Web Marketing Strategy Update

A post on the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog provides some insight into Google’s views on duplicate content. It addresses the following questions:

• What is duplicate content?
• What isn’t duplicate content?
• Why does Google care about duplicate content?
• What does Google do about it?

Most interesting of all though, is the section, “How can Webmasters proactively address duplicate content issues?” sumarized below:

• Block appropriately:
  Rather than letting algorithms determine the “best” version, guide to your preferred version. For instance, if you don’t want us to index the printer versions of your site’s articles, disallow those directories or make use of regular expressions in your robots.txt file.
• Use 301s:
  If you have moved pages on your site, use 301 redirects (”RedirectPermanent”) in your .htaccess file.
  
• Be consistent:
  Keep your internal linking consistent. Don’t link to “/page/” and “/page” and “/page/index.html.”
• Use TLDs:
  Use top level domains whenever possible for country-specific content. We’re more likely to know that .de indicates Germany-focused content, for instance, than /de or de.example.com.
• Syndicate carefully:
  If you syndicate your content, ensure every article includes a link back to the original. Even with that, we’ll always show the (unblocked) version we think most appropriate in any given search.

As I write this I’m split testing 4 different pages on the The Amazing Formula website.

Split testing means that an equal number of visitors will see each of the pages. We are tracking the orders from each, so we will know which page converts best.

Today, I want to talk about WHAT I’m testing, how and why. This is what I want you to do:

1. Visit The Amazing Formula site

2. Notice the BLUE IE BAR at the top that has a number, right next to the blue Internet Explorer icon.

3. Refresh the page in your browser and watch as that number changes. You will see that the ENTIRE page changes.

If you’re having difficulty getting the page to refresh properly, hold down your shift key while you click on refresh.

4. Keep refreshing and you’ll see a total of FOUR different page designs that I’m split testing.

COMMENTS ON THE PAGES

1. You might not see the opt-in “fly in.” We had a problem with the DHTML (dynamic html) code. Lisa’s going to fix that this weekend or on Monday.