the Web... it's kind of my thing!

Changing the curtains

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 22:18:03 -0600

I will be moving my personally blog over to http://eppand.com. I will continue to post tips, tricks and other bits of info. That will just be available at a new URL.

As always I’m on twitter, facebook and linkedin: @eppand.

Thanks and Happy Holidays!

How to Determine if an Element Exists with jQuery?

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:00:54 -0500

jQuery makes it easy to determine if an element in your DOM exists.

if ( $('#elementID').length ) 
{
 // do something
}

Simple enough, right?

Does the age of your domain determine your Google rank?

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 12:55:59 -0500

A long discussed topic as a factor in the infamous algorithm is domain age. This factor may cast a gray shadow over a new website and their ensuing launch because of the fear that the domain “isn’t old enough” to be ranked by Google.

Domain age is a factor in the Google algorithm but shouldn’t be a key factor in your SEO equation. Google tries to use their data on when they they first crawl and/or see links to you site to determine the age factor. Relying on what WHOIS data that is available is some loose ground in terms of Google’s crawl.

All this comes back to what your site is and how you create content for it. So keep your resources to build good content that people want to link to and Google will find and rank your site. Don’t poor all your money into that 9 year old URL from the site auction and then just plop some content online. Focus on content, first and foremost.

Google’s stance on ranking by domain age.

CSS Tip: style links for accessibility too.

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 21:09:00 -0500

It is easy to overlook, and quite frankly forget about, a:focus and a:active when controlling your link styles. When styling your a tags remember that the outlining applied by default in most browsers is a good recognition effect for users who tab through links or access the site with keyboard controls. Removing the styling on the a:focus and a:active will remove this visual indicator for those users tabbing, or otherwise accessing the links on your website.

SEO Tip: Use Google Suggest for keyword research

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 20:16:45 -0500

There are a lot of great tools available, both free and paid, to conduct keyword research. However, one you might overlook is what is in front of you every time you go to google search. Aand if you are like me that is lot.

Google Suggest is the drop down box that appears with synonyms for your query when you type into the search box. What this shows you is relevant, and possibly alternative, search phrases to you keyword. Best of all, the suggestions are “straight from the horse’s mouth” being Google’s mathematically determined suggestions to your search query.

SEO Tip: Don't try to over optimize your web page

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 20:02:23 -0500

Build a page with a single keyword or phrase in mind. You should target on-page optimization for your website content in a 1 to 1 relationship not a many to 1. Logic says that a single page should be content specific to a single topic (e.g. keyword/phrase).

Google Tip: Monitor Your Competitor's Inbound Link Anchor Text

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 04:01:44 -0500

Use the “inanchor:” and “allinanchor:” operators to see which of your competitors have obtained keyword rich links to their site. This will help you analyse their link building effectiveness on keywords you target or should be targeting.

Example: inachor:"product keyphrase here" would return results with “product keyphrase here” in the link anchor text.

Google Tip: Google Stops It's Results at 1000 for a Given SERP

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 11:12:44 -0500

If you do an indexation search on Google you can only get 1000 results deep, or to page 100. An odd stat to uncover since most searchers don’t make it past page 3 of any given search query SERP (Search Engine Results Pages).

An alternative to this issue is the utilize Google’s search operators and begin your query with “site:” or “inurl:”. This will limit your results to the requests site.

Example: site:www.thedomain.com inurl:product

Twitter Tip: How to Remove Yourself From Another User's List

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 09:36:58 -0500

To prevent yourself from being on a Twitter list you must block the creator of that list.

When Will I See the New Twitter?

Sun, 19 Sep 2010 11:54:44 -0500

Ev Williams, co-founder or Twitter, answered this is question in a recent #AskEv session on Twitter. The New Twitter is being rolled out worldwide to a randomly selection of users over the next few weeks. This cautious rollout schedule is smart measure on Twitter’s part. Most apps that have such a large user base rollout out in steps and I am sure that Twitter doesn’t want to show the FAIL Whale anymore than it already does.

How to Add Evernote Site Memory Button to Tumblr Blog

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 20:50:00 -0500

To accomplish this we will need a few things:

Your customize Tumblr URL
Your Evernote Site Memory button Code
A hosted jQuery source.

Getting to Your Customize Theme Page

We will need to edit your Tumblr theme to include the Evernote Site Memory button and add some jQuery to manipulate the showing and hiding of the button where applicable.

To access your Tumblr Theme code got to the customize URL (http://www.tumblr.com/customize) or click “Customize” in the right hand column.

Click the “Theme” link on the customize toolbar to open your Theme HTML context. The Theme HTML is where we make the magic happen.

Evernote Site Memory Button

In a new tab go to the Evernote Site Memory Button Builder. On this page you can build you site memory button. Evernote has provided a few different options to fit into various layouts. After you build your button copy the code from the Button Preview section.

My tumblr site uses the following button code:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.evernote.com/noteit.js"> <a href="#" onclick="Evernote.doClip({contentId:'post',providerName:'Andrew Epperson\'s blog'}); return false;"><img alt="Clip to Evernote" src="http://static.evernote.com/article-clipper-vert.png" border="0" /></a>

Take your copy of the code and insert it into your Theme HTML at the desired spot. Wrap the site memory button code inside of a div with and id of “enClip”. We will use this id for the jQuery. The code should like this:

<div id="enClip"> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.evernote.com/noteit.js"> <a href="#" onclick="Evernote.doClip({contentId:'post',providerName:'Andrew Epperson\'s blog'}); return false;"><img alt="Clip to Evernote" src="http://static.evernote.com/article-clipper-vert.png" border="0" /></a></div>

We now need to give our post content the id of “post” that we are declaring in the “contentId” parameter of the Evernote clip javascipt. Assign the div that contains your posts elements the id of “post”. Yes on the homepage this will create duplicate IDs which should be unique, but the HTML will still render and Evernote requires an ID and not a class for this purpose.

Using jQuery to Show the Button

Now we want the Evernote Site Memory Button to show an the individual post, but not on the homepage with multiple post. This is desired because of how Tumblr repeats posts in the theme our post id of “post” is repeated on the homepage and the button wouldn’t know which id to pull content from.

Within your <style></style> tag add the styling to hide the “enClip” div and any other styling that is required for layout on the page. My css looks like:

#enClip {float:left; padding-right:10px; display:none;}

Now we add our jQuery library and code to show the button on the individual post pages. Add the following code before your tag (replacing YOURURL with your Tumblr blog username:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js"> <script type="text/javascript"> $(function() { var wl = window.location.href; if ( wl != "http://YOURURL.tumblr.com/" ) { $("#enClip").show(); } }); </script>

The above code checks to see if the URL does not equal the path to your homepage. If it does not match then we show the enClip div that contains the Evernote Site Memory Button.

Now you can save your Theme edits by click the “Save” button in the upper right corner of the customize page and then view your Tumblr blog to see the results.

Google Tip: How to turn off personalized search results

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 11:40:00 -0500

Google now shows you personalized search results all the time, even when you are not logged in. Results are personalized based upon your last 180 days of Google activity as tracked by the linked cookie in your browser.

To turn off personalized search you can easily appending “&pws=0” to the end of your Google SERP (search engine results page) URL in the address bar of your web browser. For example: http://www.google.com/search?q=pizza&pws=0

How Google Instant May Effect Your Analytics

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 10:00:00 -0500

You will see the ‘predicted query’ as the keyword in your Google Analytics, as indicated in a recent post by Google.

Google Instant works based upon the idea that it can predict your query. So it will be showing search results for the query it anticipates you are typing. So if the user is typing “web design” but click on the search results after only inputting “web des”, then your Google Analytics will show “web design” in your keyword metric.

The Evernote Challenge... continued.

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 20:38:59 -0500

After about a month of use, I have found Evernote to be catch all for items I need to / should remember. I mostly find myself using the desktop application and iPhone app, but the Firefox plugin and DM on Twitter are also great tools for the quick shot items.

Items often stored in my Evernote include:

snippets of code
tip and tricks
meeting notes

From my perspective Evernote has been a great resource. It gets solid use and I would highly recommend to any Front-End Developer needing to collect their thoughts in a single location.

Google Tip: How To Show More Than 10 Results Per Page

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 10:45:00 -0500

To quickly adjust the number of results on your Google search results page add “&num=100” to the end of the URL. This number doesn’t have to be 100. If you wanted 50, just replace the number.

Your URL would look something like this: http://google.com/search?q=pizza&num=100

Facebook Tip: How Many Admins Can Your Fan Page Have?s

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 16:00:00 -0500

The answer is unlimited. You can have as many users admin a Fan Page as you want.

http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=15187

Soon Twitter's User Stream Will Be Available To All

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 08:51:01 -0500

Q: Twitter User Stream. What is that?

A: In short, “User Streams provides real-time updates of all data needed to update a desktop application display”. A detailed explanation can be found on Twitter’s dev site.

I have been on the private beta testing of this API for a few weeks now, and I must say… real-time twitter feed in my TweetDeck is awesome. The open beta testing date hasn’t yet been announced, but is suggested to be available soon.

Read more detailed coverage at mashable.

Facebook Tip: You can "Like" up to 500 Pages.

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 09:03:27 -0500

Facebook limits the number of Pages that a user can “like” to 500. So if you are anywhere near that number, you may need to tidy up that list a bit.

See the Facebook help article.

Add Tweet-stimonials (Twiiter Testimonials) to Your Blog

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 07:35:33 -0500

In a recent post by Ann Smarty at Search Engine Journal, Ann highlights the idea of utilizing Twitter for a testimonials feed on your blog. The idea is based upon obtaining the RSS feed for you Twitter favorites.

This ideology could be applied to a plethora of topics, but Ann specifically directs her attention to “testimonials” and how to add that feed to WordPress with a plugin. The use of the favorite RSS feed would not be limited to WordPress. RSS feeds are easily parsed and there are a number of tools and resources available for implementation across multiple platforms, not just WordPress.

How to select children of $(this) in jQuery

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:00:00 -0500

It’s simple really…

$("img", this);

The above jQuery translation is just a short version of

$(this).find("img");

So using the find() method would be a touch faster, but both accomplish the same task.

This differs from the standard selection of a child element which is:

$(div > img);