I just posted how to do 301 redirects in asp.net 4.0 I thought it might be helpful if i describe how they work.

URL rewrites and 301 redirects... you talk about them, you recommend them, but do you truly understand how they work? Sure, you know that rewriting a URL means that the URL displayed in the browser changes to be more SEO (and user) friendly. And you know that a 301 redirect is a permanent redirect. But let's dig a little deeper, and explain how they work together.
As a developer, my very first SEO project was the task of rewriting a massive number of URLs and ensuring that the old URL redirected to the new. It was a daunting task at first because I didn't have a clear understanding of how it all worked together. I was sure I'd have to rewrite pages and pages of code, and spend weeks if not months on the project. But once I figured it all out, the light bulb went on, and it literally took just a couple days to get it right. Yep! Days.

URL Rewrites

Rewriting a URL means changing the way the URL is displayed in the browser. When a user lands on a page with a rewritten URL, the code behind that page doesn't change. In fact, the server still reads the original URL.
URL Rewrite Process:

1. User lands on new SEO'd URL
2. Using mod_rewrite, ISAPI_Rewrite, etc. new URL points to old URL on the server
3. Server calls the code from the old URL
4. Page is displayed in browser, displaying the new URL

From the server's perspective, nothing has changed. The code is still the same. For example, if a developer had built a site using URL variables, there's no need to change any code. Now, there are always cases that could contradict this. But at the basic level, there shouldn't be a need to change code on the page.

301 Redirect

Once the URL is rewritten, you want to make sure that the old URL 301 redirects to the new. This tells the search engines that any link juice the old URL had should now be given to the new URL. It also makes for a good user experience, rather than showing a 404 error page. The server is told URL A should now be URL B.

301 Redirect Process:

1. User lands on original URL
2. Using code, mode_rewrite, etc. the 301 redirects URL to the new one, literally changing the URL that is displayed in the browser from the old to the new
3. URL Rewrite process begins again

Using the rewrite and redirect together brings the solution full circle. I've trained many developers on SEO standards and specifically how to implement and understand the workings of the rewrites and redirects. It takes a bit to wrap your head around it, but it's all really quite simple.
For more detailed information on rewrites and redirects, check out the following sites:

One of the most important things for web 2.0 sites are to be searchable, because every one wants top get more and more users for the search result.
For search engine Optimisation, every small aspect of the page is Important. One of the important things to do for this is to make sure all permanent redirection in your site is made with the 301 Host headers. I had earlier posted about this here.

With the new features in Dot net framework 3.5 we could have easily made this much simpler by adding an extension methods to the response class and make it look simple.
public void PermanentRedirect(this HttpResponse response, string destination)

{

        response.Status = "301 Moved permanently";

        response.AddHeader("Location", destination);

        response.End();

}

In the above code we have added a simple Extension method to the HttpResponse class. What this method does is always makes the redirect to a new page Permanent by adding appropriate response header.

Hence after this extension method we can easily makes call like Response.PermanentRedirect(“http://www.geoffreyemery.com”);
After looking at the importance of this functionality Microsoft has decided to add this functionality in the Asp.net framework itself. Now with Asp.net 4.0 new RedirectPermanent helper method that makes it easy to issue HTTP 301 moved permanently responses

My friend pinged me today and asked me what bounce rate was. I told him that it ment the number of times the user bounces up and down on a ball…LOL. Bounce Rate is  a term used in  web site traffic analysis. It essentially represents the average percentage of initial visitors to a site who "bounce" away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site. Bounce Rate is a measure of visit quality and a high Bounce Rate generally indicates that site entrance (landing) pages aren't relevant to your visitors.

How do Visitors Bounce

• Clicking on a link to a page on a different web site
• Closing an open window or tab
• Typing a new URL
• Clicking the "Back" button to leave the site
• Session timeout
• A commonly used session timeout value is 30 minutes. In this case, if a visitor views a page, doesn't look at another page, and leaves his browser idle for longer than 30 minutes, they will register as a bounce. If the visitor continues to navigate after this delay, a new session will occur.
• The Bounce Rate for a single page is the number of visitors who enter the site at a page and leave within the specified timeout period without viewing another page, divided by the total number of visitors who entered the site at that page. In contrast, the Bounce Rate for a web site is the number of web site visitors who visit only a single page of a web site per session divided by the total number of web site visits.

Google.com analytics specialist Avinash Kaushik:

 

"It is really hard to get a bounce rate under 20%, anything over 35% is cause for concern, 50% (above) is worrying.”

Since I use Google analytics I went in to check out my own bounce rate on my blog. I found it to be 65%. According to Avanisah I should be worried. But lets be honest. Most of the hits on my site are coming from search engines so people get the information that they need and then “bounce” . This doesn't really concern me on my blog site that much as these users are in it for the short hall. Where this does come into play is on ecommerce sites where you want the user to stay engaged and by things as well as cruise around the site to buy more things. Also if your buying keywords it really gives you a idea of what is working for your site and what's not why your not converting.

Improving Your Bounce Rate and Getting More Page Views

ach website has different goals or requirements so I’ll not delve too much into details but talk about overall strategies. First of all, the bounce rate is very much influenced by what is visible to the visitor. They are much more likely to click to another page when they are presented with very relevant links, call-to-actions or information.

For publishers, the BBC content model shows how pages can be well integrated into a cohesive unit, thus encouraging users to bounce from the entry page to another. From the examples, you’ll see that content producers can include many additional links:

1. Links to feature articles with in-depth analysis
2. Links to other news articles on the same topic
3. Links to a dedicated reference page dealing with only the specific topic
4. Links to a comment section/forum to invite participation by readers
5. Links to a Back story or general background information
6. Links to a multi-media presentation (audio/video)

Hope that helps.

 

At the outset, I have to confess that I’m not sure if this is a new feature in Windows Live Writer or not.  But it’s new to me as I just discovered it.  Did you know you can enable a real-time word count display in the status bar of Writer?  It’s handy when you’re authoring posts and want to keep them under a certain length.

Why a certain length?

There is some thought going around the Search Engine Optimization community that pages that are too short can get passed over for high rankings. I try to keep posts at least 250 words. Of course there are some posts on my blogs that are shorter, but if I’m writing a post that I want to rank well I try to give it some meatiness in terms of length. On the other hand don’t make it too long either - because in doing so you make it difficult to keep your keyword density up and could end up with a less tightly focused page. Research also shows that longer articles can have a pretty steep drop off rate in readers after the text gets below the ‘fold’ or to the end of the first screen of article.

Post length is not as important as the idea and how you convey it. There are no such thing as exact number of words for web copy.Getting the idea across to your audience is more important, and if you do it in a way they expect most, you are going to build your audience / feed subscribers.

So that being said Here is how you do it

Turning it on is easy, just click on the Tools menu, then Options…, and then click Editing in the options window.  Check the word count checkbox:

Then you’ll see the count at the bottom of the screen:

There are lots of other cool options in Writer.  What have you found?

- Marcus, Windows Live Community Manager

Windows Live Tags: how-to,Writer,word count,length

346 words in this article. LOL

I know it a small thing but hey this whole blog is a number of experiments for me. One of which was testing my SEO experience. Its finally paid off. Its weird for me to think that there are so many Geoffrey Emery's out there. Just when you think that you are unique!  When I started this my blog was ranked 30th.