All I have to say, is … it was worth it.

FaceTime is pretty amazing, yes you have to be on an active WiFi connection, but do it once and suddenly you don’t mind restrictions. I keep hearing complaints regarding service interruption based on the way you hold the phone (which to me is sort of like saying “it hurts when I do this”… Well? DON’T DO THAT!). Sheesh people. Steve Jobs is smart and controls many things, but he cannot control the way you hold your phone, caveman.

The clear screen is a huge improvement over the previous models. It reminds me of the day I first saw HD TV. Some of you kids don’t remember analog sets, but what an improvement it was. There are many cool features, but I’ve yet to discover them all. You know, I have to make up for the work time I missed while standing in line in the Texas heat with a bunch of high school kids who were out for the summer.

Thanks to all the friends who brought Doritos and sat with us and kept us company.

It was a great experience.

Now, if I could only figure out how to turn this thing on …

This isn’t to say that luxury didn’t go through a bit of a rough time, just look at the financial statements for Saks, Neimans, LVMH, or many other luxury brands of the past year, but not one of those companies died nor did they go back and completely reinvent the wheel. Instead, luxury did exactly what every good brand does when times change: they adapted. They cut back on excess inventory, they refined their product offering to focus on items core to their brand and they continued to focus on the customer. Not every brand was as successful as others, but in just the past month, Hermes reported an 8.5% rise in sales year over year (09 v. 08), Burberry share prices have increased faster than any member of the 13-member Bloomberg European Fashion Index (up 29% in the past 6 months) and even Saks, who many thought was on its deathbed, trimmed its 4th quarter losses and is planning to “go on the offensive” in 2010.

I’m not saying that everything is fine and dandy – we still have a lot of progress we need to make before we fully pull out of this recession – but if I start to see the same analysts releasing “Nothing Can Stop Luxury Growth!” articles, I will be forced to treat them the same way I treat Glenn Beck (which something like a cross between completely ignoring him and a running a full out campaign against his entire existence).

I have an affinity for technology and gadgets. When I was hired at Range in 2005, there was a technology shift occurring. The entire office was transitioning from desktops to laptops. Everyone was placing their old CRT monitors on the floor next to their desks. I was given a desktop PC. When I saw all those beautiful 17-inch CRT monitors on the floor, my mission became clear: grab 3 of them and hook them up to my PC! (Note: My desk was not big enough for 4 CRT’s. So that’s why I stopped at 3.)

At the time, my job centered on time-consuming reporting, tagging and copywriting. Switching back and forth between Excel and IE6 was not the most efficient method of updating a product feed. A triple monitor setup would make my life so much easier, so I did what no one else had done. I went eBay and bought 2 video cards that would allow me to have 3 monitors. (Note: Due to the basic quality of my fantastic eMachines computer, I had to get 2 graphics cards to make this work.)

3 CRT Monitors attached to a desktop PC (not my actual setup)

The video cards arrived a few days later, and I was all set for multiple monitor nirvana. It was an exciting time indeed. People in the office would walk by my room and say, “Hey, who is the new guy with the monitors?” or “Hey NASA, got enough monitors?” But I knew deep down that I was onto something, and a couple of months later I read a newspaper article that detailed the rise in productivity that occurs from adding another monitor. I felt vindicated because there were business managers who had outfitted their entire offices with dual monitor setups, and they sang the praises of productivity increases.

About a year later, one of my coworkers asked me if it was possible to hook up another monitor to his laptop. “Why, of course it is,” I replied. Over the next 2 years or so, all of my colleagues switched to a dual monitor setup. And our company practically doubled in size. Clients were amazed by our work and productivity. And in 2008, Range Online Media was acquired by iProspect. I’m not going to take credit for all of that, but it is clear that my affinity for multiple monitors played a role in our company’s growth and success. Right? :)

3 Monitors Hooked Up to My Laptop via the Matrox TripleHead2Go

Today, I have a laptop computer with 3 external monitors. In order to accomplish this feat of technological wonder, I had to purchase a piece of hardware called the Matrox TripleHead2Go (link). Using this device, I can output my laptop’s display to 3 external monitors. Effectively, I have 4 displays for one laptop. I use the laptop screen for email. One monitor is for Microsoft Excel. One monitor is for the interwebs. And one monitor is for IM, twitter clients, etc… It really is a fantastic setup!

Even though this is an awesome setup, there is another frontier of multiple monitor greatness. I think it is the next frontier for us. Allow me to introduce you to the idea of rotating your widescreen monitors:

This is amazing. 4 monitors: vertical, side-by-side.

These 4 widescreen monitors have been rotated 90 degrees. Isn’t that awesome?!?! I love it. I am jealous of this setup. Why? Well, I’m glad I asked.

Most website widths are not set to utilize the full width of our widescreen monitors. Most websites have a width of 960px or less, but the widescreen monitors display a width of 1400px. Coders, graphics designers and other people who stare at monitors all day long have found that rotating your monitors allows them to see more of the code, graphics or website page. By doing this, you can see more of the page below the fold. If you are reading code or reading a website, you should think about rotating your monitors. It’s amazing. You don’t have to scroll as often. Will scrolling become obsolete? I don’t think so.

Now, even if you think this is really cool, you must consider that most monitors are not set up to rotate. There are monitors that are built to rotate. They are expensive. And you also have to take into account the capabilities of your graphics card. It’s likely that your laptop does not allow you to rotate the image on your secondary monitor.

However, if you find this idea really cool and your laptop enables you to rotate the image of your external monitors, you have reason to rejoice. But then you are brought back down to earth when you realize that purchasing a stand for this type of setup can cost a few hundred dollars. My advice: save up, pay cash and get those monitors and the stand. It’ll be worth it. Good luck!

If you have not heard about Social Search, it is a product that GoogleLabs launched back in Oct-2009. For the past few months, you have had the opportunity to opt in to Social Search. If you have not opted in, oh well. It does not really matter because in a few days Google will begin displaying Social Search results for anyone who is logged into the Google account while they are performing searches on Google. How about that?!

But what exactly is Social Search?

As the internet has grown, our level of connectedness has grown, and today there is an unprecedented number of social networking sites. You probably have an account on a few of them. Personally, I love Facebook and Twitter. It’s just so fun to get real-time updates about my friends, family and colleagues. With social search, we will be able to see results from your social circle in the Google SERPs. That’s where this is heading.

Based on links and content from your Google profile, Google will be able to determine your social circle. And from that social circle, Google will find content to display in a section of the search results. In order to see social search results, follow these tips from Google:

You can create a rich social circle and start seeing social search results by following a few simple steps:

• Add new people to your social circle by adding them to the “Friends”, “Family” or “Coworkers” group in your Google contacts
• Create a Google profile and add links to services where your friends create content
• If you would like to see more content from your Google contacts, encourage them to create a Google profile and add links to their content there

You can find out more about the content for Social Search here. For now, check out this video from Google:

So there you have it: Google Social Search. What do you think about Social Search?

Ugg Boots for the 32-year-old woman?

It’s bad enough that I know I’m 32, but now you know too and are just throwing it in my face! All in the name of some sort of commerce?! Tacky.

I’m wondering if you can explain how my being 32 connects me to your product? I would think the fact that I’m 32 would automatically remove me from your horribly built list. I’m soooo over you. I thought you were kind of cool 8 years ago, but times have changed. I’ve moved on. My daughter likes you now; somehow, you don’t make her feet feel claustrophobic and sweaty like you do mine. Also, I’m a strong believer that moms’ and daughters’ fashion should not overlap, which means you’re now going against the grain of my good upbringing.

And let’s not forget your terrible use of a call to action. I saw this exact same offer yesterday and the day before that. Perhaps you live in an alternate universe where time means completely different things, but here on earth, within the hallowed halls of Facebook, 3 minutes means exactly 180 seconds. Otherwise, I’d still be 19 years old, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation!

I won’t belabor this, but simply put, your advertising has elicited the opposite reaction of what it intends. Targeting done right is great. This, done poorly to the point of pathetic, is counterproductive at best and offensive at worst.

Here is a sampling of the results:

Sprint Navigation for the BlackBerry Pearl 8130

I was desperate, so I decided to scroll through the results. Not one of the results on the page is for Sprint’s standard GPS navigation software, but it got me thinking of some of the ways that good search experiences have completely spoiled me:

• I constantly look for search kiosks in grocery stores.
• I get mad when I do a local search and it doesn’t bring up a OneBox result.
• I refuse to click next page if I don’t find what I want.
• I only type in a few letters to most search boxes and anxiously wait for suggestions.
• The first thing I look for on a complex page is a search box.
• I suffer anxiety at the thought of having to browse through a directory.
• I have become very, very bad at finding anything in the Yellow Pages.

I’m a little extreme, but I’m also part of a very valuable segment online for all kinds of businesses. There are a lot of us, and there is a lot of bad search. As a retailer, I’d want to know exactly how that segment felt about the experience I was providing, and optimize it as effectively as I could.

How much money do you think Sprint loses to bad search?

(I know, I know. Buy an iPhone. On it.)

Below is the current Google “site:” style search which returns the number of results found – in other words the page count for that site.

Current Google Site: Count

The new 3 column Google interface appears to drop the number of results found when conducting the same type of search.

The New 3-Column Google Interface Site: Count

However, conducting a normal search without the “site:” operator in the new layout, Google still displays the number of total results.

A normal search will still display the number of total results

I may have missed it, but I haven’t seen anyone mention this notable change. This has been a consistent pattern I’ve seen so far, but share your thoughts if you are or are not seeing the same thing.

I’d like to hear from Google on this, as I still consider this search feature useful even today in diagnosing site issues.

Update: Recently, I noticed that Google IS now listing site counts on the new look (although not before our article got a fair number of Sphinns). I’m not sure if this was a change of mind of simply a mistake on Google’s part.

It’s not easy explaining redirects without losing your audience, as header status codes and redirects are not the most compelling subjects. To avoid those terrible scenarios, most SEOs simply tell their clients, “301 redirects are good, and 302 redirects are bad.” 99.99% of the time, that’s all that anyone needs to know. And regardless of whether or not anyone really knows the reasoning behind that claim, the fact is that everything almost always works better for SEO by using 301 redirects.

But I say we can’t stop there. Why restrict the boring nature of a redirects to verbal conversations only? I say we must take this exhausting topic to the blog! We need to have it down in writing! We must dive deeper into the topic of redirects! That’s what I say. So without any further ado, I’d like to get started on this long-awaited, long-winded topic: HTTP Status Codes, specifically the 3xx series. Here is a brief summary of the 8 HTTP status codes from the 3xx series:

• 300 Multiple Choices
  Indicates multiple options for the resource that the client may follow. It, for instance, could be used to present different format options for video, list files with different extensions, or word sense disambiguation.

• 301 Moved Permanently
  This and all future requests should be directed to the given URI.

• 302 Found (aka Object Moved aka Moved Temporarily)
  This is the most popular redirect code, but also an example of industrial practice contradicting the standard. HTTP/1.0 specification (RFC 1945 ) required the client to perform a temporary redirect (the original describing phrase was “Moved Temporarily”), but popular browsers implemented it as a 303 See Other. Therefore, HTTP/1.1 added status codes 303 and 307 to disambiguate between the two behaviors. However, the majority of Web applications and frameworks still use the 302 status code as if it were the 303.

• 303 See Other
  The response to the request can be found under another URI using a GET method. When received in response to a PUT, it should be assumed that the server has received the data and the redirect should be issued with a separate GET message.

• 304 Not Modified
  Indicates the resource has not been modified since last requested. Typically, the HTTP client provides a header like the If-Modified-Since header to provide a time against which to compare. Utilizing this saves bandwidth and reprocessing on both the server and client, as only the header data must be sent and received in comparison to the entirety of the page being re-processed by the server, then resent using more bandwidth of the server and client.

• 305 Use Proxy
  Many HTTP clients (such as Mozilla[4] and Internet Explorer) do not correctly handle responses with this status code, primarily for security reasons.

• 306 Switch Proxy
  No longer used.

• 307 Temporary Redirect
  In this occasion, the request should be repeated with another URI, but future requests can still use the original URI. In contrast to 303, the request method should not be changed when reissuing the original request. For instance, a POST request must be repeated using another POST request.

How about that? I bet you didn’t know that there were actually eight unique status codes for redirects. If you read through that list, you may have noticed that, technically, the 307 is the Temporary Redirect. The 302 is actually listed as Found or Moved. Furthermore, they had to create the 303 and 307 responses after various browsers were interpreting the 302 differently. Fascinating, right? I wonder how many SEO’s actually know about the subtle differences between a 302 and a 307.

But let’s not stop there. Apparently, it looks like the 303 is actually what most SEOs talk about when they speak of a 302 temporary redirect. Ian McAnerin describes it very well on his blog, so I borrowed this next part from him:

In reality, a 302 just means “Object Moved”, or “Found”, which, if accompanied by a target URL, browsers and servers interpret as a redirect. But with no target URL, they will happily stay there, and it’s not an error.

In reality, a 303 is what most SEO’s think a 302 is. A 303 means “See Other”. A 307 is the actual Temporary Redirect. It really means temporary, as in the very next request should also be made to the old URL, and the new one should not even be cached. This is usually only used for emergency redirects (like when a primary server is down) and the like.

A302 doesn’t dictate a redirect, it just says that what you were looking for moved, and it’s been found there. You are usually redirected only as a courtesy and for usability purposes. Technically, you should use a 303, which really does the job properly.

How about that? Can you believe it? Have you even heard of a 303 redirect? It’s crazy, huh?

If you’re still with me, I know this information is probably news to you. Or your eyes have glazed over with the inspirational information in this post. I mean, this stuff is obviously rocket science. At any rate, the good news is that you don’t really need to have an in-depth knowledge of these redirects (well, unless you run into someone who might dismiss you because you don’t know this stuff) because it’s true that 301 redirects do take care of everything 99.99% of the time. The other good news is that now you know about all of the redirect status codes. Now go forth and 303. Er, uh, I mean 301. Or was it 307? :)

SEO Game Changers: Breadcrumbs in the Google SERPs

I did a search in Google for things to do london, and that is the result I saw. I was simply scrolling through the results, and the Yahoo! Travel result jumped out at me. It was the #8 result in the SERPs. To be clear, I knew Google was testing a new feature that added a breadcrumb structure to the URL section of each search result. A lot of people were noticing Google’s tests earlier this year, and the breadcrumbs in these test were taking many forms. However, last week, Google made an official announcement about this new feature being launched. Honestly, I didn’t think much of it until I saw it for myself. (Oh, great. Now I sound like some guy who never believed in UFOs until he saw one for himself. But I digest.)

Because I’m an SEO, I have several questions about this new search results feature from Google:

• What factors cause Google to show breadcrumbs for certain sites?
• Can I do anything on my site(s) to influence Google to create breadcrumbs for my listings in the SERPs?
• Do I want breadcrumbs in my site’s listing in the SERPs?
• Does it help or hurt clickthrough rates?
• Will this feature eventually replace the URLs in all search results?
• Can I track visits from these breadcrumbs?

I must admit that I really like these breadcrumbs in the SERPs. Google refers to the breadcrumbs as an improvement, so I can’t imagine they would hurt clickthrough. Also, with more links in my site’s listing, I will have more opportunities for clicks. That’s always nice! Like Google SiteLinks, these breadcrumbs are obviously driven by the Google algorithms. Right now, we have no direct control of them, but I do believe we can optimize our sites with the SERPs breadcrumb in mind. And that’s why this is an SEO game changer: SEOs will soon be adding this to their list of strategies for SEO campaigns.

In reality, SEO will still be SEO, but this new feature brings into focus the hierarchy of a site and the optimization of internal linking. It also makes me wonder about need for semantic URLs. If my URL is not going to be displayed, does it really matter if it contains several relevant keywords? In fact, if Google displays these breadcrumbs for several listings in the SERPs, does it really matter what my URLs look like at all? Of course it does! We still have to keep doing SEO like we have been doing SEO, but now we have to consider the on-site factors that may be contributing to these breadcrumbs.

Website owners can no longer ignore internal linking strategies or URL structures. Furthermore, all SEOs will need to consider the keywords used for internal linking within their websites. We also need to consider the clickthrough rate of keywords in these breadcrumbs. It’s actually a lot to think about. In my opinion, that’s the main reason that this development changes the SEO game. It forces everyone to consider site architecture, hierarchy and internal linking strategies. It also proves the need for an internal breadcrumb for every website. In the end, there is an opportunity for a higher clickthrough rates with these breadcrumbs, and no one can ignore that!

PS. I would not be a true SEO if I neglected to mention that there is the possibility that Google could mess this up for some sites. Some site owners may not like or agree with the hierarchy breadcrumbs that Google displays in their respective listings. Should there be the opportunity to opt out of this feature in Webmaster Central? I’m sure someone will ask for that. Or someone will be yelling about it on Twitter. [Note: I love the SEOs who get mad at Google for taking too many liberties with other peoples' websites and incomes.]

Update: I have been thinking about this one point from Google’s blog post:

Often, however, URLs are too long, too short, or too obscure to add useful information…The new text (breadcrumb) provides useful information about the page. [Google]

If we want Google to give you a breadcrumb in the SERPs, should we create ‘bad’ URLs? These ‘bad’ URLs could be too long, too short or too obscure. Would that not increase the chance that Google gives us a breadcrumb in our search listings? Just saying is all…

I am relatively new to the world of blogging, and I made a promise to myself to share much of what I learn in this world of blogging. Now that we have our first comment spam, I figured it would be a great idea to share my knowledge about comment spam.

Comment Spam: Anyone up for some Final Fantasy Football?

It is easy to identify spam comments because they typically have the following elements:

• It is completely off-topic from the blog post.
  Before this post, our blog had no mentions of Fantasy Football or Final Fantasy.
• It has a lot of keywords that are obviously stuffed into the comment.
  As you can see, there are a bunch of keywords in this comment. They are stuffed into a grammatically-incorrect statement. And they are separated by commas.
• All of the keywords are off-topic from the blog post.
  Again, none of the keywords in this comment relate to the blog post.
• It has a link in the comment.
  This is the tell-tale sign of comment spam: links. Comment spammers use these links to influence search engine rankings. And some comment spammers even use these links as a traffic source.
• It has a link in the name.
  Why stop with links in the body of the comment when you can also link the name field in the comment?
• The email domain is suspicious.
  In this case, the comment was obviously a spam comment. I didn’t even really need to investigate the email address. But the email address can be an indicator of spam comments. For this comment, the email is from yandex.ru, the most popular search engine in Russia. It’s like the Yahoo of Russia. Anyone can get a yandex.ru mail account, so this email is not completely suspicious. However, I have seen comments from info@gmail.com, and that is definitely a fake email address.
  

Now you know about Comment Spam. It’s purpose is to generate links, higher rankings for keywords, and traffic from our blog. The bad news is that people still use this technique for link building. And even worse, they only do it because it works. It’s definitely not something we do or recommend to our clients. Anyways, the point of this blog post is to teach you what to look for. Mission accomplished. Right?