by Charles Grimm on July 15, 2010
Do robots like your source code?
I was searching the other day for a robots.txt file example and it took me a few minutes to find some fragmented samples in forums. So here is a quick post for you wordpress bloggers who are managing your own Search Engine Optimization..SEO.
Joomla fortunately, automatically sets up a robot.txt file when you do your install through cpanel.
With wordpress for some reason, you need to do it manually. I find this a bit bizarre especially since WP espouses to be very search engine friendly right out of the gate. Anyways here is a a basic robot.txt sample.
Disallow: /cgi-bin
Disallow: /wp-admin
Disallow: /wp-includes
Disallow: /wp-content/plugins
Disallow: /wp-content/cache
Disallow: /wp-content/themes
Disallow: /trackback
Disallow: /feed
Disallow: /comments
Disallow: /category/*/*
Disallow: */trackback
Disallow: */feed
Disallow: */comments
Disallow: /*?*
Disallow: /*?
Allow: /wp-content/uploads
# Google Image
User-agent: Googlebot-Image
Disallow:
Allow: /*
# Google AdSense
User-agent: Mediapartners-Google*
Disallow:
Allow: /*
# digg mirror
User-agent: duggmirror
Disallow: /
Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml
Copy and paste this into a file named robots.txt;
You can use notepad, word or any text program will work. Then, upload the this to the root level of your domain. Another way is to just add a plugin to your wordpress blog. There are several robot.txt plugins to choose from, some will add a meta robots tag to your wordpress pages.
Here is another more comprehensive wordpress robots.txt example.
For more tips on robot.txt and search engine optimization you can post a question in the comments section.
Note, if you are a building blog, wordpress has the best user interface and is great for fast preformatted content development. However if you are building a website with several different types of content that need function, I would check out Joomla 1.5 and it’s joomla seo extensions.
What CMS platform do you prefer for building the best search engine optimization into your website, Joomla, Drupal or WordPress?
by Charles Grimm on July 21, 2009
Can you build a professional website and manage your own SEO in house?
Yes. I can say this because of the great free enterprise system we live in. There are those that believe that information should be available and not controlled by large software corporations. Mentioning no names here! The small guy should have a chance especially since the small bootstrap startups in this country are the very ones that take the risk to create the good ideas. So, they need a break – thus open source technology and content management systems. Used by multinational corporations and small business alike. Open source is freely available for use by the General Public under the (GNU) General Public License. Great technology built by smart people donating their talents from around the world.
So do not delay. The site builder website that you have through one of those mass market hosting companies will not do your time justice. Plus you don’t really own it and it will never have the professional reach that most people really want.
If you want to find out more register in the QuestSocial community and start accessing tools, website training, SEO videos and lots more. ?
by Charles Grimm on May 23, 2009
I find I am having a lot of conversations these days about cutting costs to the bone. People are giving up a lot of personal conveniences and little luxuries (like the morning latte) to save money.
I’m finding, with businesses especially, the smaller companies and self employed individuals; want more control over their costs.
Business owners as a rule have a lot to juggle; sales, marketing, purchasing, overhead and more. They need to have a basic working knowledge of how these systems work in order to know whether they are working correctly, or if the person in charge is doing a good job.
One persistent theme though, is increasing sales and maintaining or lowering costs.
Thus my point, website development, maintenance and the ongoing marketing to make this new medium work is a perplexing decision for most business owners. There are just too many options to get a handle on the ongoing development of a website and Internet marketing. I have been doing this for 10 years, and getting to understand the “nerd department” (I have become a bit of that myself) and there culture has been a challenge to say the least. Heck, my background is marketing and economics. So there in lies the difference.
To get a handle on your new marketing program you have two clear options: either try and understand this new culture yourself in order to hire the right Website and Internet Marketing company; Or, work with an in house staff member and train them to mange your web and marketing program.
The tools are now available to manage the output and costs economically in house without having to be a web developer or Internet Marketing expert.
You can now take charge of your web program and have a very sophisticated business website to build business. This program is used by small startups to large multi national corporations.
For more information on how you can take charge of your web program call 386-690-1800 or email info(at)mediawright.net. Cheers
