All entries for December 2007

Additional Domain Names make it easier for Visitors

Writing about web page http://www.ascot-precision-tooling.co.uk

One of the rip-offs that infuriates me are the charges that web-hosting companies charge for the renewal of a domain name. I have seen invoices for £180 to renew a .co.uk domain.

Often the best deal that an SME can achieve is through their Internet Service Provider, ISP. One such company’s domain is www.ascotpt.freeserve.co.uk . Since then Freeserve became Wanado then Orange. Their email addresses also had an extreanous .freeserve.

Domain names for .co.uk cost only £5 + VAT for two years from www.telivo.co.uk or 123-Reg and are currently only £4 at Telivo.

So I registered www.ascotpt.co.uk with its short email addresses and www.ascot-precision-tooling.co.uk as their referrals link. These are currently just redirected to their existing site but can be pointed to a new site in the future.

Robert McGonigle : 21 Dec 2007 10:44 |  Tags: Domain Names Redirection |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Microsoft Office Live Small Business Websites

Writing about web page http://www.tsfcoventry.co.uk

I have been helping TSF (Coventry) Ltd to launch their new website and branding. The next quick win was to improve the page titles and I was given access to their MS Office Live, Small Business account.
Changing the titles and keeping the simple navigation links was very simple in the Properties menu. I believe that longer link text is also helpful to people as well as bots. In both cases more information can build confidence in what to expect at the other end.

Overall Office Live seems to have a strong business centric offer to contrast with Google’s Page Builder and its widget library.

Robert McGonigle : 20 Dec 2007 14:59 |  Tags: Office Live Online Website Builders Small Business |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Domain name redirects or masking?

Writing about web page http://www.wmccm.co.uk/WMCCM/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabindex=0&tabid=4367

One of the problems that the search engines have to solve is to work out which version of a page is most representative. The CCM home page can end in four ways but always displays the same content.

• .co.uk/
• .co.uk/default.aspx
• .co.uk/WMCCM/DesktopDefault.aspx
• .co.uk/WMCCM/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabindex=0&tabid=1

The CCM team often hosts web content for our members. Initially all of these used masking because this was the only option using the domain registrant FreeParking but after moving to Telivo we have the choice. Masking means that the visitor appears to be on the redirected domain even when navigating within the host site. With masking the search engines can just treat this as the redirection page with its title and description.

Most search engines prefer a 301 redirect that makes clear which is the main page.

I have been creating ‘mini sites’ using CCM catalogue pages and a cluster page as an index. These can easily be associated to the companies site with an additional domain such as www.unilight-lighting.co.uk which redirects with masking to the CCM page, above.
This will cause problems with the search engines but is less confusing to the user who navigates there from e-newsletters etc.

The masking will have some negative impact but this can be reduced if you treat the underlying CCM page as the main page for search. The strong internal links from the rest of the CCM site helps with this.
Where the different domains are similar or related such as .com and .co.uk then non-masked redirection should be used.

Robert McGonigle : 10 Dec 2007 14:53 |  Tags: Cannonicalization Domain Redirection Masked Redirection |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem