I’m reviewing this blog structure and setting to see if it is set up properly and SEO optimized. 2 areas that I’m looking at : what is the best structure for permalink and if it is good to place the contents in multiple categories. It began when I was reading SEOBook’s blogger’s guide to SEO. 1 thing that caught my attention was this 1 video on why you should place your contents into a single category. Please view the video created by graywolf and you’ll understand why. Basically it is about duplicate contents in the eye of search engine. I’ve been occasionally placing my contents on more than 1 categories, so moving forward I should (and you too) avoid it.

Another areas that I’ve been considering is how permalink should be structured. Permalink is one of the earliest setting that you must consider when you initially set up your blog. The default setup which is http://www.blogjer.com/?p=123 looks meaningless to most users.

Some blogs put in dates (it could be in whatever format and whether full date or not) + post title whereas some only put the post title. So which one is better in terms of SEO? Frankly speaking, I’m not sure which one. Initially, when I started blogging, I was using the one with only post title. But after some time, I changed them to have date + post title since I have a regular weekly post called what-interesting which covers on the interesting stuffs that I could find for that particular week, only which I have it discontinued. I plan to have the post title ‘What is interesting this week’ instead of ‘What is interesting this week Dec 27 2007′. The latter looks quite long and not so attractive. So, the idea is, since I have the date on my permalink, I can remove the date from my post title without the content being considered as a duplicate content by search engines due to the similar title posted each week.

I’m also doing spot checks on a couple of blogs in my RSS reader to see what their common practice is. The blogs are those of famous SEO blogs, official search engine blogs, famous earn income online blogs, tech blog and etc. This is done randomly and link love is only given to the blogs with their name different than their URL.

Permalink with name based only without date

SEOMoz.com
SEOBook.com
Greywolf -
Digital Inspiration – Title + post #
JohnChow.com
Matt Cutt of Google

Permalink with name based + date
lorelle at wordpress
techcrunch.com
searchengineland.com – Date + number
Shoemoney.com
Problogger.net – Archive + date
LiewCF.com – Archive folder + date
Google Official Blog – Archive folder + Date
Ask.com Official Blog – Archive folder + Date
Microsoft live search blog – Archive folder + Date

Permalink with Numeric only

Yahoo and Jeremy seems like did not care about their permalink. It is using only numeric.

Yahoo Search Blog -
Jeremy – Yahoo Search Engineer

So, what do you think? Which one is more SOE friendly??

Yahoo had recently released the plugin (is it their first plugin?) for wordpress called Yahoo Shortcut . So how does it work? The concept of this plugin is, as you type in your post, the plugin will look for any picture from Flickr , places, companies, products, people and much etc. If it finds any relevant contents or videos, the matched keyword will be underlined and you will be able to decide whether you want to display them or not

If you’re like me who’d love to have a least 1 image on each of my post (to make them more interesting), this plugin is definitely for you. So in case if you’re in hurry, but you want to publish your post ASAP, you don’t have to worry to find suitable image anymore, edit them, upload to your server and embed in your post. With Yahoo Shortcut, you will be able to control them from within your wordpress

This post is the first time I’m experimenting with this plugin after installing it few days ago. It seems that none of my keyword matches with any images from Flickr and other shortcut listed in their service, but there is a menu which allows you to choose the picture manually from flickr. See available shortcut below, which part of current Yahoo services

Flickr Photos
Maps
Financial Information
Products
Autos
News
Web Search

This is how your post might look like before and after using Yahoo Shortcut

What I notice when I’m typing this post directly on wordpress editor is, it seems that there is a slight lagging on the words typed to appear (it could be my wireless internet connection, but i had never encountered this kind of lagging before) on the editor, but it is understandable since the plugin is working real time in matching your keyword with the shortcuts. But this problem is gone when I use wired LAN to connect to internet, so this must be due to my internet connection speed

The most interesting part is (not related to this plugin function) , there are also free tshirt for the first 500 bloggers who install this plugin, but this is for US residents only. Hopefully, when Yahoo releases another plugin for wordpress in future, they will include those outside of the US since most of wordpress traffic comes from there

Watch the video to have a better understanding on how it works. You’ll love it (hopefully). 1 more thing, this plugin is for wordpress only

If you noticed, I have created a new section on my right side bar. This is the tools and tips that I found from other blogs or from my own discovery. I have been using some of them and there are a lot more that I haven’t put it in yet. I’ll keep update it from time to time, so keep up reading and subscribe my RSS

Soon, I’ll try to come out with another section specifically on monetizing tips topic using Adsense, Kontera, Chitika and others using articles and posts that I collect from other blogs. Don’t worry I’m not stealing other person content; I’m not putting their content on this blog, but only links to that. At the moment those articles sit on my favorite list and I have to compile and choose the best among them.

I welcome all other suggestions, tips or tool that you feel interested and deserved to be shared among us. I found that by doing this way, I can keep track of what I have been reading, trying and using since the way I documenting and filing this info is not that great (I used to lost files due to this mess). If you think this tools are useful, you’re free to use it and let me know how it helps you. Let me know you thought

Just a quick note for those visitors who’re frequently leave a comment here, after I install Brian’s Threaded Comment plugin, all commentators statistic looks like has been reset to 0. I have no idea why its happen, but I’m still in the process troubleshooting it. Apologize for any convenient caused