Monday, August 23, 2010

Blogs, links, and canonical URLs

If on different articles on a blog, we include links to the same page, is this a total waste of time?

I think of it like this:

If the canonical URL for each article is the name of the article, then each article is a different page. So the additional links might be a little worthwhile.

If the canonical URL for articles is either by tag, month, or the front page, then many of these articles on the same topic are a waste of time.

How does blogger and wordpress treat this? Is it a setting that we have control over?
Matt Cutts, I just watched your video on canonical URLS, you didn't mention how blogs fit into this....


Friday, August 06, 2010

Education: Learning to Write Links that Count!

Learning to blog has been a fantastic educational experience for me. As a modern form of literature or writing, the blog is a popular media and motivating topic for students learning to write. Public self expression is a very motivating writing prompt that has kicked many students into caring about what they say. Reluctant writers are not born—they’re made. Instead of assuming your child doesn’t like to write, try a little motivation in the form of a good writing prompt. An interesting question that is much discussed is whether writers can be made or not.  My answer is that anyone can be taught the mechanics of good writing. It starts with a language rich environment no later than the preschool educational years.  The preschool curriculum should primarily be a life style, it's too early for formal education but still, you should make an effort to speak with real sentences and rich vocabulary.  Books should be a constant companion.

The preschool years are educationally the most important years of children’s lives. Research demonstrates that in the first three years of life, participating in a lively language-rich environment with plenty of adult interaction and attention are vital to building foundation skills. From ages three to five, the stimulation should start to include some activities focused on building specific skills in language, math and fine muscle control. These are the primary areas where an online preschool program can contribute to children’s development.  

The homeschool community is beginning to think more about literature in terms of how they are portrayed. The first directory of homeschool literature has now appeared on the web.

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This post builds on the materials convered in link mechanics.


 

 

 
The above is an example of a very nice SEO effort.

 

 

 
  1. Each link is to a different website. This avoids the decreasing value of each link. When placing ads or writing articles, avoid wasting links by multiple links to the same website. If you must link several times to the same website:
    1. Put the most important link first
    2. link to different pages each time.
  2. The paragraph includes many keyphrases important to the sites that are linked to. Even the page title (article title) works in terms such as education, learning, and to write which build the perceived relevance of this post to the target sites.
  3. Deep linking. A number of the posts link to content deep in the site. The anchor text is relevant to the targetted page.
  4. Try to quote a bit from the page that you are targetting. This saves a lot of writing time and it appears to be a more natural citation.
  5. Title tags could be added to each of these links.
  6. Efficiency, speed, and effectiveness are important. This lesson both teaches and, at the same time, I squeeze a little juice out of it. This is the standard of effectiveness that we strive towards. Getting the most impact for the least effort.