URLs » Web PieRat

8 SEO Reasons to Crawl Your Sites

Posted November 11, 2011

My latest article at Ecommerce Developer, read it in full here.

The first thing I do when working with a new site is set my favorite crawler on it. This gets me acquainted with all the URLs, site sections, interlinkings, forgotten pockets, scars and warts. A good crawler offers a wealth of data useful not just to search engine optimization, but also to site maintenance in general.

Luckily, some great crawlers are free. You’ll find pages of options just by Googling “web crawler” or a similar term. Xenu Link Sleuth is my favorite for the price — it’s free — and for the broad assortment of data collected on every URL it crawls. GSite Crawler is another good, free alternative. It’s focused mainly on creating XML sitemaps and feeds, but it’s good for other uses as well.

Custom gTLDs: ICANN but Should I?

Posted June 20, 2011

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Internet governing body ICANN approved custom gTLDs yesterday, making it possible for sites with too much cash looking to be too cutting edge to blow $185,000 per gTLD + $25,000 annually on vanity TLDs and domains like bmw.car, nike.shoes or pepsi.cola.

With such a steep price tag only the very rich will be able to afford these custom gTLDs, AKA generic top level domains, which will hopefully minimize their release into the wild. I have three major concerns:

Usability: Internet users are entrenched in their .com ways, or their .ca or .co.uk ways. Whatever the primary TLD is for a country, the majority of internet users will try to append it to whatever URL offered them. Trying to get users to your supercool new hot.wings domain? They’re probably going to stick .com on the end of that and end up somewhere else.
Brand: For big brands, the only ones who could reasonably afford this vanity service, why oh why would you risk confusing customers and prospects with the scenario above? Most brands are still trying to master marketing and transactions on their primary .com web site. Adding a vanity TLD to the mix sounds like an expensive recipe for #fail.
Trademark Violations: If any word can be applied for as a gTLD, brands will have a harder time protecting against trademark violations. For example, with Nike’s brand strength it should pretty easy to prevent anyone but Nike from registering .nike as a gTLD. But would it be permissible for me to apply for the .shoes gTLD and then put domains on it for nike.shoes, adidas.shoes, etc. Afterall, shoes.com has the right to create a nike.shoes.com subdomain on their own shoes.com domain. Should the laws be different if the domain is nike and the TLD is .shoes instead of .com? ICANN’s site makes reference to this thorny area:

ICANN does not accept reservations or pre-registrations based on trademarks. But registries will be required to operate sunrise or intellectual property claims services for the protection of trademarks.
–gTLD FAQ

The registry operator must implement, at a minimum, a Sunrise period and a Trademark Claims service during the start-up phases for registration in the TLD, as provided in the registry agreement. These mechanisms will be supported by the established Trademark Clearinghouse as indicated by ICANN. The Sunrise period allows eligible rightsholders an early opportunity to register names in the TLD. The Trademark Claims service provides notice to potential registrants of existing trademark rights, as well as notice to rightsholders of relevant names registered. Registry operators may continue offering the Trademark Claims service after the relevant start-up phases have concluded.
– gTLD Applicant Guidebook (PDF)

Let’s get back to the branding and usability questions, though, because that’s where the “SHOULD a company do this?” question comes into play. Let’s say for example that Pizza Hut registers hot.wings because they really REALLY want to underscore that they have wings in addition to pizza, and they are the default name in hot wings just as they are a leader in the American pizza world. This, as indicated by a super-amazing-awesome-cutting-edge microsite dedicated to the explosive awesomeness of their hot wings and their ownership of a spicy new custom generic TLD. They’ll have to train their audience not to add the .com, but it won’t work, customers will .com anyway. Which means these customers primed for an explosive microsite reward would instead see:

So Pizza Hut would also have to purchase wings.com, create a “hot” subdomain, and 301 redirect it over to hot.wings. If they don’t, their customers will get lord-knows-what kind of experience on someone else’s domain, especially when the owner of wings.com realizes what’s happening and decides to take advantage of the free traffic to promote something else. Or just this …

“Search Friendly” Ecommerce Platforms?

Posted March 23, 2010

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After working with ecommerce SEO clients for several years, I’m about fed up with “search friendly” platforms, content management systems & site features. They all come with their own baggage, their own set of issues that need to be tested for and controlled. Which takes IT resources. Which are hard to come by, especially when you’re talking about something as difficult to determine ROI for as structural SEO updates.

And invariably, the client isn’t jazzed about revising their platform to optimize structural SEO issues because they thought they bought something that was good for SEO in the first place.

The problem is, SEO friendliness is more than enabling automated & manually customizable title tags. It’s how functionality impacts URLs, how many URLs are generated for each page of content, whether the navigation path affects URL structure, how tracking parameters are passed, whether sorting modifies the URL, whether categories and products are assigned unique persistent IDs, whether IDs are reused, and many many more questions that impact SEO.

I’m looking for the platform that enables and enforces a single URL for a single page of content that is system-optimized for a unique automated keyword phrase, which can be overwritten by manual optimization. ONE URL, ONE page, ONE unique keyword theme. Across thousands of pages on an ecommerce site.

If there’s a platform out there that does this without heavy customization, I haven’t worked with it yet. Pray tell, what’s your favorite “search friendly” platform?