Free Graphing/Charting with PHP Using the Google Chart API
This morning I have been searching around for a free graphing solution for a program I am going to be writing today. I am basically creating a simple analytics package that analyzes the number of hits and conversions per day to an online application. During my searching through pre-built PHP solutions I came across the [...]
Google’s Mega Huge Collection of User Data
Over the last few years Google has added product after product. Each of these products offers some variant or enhancement to their main business which is indexing the web and archiving data. Each one of these Google products catalogs and stores user information in some capacity. I have never been particularly concerned with how my [...]
Google SearchWiki
Yesterday Google launched their new SearchWiki feature. I don’t know that this will be particularly useful for me as most my searches are one-time searches but if you make regular searches on a topic you can now personalize the search results so they show the results you would like to see in the order you [...]
3 Examples of Why Cuil Sucks
I was recently reading a follow up article on Cuil. Some of you may remember Cuil got a lot of press in July of 2008 when their search engine launched. Many felt it was likely to be the first search engine to provide real competition to Google. A lot of this publicity came from the [...]
Google SEO Guide… From the Horse’s Mouth
For those of you interested in SEO, today Google made an interesting post on their Google webmaster blog regarding SEO. They have published the “Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.” It is basically a list of best practices but it is worth a read. As a web developer this may be worth something to distribute [...]
Inbound Links that Hurt
I have read some theoretical writings by some less then ethical SEO experts that suggest that you can successfully lower your competitors search engine ranking by building links to them using spam sites or other unethical linking strategies. I personally think this is unfair and terribly unethical. It is bad enough that some competitors are [...]
Explanation of How PageRank Actually Works (Video)
We often get inquires from clients on how to get a higher PageRank. In generally I think the name PageRank is deceiving for many clients. Most clients who have heard of PageRank are under the impression that PageRank refers to their actual ranking for a search term when in reality it is more a calculation [...]
Ryan Stemkoski View on Google Maps
So Sheldon was looking up some of his favorite places to hang out when he was in America visiting. When passing by the Hills his favorite bar and the home of Mike the Extreme Bartender, he came across a street view of me walking into work. I don’t remember being photographed but it looks like [...]
Google Webmaster Tools – 404 Error Repairing
The Google webmaster blog recently posted an article about using the Google Webmaster Tools offered free by Google to help find the source of inbound links that result in a 404 error. Until now it has been difficult to seek out and determine the source of links that result in 404 errors. Inbound links to [...]
Static URLs or Dynamic URLs… Which is Better?
I came across a post on the Google Webmaster Central Blog titled Dynamic URLs vs. Static URLs. I personally have had an issue with this topic for quite some time. I have built websites with both types of URLs and I have seen no visible difference in search engine rank between the two. As I [...]