SEO site checker is a nifty little iPhone web app that scans your website and evaluates how well your website is optimised for search engines. It also gives you recommendations on what you can do to increase your website’s visibility.

There is also a web version of the app to use with normal web browsers.

Read SEO site checker on Web Development Blog!

WolframAlpha(tm) is a new type of search engine – or what they call “computational knowledge engine”.

Rather than trying to explain what it is and what it does in words, lets have a look at a few different searches I did today:

This is what I got when I searched for Microsoft:

http://www10.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Microsoft

And searching for home loan gave me this:

http://www10.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=home+loan

Where is Myanmar, my country of birth?

http://www10.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Myanmar

Typing in domain names gives you host information and stats:

http://www10.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=eisabainyo.net

It is a currency converter too!

http://www10.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+AUD+in+USD

Next Monday falls on:

http://www10.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=next+monday

And what I am having for lunch:

http://www10.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=tuna+sandwich

Looking for complementary colors?

http://www10.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=sky+blue

Hours to seconds; this will come in handy when you are coding

http://www10.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=5+hours+to+seconds

And last but not least, a question that we all ask from time to time: would you be needing your umbrella today?

http://www10.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=weather+in+sydney

Read A new type of search engine in town – WolframAlpha on Web Development Blog!

redirect 301 /my-old-page.htm /my-new-page.htm
redirect 301 /default.htm /index.htm
redirect 301 /location.htm /map.htm

Recommend Book

The Definitive Guide to Apache mod_rewrite

Read How to redirect old pages to new pages using htaccess on Web Development Blog!

I recommend Firefox as a primary browser for anyone, whether you are a Designer, Developer or Consultant. Not only does Firefox have fewer security vulnerabilities compared to Internet Explorer, it loads websites faster, and there are a lot of free Add-Ons that you can install to add extra functionalities to the browser.

2. Web Developer Toolbar (Firefox Add-On)

Web Developer Toolbar is one of the essential tools for Web Developers and it helps analyse a website easily and makes a developer’s life easier. But it is also a handy tool for SEO consultants. If you haven’t already got Web Developer Toolbar installed on your Firefox browser, you can download it from the Firefox Add-Ons site.

Here are a few useful tricks that a SEO consultant can make use of with the power of Web Developer Toolbar.

2.1. Disable Javascript

We know Search Engine Spiders are not able to execute javascripts. Therefore, ‘Disable Javascript’ option in Web Developer Toolbar helps you browse the website via a Search Engine Spider’s view.

2.2. Disable Styles

To find out how a webpage is structured without any CSS styling which could be used to laid out the page differently to the order they appear in code, you can disable all styles on a page: CSS -> Disable Styles -> All Styles (Shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + S).

2.3. Alt attributes for Images

Search Engine spiders are not humans and hence, they are not able to view images on a website. You can disable images on a web page and replace them with alt attributes easily with Web Developer Toolbar: Images -> Replace Images with Alt Attributes.

But sometimes, you just want to check if images have appropriate Alt attributes, but not disable the images completely. In this case, you can do: Images -> Display Alt Attributes to have an Alt Attribute of an image appear on top of itself.

2.4. View Meta Tag Information

With Web Developer Toolbar, you can view Meta keywords and Meta descriptions in one click without having to view the source. Information -> View Meta Tag Information will display all meta tags on a page.

3. SEOpen (Firefox Add-On)

SEOpen provides basic tools which are used by SEO Consultants in optimising any website. Some of the useful things you can do with this toolbar:

3.1 View Backlinks in Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Alexa

3.2 View Pages Indexed in in Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Alexa

3.3 View Robots.txt

3.4 Check Keyword Density

4. Google Toolbar

Google is the mother of all search engines and Google Toolbar for Firefox adds many features that lets you obtain useful information from google via the toolbar.

4.1 View Page Rank
You can find out the Page Rank of the current web page you are viewing without using any other page rank checking tool. Make sure you have PageRank and Page Info checkbox ticked under More tabs in Google Toolbar Options in order to use this feature.

4.2 Find out Popular Searches
As you type in the search box from Google Toolbar, it will suggest popular searches which helps you identify what most people are searching for. To enable this option, go to Google Toolbar Options -> Features -> Search Box Settings, and tick Suggest popular searches. Here is a bonus link, someone did an experiement with Google Suggest to find out most popular questions being asked on Google.

5. SeoQuake SEO Extension (Firefox Add-On)

SeoQuake SEO Extension shows useful parameters both on web pages and search results pages, which means you can find out the PR of a page, Age of a domain, Total pages indexed, Alexa Page Rank etc without leaving the search results page.

Read Useful Tools and Tips for Search Engine Optimisation Consultants on Web Development Blog!

1. Find a gym
2. Quit smoking
3. Find a boot camp
4. Get fit
5. Stress management

Read Yahoo!7 Hot Searches – Popular New Year resolutions on Web Development Blog!

# facebook
# iphone
# youtube
# google maps
# wiki
# games
# google
# weather
# free movies
# lyrics
# map
# mp3
# videos
# jobs
# news
# how to (draw, kiss, write, cook, tie, hack, run, cite, paint, spell)
# what is (love, life, java, sap, rss, scientology, autism, lupus, 3g, art)
# diy (wedding, tv, solar, tile, audio, home, halloween, electric, concrete, car)

In google’s own words on how the search report was put together:

In compiling the 2008 Year-End Zeitgeist, our search team studied the aggregation of billions of search queries people typed in to the Google search box. Except where noted, all of these search terms are most popular for 2008.

Technorati Tags: search, keywords, google, report, Zeitgeist

Read 2008 Year-End Google Search Report (Google Zeitgeist) on Web Development Blog!

User-agent: *
Crawl-delay: 10

Source: Wikipedia

Read What is Crawl-Delay in robots.txt? on Web Development Blog!

web development guidelines filetype:pdf

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=web+development+guidelines+filetype%3Apdf

Find directory listings

intitle:"index of" templates

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=intitle%3A%22index+of%22+templates

Find pages with keywords in the url

allinurl:seo tips

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=allinurl:seo tips

Search for similiar terms

~cheap web design -cheap

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=~cheap web design -cheap

Search within a specific site

google site:eisabainyo.net

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=google+site%3Aeisabainyo.net

Websites that are linked to a website

link:http://eisabainyo.net

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Feisabainyo.net

Google as a world clock

time in Sydney

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=time+in+Sydney

Google as a dictionary

define:query

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=define:query

Google as a conversion calculator

160cm in feet

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=160cm in feet

Google as a weather report

weather:sydney australia

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=weather:sydney australia

Technorati Tags: google, search engine, tips, search operators, google hacks

Read Google Search Tips on Web Development Blog!

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine, google, indexing, flash

Read Google can now index Flash sites on Web Development Blog!

It looks like google takes into account the location of your web server/host when ranking its search results. As most people know, in google search you can specify if you would like to search for pages from a specific country.

Let’s see what impact the location of the web server (the IP address of the web server) has on google search ranking.

My web host is physically located in UK, and therefore, when I searched for “wordpress themes” using google UK search, this site came up as #1. However, for google Australia search, my site is no where to be found in the first 10 result pages. As for google USA search (or default google search), my site appears in page 4.

So this is something to take into consideration when you are trying to achieve #1 position in google search.

Update: Google allows you to set a particular geographic location for your website which influences country-specific search results using its Webmaster Tools.
Thanks Alex for the heads-up. :)

Technorati Tags: seo, google, search, ranking, wordpress themes

Read The impact of web server’s location in google search ranking on Web Development Blog!