I had the pleasure of presenting at the January meeting of the NCTech4Good Meetup held at the offices of United Way of the Greater Triangle in Morrisville, NC. The talk covered similarities between Usability, Accessibility, and SEO, a topic I first addressed here in 2009. Since my initial blog post, I assembled a talk, which I have presented at multiple venues, inclusing BarCampRDU, Internet Summit in Raleigh, as well as Wake Technical Community College.
Notable websites including Wired and Wikipedia marked Wednesday as a day of protest against two pieces of proposed legislation currently being considered by the United States Congress. If enacted, these bills, “Stop Online Piracy Act” and “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011” would force major changes in how website owners managed their online properties and most likely resulting in limits on free speech.
Starting tomorrow, members of the adult Sponsored Community who are verifiable trademark holders can apply for domains in the latest Top-Level Domain (TLD) .XXX. Back in March, 2011, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the group that manages top-level domains (e.g. .com, .org and .net) approved the new .XXX TLD.
In July, Twitter announced its latest feature: t.co link shortening. The new service not only checks links for potential malicious sites, but also allows website owners to track incoming links from Twitter.
At DesignHammer, we are constantly looking for ways to improve our processes. One of our goals for 2011 is to improve our business in regard to sustainability. While traditionally thought of in terms of environmental impact, sustainability now covers additional areas of business, including how companies treat employees, as well as profitability. To help us achieve our goal, we enrolled in the Green Plus program. Learn how we are attempting to put theory into practice.
How is Search Engine Optimization like attempting to outrun a rampaging bear? Take a deep breath, relax, and focus on the big picture, not the huge bear looming over you…
A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to guest lecture before the Web Design students at Wake Technical Community College on the similarities between Usability, Accessibility, and SEO, a topic I first addressed here in 2009. Since my initial blog post, I assembled a talk, which I presented at BarCampRDU, and at Internet Summit 2010 in Raleigh last November.
Each search engine uses a different algorithm—the software that determines which pages turn up for any search. That’s why results on Google are different from those of Bing, and other competing search engines. As a significant business asset, these algorithms are kept secret, though it is suspected they receive updates often. Generally, the updates are minor, and difficult for the average user to notice. Google rolled out an update last week, but this one was different, and people took notice.
Changes may be in the works in laws covering the collection or use of data that can be connected to website visitors, whether it is a specific person or simply tied to a device such as computer, or mobile phone. Yesterday, Federal Trade Commission staff issued a press release outlining the commission’s recommendations for overhauling how businesses handle online privacy issues.
