After some experimenting, I found out that the maximum width of a page title is between 466 and 496 pixels.
Since Google determines all by itself what to show as page title on a SERP, you better make sure that your expanded page title is relevant to the content.
E.g. filling a page title with 121 “|” characters won’t work – Google will replace your page title on the SERP.

Experiment to expand your content

Ok, it’s not the most nifty SEO tool you’ll ever see. But I’m sure you’ll be as excited as I was when you break the rule of maximum 70 characters.

Page Title Pixel Meter – measure your page titles!

Use Page Title Pixel Meter in your own projects

Do you want to use the Page Title Pixel Meter in your own projects? Grab the code and drop me a line or a link. Make sure you view the source of the iFrame. You can use and distribute it freely. Just leave the comments in the source and you are good to go. If you implement the script and dropped me an e-mail, I will add your project on this page (including link).

When could you use the Page Title Pixel Meter?

There are some scenarios the script will be of added value, e.g.:

• You have a SEO WordPress plugin
• You are developing your own CMS
• Any other system or tool using page titles

Give your users direct visual feedback of how many pixels wide their page title will be. Break the 70 character rule and give your users the freedom of pixels.

This is a post from: Webshoptimizer

Page Title Pixel Meter – maximize characters in the SERP!

The post Page Title Pixel Meter – maximize characters in the SERP! appeared first on .

Don’t measure characters, measure pixels

So, after reading his post I wondered how to exactly measure the pixel width of the (new and improved) page title. Like always when I have a quest like this, I contact my buddy Yoeran Luteijn. And within a few hours I got a working prototype in my mail box. Thanks Yoeran!

A quick test run showed that the experimental 107-character page title of SEOMofo is 466 pixels wide. Tested in FireFox on a Mac. Chrome and Safari actually show 469 pixels of width. The difference probably has to do with the different font rendering of the browser. Silly browsers.

Max 469 Pixels instead of 70 characters

Okay, if we a have 466 (to 469) pixels to spare, let’s fill that space up with the thinnest character possible; “|”. Let’s break a world record! So, I tried to crank as many “|” as possible within the 466 pixels. This is how far I got. Will it break the record of SEOmofo?

Google replaces my page title

So, within the 466 pixels of width I can crank up to 112-characters in a page title; On our way to a new world record. To set this record Google has to index the page and properly show all page title characters in the SERP. After a little wait, the moment of truth was there *drum roll please*.

Darn. Obviously the content did not match the page title, so Google inserted a “more relevant” title. Exactly my thought: no comments. Of course this would be too good to be true. I can’t blame Google for replacing my title.

Perfect title with perfect content

That didn’t stop me. Next I tried to duplicate the winning page title of SEOMofo but with even more slim characters. The next page title consists of 117 characters. Of course I included the (virtual) page title phrase as content to prevent Google from displaying a more relevant page title.

A little while later Google showed it in the SERP. Excitement all over. Unfortunately not a full page title got indexed. Google cut off quite a piece in his favor. I figured that the repetition of the extremely short words were causing Google cutting off the page title. Sigh, back to the drawing board.

Say hello to my 117-character title:

The last experiment consists of longer (yet slim) words which looks more “naturally” to prevent being cut off. Still I managed to crank 117 characters in the page title. The set up now: long virtual words and matching content. Will this work? Google, be gentle. The result:

Want to experiment yourself?

I will release the script soon, so you can experiment yourself with maximizing your page titles.
Waiting for the approval of SEOmofo SEOmofo approved ;-)

Test it yourself: Page Title Pixel Meter

The script is and will be completely free of charge. You can even implement the script in to your own CMS, tool or SEO plugin. Just leave the credits, drop me an email or a link.

Credits & big thanks

• I take my (white) hat off to SEOmofo for finding this out.
• Yoeran Luteijn for the script in record time

This is a post from: Webshoptimizer

Google SERP shows all 117 characters of my Page Title

The post Google SERP shows all 117 characters of my Page Title appeared first on .

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Excellent poem to express the cause.

This is a post from: Webshoptimizer

jillt litit iltlililitit liltit jillitil fillit jililit tillit fill’ jillt! liftit iilt jilt till’ lillt jillt fillit

The post jillt litit iltlililitit liltit jillitil fillit jililit tillit fill’ jillt! liftit iilt jilt till’ lillt jillt fillit appeared first on .

lil lil jillt lit ilt tlil lilt jill ill fill till ‘ill fill’ jillt! lilt iilt ill jilt till ill’ lillt jillt fillit please spread the word.

UPDATE:

See SERP Experiment #3

This is a post from: Webshoptimizer

lil lil jillt lit ilt tlil lilt jill ill fill till ‘ill fill’ jillt! lilt iilt ill jilt till ill’ lillt jillt fillit.

The post lil lil jillt lit ilt tlil lilt jill ill fill till ‘ill fill’ jillt! lilt iilt ill jilt till ill’ lillt jillt fillit. appeared first on .

The first guess, naturally, is that Google is determining the actual pixel width of titles, regardless of how many characters it contains. If this is true, then I should be able to craft a title using a bunch of really thin characters–and then we can see how many of those characters get displayed in Google’s SERPs.

Based upon 469 pixels of width, I can cramp 112-characters in a page title. Theoretically that is. So this is the ultimate test.

See SERP Experiment #2

This is a post from: Webshoptimizer

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

The post |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| appeared first on .

For local (or international) link building I advise you to use the search queries in your local search engine (e.g. Google.nl for the Netherlands). This will give you the most relevant results for your country. In case you want to know more about international link building, you can read my article on Search Engine Watch. It makes a great combination with the listed search queries.

The extensive list of queries offer for every niche a great possibility to find that valuable link (partner). Yes, even for your niche. The list is categorized in submission-based, relation-based and sponsored-based campaign.

Check out all 124 smart link building queries …

This is a post from: Webshoptimizer

124 E-Commerce Link Building Queries

The post 124 E-Commerce Link Building Queries appeared first on .

Things I look forward to:

• DAY2: Definitely attending Avinash Kaushik‘s keynote “Be Awesome: Ideas for Approaching Search Analytics Differently”. What a great way to start your day.
• DAY2: “Bringing SEO In-House: The Pros and Cons; since i’ve been an In-House SEO”, I wonder how they keep In-House SEO’s interesting.
• DAY2: Can’t help to only think of black hat stuff looking at the keynote “Automating Twitter”
• DAY2: Finally seeing Jim Boykin in action at “Link Building – Methods and Risks”.
• DAY2: “Real Time SEO: No More Yesterday’s News” looks very promising to me to get to know the facts for the (very) near future.
• DAY2: After this great day, what better than “White Hat Black Hat: Unconferenced” at the bar. Can’t wait!

As you can see day 2 looks very promising. But wait, there is more! Read on Mike!

• DAY3: “Eye Tracking Research Update” OR “Social Media 101″. Not sure if social media has any thing new and exciting while results of the Eye Tracking Research can really help me with some “assumptions” on CTR from the search results.
• DAY3: “21 Secrets of Top Converting Websites” is of course a mandatory keynote. Don’t worry, i’ll share the secrets with you.
• DAY3: You never can get enough of “Advanced Keyword Research”, at least in my case.

On thursday (day 4) my friend Peter van der Graaf will be the tutor of “Hands On Approach to Link Building” as the true link building guru he is. While he enrich the crowd with link building techniques, I will take the opportunity to explore NY! I got a great offer from Neel Pahlajani (whom I met at AHT International) to guide me since he is a NY resident. What an opportunity it is! So, in a few days from now i’ll be blogging (check out the great WordPress app for Android) and twittering from SES NY.

Expect more updates when i’m back…

This is a post from: Webshoptimizer

I will be attending SES New York 2010

The post I will be attending SES New York 2010 appeared first on .

Your contribution prevents the spiders from reading the osCsid. Would I be able to use it to prevent spiders from seeing lets say: “ref=53&affiliate_banner_id=16″ from my affiliates? if so, what do I have to do to make it work?

In my last days to my wedding, it got me thinking and finding (another) quick and dirty solution, to redirect search engines to the right URL without the affiliate references. This way links from affiliate websites add up to your original (product) page!

The solution is simple: just add the affiliate references in the $search variable. As example, we would like to catch the “ref” and “affiliate_banner_id” affiliate references.

Original:

Edit this line to catch your affiliate references

That’s it! Now the canonical will redirect the search engines to your original (product) page. This will prevent duplicate content and will help you get more authority on your product page which has affiliates.

If you still have problems with the trailing slash and the canonical (i.e. URL is missing the last letter of your TLD), try this:

Original:

Remove the [, -1] from the code so it looks like this

Edit this line to have a proper trailing slash:

Get the original Canonical URL contribution

***** REMEMBER TO BACK UP files before making any changes ******

This is a post from: Webshoptimizer

Canonical URL Affiliate edition

The post Canonical URL Affiliate edition appeared first on .

What’s keeping me busy is my new job (since february) as SEO consultant at Netsociety. Not only a great place to work with fantastic (and challenging) customers, but they are also kind enough to let me follow my dream: officially start Webshoptimizer as a business for my own.

There you have it, my excuse for my absence.

From now on you can hire me for optimizing your online business.

What’s next?

First, there will be some redesign (finally) to synchronise my corporate website and blog. During the redesign and launch of the corporate website I will blog about some new ideas I have. In fact it’s all part of the Webshoptimizer business. The first idea i’m going to execute is starting a real webshop and I will post the whole process. From the choice of webshop software to the first dollars made. Practice what you preach. From there I will blog about all pitfalls, oppertunities or any other problem that comes on the way.

I think it’ll be very interesting to read and to follow the whole process. Even for me it’s a challenge. I’ve been advising clients in the e-commerce for several years now, but I never actually started a webshop on my own. I’ve been heavenly involved with some webshops, but still.

It’s about you.

Hopefully you, the readers, will have some suggestions or ideas on the development of my webshop experience. Do you have cart software tips (other then OSCommerce) you want me to test, special product tips or just a great idea what to actually sell. I’m open for suggestions.

Start!

I will! Keep an eye on my site or subscribe to my RSS. ‘Between the redesigns I will keep you posted on the progress of my very own webshop.

This is a post from: Webshoptimizer

It’s been a while

The post It’s been a while appeared first on .

Manual installation (for modified osCommerce shops):

1. Open the file /catalog/includes/functions/general.php
2. Add the following lines to general.php just before the php closing tag ( ?> ) at the bottom // starts canonical tag function - www.webshoptimizer.com function CanonicalUrl() { $domain = substr((($request_type == 'SSL') ? HTTPS_SERVER : HTTP_SERVER), 0, -1); // gets the base URL minus the trailing slash $string = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']; // gets the url $search = '\&osCsid.*|\?osCsid.*'; // searches for the session id in the url $replace = ''; // replaces with nothing i.e. deletes echo $domain . ereg_replace( $search, $replace, $string ); // merges the variables and echoing them } // eof - canonical tag
3. Open from your catalog directory index.php and product_info.php
4. Add within your <head> section the following code to generate the correct URL:
   
   <link rel="canonical" href="<?php CanonicalUrl(); ?>" />

   /li>

5. Save your files and check your store. Done!

To test if the contribution is installed correctly, open a productpage and compare the URL in your address bar (of your browser) with the one in the source. If you look in the source the canonical tag should show the same URL as in the address bar minus the session ID.

You can also add the function (step 4) to other files if the content is of any value to your site. Files where the function (step 4) can be added:

• product_reviews.php
• shipping.php
• privacy.php
• conditions.php
• contact_us.php

Add the function to other contributions whom add pages to your website too (e.g. newsdesk, faq, etc).

Easy installation: (only for new osCommerce v2.2RC2a installations)

1. Upload and replace “general.php” with the one located in /catalog/inlcudes/functions/
2. Upload and replace “index.php” and “product_info.php” with the ones located in /catalog/
3. Done!

***** REMEMBER TO BACK UP files before making any changes ******

This is a post from: Webshoptimizer

Canonical URL links – osCommerce Contribution

The post Canonical URL links – osCommerce Contribution appeared first on .