The X and the "up" icon added recently to Google results

I noticed in the past two or so months, after Google upgraded their SERPs to enable users to rearrange and delete results (see thumbnail to right) that the outbound links Google was posting on SERPs were redirects through the google.com site (meaning, they were tracking clicks on outbound links.)

Since I often search for something on Google, then “right-click”, “Copy” to get a link, I noted the links were not the actual links, but Google.com links. This went away shortly thereafter.

Today, checking again, they are using JavaScript to track outbound links (View Source on a SERP and examine the outbound links).

For example, one of our … read more

Remember when all these terms meant consumer products?

Well, according to Clicky, Smackdown and a discussion forum on Webmaster World, many webmasters are fearful of AJAX-only search from Google.

As I wrote in a recent article on Helium (a low-traffic one, at that), Google is a near-monopoly, and user Shaddows here points out that opting out of Google’s index (say, in protest) is commercial suicide, and I humbly agree.

For SEO, this obviously bodes not well. … read more

Unfortunately, this tax deduction barely covers diapers

Last year, I did some work for a local 501.3c organization who I believed was doing some great things here in Media, PA.

It was for the First Fair Trade Town in the USA, and it was for their web site development.

I had done a lot of work on the first version of the web site, met with a lot of their staff, and developed … read more

I write web applications for a living. I enjoy it immensely.

Webkit-based browsers (FireFox, Mozilla, Chrome, and Safari) are a pleasure to work with – they render closely to what you design with stylesheets, their JavaScript engines perform quickly and what you’d expect, and the final rendering of sites is generally pleasing.

Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) and Internet Explorer 7 (IE7), however, are slime mold. … read more

This has been bugging me for a while, because I do a fair bit of HTML and XML custom parsing code, and kind of wondered what would be the valid characters for an attribute name in a HTML tag, e.g.

<a href="..." name="...">thing</a>

So, what are the valid characters in HTML (or XML) for “href” and “name”, the attribute names in an HTML tag? … read more

Ever seen Google down? Me neither. Sure, I’ve seen the “Gmail not available” message, and “Service unavailable” once or twice, but it was only for a few seconds, really.

That said, last month for about 15 minutes, it appeared that Google was down. At first I did what’s called a Domain Name lookup in DNS which normally looks like … read more

I have to give credit to the PHP team for creating what is one of the most flexible, easy to use, and powerful data structures I have used. That is the array.

To be completely accurate, the manual describes it as … read more

You can contact me at “kent -at- no spam marketruler dot no spam com”, and remove the term “no spam” from that address.

And I kid you not, you see this on a lot of sites, even ones which … read more

In full disclosure, I work for Market Ruler, LLC which makes a Marketing Tracking Tool for Marketing Agencies called ConversionRuler, and have a vested interest in the success of aforementioned company.

That said, I recently had the pleasure of working with a new sales consultant, who asked a rather benign question: Why do your customers like ConversionRuler?

In all honesty, about a year ago, I wasn’t completely sure. I mean, I know people liked the real-time reporting, the details we provide, and the ease of use of our interface, but in all honesty, the core reporting we offer hasn’t changed dramatically in a while. … read more

I’m talking about time as represented by, say, your watch, and I’m talking about it in context of internationally agreeing on time.

You think about time and it’s no big deal, right? Twice a year we have to change our clocks for some insane reason which has to do with farmers milking their cows or … read more