Why should you save bandwidth? You’ve got enough of it haven’t you?
You should ask that question to someone who gets lot of traffic, especially from Digg/ SU etc. They’d immediately gulp down anything you suggest to save the bandwidth.

Recently, there have been server breakdowns with many bloggers because of the social media outburst. Many of them did nothing wrong but some ardent reader of their’s picked up one of the stories and submitted to Digg. The story went viral and made it to the top of the Digg’s most dugg pages. Unfortunately the blogger was running on a shared hosting platform and the server could not stand the immediate traffic burst that was created from Digg making it to go crash. The site went offline soon after the story was popular resulting in some bad reputation too.

Now this would happen only if you make it to the top of Digg, anyways it makes sense to save some bandwidth with some common, unharming tips right?
One of the things that eat up your bandwidth is images - when you upload images in wordpress it goes to the default directory - wp-admin/uploads
Now, when ever a story is accessed with the picture on it, file is being accessed and it doubles your bandwidth usage.

What you can do in this case is upload the images to flickr or any other image upload utility so that the image gets accessed from there and not your server.

Now, I know how hard it is to upload image to flickr while you are writing a post, it takes another 10 minutes of your time (unless you are using the upload function from the Flock browser).

So here is a wordpress plugin that will help you upload images to flickr just the way you do it on wordpress. Yes, while you are writing the post with no extra time lost.
Download the plugin here.

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How often do you twitter? I’m finding myself spending more time on it than ever before. Both of them are easy to handle and cute. Everything about it is so short and sweet, and takes least time to get the best thing done. The best thing implied here is probably a weird thought about a facebook application that I had, or a link to a powerful plugin, or a kickass domain name that just went over my head. We have to admit that on WP, it takes good 15 minutes to do it, while on these cuties, less than 2 minutes? And it’s all so compact and fun!

We all have a liking to tools that are customized and personal right? Some good ones I met recently are these three.

- I like the “Maami” on ibibo, who (reminds me of the Channel V Bai) appears in between and prompts you to fill in your details like address and telephone number. She’s so annoying yet nice with her witty lines. Once she asked me - “You are looking cute in that picture you just uploaded, do you mind giving your telephone number? I promise I won’t call you.” Now I’m sure whoever used that tool enjoyed it. Innovation.

- I also like Tumblr for it’s personalized messages it throws up. When I uploaded a profile pic of mine, it said something along the lines of the ibibo Maami.

- Of course Flickr. Those regional “hello” messages helped me get a name among friends. They thought I traveled to Hawaii and Israel recently.(Shhh!)

For bloggers - There’s this cool plugin that integrates twitter completely with your blog. It’s from Alex King and it’s here(That probably is his 9198423th incoming link.) Another interesting deviation plugin is over here.

Why Twitter and Tumblr?

• Both are extremely flexible yet powerful at the same time.
• Ease of use.
• Has a personalized touch.
• Support is extremely good.
• Helps me in SEO (*food for thought)

Technorati Tags: twitter, wordpress plugin, social media

Digital Photography School is a blog that’s more famous for it’s author than it’s awesome content. It’s owned by the most influential blogger on the planet - Darren Rowse.

Darren is a very good mentor to me and often have given me valuable advices on topics knowingly or unknowingly. If you are a regular reader of DailySEOblog, you might have spotted Darren’s comments here and there on some articles. Most interesting of them being this one, where he was a bit miffed about an article I wrote which according to me was wrongly interpreted. We cleared things up, soon after,that’s a different story.

Well, recently, I came across this interesting post by Daniel, where he discusses about the factors deciding a good domain name. And today I came across this little discussion between Daniel and Darren, which provoked me to write this article.

Daniel thinks (and we agree) that good domain names should not have hyphens in them. According to Daniel,

Domain names containing hyphens and numbers are cheaper for a reason. They suffer the same problem of domains not using a .com extension or with complex spelling.

Daniel raises this doubt to Darren over here and Darren replies to Daniel over here -

Daniel - yeah it(Digital-photography-school) does well on an SEO front (has really increased in the last 6 months) but not so great on a memorability front.

So when Darren thinks that DPS is doing good in terms of SEO, I guess this is what he means.

For the keyword “Digital Photography”, a Google rank of 6. (Regional ranks may differ.)

Not bad for a blog like DPS right?

Here’s a look at some metrics.

Age of domain - Almost 2 years
Pages indexed on Google - 30,900 pages
Pages indexed on Yahoo - 62,337
Incoming links(Google) - 231
Incoming links(Yahoo) - 295,000
No: of pages in the main index - 2150
No: of pages in the supplemental index - 28,750 (Pages Indexed - Main Index)
Page Rank - 6/10
Alexa Rank - 19,382 (as of 23rd Dec, 2007)
Home page size - 34181 Bytes = 33 KB
Code to content ratio - 35.03 %
Incoming .edu links - 5
Incoming .gov links - None
Issues encountered - Canonicalization. My guess is that Darren have set the domain name preference in the webmasters tool to http://digital… rather than http://www.digital-pho… which is why a search for site:http:/digi.. returns results while as site:htp://www.digi… does not. May be Darren should fix this, and make all the URLs to www.url.com format and not http://url format. For Problogger, he has used the www.url.com format.

Why should this be fixed?
Though seemingly both the formats are the same, Google prefers to use one format for a site. Which is why it has given you the  option to make a selection in the Webmasters tool. If some people link to http://url and some to http://www.url it does not look good on your site, and you lose some value there.

Supplementary pages
DPS has quite some huge number of pages in the supplementary results. Though Google pulled off the importance of supplementary pages along with the operator(site:www.yoursite.com ***-view) last July,you can still determine the number of pages through a simple calculation, and I found that DPS has almost 30k of it’s pages in the S-Index.

Now, you know the problems of having a huge supplementary index right? Google is doubtful regarding the relevance of those pages and it may keep away from showing them in the normal organic search results. So, here DPS have not been able to convince Google that 30,000 of it’s pages are relevant and original in content.

How to get out of supplementary pages?(Rel page)
- Remove archives from the sight of robots using nofollow tags.
- Don’t tag articles in more than one category.
- Create distinguishing titles and content on every article.
- Get deep links from external sites.

Other than the canonicalization issue and the number of supplemental results, DPS is in good shape.

If Darren would like to do something about it immediately, I’d suggest that instead to the homepage, from his network of blogs/websites, he should make an attempt to individual posts in the various categories. We all know that Darren has been linking to DPS from many of his Problogger articles, but almost all of them are linked to the blog homepage. Instead of this, had it been the internal article pages, he could reduce the number of supplementary pages.

Let’s do some very basic SEO checks

Meta Tags

<meta name=”keywords” content=”Digital Photography School, Digital Photography Tips,
Digital Photography Training, Digital Camera Tips, Digital Camera Advice, Advice,
tips, photography, digital camera, training,”/>
<meta name=”description” content=”Digital Photography School -
Digital Photography Tips for You” />

Looking at the meta tags, I’ve the impression that Darren and his team has not been working on it lately. It’s a very basic meta tag, with the bare essentials. And the meta description is just not impressive. As you all might already know, the purpose of having a meta description is not to attract the search engine crawlers but human visitors.

The meta description is the text that you see beneath your site name in the SERPs. Only if it is attractive enough would people click on your site name. If you’d ask me I’d rephrase both the meta keywords and the meta description as below. 

<meta name=”keywords” content=”Digital photography, Digital Photography School, Digital Photography Tips, Study photography, Digital photo Digital Photography Training, Digital Camera Tips, Digital Camera Advice,
Advice,tips, photography, digital camera, training,”/>
<meta name=”description” content=”Take stunning photos with your digital camera using our digital photography tips and tricks - Digital Photography School” />

The title tag could also be changed to something attractive to both search engines and visitors. As of now, it looks like this.

<title>Digital Photography School &#8212; Digital Photography Tips for You</title>

Another grave mistake I found is that the Robots.txt file is put in the blog subdirectory (www.digital-photography-school.com/blog/robots.txt) Yikes! This simply won’t work. The robots.txt file should be placed  the root directory and if the blog is present in a sub directory, the commands should use the subdirectory URLs to control the crawlers. And if at all it worked, the syntax is wrong. Here’s how a healthy robots.txt should look like (only a suggestion)

Sitemap: http://www.digital-photography-school.com/blog/sitemap.xml
User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-content/
Disallow: /wp-admin
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Disallow: /wp-
Disallow: /*.php$
Disallow: /*.js$
Disallow: /*.cgi$
Disallow: /*.xhtml$
Disallow: /feed/
Disallow: /trackback/
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /*.php*
Disallow: */trackback*
Disallow: /*?*
Disallow: /z/
Disallow: /wp-*
Disallow: /*.inc$
Disallow: /*.css$
Disallow: /*.txt$

I couldn’t find a sitemap file anywhere, so that’s something Darren may work on to ensure that the great content is spotted by the crawlers. It may/may not help in the fight to put back the supplementary pages too.

Bottom line is that, even though there is great content on the DPS website, a major part of those pages are in the supplementary index, and thus will not show on the search engines results. Keeping in mind that the blog has a domain name that’s not memorable, the major traffic is likely to come from search engine organic results, getting these pages out of the S-Index may be first thing Darren should work on.
Also, please note that I’ve only checked the SEO basics here, and only after these basic stuff is fixed could the rest be analysed and worked on. Here’s wishing al the best to Darren and DPS.

There are some clients of mine who are very keen on using flash files in their sites. It often end up in a rough debate with me, and both parties got to take deviation. (If you didn’t know, I’m not a fan of using flash.)

Most of the times, I allow them to use flash in a limited way throughout the site. If it’s a static page, we’ll go for small flash elements on each page and for wordpress users, I go for flash headers. Yea, it’s not a good idea actually, because it make you lose some valuable real estate for search engine optimization. But I’ve found a work around to this.

Generally when you use a flash file, these are the problems that you come across.

• Waste of real estate for SEO
• Cross browser compatibility issues
• Non indexability of text used in flash files
• Unwanted code in the html

But with the workaround you can actually, minimize the unwanted code in html, while the other issues will be there.
Alternatively, you can specify your header text instead of the flash file.

This work around should work for all wordpress themes, but I haven’t tested it on all themes, the Kubrik based themes with large headers seems to work.

It’s a simple plugin that we can use to get this problem solved. This plugin helps you to use a flash file anywhere inside your theme, on your header, posts, sidebars anywhere! Pretty cool isn’t it?

Download the plugin here. The credit goes to Michael Bester for developing this plugin.
To use this plugin, upload it to your plugins directory and activate it from plugins menu. Then go to your header.php file in themes directory and replace the header code with the following code -

[kml_flashembed movie="/path/to/your/movie.swf" height="value" width="value" /]

Of course, replace the values with the actual height and width, and the path to the URL where you've saved the swf file.

It works like charm and if you like it do drop a line to Michael.

I should ask this question probably to Mr. O’Reilly, but since he is not a reader of my blog (anyone who refers him will get a prize of umm….err…US $100! ) I’m happy asking this to you.

How many of you really like those lengthy signup forms? To be honest, I really hate them and I’d love to see someone disagree with me.

Every time I get an invitation to join e a web 2.0 service, the first criteria for me to help decide if these guys are here to stay or not is their length of the signup/registration form. I know what you firefox fans are thinking right now. “Mani, there’s a plugin that will help you fill in all those regularly asked details on any sign up form.”

My friend, you may be right in all senses, but I’m someone who looks at testing services from the most un-coolest perspective. When I test a web 2.0 service, I know no Firefox, I ain’t no CSS guy and I know no Social bookmarking. All I know is that when I use youtube, I can upload my video in “n” number of steps.

Click>Browse>Upload>Tag>Share - that would probably be the shortest process layout I’d accept in a web 2.0 service. Or else, I prefer call it Web-1 or beyond that. Hey I can give you a reference point. Commission Junction, which has been there for quite really a long while, is very web -1. I agree that their concept is awesome and they are one of the premiers for click fraud..errr..I mean affiliate marketing. But have you ever had a look at their signup form?

Man, that is one signup form you don’t wanna fill. It could ask you anything from your grandmas middle name to your first car model. Honestly, that is not anywhere near the web 2.0 bracket.

At the same time, I just love the new concept of short..extremely short sign up forms, where it asks for your email id and name, that’s it. There are cool sites like this one, which doesn’t even require those bare minimum information. 

I think it’s high time companies realized that surfers don’t have that extra time to sign up those lengthy forms, no matter how good the service is. I mean, there is no need for those details it’s just a waste of time.

When we are thinking of innovations that will elevate the user friendliness of a website, elements like this one are missed and spoils the whole show. User friendliness starts right from a visitor landing on a page, it’s not just limited to having a nice shopping cart or price calculator, as many so called web 2.0 services like to believe.

Running out of space on your PC or lappy? Worry not. There is a cool service that offers you to store your audio files, videos, office documents or just about anything online, at your personal space and use them online as well, from anywhere in the world (sounds too big eh?).

You can stream the audio and video files, online and the speed and consistency is really good. I also love the drag and drop feature, it’s just like transferring the file to any other storage media on your PC. It’s a very reliable service from my experience. At a standard free registration you get 1GB of storage space, where you can store all your mp3’s, movies and stuff. Another good feature is that you can send the files to your friends, by sending them a download link. They don’t have to register at Steekr to listen to the audio or see the video. So, you no longer have to carry them around on your thumbdrive. That’s too old fashion man!

The service is Steekr and you can register here for a free 1GB storage space, and yes its personal, “The Internet too is personal again”!

Update - I just found another cool service that let’s you upload files and even allow others to have a look at it. I’m unsure if it allows you to stream, but the catch is that the service is quick to register, you don’t have to give even your email id. Just give a name, select the file and select the other users permission settings. Presto! Very good if you are in a hurry and want to share a file with your buddy. Check it out here.

Here is the list of 10 must have plugins for bloggers using windows live writer users. These tools will help your blogging experience better. They are all helpful to reduce your blogging time, reduce the number of steps before publishing a post, and reduces the number of applications you have to use to write an article.

Using these plugins to the new windows live writer will help you to do almost all your regular blogging activities from live writer itself and will save your time.

1. Screen Capture tool
   This plugin will help you to take screenshots from your PC, you suggest. Works fine like the “Print Screen” option, but more effective and manageable. Now no need to run Photoshop side by side, when you blog. This is particularly useful when you are reviewing an application and blogging side by side.
2. Screenshot/Thumbnail creator of a website
   This plugin will help you create a thumbnail of another website that you suggest. Just give the URL and it gives you the full page screenshot/thumbnail of that webpage. Now no need to take screen shots and join pieces together.
3. Insert images from Flickr
   Many of the bloggers upload images to flickr and picasa, hotlinking it from there, so that you save on bandwidth ad save from the “Digg Effect”. But it has always been a tedious task to upload the image, copy the URL etc. Now do it all from WLW. Give your user name and this plugin will show all the images from this user name, just like how flock shows it’s media window. Just drag and drop your required image and you are done!
4. Insert your BOX.net files to your post
   Just like the image insertion from flickr, this plugin allows you to insert your Box.net files form a small box to your article. Simple as a drag and drop. No issues and time waste!
5. A simple De.li.cio.us plugin
   That will help you to incorporate delicious tags to your post. A must have if you are a delicious fan.
6. Technorati plugin
   A tiny plugin that will help you to add technorati tags to your articles. Simple and easy to use, but very effective in getting relevant traffic to your blog.
7. Insert Youtube or Google Videos to your post
   Another powerful tool that saves lot of your time by helping you insert a Youtube or Google video into your post.
8. Save typing the same link over and over again
   With this teeny weeny plugin, yo can save a lot of time, as it keeps in memory your previous links and next time when you use the same anchor text, it suggests you a previous link.
9. Save on typing the same text again and again
   Just like the link saver, this plugin helps you same time by not typing the same text over and over again. For example, a subscribe to RSS feed, link or reminder text that you use at the end of every article can be stored in a template file and called up any time during the post. 
10. Picasa Image plugin
    With this plugin you can easily insert images you have in your Picasa Web Albums into your blog. You are able to upload new images into existing albums or create new albums.

So there you have it. 10 most powerful plugins for improving your your blogging efficiency. NOw, there’s one plugin I wish was available, the All in One SEO pack.

PicSquare, which provides “photo based gifts” services in India, has come up with a new feature for their users. A photo blog, where users can upload and store pictures like albums or blogs - a photo blog as they would call it.

Manish says -

To continue our effort to provide best value in online photography to Indian users we are launching a new feature at Picsquare (http://mysite.picsquare.com). The new feature – Personal Photo Site, will allow users to create their own photo website and could be described as blogs for photographs.

Some of the main features of the photo blog are:

- Personalized domain name like http://manish.picsquare.com

- Theme selection, variety of theme option available like weddings, vacation, birthday, family etc.

- Customized home page

- Permission control, user can make his site accessible to anyone or decide who can get access

Hope this tool will help users to share more and order more .

Picsquare had completed 1 million images last week.

Forget creating..selecting a wordpress theme for your blog itself is a big deal. When you have too many options, it’s just a task tedious. And for non-technical people, tweaking the CSS code, or redesigning the header template is quite hard.
Always wondered if there is a theme builder software available for wordpress. And I had been asking many designers if they would recommend one for me. But in vain.
All of them used two or more softwares like dreamweaver and fireworks mixed with some self coding and CSS to generate their themes. Well, I could not afford to giving in so much time to design a theme for myself. Better said - I’m lazy.
All I needed was a WYSIWYG custom theme builder that will allow me to drag and drop my designs, select the colours of the fonts and background, select a two- column or three column template and just put in the content.
Well, after a good boring research only to find loads and loads of designers who promised to build me themes for very cheap rates, I found this cool tool.

It’s a custom Wordpress theme generator, that makes theme designing for wordpress as easy as playing tic-tac-toe.

All you need is to select the text and background colours…select a template, two or three column, select the text scheme,select the menu layout and presto you are done! (There are more options) It shows a live preview of your theme while selecting the options.

Then it allows you to download the theme in zip format and the files separately. All you need is to upload the theme files to the template folder.

So if you want to design a wordpress theme just at the snap of your finger..try this wordpress theme generator tool.

Photo courtesy FotoRita

• Google introduces new robots.txt feature where robots.txt analysis tool is able to recognize sitemap declarations and relative urls better than before.
• Track where an user clicks on your webpage - WP plugin review by Daniel, Dailyblogtips.com
• How to stop people from stealing content on your blog - Kumiko’s tip to bloggers.
• 7 tips to blogging beginners - By Nirmal TV
• Search uploaded imags in the WP admin panel - “How to” article by Shankar Ganesh
• Three Wp security tips - By Arpit Jacob
• 10 ways to increase traffic - By Sizzledcore, pretty interesting one.