A best practice is a method or technique that has consistently shown results superior to those achieved by other means.
68
votes
10answers
2k views
URLs: Should I use hyphens or underscores?
Which is better for search engines?
example.com/my_cool_page.html or example.com/my-cool-page.html
9
votes
4answers
532 views
What is good URI design?
How should a good URI be designed? What are the factors to consider? What are the pros and cons of the variants?
Factors that makes up a good URI
Stability over time
Short
Give the user an idea ...
8
votes
3answers
200 views
Local SEO Strategies
What are your strategies for local SEO? For example, if you had a web design company in Lincoln, Nebraska, what would you do for your website from an SEO perspective?
7
votes
8answers
2k views
Why not AJAX'ify entire websites?
Is there any solid reasoning as to why sites shouldn't be developed with ajax functionality that loads major parts of each part (assuming there are elements like the header, navigation etc that remain ...
7
votes
5answers
169 views
Is it good to buy multiple domains for competitive reasons?
I am attempting to convince the higher ups at my company that spending $55 to renew one domain for a year is bad when they end up having 3-4 domains names for one website.
They're reasoning for ...
6
votes
3answers
259 views
how far do you go with creating subfolders for content?
When you create a site (small, static content) how far do you go with folder detail? Do you have a /images folder in the site root, or /content/images or /images/site, /images/public?
I'm one of ...
6
votes
3answers
335 views
How often should a website's disaster recovery plan be tested?
We all take backups hoping to never use them, but of course some day we are going to.
I was wondering if there has been any best practice guide written about how often a disaster recovery plan should ...
5
votes
3answers
4k views
HTTPS best practices for SEO and usability
Consider a page, http://example.com, which can be viewed both publicly and when a user authenticates. Now suppose you enable HTTPS for every page when a user logs into your website, but only when they ...
5
votes
3answers
155 views
Pros and cons of creating a print friendly page to remove the use of pdfs?
the company I work for has a one page invoice that uses the library tcpdf. they wanted to do some design changes that I found are just incredibly difficult for setting up in .pdf format.
Using ...
5
votes
2answers
2k views
Friendly URLs: is there a max length for search engines?
People from stackoverflow have been working closely with google team to help them make the panda algorithm more efficient, so I guess they've learned a lot from the google team.
Thus they may have ...
4
votes
3answers
4k views
What is the optimal folder structure for a web directory?
I've been doing web development for years, and I've always done a web structure similar to this:
public_html/login.php
public_html/css/login.css
public_html/js/login.js
public_html/img/logo.png
...
4
votes
3answers
1k views
What is the best way to redirect my naked domain?
I have example.com, which points to web server using A records, I want to redirect all traffic from www.example.com to example.com.
As far as i know these are methods,
301 HTML redirect from www to ...
4
votes
4answers
242 views
Nameservers and DNS - Appropriate Steps to Move to A VPS?
I bought a VPS and I am trying to transfer my domain over to the new server, I took two steps so far, but I don't think I did it quite right as its been 24 hours and most all DNS check sites still ...
3
votes
3answers
168 views
Is it correct to have domains with more than 3 levels?
I've been arguing for some time about this topic, now I'd like the opinion of professionals.
My point is that a domain should be made of 2 or 3 levels at most, like:
mysite.com
blog.mysite.com
...
3
votes
2answers
118 views
Rendering IPA characters like 'ŋ' correctly
(I hope this isn't too dumb a question)
When I go to this Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet
These 'special' phoenetic characters, such as 'ŋ' render ...
3
votes
3answers
379 views
Why do some bad websites rank well?
Consider the following scenario: you are pitching SEO/Website Optimisation to a prospective client and you explain to them the importance of great copy and content, how acquiring links (ethically) can ...
3
votes
3answers
66 views
Convenient practice for where to place images?
A lot of developers place all image files inside a central directory, for example:
/i/img/
/images/
/img/
Isn't it better (e.g. content architecture, on-page SEO, code maintainability, filename ...
3
votes
2answers
89 views
How to phrase the from field in system generated emails my site sends?
I have a community site that sends emails after certain actions like
1) When someone makes a comment
2) When someone does something called "suggest solution"
3) When someone makes a comment in the ...
3
votes
2answers
155 views
Where to store project resource files?
You are working on a website for a client. He (the client) sends you a bunch of MS Word documents with text that you have to use in the website.
Where do you store them?
My approach would be to ...
3
votes
1answer
145 views
SEO & Multilingual: would be this a good practise?
I am currently making a bilingual website and I'd like to get nice SEO results of course.
Here's my idea:
The internal links would be composed of the "www" subdomain so that people can share links ...
3
votes
1answer
53 views
Podcast Best Practices - Page Development & Monetization Considerations [closed]
Our current podcast page has show notes and a link to download an mp3 of our podcast. We were advised to add an audio player to stream the file live from our website. The thought being this would ...
2
votes
4answers
180 views
Where can I find resources for best coding practices in web development?
You'd figure that this would be an easy topic to google, but unfortunately I've been looking for a couple weeks and have yet to find really anything that I'm looking for.
The problems I'm running ...
2
votes
4answers
3k views
What is the best way to exclude bots from view counts?
My website is counting visitor views on certain pages. I noticed that Google and other Bots are "clicking" to my site like crazy and some of the pages get unrealistic view counts (compared to those ...
2
votes
5answers
303 views
URLs - Hyphens or keywords?
Let's say I have an online database. The domain names somethingdatabase.* are taken.
seomoz says that
Hyphens detract from credibility and can act as a spam indicator
and also says that
...
2
votes
2answers
127 views
Should the Home Menu Button Display a Submenu?
Is it best practices to display/not display a dropdown menu for the Home button in menu navigation?
2
votes
2answers
185 views
rel=“nofollow” SEO impact
I saw a technique used where there was a block with three parts:
1. Image (wrapped in an anchor tag)
2. Heading (anchor tag with heading text)
3. Paragraph (regular p tag with synopsis content)
e.g.
...
2
votes
2answers
83 views
Any suggestions for a change detection system?
As a webdesigner/webmaster I'm taking care of various websites. Recently one client's website got "hacked". It turned out that at their office one computer got infected by a trojan, that spied the ftp ...
2
votes
3answers
205 views
Strategy for hosting 700+ domains names, each with a static HTML site
I have a portfolio of more than 700 domain names, and ideally I'd like to put up a single-page HTML/CSS/JavaScript webpage for each domain. Is there a system/strategy/workflow that will allow me to:
...
2
votes
1answer
239 views
Meta keywords single words or phrase?
It is acceptable or recommended to only use 1 keyword per delimiter? Or can we use a phrase?
For example:
car, Audi, Ferrari, Lamborgini
vs
Audi Car, Ferrari Car, Lamborgini Car
What is ...
2
votes
1answer
43 views
SEO: ABBR and My Full Phrase (MFP)
In my company websites, we often have the situation at the start of a page where we introduce a [usually technical] phrase, followed by the acronym that it is often know as:
My Special Widgets ...
2
votes
2answers
279 views
Loading another domain's content in a modal iframe - acceptable?
Is it okay to load another page in an iframe in a modal pop-up window - in terms of legal and ethical standards around displaying 3rd party content?
I remember a few years ago there was controversy ...
2
votes
1answer
103 views
Meta Keywords Optimization Best Way to Proceed?
I am on a wallpapers blog project... When i generate leech pages I put in the tags about that image in meta information... But i also need to tell that these are wallpapers...
So what is the best way ...
2
votes
2answers
120 views
When linking pages, does google give higher value to href=“http://www.mydomain.com” than href=“/”?
When linking pages does Google give higher value to:
<a href="http://www.mydomain.com"> </a>
Vs.
<a href="/"> </a>?
I am wondering because I have heard that (for SEO) it ...
2
votes
1answer
39 views
Best practice: Should I note Gravatar is used on the website?
I am going to implement a comment system on a website and I'm going to implement Gravatar as user's avatars. Since the form for posting comments doesn't have a field for uploading an image, nor does ...
1
vote
3answers
144 views
Should forum signatures be statically stored with the post?
I have seen forums do this both ways in the past, but I thought it might warrant a wider discussion.
My question is, when a user posts in a forum which supports signatures, should that signature be ...
1
vote
2answers
63 views
Purchasing traffic effects on SEO
I've found recently some websites which provides a specific number of visits by paying. I'm curios if this is a (very)bad practice for search engines ( like Google).
1
vote
2answers
76 views
Is it acceptable to contact a potential customer who has accessed your site, using their IP?
We run ad campaigns to attract potential customers to our website. Sometimes customers click, but don't make contact. Is it acceptable to reach out to these customers, based on the public info ...
1
vote
4answers
185 views
Recommended Site Redundancy Options
I am developing a site for a client who is emphasizing "no downtime allowed".
Now even cloud hosting doesn't provide a 100% up-time promise, so I've been thinking about mirrored hosting, where if ...
1
vote
1answer
494 views
What is the best email address for a personal website with my name as the .com domain name? [closed]
I convinced one of my creative friends to finally purchase his own name as a domain name and start a portfolio. It has been years coming, but mission finally accomplished. Now I am helping him build ...
1
vote
2answers
114 views
how to handle foreign content on a blog (double content)
I'm quitely new to SEO and I don't know how to handle foreign content on a blog.
I am writing content for two different blogs. The subjects of these blogs intersect partially, so there are sometimes ...
1
vote
1answer
556 views
What is best practice for securing access to GMail for an enterprise?
Is there any way to restrict access to Gmail accounts from certain IP/MAC addresses ? For instance, can I setup Google Apps so that my users can access their GMail account from within the corporate ...
1
vote
1answer
35 views
Image folder name for SEO [duplicate]
We develop and sell ActiveX and .NET controls through our website. After doing some redesign works, every product will have its own top-level folder on the webserver. For instance, the home page for ...
1
vote
2answers
224 views
HTML5 article tag application for the iPad/iPhone
I've used article tags on websites. My understanding and practice is to use the article tag for publication content. I always use HTML/HTML5 tags as their intended purposes and not at will.
Recently, ...
1
vote
1answer
49 views
Choosing a subject to create a site for [closed]
For 6 years I'm working as web developer and I would like to finally create my own site. I thought I have everything needed: programming and administration skills, found a good designer, own servers ...
1
vote
1answer
137 views
Navigation: Sub-menu item for section page
I'm considering some small navigation changes to one of my sites. Consider the following (simplified) site structure:
About Some Technology
-About Some Technology
Our Products
- Products Overview
- ...
1
vote
1answer
37 views
“Included” search phrases in URLs/titles/H1s and SEO
When designing a new URL/folder structure for our website, we faced one interesting problem related to choosing best keywords from SEO perspective. We call it "included search phrases". It will be ...
1
vote
1answer
57 views
site home not at site root index
I have an SEO concern with a website that has just finished the development stage, basically the site has been in progress for a year. During this period the site has been accessible from the URL: ...
1
vote
0answers
46 views
I am the Webmaster now. Where do I start? [closed]
I just changed jobs and will soon be in charge of a custom-built ASP.NET CMS and website for a fairly large corporation with global offices. I have IT and developer FTE resources available to me but ...
1
vote
1answer
161 views
Filtering your offices IPs from Google Analytics when each has a dynamic IP?
I found the documentation for filtering IPs from Google Analytics, but the address of the several locations of our company all have dynamic IP addresses that change every 30 days from what I'm told.
...
1
vote
1answer
92 views
Ultimate security checklist
I'm looking for a complete security checklist that will allow me to secure my websites. After some research here is what I got:
-use SSL to protect authenticated content
-tighten the server TCP/IP ...
