Posted May 19th, 2008 by John
I have come across some interesting news concerning the registration of Canadiandomain names (.ca). The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) will be implementing privacy changes to the dot-ca (.ca) WHOIS, effective June 10, 2008. Fot those who are not familiar with the WHOIS service, it’s a public tool that allows users to search information about a domain name (ie. registration name, address, phone number).
After numerous discussions and feedback from the public, CIRA adopted a new WHOIS policy that no longer displays this information, to provide greater privacy for the Registrants. As an individual Registrant, your private information will be protected by default – no action is required to receive this additional privacy feature.
Previously, (and still for .com, .net, … domain names) a register would need to pay a fee to protect their data by using services such as Domains By Proxy or Myprivateregistration and many others). I fully support the CIRA’s decision and hope one day that other domain tld’s decide to follow suit.
Tags: domains
Posted April 8th, 2008 by John
Good Evening,
JIC Design is a proud believer in helping those in need from all parts of the world, and it all begins with great people working for great charities. We have had the honour to sponsor one of those wonderful charities, Learning Smiles, and were able to have a quick interview with founder Rob Gilmour.
What is Learning Smiles?
The goal of Learning Smiles is to purchase, collect and distribute learning supplies for children in developing countries.
How did it start?
After eating dinner with my family at Swiss Chalet one evening my children asked what they should do with the crayons they were given when we entered the restaurant. We have lots of crayons at home and really don’t need anymore. However, we told our kids to bring them home since we did not want to see them thrown-out and did not know what else to do. That is when the idea came to us that it would be great if there was some other option where we could donate these slightly used crayons to someone who needed them – plus the positive impact on the environment by keeping them out of the garbage. We made some calls and discovered that CIDA was involved in education projects in Peru and Cambodia and through connections any supplies we could collect would be distributed to schools that needed them – therefore the creation of Learning Smiles.
Has it been easy to start a charitable organization?
No, there is plenty of paperwork and the toughest part is the cost – about $1000 in fees to just register.
What projects have you started?
Our first project is a partnership with Swiss Chalet Restaurants Kingston, where we will collect the slightly used crayons provided to children at the restaurant. After their meal, customers will be invited to donate these crayons by dropping them into containers located at the entrance. Once these crayons are collected they will then be shipped to rural village schools in Peru and Cambodia. (Historically, Peru has had low levels of investment in primary education and one of the most ineffective and inefficient educational systems in Latin America. The current administration, however, is taking steps to correct this and we can help. Likewise, in Cambodia efforts are being made to provide education that helps children develop the skills they need to make positive changes in their lives, and finally break free from poverty.) We hope to collect 100 pounds of crayons by July.
Where would someone go to find out more about Learning Smiles or make a contribution?
We invite people to visit our website at www.learningsmiles.ca …….we are always glad to partner to raise more supplies for these schools.
Posted August 30th, 2007 by John
At WordCamp 2007 Matt Cutts confirmed that dashes would be the best choice instead of no spaces or underscores. He mentined that Google was now looking into it. He recommends sites that already have underscores to leave them, as do I because that would be a 301 redirect nightmare, and for new sites to use dashes.
Posted August 15th, 2007 by John
Well for years now, actually since the Big Daddy update, webmasters and SEOs have been pondering and discussing amongst themselves and the community whether Google has been penalizing or discounting links to a site because it is a reciprocal link. There is no need to wait any longer though…according to the new Google Webmaster Guidelines regarding Search Engine Optimization, “Web sites are no longer permitted to exchange links” which is one of the fundamental practices on the internet. It explicitly states “Link to me and I’ll link to you” is Reciprocal Linking an activity that Google considers a “Link Scheme” that has a likelihood of getting you BANNED!
I think it is ridiculous, and Google should not have released this kind of information until they had the proper context and wording. Over at Esoteric Labs Google’s Adam Lasnik is trying to paraphrase the Google Guidelines stating “We Googlers are nonetheless chatting about ways we can better clarify our stance on this subject.” Reciprocal linking was a part of the internet before Google existed and will continue to be part of the internet during Google’s existence. I understand if Google wants to discount links from Bad Neighbourhoods, but there is no need to release such a general document without clarification that could cause all the commotion in the webmaster community as it has.
Tags: Google, reciprocal link
Posted August 9th, 2007 by John
An interesting article I came across was Aaron’s blog post, “How to Estimate the Length & Value of the Long Tail for Your Target Market’s Keywords“. It was an interesting read about How do you determine how much value there is in the head of a keyword space compared to the tail of the same marketplace?
A good observation Aaron made was to examine Search Auto-Completion to see additional popular phrases that may be easier to rank for. I see this as an essential part alongside using competitive research tools.
I think all Aaron’s points are great, and I firmly believe after working on numerous high profile – high traffic sites, that if you find yourself ranking #7 for a page that does not target a specific term, perhaps you WILL rank #1 or #2 for it and for related phrases if you make pages that are focused on a tighter niche and are more tailored to longtail queries.
Posted August 7th, 2007 by John
Email Marketing is the new buzz word within the online marketing companies. Email is the means to reach numerous subscribers with multiple great messages and promotions. A common overlooked aspect of email optimization is the Preview Window. The preview window refers to the portion of your Outlook that displays your email once you click on the email. As you know, emails extend beyond the preview window causing you to scroll to have to read it. Well, similar to Search Engine Optimization, in email optimization we try to place great content “Above The Fold” to gain the readers interest.
Here are some elements to place above the fold:
- Tagline
- Name of Publication
- Name of Company/Logo
- Headlines
- Link to Website
- Date
- Volume or Issue #
Avoid placing long stories, third party advertising or too much advertising for your products Above the Fold.
Posted May 19th, 2007 by John
There has finally been an enhancement to the standardized sitemap protocol developed by Google, Yahoo and MSN – Autodiscovery. Autodiscovery gives siteowners the ability to easily share their sitemaps with all search engines at once, avoiding the overhead of manually submitting them to each search engine.
The protocol works as follows. Add the following line to your robots.txt file:
Sitemap:
This is an important addition, yet not the end all be all for sitemaps. I know MSN had stated they have not yet planned on viewing this protocol but will in the future.
Tags: Google, MSN, sitemaps, Yahoo
