Archive for August, 2009

The rules for seo do change from time to time, so search engine optimization strategy should keep up with what Google and the other major search engines consider important for seo. One example is the seo advice for how long to register a new domain. Some experts advise domain registrations for five years.

Earlier today, Custom CMS Design LLC owner Jim Degerstrom published an article on Article Rich entitled Domain Registration Term and SEO that explains the reasoning behind how many years to register a domain. Here’s an excerpt from that article:

Being aware of constant changes in Google and other major search engines for seo factors is necessary to maintain a successful website optimization strategy. Ranking well in search results depends on many factors, yet domain registration length is one where the number of years advice for seo is irrelevant.

What changed? Our advice in the past, as well as many other seo experts, was to avoid one year domain registration to help establish trust and credibility. Read the article linked above to find out why that seo strategy is no longer relevant for search engine optimization, and why we still suggest two to five year domain registrations anyway.

After converting a client’s blog from Blogger to WordPress recently an invalid xhtml blog mystery was uncovered. The blog home had 88 xhtml errors due to an invalid reference to class=msonormal in the code when validated to W3C. Two years ago the custom Blogger template and css styling that was created did not have that class defined, so how the code was inserted into the content required a closer look to solve the mystery.

While testing the WordPress blog with all posts imported from Blogger it was discovered the xhtml code errors were the result of the class=msonormal showing up in just two posts that the customer had published. The custom tutorial that was provided for creating and publishing posts in the original design was very specific about writing drafts in plain text with NotePad and using copy/paste to publish in Blogger.

The code errors were introduced in Blogger and imported into WordPress because the client wrote those two out of all their posts in MicroSoft Word. The problem with composing blog posts with word processing software like Word or WordPerfect is they create content in machine code that only looks like plain text. They may retain formats that are hidden and then show up when the post is published.

The solution to the invalid xhtml blog mystery of the class=msonormal code errors was to copy and paste the post from html view into NotePad, and then edit. In addition, the Word format inserted empty paragraphs with opening and closing p tags between paragraphs, so those and the reference to the class=msonormal were removed.

Finally, the last step was using copy/paste of the text from NotePad back into the WordPress post edit screen, and then republish. This easy solution using plain text removed the hidden formatting and the home page tested valid to W3C without any of those 88 xhtml code errors.