Search engine ranking for particular keywords

I was recently asked if there is a way to find out where a site ranks in a search for particular keywords.

I know that Google Webmaster Tools shows a table of queries that most often returned pages from your site, and the average (over the last seven days) top position for that query.

For example, here’s a bit of a screenshot of stats for this site taken from Google Webmaster Tools:

Google Webmaster Tools: search query ranking

Google Webmaster Tools has a bunch of other features as well:

  • it analyzes your robots.txt and allows you to test URLs against it
  • it lists all external and internal links to your site
  • it lists any crawl errors or unreachable URLs it finds
  • and a few other things as well

It really is a must-have for tweaking and optimising your site.

Also, SEOmoz has a fairly comprehensive range of SEO-related tools, many of which are free to use. Their Rank Checker requires you to register (it’s free) and allows you to perform up to five keyword checks per day against your chosen URL.

Posted in Commentary, Search Engineering, Tools | 3 Comments

The Apple iPhone is getting cheaper in NZ

I’ve discovered that toshbuy.com are selling 8GB iPhones for $799.00 (excl. GST and shipping).

That’s nearly half the price of some other places: Parallel Imported are selling them for $1499.00.

Posted in Commentary, Gadgets | 3 Comments

Is TradeMe being evil?

I’ve just been sent a link to this stuff.co.nz article that explains why TradeMe have banned the auction of iPhones.

I think this is crap.

Sure, it’s their service, so they can ban what they like, but in reality there are many more products sold via TradeMe that have equal or greater fraud potential than iPhones.
By this reasoning, they should ban the sale of parallel imported GSM phones that aren’t available in NZ via Vodafone-affiliated resellers.

TradeMe FTL.

[hat tip sportsthought.com]

Update 20/09/07:

The NZ Herald reports about this. They note that sellmefree.co.nz “…is not prepared to deny New Zealanders the chance to get their hands on the hot gadget, and are authenticating each auction individually…” Nice!

Here’s a page of sellmefree.co.nz search results for the Apple iPhone.

Posted in Commentary, Gadgets | 4 Comments

Make the logo bigger!

Hear those clients/designers wailing on their guitars!

Make the Logo Bigger (3.2MB .mp3)

Posted in Commentary, Design | 3 Comments

iPhone software SIM unlock: done.

Well, no more hardware hacks — you can now SIM-unlock your iPhone by software.

Now who in their right mind would not want an iPhone?

Posted in Commentary, Gadgets | Leave a comment

More WordPress title modification

Some time ago I wrote about re-working WordPress titles to make them easier to read, and more search engine-friendly.

Since then I’ve done a bit more work on WordPress, and so I thought I’d share a few WordPress title modications I’ve used in a recent project. Continue reading

Posted in Coding, Wordpress | Leave a comment

Refurbished iPhones

So it looks like you can buy refurbished iPhones from Apple. (and here’s the 4GB).

[…thanks Cameron]

Posted in Gadgets, Link | Leave a comment

Writing

Before I get started here I feel that I need to set the scene a little. I’m not a copy writer. I don’t have an Arts Degree in English Literature. I barely even passed School Certificate English.

Through high school I was the ‘maths & sciences’ type — enjoying the ‘right or wrong’, ‘black and white’ clarity of these things — not caring for the fickle nature of the arts, where the same piece of work might elicit varied marks depending on who was marking it.

I should also mention that I have recently read Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots & Leaves. For the third time.

Proliferation

It seems that the easier it is to publish one’s writing, the poorer the quality of that writing becomes. Email, TXT messaging, Bebo/MySpace et. al., have all made it possible for people to write easily and to write shoddily easily. Hands up if you use correct punctuation in your TXT messages? In fact, it has gotten such that I have been accused of being old, snobby, fussy, because I don’t use TXT-speak, and I know that the more obscure your Bebo page copy is, the cooler you are. Random capitalisation, dropped vowels, sprinklings of inappropriate punctuation — or no punctuation at all — are the marks of the most gangsta Bebo-er.

So despite the Englishness of writing, spelling, grammar, etc., it’s the abandonment of technique, the ignorance of the rules, the greying of the black-and-white that really gets to me; it’s the ‘maths & sciences’ person in me that is aggrieved.

All pretentiousness aside, the state of writing on the web is appalling. It’s really not that difficult to write well; Firefox has a built-in spell-checker for textarea elements, dictionary.com is a very easy-to-use resource — there really is no excuse.

The proper use of punctuation and correct spelling are not things that you can take or leave; they are entirely necessary. Without them, our communication loses its meaning. Without them, people can be misdirected, insulted, confused, delayed, misquoted, misunderstood, or simply angered.

Have some respect: get your writing sorted, people.

Posted in Commentary | 5 Comments

WordPress category names and SEO: fixing a typo

The problem

So you’ve made a typo in your WordPress category.

It’s easy to log in to your WordPress administration site and correct the category name, right?

Yep, but that’s only half the job done; Continue reading

Posted in Coding, Search Engineering, Wordpress | 3 Comments

Unlocked iPhones on sale in New Zealand

Ken from Parallel Imported Ltd tells me that they’ll be selling unlocked iPhones that work on the Vodafone network as of this Monday!

I’ll be watching their site; you should be too!

Posted in Gadgets | Leave a comment