Who Is Too Cheap To Pay An Attorney”.

Remember, C&Ds generally don’t have any teeth anyway. Unless they look and feel like they came from a large, serious company with the means and desire to actually follow through with threats of legal action, Cease & Desist letters aren’t worth the paper upon which they are written. If they’re sent solely electronically they are worth even less.

Finally, Light’s situation should serve as a reminder to everyone to not post things online that they might regret later. On the Internets, things have a way of not ever going away.

This post is courtesy of CSHEL Chicago SEO
You should actually read the Terms Of Service Agreement

Choosing a domain name for your business (key points)

1. Keyword domains are always a safe bet, but they can be a tad on the bland side. Is it better to go for a cool brand or a dull keyword laden domain? My vote is for the cool brand… people love their brands. People do not *love* keywords. Not to mention, brandable names tend to be more readily available on the open market than awesome keyword domains.
2. (Easy to Say + Easy to Spell) or (Clever + Easy to Say) = Easy to Remember
3. Hyphens are okay, and in some cases good, but remember to think about the big picture. If your primary domain has a hyphen in it, make sure you also snag the non-hyphenated version and 301 it to your hyphenated domain. This way you don’t end up with gross sounding radio spots, i.e. “Visit Bob’s-Tech-Hut.com. That’s Bobs Hyphen Tech Hypen Hut Dot Com!”
4. Make sure you’re not stepping on someone else’s trademark before you sink your entire life’s savings into a project. You don’t want to have to change domain names after you’ve already printed your literature and spent money on producing your ads, etc. We’re not saying it can’t be done; we’re just saying it’s incurring an avoidable expense and causes avoidable pain and anguish.
5. Domain Tools has a nice domain suggestion tool. Be prepared to jump on a domain once you find one you like… it might not be there when you come back the next day.

Getting the Domain You Want (key points)

1. Use a reputable domain registrar, and register as many years in advance as you can comfortably afford.
2. Check the backorder services to see if the domain you might want is going to expire soon. Backorders are generally free unless they successfully “catch” a domain for you when it drops.
3. Check after market sites for registered, but for sale domain names… search for “domains for sale” and you’ll come up with dozens of sites offering after market domain sales.
4. If you need to buy a domain from a broker, have a price in mind ahead of time and be prepared to walk away from the domain if the price isn’t right, or be prepared to write a really big check.
5. Consider having a third party contact the domain registrant to negotiate a sale, or at least contact them via a throw-away email address. Sometimes sellers up the sale price if they think you’ve got deep pockets, or if they figure out what your business name is and know how desperately bad you want the domain.

Keeping Your Domain (key points)

1. Make sure the contact information you have in the domain registration file is accurate and current.
2. Make sure your registration is paid up.
3. Throw some backorders on your own domains just in case… especially if you know you’re prone to bouts of forgetfulness.

This post is courtesy of CSHEL Chicago SEO
SEO 101: Domains – Picking them, getting them, keeping them

Ever lose your cell phone? Are you familiar with the pit of black, festering panic that settles into your stomach when you realize you don’t have it and the odds you’ll find it again are slim to none? Imagine that feeling multiplied by a million — because that’s how losing your laptop feels.

Think about it — your laptop has your life on it. Work files, email, bookmarks, project notes, projects that are still in development and not ready or suitable for other people’s eyes, and then let’s not forget all of your software and music.

Ponder for a moment all the seriously BAD things that will happen if you lose your laptop.

1. Lots of spending will be in your immediate future. Spending money to replace the physical hardware, spending money to replace the lost software and music, and spending lots and lots and lots of time rebuilding everything. Let’s face it, back-ups of the entire harddrive are fantastic, but how many people actually do that?
2. Sensitive or important work files will be lost. You know that presentation you were working on for your boss’s Monday morning executive committee meeting where he has to justify your department’s budget for the year? You know… the budget from which your salary is paid? Yeah. That one. *poof*
3. You’ve just handed the keys to your company’s kingdom to the guy who stole your laptop. It’s such a pain in the butt to have to remember all those silly VPN passwords, so you’ve just set your browser to “remember” all of those passwords (and associated bookmarks) for you. How handy. Oh, same goes for your office email, too. Let’s just hope the guy who stole your laptop is just nosy, and not like, a wannabe h@x0r or something. You certainly wouldn’t want any of that ill gotten company data to show up on the Internet for just anyone to google up and use toward illicit or immoral ends.
4. Your online reputation will be ruined and you might end up broke or in jail. Again, because you’re lazy — and don’t deny it — you’ve got all your passwords saved so whoever gets your laptop can now BE YOU… on Facebook, on MySpace, in email to your CEO, at your bank, in email to the President…You get the picture.
5. All ur imz are belong to us. You know how much you instant message your friends. Imagine some bored kid gets his hot little hands on your laptop and decides that the transcripts of your boss-trashing-bff-backstabbing-and-significant-other-cybersexing IMing sessions are *such* a fascinating read, he’s going to post them so his friends can share the mirth — oh and then someone diggs it. Shortly thereafter random people on the bus are looking at you like they know you and then gleefully yelling out the pet name you gave your girlfriend’s hoohah.

So now that you’re a nice, tightly wound ball of anxiety, what precisely can you do to protect yourself from catastrophe in the event you do lose your laptop? (Well, aside from the obvious which is chaining it to your wrist and not so much as going to the can without it?)

1. Quit being lazy and REMEMBER your passwords instead of letting the browser “manage” them.
2. Disable IM logging. (Most people forget to take care of that when they install their chat client — well, people who aren’t serial adulterers anyway, but I digress.)
3. Back EVERYTHING up.
4. Consider making an image of your harddrive for a quick restore.
5. Install Laptop Locate.

Items one and two are fairly common sense; item five, however, is fairly new.

Tometa Software’s LaptopLocate is a laptop tracking software utility that will monitor a computer’s IP address to allow server administrators and general users to locate their computer. Each time a computer that has LaptopLocate.net is turned on, the IP address of the computer is transmitted to a pre-determined location via email and logged for reference. This information is also transmitted to LaptopLocate.net’s servers and logged in the event your computer is ever stolen.

LaptopLocate.net is helpful in finding where computers, especially mobile computers, are currently located. If the computer is stolen, Tometa Software coordinates with law enforcement agencies to help track down a registered user’s computer before valuable equipment and data is compromised. The software runs in the background on the computer, so unless the thief knows to look for it, it is invisible. If the thief does know to look for it, the software can be password protected so that it cannot be disabled.

Tometa’s Laptop Locate software sells for $19.95, which considering all you stand to lose, is a “can’t afford not to” kind of expense.

Attention Bloggers: If you’d like to receive a free copy of Tometa Laptop Locate for review, contact David Brown at dbrown@tometasoftware.com. There are 50 copies of the software available for review purposes, but once those 50 are gone, you’ll just have to buy a copy if you want to try it out.

This post is courtesy of CSHEL Chicago SEO
Top 5 Ways Your Life Will End If You Lose Your Laptop

Mainly, what we’re hoping to get from the survey is data on the general experience level of the listening audience, what types of topics most interest the listeners, what guests the listeners would like to hear on the show and the average age of the listening audience.

Things that aren’t included in the survey, but that I’m dying to know are:

• Are you currently, or are you trying to get into SEO consulting for clients?
• Are you an in-house SEO? If so, for what size business? What industry/sector?
• Are you listening because you’re seo-ing your own small business website?
• Are your sites targeting a national audience? (International, regional, local, etc?)
• Feel like sharing your marketing budget with us? If not, should we just operate under the assumption that the budget is somewhere bewteen zero and shoestring?

Feel free to reply to these questions via comments. I’d love to hear more about what specifically the listeners are hoping to get from the show.

This post is courtesy of CSHEL Chicago SEO
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