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One of the easiest optimizations you can make to your website is to ensure that no matter how your visitors link to your home page they end up at the same URL. This is the most basic form of canonicalization.
For example:
http://www.mysite.com
http://mysite.com
http://www.mysite.com/index.html
http://mysite.com/index.html
All of these URLs most likely show the exact same content to visitors. But, there are a few problems with this. For one, all of your PageRank or link juice is spread across multiple URLs, rather than just one. Secondly, to a search engine, each of these looks like a different page and because the content is the same, duplicate content. Search engines don't like duplicate content. Lastly, it just looks messy!
To fix this, you first need to decide how you want your URL to be shown to visitors and search engines. You can keep the www, or get rid of it. The important thing is that you pick one and stick to it.
If you are hosting your website on a Linux server running Apache, then you can create a file called .htaccess that will handle the redirects for you. To do this, open up a plain text editor like Notepad and paste the text from one of the examples below into it. Be sure to change mysite.com to your actual web address. Save the file as htaccess.txt, and upload it to your server's root directory. Once the file is uploaded, change the file name from htaccess.txt to .htaccess.
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Enabling Joomla SEF URLs while using GoDaddy requires a few extra steps. GoDaddy has its own unique configuration that can leave many new Joomla users puzzled. If you search the Joomla support forum, you'll find a lot of GoDaddy customers that can't get Joomla SEF URLs configured properly. This post will show you step-by-step how to enable Joomla SEF URLs on GoDaddy hosting accounts.
1.) Log in to your Joomla Administrator account and navigate to the Global Configuration section. There you will see your SEO Settings. Change them to look like this:
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Ian Lurie did what I've been meaning to do for months. He spent 3 days and nights putting together The Google Analytics Cheatsheet. The cheatsheet covers the basics of setting up the tracking code, tagging links for campaigns, applying filters, setting goals and goal tracking, tracking 404 errors, plus a few "serious nerdy ninja tricks" as he puts it.
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If you've ever used an article for the intro text on your home page in Joomla, then you've noticed that the article moves from the first slot when you add new articles. Peter Martin reminds us that we can use Joomla's ordering to create a sticky that doesn't lose it's place at the top of the page.
Here's how:
1. go to the Front Page Manager
2. give the article that should stay on top a negative ordering (e.g. -1).
Newly added Front Page articles will be placed underneath the article(s) with negative ordering.
It's not just for the Front Page either, you can use the negative ordering to create a sticky on any other page with blog layout. |
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Forums can be a great way to find help on any number of issues. If you are installing new software, for example, and you run into a problem or you receive an error, chances are that someone else has run into the same problem and knows how to fix it. A good start would be to return to the manufacturer's website and look for a Support section. Many times, as with open source software, you'll find a Support Forum as well. So, what do you do once you get there?
Search
Use the forum's search function to see if anyone else has already posted this problem and already received an answer. This one step could save you hours or even days of frustration.
Provide as Much Information as Possible
I often keep my eye on new discussions on the Google Analytics Help Forum, and I'm amazed at how many people post this question:
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