Category: Work/Technical

  • Another server migration

    We’ve moved for what will hopefully be the last time (I know i said that the last 3 times) but this time we’ve gone for the top options, two mahoosive brand new server with an intel i7 quad core 2.4ghz, 8gb ram and 2TB HDD! Beasty!

    We’ve called the client one, Optimus Prime, and the work one Megatron.

    Hehe.

    I was up until 4am this morning moving stuff across, making sure that the sites that were moved and i had access to change nameservers, got changed, and any that i didn’t have access to NS i wrote down on a list.

    I then went through all the ThreeFifty sites, and updated them – then changed NS.

    Ive had an issue with 123-reg and their DNS – for some reason it wasn’t adding certain things into the registry so it meant i couldn’t change the nameservers for any of the work.COM/.NET (TLD’s) domain names, so ive had to host them on the client server until that is fixed.

    Once i was only left with client site nameserver changes to do, i updated the IP addresses of the old host nameservers with IP’s from the new client server, and bingo bango about 100 website nameservers changed instantly!

    We’ve had some bugs to squash but so far so good.

    The new servers are the sheez-neezy too, if you need a dedi then give me a shout as you wont get one better than from our hosting man!

    Anyone having issues with anything then get in touch 🙂

  • 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. 🙂

  • 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 🙂

  • Do you need an MOT? Car Servicing?

    I am proud to announce my good friend Nez is now working for himself, and is offering a wide range of automotive services including pre-mot checks, MOT’s, servicing, modifications and more!

    Presenting: Turners Auto Services

    He’s brilliant at what he does, and can travel to your place of work or home and fix your car while you are working. Click the business card to view his form, or drop him a line on 07525 836 619.