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Google

Now CommentLuv Enabled

by Rick on March 4, 2008

Flamingo Love

In order to give something back to those who take the time to leave comments here, I’ve installed the brilliant little plugin CommentLuv.

What does this mean for you? Well, unless you are a blogger or have some other website which produces a syndication feed, nothing (sorry).

However, if you are the proud owner of a site (such as a blog) which makes available your latest posts via a syndication feed, then you will gain a completely free deep link1 to your site!

The CommentLuv plugin will do its best to auto-discover your feed based upon the address submitted in the form while commenting; however, if you want to ensure that your feed is discovered, you can include it manually within your comment. Example:

This is an example comment. It will contain quality feedback and not lame “First post!” nonsense or other rubbish.2 And so on. And so on. But I also want to make sure CommentLuv can find my feed, so I’m going to add this to my comment: [feed]http://www.example.com/feed/[/feed]

That’s it! The magic is in the [feed] tag; simply enclose the address to your feed in those tags, and CommentLuv will attempt to discover your latest entry based upon it.

And if all goes well, your comment will be posted, with the added bonus of including a nice, shiny link back to a page on your site. Delightful, no?

I still reserve the right to delete comments if they look suspiciously spammy. Having a huge number of comments means nothing to me if the quality of the comments is poor — and I certainly don’t want to risk being flagged by Google because of spam-ish comments. So, just use your head when you comment, and you’ll be fine.

And enjoy the extra backlinks to your site! :-)

(And if you want to see CommentLuv in action, the first reader to benefit from it was Gordan commenting on my Genesis 1:4 post!)

  1. A link to an individual page of your site, rather than simply to your home page. [↩]
  2. Why will it be a quality comment? Because my readers rock, that’s why! [↩]

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Iowa Caucus Is Tonight

by Rick on January 3, 2008

According to Google Analytics, I have a small group of Iowan readers, and so I’m posting this specifically for them. In just a few short hours, the Iowa presidential caucus will take place, and I want to encourage all you Iowans to get out there and support Ron Paul and, more importantly, a more limited federal government.

So, Iowans:

And if you are on Facebook, you are encouraged to join the group Caucus for Ron Paul to show your support: The revolution starts in Iowa!

To be honest, Ron Paul may not win the nomination; he may not be our next president. That outcome is quite likely, and I don’t consider it pessimistic to think so. Rather, perhaps the most important outcome of Ron Paul’s campaign this year will be to showcase the popularity of a limited, constitutional federal government. Proponents of a smaller federal government will have their voices heard and will find it hard to be ignored. Our candidate may not sit in the Oval Office next year, but the message will not be easily silenced.

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phpBB3 SEO Tips

by Rick on December 7, 2007

Just a heads up to any phpBB3-using webmasters out there: I’m compiling a list of of phpBB3 Search Engine Optimization Tips if you would like to tweak your way to better Google or Yahoo! rankings. Your feedback on the list of tips is welcome in its topic, and you’re welcome to share even more.

I’m still not done adding all of the tweaks in use on my board, and I’m hoping that I can continue to discover (either on my own or via others’ recommendations) new ways to improve phpBB3’s SEO state.

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Sucky Wikipedia Result on Google

by Rick on November 4, 2007

Very recently, I came across a simple flowchart which displayed the Top 10 Signs That Your Google Search Results Suck.

The second decision point of the flowchart is, “Is the top result Wikipedia?” If yes, “If Google always serves Wikipedia pages, what exactly do I need Google for?”

Moments ago, in a simple Google search for “where” to figure out whether it should be capitalized in song titles or not (I’m anal about such things in my media collection), I was shown this gem (click for larger):

Sucky Wikipedia Result on Google

If for some reason you can’t view the image, it is a screen capture from Google results which shows the #2 entry as being a link to Wikipedia’s “where” article. The problem? That article does not exist. Essentially, the Wikipedia page might as well be screaming “404 Not Found” at you, but Google’s benevolence toward the mighty encyclopedia bumps this utterly useless result to the number 2 spot.

As far as search results go, that’s about as sucky as it’s ever gotten in my experience.

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The Next Big Thing

by Rick on September 19, 2007

Here’s an interesting read called Strategy Letter VI by Joel Spolsky. In it, he posits that history is repeating itself as far as computer technology is concerned… that just as Lotus 1-2-3 faded, so will Google Gmail. Hat tip: Ben’s bookmarks.

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