Author: Olly

  • Passing Keywords through 301 Redirects

    As you can probably see, I have recently changed the domain name for my blog to a shiny new short one – that contains only my name, and actually has a O not a zero, so I will hopefully have a better chance of ranking for my own name now 🙂

    Anyway, before i changed domains, a friend of mine suggested we do an experiment to test a theory a top SEO company has about passing keywords to a new domain name by using a 301 redirect.

    Also the keyword being passed cannot be mentioned anywhere on the page – the only reference to it was to be in the keyword used to link to my blog.

    My friend made a word up, i wont mention it in text it will contain it in the screenshots below (don’t want to screw up the results 🙂 ) and we linked to my blog from a high traffic website, using this made up word as the anchor text.

    We waited for the link to be picked up (and in fact had to give it a kick up the arse using Jumptags to speed things up a bit – I wanted my new domain name!!) and once it was ranking in google for this keyword we put the 301 redirect in place to move all pages, posts etc over to 0lly.uk.

    Again, we waited….

    And waited…

    And slowly but surely the UK domain name was being replaced in the index by the .IM domain name, and then one day we checked and;

    So there you have it! This has proven on this occasion that in fact a 301 redirect will pass “anchor text only” keywords over to your new domain name.

    NB I have noticed a fair drop in traffic and have lost some of my high positions for certain keywords switching to this domain, however I don’t care as the new name kicks ass. 🙂

  • Google buys its way out of another pickle – Gmail.co.uk

    I was trying to think back to when i started using Gmail for the first time – I have quite a good account name,  I got it back when you had to be invited to use the system.

    I love how Gmail has changed the way i use email, I love how I can bolt on “labs” stuff which pushes my email forward in ways other email clients only wished they could evolve (Mail Beer Goggles?? Haha!)

    Anyway – when it was launched in the UK, it was called Gmail – but as its proper launch got closer another company who had been using the term Gmail in the UK for years piped up and kicked up a bit of a fuss about it. A big lawsuit kicked off, and google ended up changing all UK sign ups to @googlemail.com email account – despite @gmail.com still working for all UK users as well.

    They soon resolved it by simply acquiring the .co.uk variant, and the UK signups reverted back to gmail.com.

    Its a strange ‘ol world.

  • Personal URL Shortner using WordPress

    I figured after snapping up such an awesome short domain name (0lly.uk heh) i should make the best use of it, so i looked into running my own URL shortner, and went straight to a product i saw the other olly using on his 0l.ly domain name.

    Its called YOURLS and the installation etc was easy, fast, and in fact within 20 mins it was up and working.

    Then after also installing the wordpress plugin, i registered my blog as a twitter application, whacked the settings in and bingo!

    I had fun doing this, its been a while since i stayed up messing about with cool shit online 🙂

  • Recast for Season 2 of Spartacus Blood & Sand

    It upsets me to write this, but it appears that season 2 of the totally awesome Spartacus Blood and Sand (or Vengance as its apparently being called) will not star Andy Whitfield as “Spartacus”

    I wrote a while back about the leading man Andy, and how he had been diagnosed with a form of blood cancer that meant the production of series two had to be postponed.

    However, he was initially given a clean bill of health by the doctors. Im sad to write that the cancer has in fact returned and he is back undergoing “aggressive cancer treatment” to once again try and remove it.

    Its totally sad news, he was amazing in the role and its even more heatbreaking to know that they have no choice but to recast his role, or shut down the show – and as quite rightly stated on TVSquad.com;

    “I know people who work on the show, and if you’ve been reading the news lately you should know it’s not the best time to be out of work in the film/TV industry in New Zealand.

    I’m sure Andy has more than enough {insert expletive] to deal with, physically and mentally, without feeling as if his cancer has put hundreds of other people out of work”

    They are right, so as they say in show business – the show must go on.

    Im sure i speak for many when i say i hope Andy makes a speedy recovery, and that all his fans are thinking of him 🙂

    We will be seeing andy a couple more times though apparently in a series called “Spartacus: Gods of the Arena” as he filmed the first and last episode, but you never know – they may reshoot if the find a replacment suddenly 🙁

    I look forward to seeing the new episodes as they will most definitely be awesome, its just a shame Andy wont be along for the ride.