Archive for July 18, 2012

Owl.li Is Ranking Above My Own Page! What To Do? Whooo To Blame?

Posted by evolvingSEO

Preface: How Normal URL Shorteners Work

Hang tight, folks! Before we get into the whooo-done-it part of this post, here's a basic illustration of how URL shorteners work.

It's pretty simple actually, on the surface.

  • You need a short domain name (like bit.ly – which is possible because of the .ly extension)
  • A random URL (or custom "vanity" if you choose) is created on the short domain like bit.ly/h1oiSn/ or bity.ly/example-url/ (both fake)
  • A visit to that URL sends the user via 301 redirect or 302 redirect to the page it's linked to.

Here's a real example of a URL I recently shortened with Bitly:

See? NORMAL. And Bit.ly uses a 301 redirect which is also most liked, since 301's pass link equity.

And the Bitly URL should (ideally) never rank above the final "real" URL.

Danny Sullivan's post, although a bit outdated now, shows (of the shorteners from that time) which services use 301s and which use 302s. Note that he highly advises against the use of URLs with 302s. Remember that for later :-)

If you want to examine more details before we begin, you can check out the wikipedia page on URL shortening… Read the rest

July 18, 2012  Tags: , , , , ,   Posted in: SEO / Traffic / Marketing  No Comments

10 Things You Must Do To Prepare Your Business For SEO


We work with a lot of different clients here at SEO.com. Some are more prepared to engage in an SEO campaign while some are not prepared at all. It is definitely night and day when you compare the two clients side by side in terms of readiness and results at the end of a campaign. Because of this, I wanted to put together a guide to help businesses of any size begin to prepare themselves to get started with SEO.

1. Be Ready Accept Your Agency As Part of Your Marketing Department

If you are going to hire an agency to do your SEO, then you need to be ready to accept them as part of your marketing department. Be ready to share with them insight into your other marketing initiatives so that your agency can help integrate themselves into your team and be working toward fulfilling your department initiatives. When this happens, you will be able to create synergies and accomplish much more as a whole than if you leave your SEO team to fend for themselves.

2. Be Ready To Establish / Work Towards Real Online Marketing Goals

It’s 2012… almost 2013. If you still think … Read the rest

July 18, 2012  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: SEO / Traffic / Marketing  No Comments



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