Monday, August 20, 2007

Securing IIS with Https

Really easy step by step for securing IIS 6.0 with Https://

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324069

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Pounds SHillings and Sense

A New OCRE site launched - Pounds Shillings and Sense for Cascade Resources Ltd.
This site will form the basis of our new "Small Business Site", please email us at ocresmb@chillfire.co.uk for more information regarding pricing.

Lead time at the moment is approximately 3days/

No access to hotmail from outlook

After 3 days of hotmail and outlook not talking I deceided to find out why and found this

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7aad7e6a-931e-438a-950c-5e9ea66322d4&displaylang=en

Micrsoft have released their office connector plugin for Outllook 2007/2003. I ahve been using the beta version for quite a while now and it looks like it just stops working without telling you it has.

After downloading th plugin install it, follow all the prompts, then restart outlook.
Got to tools -> options -> mail setup -> email accounts

(your hotmail may have been removed but you have to add it again)

Clcik new, then select the tick box for 'Microsoft Office Connector', on the next screen fill in your hotmail details.

Done.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

linkedin Q & A transcript; - linked.com - moving site to CMS/wordpress

RE: Converting 5mil pageviews site to Wordpress. Question: Adsense

Hi Tom,

Right I have had a look at the vbSEO site, and it looks like most of what it does you can probably do yourself, although it may take a bit longer.

Quick question what do you mena by static url? All urls are static event he dynamic ones ie: http://www.tier1-workpermit.com/tier-2-work-permits_ocre4.aspx is a dynamic page, but the URL is static - it will never change during the life of the page.

Secondly I am not big on ad revenues, I know there are people that make money with ads and banners etc, but the times I have been involved the return is small, with 5mil pages though you might be alright if you can get the volume through.

Most CMSes are pretty much the same, its apersonal preference on which one you go with, my own one OCRE is live on a number of sites, so far no complaints.

I generally steer clear of any 'big corporate' system ie word press and write my own. So I cant really comment on them.

Structure is really important, using folders for example is a good way to give the site URL structure, my.com/news and my.com/new/uk for example are a guide to the user as well of where they are in the site. Although not everyone uses the URL like this web/technical people do as they know how it works.

I use _ instead of folders sometimes as its an easy way to parse sections out of urls ie: http://www.visalogic.net/United-Kingdom_Immigration-Compliance_pie.aspx?t=4&t2=22
where Immigration Compliance is the page title (and meta title and H1 title etc etc), and United Kingdom is the section.

Before the site is changed site down and pencil out a URL structure that makes sense to you and hopefully makes sense to the client. then try and stick to it.

Remember to set up the redirects for any pages you are moving to point to the new page correctly.

goodluck, and fire any questions you have and I will ahve a go at answering them.

//craig

On 8/14/07 6:22 AM, Tom Goh wrote:
--------------------
Hi Craig

I'm not exactly trying to convert the whole site. I must have not put down my question properly.

I am looking at converting the news/features/content part of the site to a wordpress version or something like that, which could easily solve my problems on search engine friendliness, user friendliness and ease of managing and developing content.

I have VBSeo which apparently is claimed to boost search engine optimisation with static urls and some tweaks that also includes sitemaps creation and notification.

the 5mil pagviews comes from the forums which includes discussions and classifieds section.

I agree with the speed being a problem. In fact, i have a huge problem with speed and processing power. The current servers just can't keep up with the traffic and possibly the sql queries increased with these search engine optimising features. I am looking at moving the site to a much better server(s)

What do you think? regarding the adsense revenues from wordpress based sites or other CMSes and possibly your though on the structure of the site, which you may be able to give me some pointers?

Thanks so much for your reply!

Tom




On 8/14/07 5:42 AM, Craig Hogan wrote:
--------------------
I agree with Stuart, google (and other search engines) doesn't really care about what CMS/ content engine you use to generate your page.
It does look at lots of variables, ie speed of display, traffic volumes, links to pages etc.

With that many pages some of them will be old and out of date? Because google spider your pages for new content all the time it may be worth looking into adding a sitemap (XML) that shows the newest pages at the top so older pages are spidered last.

I dont think you should worry about changing the sites back end system too much as if it upsets the structure of any of the site all your PR/value will be lost. I always advise 'tweaking' the current site before trying to start from scratch - better the devil you know.

If you need a hand feel free to contact me

Question Details:
--------------------
Converting 5mil pageviews site to Wordpress. Question: Adsense

I currently run an automotive website that is based of vbulletin. The CMS i used is Vbadvanced.

I am looking to convert the CMS main page into a Wordpress based one.

Why:
-Realised the advantages of wordpress being google-friendliest
-Ease of use for me my contributors
-Limitles plugins
-Expandability
-Extremely well designed piece of software
-Loads very well
-End-User Friendly

I need to know, from all web publishers and people who's have similar experiences:
-How does it score with Google Adsense with the classic placements:
----Top link unit.
----Adsense units within and between 3 latest articles
----Adsense units within full articles

Do high traffic wordpress based sites get better revenues when converted from say custom main pages, cms, drupal, joomla and etc?

Or do any web publishers forsee greater revenues from Wordpress sites?

Thanks!
Tom

Friday, August 10, 2007

Compiler Error Message: BC30456: 'InitializeCulture'

This error:

Compiler Error Message: BC30456: 'InitializeCulture'

just arrived on our live server?
It was only affecting the home page, a page that hadn't achnaged for over 4 weeks.
The site is not a compiled site, ie all code behind files are on the live server, (not the best way, however we change the code alot so its quicker to make chanegs).
The error was not found, but I am sure it is caused by a multiple files with the same class name, ie default.

Fixed it by removing the codebehind reference, I was lucky this page has no requirement for code as all content is driven by web user controls, not the page itself.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Google index and PR (Page Rank)

I am going to go out on a limb.

After much debate and discussion in the office I have come up with a hypothesis on googles index updates and PR updates.

Many of you would have seen your sites lisings change in the last few weeks on your key keywords. Some good changes and some not so good probably, keep those meta tags up to date and change them to be current with your content.

These changes happen when google (and other search engines) decide to rollout their new index of sites/pages they have found while spidering the internet.
This is normally done every few months to keep the results they show you when you do a search up to date and 'real'.
They all have secret algorithms they use to generate this list and these are tweaked to adapt to to the way the web is used/searched etc.

The last update seemed to take a long time, actually we have seen pages from some of our sites move up and down the search lists continuously for the last month or so. Some on a daily basis.

So I am guessing that the index changes are going to continue all the time and the days of big index updates may be a thing of the past.
As an SEO person this is good and bad. Good it makes it harder for 'black hat' search engine companies to achieve faked/forced ranking, Bad I have to work harder and more efficiantly to amke sure all of your sites are stabile.

Remember there is no 100% guaruntee with search engine listings, they can go down as well as up, with these changes it just menas the time they stay where they are is not set in stone anymore, a year or so ago you could have said it would stay put for a month maybe 2 in the same palce, now well, its like watching the tide come in and go out over a piecec of driftwood.

I could be completely wrong, it may just be a really big update and algorithm change, I cant be sure.

Check it yourself, this is a good idea to do anyway irrespective of this scenario, open a spreadsheet, add a column with your keywords in it and a nother with todays date. Do a search in google (or any other search engine), count how many sites are listed before your and chuck that number in the corresponding cell.
Next week do the same, and so on and so on.

Please leave any results here (or email me) as I am really keen to see what the results will be.

goodluck with the SEO results

August

It has been a while since I have added anything here, it has been a busy month, with moving house and getting ready for a wedding, not long now.

I have updated (at last) my Linked In profile View Craig Hogan's profile on LinkedIn

Please leave any feedback here for me and my future customers to read and review.

Ocre CMS has had number of additons, mainly to fix external problems with search engines spidering bad urls. The 404 page not found system if finished and will be rolled in to the next release.

Lambert Howarth Plc - has gone live recently, thanks to Darren and Ian for the help over there with the issues.

The new chillfire site is on the drawing board (up to v5 now, cant make my mind up), I am looking to have a full customer support system, tickets, forum etc built in and an online crm, once its done I will post the screenshots of the new additions.

Thanks to everyone who has helpeed with Ocre, a new interface will be available in the next few months, I know the black and orange can be a bit depressing, if anyone has ideas for colour schems please drop me a mail.