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SEO Task #2 Completed: Remove Duplicate URLs

Blogging, SEO, Software

Coming off the heels of my SEO Task #1, Complete Permalinks, knowledgeable commenter Vanessa Fox said:

You want exactly one URL to every post. Pages can have multiple URLs pointing them. You want to avoid [this] by making sure there’s a unique URL for a page and that any other potential URLs for that page 301 redirect.

In my case the following two URLs pointed to the exact same content:

http://thepursuitofalife.com/2008/11/16/two-great-pictures/
and
http://thepursuitofalife.com/two-great-pictures/

I had enabled permalinks in WordPress, with a custom structure of /%postname%/. For some reason though, the version of the URL with year/month/day/postname/ redirected to /postname/

The following custom 404 Perl script fixed the problem: (whitespace removed for HTML purposes)

$qs = $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'];
$pos = strrpos($qs, '://');
$found = 0;
$pos = strpos($qs, '/', $pos + 4);
$uri = substr($qs, $pos);
$pattern = '/(\d{4})\/(\d{2})\/(\d{2})(?P(\/.*))/';<br /> if (preg_match($pattern, $uri, $groups)) {<br /> $uri = $groups['title'];<br /> $found = 1;<br /> }<br /> if ($found == 1) {<br /> $host = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];<br /> $host = 'http://' . $host;<br /> $uri = $host . $uri;<br /> $loc = 'Location: ' . $uri;<br /> header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );<br /> header( "Status: 301 Moved Permanently" );<br /> header( $loc ) ;<br /> exit(0); // This is Optional but suggested, to avoid any accidental output<br /> } else {<br /> $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] = $uri;<br /> $_SERVER['PATH_INFO'] = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];<br /> include('index.php');<br /> }<br /> ?></code></p> <p>Originally I hadn’t put in the <strong>if (found == 1)</strong> part; but without it Firefox told me I was in an endless loop and couldn’t complete the request.</p> <p>Now the incoming URL for the year/month/day/postname version has a 301 redirect to the “correct” version.</p> <p>Fairly pleased so far.</p> <p><script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "SEO Task #2 Completed: Remove Duplicate URLs", url: "http://thepursuitofalife.com/seo-task-2-completed-remove-duplicate-urls/" });</script></p> </div> <div class="post-foot"> <div class="post-comments"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/18.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;" /><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/seo-task-2-completed-remove-duplicate-urls/#respond" title="Comment on SEO Task #2 Completed: Remove Duplicate URLs">No Comments</a> </div> <span class="post-edit"></span> <span class="post-tags"><img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/36.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" title="Tags" alt="Tags" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;" /> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/canonicalization/" rel="tag">canonicalization</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/permalinks/" rel="tag">Permalinks</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/seo/" rel="tag">SEO</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/urls/" rel="tag">urls</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/wordpress/" rel="tag">WordPress</a></span> </div> </div> <div class="sep"></div> <!--/post --> <div class="post" id="comments"> </div> <!-- post --> <div class="post" id="post-874"> <div class="post-title"> <h1><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/seo-task-1-completed-permalinks/" rel="bookmark">SEO Task #1 Completed: Permalinks</a></h1> </div> <div class="post-sub"> <div class="post-date"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/24.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Date" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;"> Nov 19, 2008 </div> <!-- // post author, remove comments if you want it displayed <div class="post-author"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/39.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Author" border="0" style="margin-right:3px;"> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/author/anthony-stevens/" title="Posts by Anthony Stevens">Anthony Stevens</a> </div> --> <div class="post-cat"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/34.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Category" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;"> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/category/blogging/" title="View all posts in Blogging" rel="category tag">Blogging</a> </div> </div> <div class="post-text"> <p>I have a mini-goal to apply the best SEO techniques to my blog over the next month. Toward that end, I’ll be reading everything that Vanessa Fox has written on the subject, in addition to searching archives of various SEO-related blogs.</p> <p>The first thing I did was set up permalinks, <a href="http://perishablepress.com/press/2008/02/06/permalink-evolution-customize-and-optimize-your-dated-wordpress-permalinks/">initially using this method by Jeff Starr</a>. It’s written for an Apache installation, so the .htaccess items don’t apply to my IIS installation, but I found <a href="http://www.keyboardface.com/archives/2007/09/07/update-for-wordpress-permalinks-on-iis/">a dead-simple custom 404 solution here</a> – which unfortunately didn’t work. After a little investigation, I put together this Perl script that took Starr’s script as inspiration, but which deals properly with the year/month/day link style from my old wordpress.com blog:</p> <p><code>$qs = $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'];<br /> $pos = strrpos($qs, '://');<br /> $pos = strpos($qs, '/', $pos + 4);<br /> $uri = substr($qs, $pos);<br /> $pattern = '/(\d{4})\/(\d{2})\/(\d{2})(?P<title>(\/.*))/';<br /> if (preg_match($pattern, $uri, $groups)) {<br /> $uri = $groups['title'];<br /> }<br /> $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] = $uri;<br /> $_SERVER['PATH_INFO'] = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];<br /> include('index.php');</p> <p>Now, you can visit URLs like:</p> <p><code>http://thepursuitofalife.com/two-great-pictures/</code></p> <p>instead of</p> <p><code>http://thepursuitofalife.com/2008/11/16/two-great-pictures/</code></p> <p>which should ramp up my search engine rankings.</p> <p>I'm still having one problem with URLs that Google has already indexed that look like this:</p> <p><code>http://thepursuitofalife.com/index.php/2008/11/14/some-post/</p> <p>The index.php file resolves, so I can't use my 404 handler described above. I'll need to dig into the WP default path resolution code and figure out what to do there.</p> <p><script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "SEO Task #1 Completed: Permalinks", url: "http://thepursuitofalife.com/seo-task-1-completed-permalinks/" });</script></p> </div> <div class="post-foot"> <div class="post-comments"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/18.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;" /><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/seo-task-1-completed-permalinks/#comments" title="Comment on SEO Task #1 Completed: Permalinks">4 Comments</a> </div> <span class="post-edit"></span> <span class="post-tags"><img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/36.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" title="Tags" alt="Tags" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;" /> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/blogging/" rel="tag">Blogging</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/permalinks/" rel="tag">Permalinks</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/wordpress/" rel="tag">WordPress</a></span> </div> </div> <div class="sep"></div> <!--/post --> <div class="post" id="comments"> </div> <!-- post --> <div class="post" id="post-870"> <div class="post-title"> <h1><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/rss2-feed-error-with-wordpress-263/" rel="bookmark">RSS2 Feed Error With WordPress 2.6.3</a></h1> </div> <div class="post-sub"> <div class="post-date"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/24.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Date" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;"> Nov 17, 2008 </div> <!-- // post author, remove comments if you want it displayed <div class="post-author"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/39.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Author" border="0" style="margin-right:3px;"> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/author/admin/" title="Posts by admin">admin</a> </div> --> <div class="post-cat"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/34.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Category" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;"> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/category/blogging/" title="View all posts in Blogging" rel="category tag">Blogging</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/category/software/" title="View all posts in Software" rel="category tag">Software</a> </div> </div> <div class="post-text"> <p>This has me tearing my hair out. I recently moved from a WordPress.com hosted site at http://xidey.wordpress.com to a self-hosted site at http://thepursuitofalife.com. The install went fairly smoothly, but my feed reader was showing the error:</p> <blockquote><p>XML Parsing Error: XML or text declaration not at start of entity</p></blockquote> <p><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/wordpress-feed-error1.png"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-872" title="wordpress-feed-error1" src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/wordpress-feed-error1.png" alt="" width="300" height="109" /></a></p> <p>I found pretty quickly that this was due to an extra space being generated by a PHP file, but which one?  These files are all tied together in an incestuous relationship worthy of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Jeffs">Warren Jeffs</a>.</p> <p><a href="http://feedvalidator.org/docs/error/WPBlankLine.html">This post at feedvalidator.org</a> didn’t tell me anything new that I hadn’t seen before, but for some reason I figured out the problem after going through the troubleshooting bullet points.</p> <p>Here was the original part of the wp-includes\feed-rss2.php file:</p> <p><code>?><br /> <?php echo '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="'.get_option('blog_charset').'"?'.'>'; ?></code></p> <p>and here is the fix:</p> <p><code>?><?php echo '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="'.get_option('blog_charset').'"?'.'>'; ?></code></p> <p>See? I just removed the extra carriage return between the two <? php ?> sections.</p> <p>I hope this helps you.</p> <p><script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "RSS2 Feed Error With WordPress 2.6.3", url: "http://thepursuitofalife.com/rss2-feed-error-with-wordpress-263/" });</script></p> </div> <div class="post-foot"> <div class="post-comments"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/18.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;" /><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/rss2-feed-error-with-wordpress-263/#respond" title="Comment on RSS2 Feed Error With WordPress 2.6.3">No Comments</a> </div> <span class="post-edit"></span> <span class="post-tags"><img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/36.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" title="Tags" alt="Tags" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;" /> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/rss/" rel="tag">RSS</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/wordpress/" rel="tag">WordPress</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/xml/" rel="tag">XML</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/xml-parsing-error/" rel="tag">XML Parsing Error</a></span> </div> </div> <div class="sep"></div> <!--/post --> <div class="post" id="comments"> </div> <!-- post --> <div class="post" id="post-176"> <div class="post-title"> <h1><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/new-google-talk-chat-badge/" rel="bookmark">New Google Talk Chat Badge</a></h1> </div> <div class="post-sub"> <div class="post-date"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/24.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Date" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;"> May 6, 2008 </div> <!-- // post author, remove comments if you want it displayed <div class="post-author"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/39.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Author" border="0" style="margin-right:3px;"> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/author/anthony-stevens/" title="Posts by Anthony Stevens">Anthony Stevens</a> </div> --> <div class="post-cat"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/34.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Category" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;"> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/category/blogging/" title="View all posts in Blogging" rel="category tag">Blogging</a> </div> </div> <div class="post-text"> <p>I’ve updated my WordPress widget list to include a neat new Google Talk Chat badge. Look on the right side of this page for the “Chat With Anthony Stevens” icon.</p> <p>If I’m logged in to Google Talk, you can chat with me.</p> <p>If you want to get your own badge, go to <a href="http://www.google.com/talk/service/badge/New">the Google Talk Badge page</a>.</p> <p><script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "New Google Talk Chat Badge", url: "http://thepursuitofalife.com/new-google-talk-chat-badge/" });</script></p> </div> <div class="post-foot"> <div class="post-comments"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/18.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;" /><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/new-google-talk-chat-badge/#respond" title="Comment on New Google Talk Chat Badge">No Comments</a> </div> <span class="post-edit"></span> <span class="post-tags"><img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/36.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" title="Tags" alt="Tags" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;" /> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/badge/" rel="tag">Badge</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/google-talk/" rel="tag">Google Talk</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/widget/" rel="tag">Widget</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/wordpress/" rel="tag">WordPress</a></span> </div> </div> <div class="sep"></div> <!--/post --> <div class="post" id="comments"> </div> <!-- post --> <div class="post" id="post-160"> <div class="post-title"> <h1><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wordpress-is-hacking-my-posts/" rel="bookmark">WordPress is Hacking My Posts</a></h1> </div> <div class="post-sub"> <div class="post-date"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/24.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Date" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;"> Apr 27, 2008 </div> <!-- // post author, remove comments if you want it displayed <div class="post-author"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/39.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Author" border="0" style="margin-right:3px;"> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/author/anthony-stevens/" title="Posts by Anthony Stevens">Anthony Stevens</a> </div> --> <div class="post-cat"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/34.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Category" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;"> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/category/blogging/" title="View all posts in Blogging" rel="category tag">Blogging</a> </div> </div> <div class="post-text"> <p>Check out this screenie from the bottom my most recent post:</p> <p><a href="http://xidey.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/wordpress-possibly-related-posts.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-691" src="http://xidey.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/wordpress-possibly-related-posts.png" alt="" width="500" height="290" /></a></p> <p>WordPress inserted that “Possibly Related Posts” stuff without me being aware of it. Hmm. If I wanted to advertise other people’s posts I’d charge for it. I think. What’s going on?</p> <p><strong>UPDATE:</strong> It’s <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Centernetworks-/~3/278775859/wordpress-sphere-partnership">a collaboration between WordPress and Sphere</a>. Key point for me:</p> <blockquote><p>It’s setup for all Wordpress.com blogs (hosted by Wordpress) by default and can be turned off but if you turn it off, you won’t be included in the overall index and will lose any traffic that might come your way.</p></blockquote> <p>Ugh.</p> <p><script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "WordPress is Hacking My Posts", url: "http://thepursuitofalife.com/wordpress-is-hacking-my-posts/" });</script></p> </div> <div class="post-foot"> <div class="post-comments"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/18.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;" /><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wordpress-is-hacking-my-posts/#respond" title="Comment on WordPress is Hacking My Posts">No Comments</a> </div> <span class="post-edit"></span> <span class="post-tags"><img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/36.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" title="Tags" alt="Tags" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;" /> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/possibly-related-posts/" rel="tag">Possibly Related Posts</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/sphere/" rel="tag">Sphere</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/wordpress/" rel="tag">WordPress</a></span> </div> </div> <div class="sep"></div> <!--/post --> <div class="post" id="comments"> </div> <!-- post --> <div class="post" id="post-504"> <div class="post-title"> <h1><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wordpress-design-complaints/" rel="bookmark">Wordpress Design Complaints?</a></h1> </div> <div class="post-sub"> <div class="post-date"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/24.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Date" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;"> Jan 4, 2008 </div> <!-- // post author, remove comments if you want it displayed <div class="post-author"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/39.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Author" border="0" style="margin-right:3px;"> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/author/anthony-stevens/" title="Posts by Anthony Stevens">Anthony Stevens</a> </div> --> <div class="post-cat"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/34.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Category" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;"> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/category/web/" title="View all posts in Web" rel="category tag">Web</a> </div> </div> <div class="post-text"> <p>Chris Messina <a href="http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2008/01/03/the-problem-with-open-source-design/">gets offended</a> by the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/factoryjoe/2153355194/">upcoming comp for the WordPress 2.4 Admin Panel</a>. He turns it into a complaint about “open-source design” (distinct from open-source software development), claiming:</p> <blockquote><p>I’d go so far as to wager that “open source design” is an oxymoron. Design is far too personal, and too subjective, to be given over to the whims and outrageous fancies of anyone with eyeballs in their head.</p> <p>Call me elitist in this one aspect, but with all due respect to code artistes, it’s quite clear whether a function computes or not; the same quantifiable measures simply do not exist for design and that critical lack of objective review means that design is a form of Art, and its execution should be treated as such.</p></blockquote> <p>This is pretty common in my experience: designers do “get their panties in a bunch” over things in a different way than software developers do, and a key problem is this notion of objectivity: that a software “design” can be validated objectively whereas a visual design is left up to the Gods, it’s a question of capital-A Art. Obviously he’s never been in the middle of software architecture flame wars! Same problem, different context, different criteria.</p> <p>With regard to the WordPress 2.4 design in particular, I find WordPress.com to be EXTREMELY usable, if not pretty. You might call this the Google Design Philosophy — minimalist, plain, and functional. To validate the WP design using Chris’ criteria:</p> <blockquote><p>Be clear about the problem you’re solving. Nothing spells disaster for a design process more than fishtailing. If you don’t know what problems you’re trying to solve and you don’t have razor-sharp focus on it, chances are you’ll be open to whatever feedback you can get your hands on, grasping for some notion of what the hell you should be working on. This is not design, this is horseshoes and hand grenades.</p></blockquote> <p>To my way of thinking, the WordPress design <b>has</b> been done with a razor-sharp focus on the problem they’re trying to solve. WordPress is supposed to be used by bloggers, not necessarily designers. There is lots of room for disagreement here, I suppose.  Look at the iPhone –it’s fairly minimalist (just icons, really), but it’s also very pretty AND very usable at the same time.  Maybe that’s the sort of design sense that Chris is writing about.</p> <p><script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Wordpress Design Complaints?", url: "http://thepursuitofalife.com/wordpress-design-complaints/" });</script></p> </div> <div class="post-foot"> <div class="post-comments"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/18.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;" /><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wordpress-design-complaints/#comments" title="Comment on Wordpress Design Complaints?">2 Comments</a> </div> <span class="post-edit"></span> <span class="post-tags"><img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/36.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" title="Tags" alt="Tags" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;" /> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/chris-messina/" rel="tag">Chris Messina</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/design/" rel="tag">Design</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/wordpress/" rel="tag">WordPress</a></span> </div> </div> <div class="sep"></div> <!--/post --> <div class="post" id="comments"> </div> <!-- post --> <div class="post" id="post-857"> <div class="post-title"> <h1><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wordpresscom-tag-search-is-broken/" rel="bookmark">Wordpress.com Tag Search is Broken</a></h1> </div> <div class="post-sub"> <div class="post-date"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/24.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Date" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;"> Dec 8, 2007 </div> <!-- // post author, remove comments if you want it displayed <div class="post-author"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/39.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Author" border="0" style="margin-right:3px;"> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/author/anthony-stevens/" title="Posts by Anthony Stevens">Anthony Stevens</a> </div> --> <div class="post-cat"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/34.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Category" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;"> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/category/software/" title="View all posts in Software" rel="category tag">Software</a> </div> </div> <div class="post-text"> <p>This is funny in a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_ff46b58Hk">funny-sad way</a>. You can search Wordpress.com for tags that are single words, but not multiple words separated by spaces:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://wordpress.com/tag/spire">http://wordpress.com/tag/spire</a> returns results.</li> <li><a href="http://wordpress.com/tag/viro">http://wordpress.com/tag/viro</a> returns results.</li> <li><a href="http://wordpress.com/tag/spire+viro">http://wordpress.com/tag/spire+viro</a> doesn’t return any results.</li> <li><a href="http://wordpress.com/tag/spire%20viro">http://wordpress.com/tag/spire%20viro</a> doesn’t return any results.</li> </ul> <p>I’m trying to think of a valid reason why. Identifiers can’t have spaces in the Wordpress.com backend system? Hello, <a href="http://www.worldstart.com/tips/tips.php/2871">DOS</a>!</p> <p><script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Wordpress.com Tag Search is Broken", url: "http://thepursuitofalife.com/wordpresscom-tag-search-is-broken/" });</script></p> </div> <div class="post-foot"> <div class="post-comments"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/18.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;" /><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wordpresscom-tag-search-is-broken/#comments" title="Comment on Wordpress.com Tag Search is Broken">2 Comments</a> </div> <span class="post-edit"></span> <span class="post-tags"><img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/36.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" title="Tags" alt="Tags" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;" /> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/tag/" rel="tag">Tag</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/wordpress/" rel="tag">WordPress</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/wordpresscom/" rel="tag">Wordpress.com</a></span> </div> </div> <div class="sep"></div> <!--/post --> <div class="post" id="comments"> </div> <!-- post --> <div class="post" id="post-856"> <div class="post-title"> <h1><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/google-blog-search-broken/" rel="bookmark">Google Blog Search Broken?</a></h1> </div> <div class="post-sub"> <div class="post-date"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/24.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Date" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;"> Dec 8, 2007 </div> <!-- // post author, remove comments if you want it displayed <div class="post-author"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/39.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Author" border="0" style="margin-right:3px;"> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/author/anthony-stevens/" title="Posts by Anthony Stevens">Anthony Stevens</a> </div> --> <div class="post-cat"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/34.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Category" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;"> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/category/blogging/" title="View all posts in Blogging" rel="category tag">Blogging</a> </div> </div> <div class="post-text"> <p>I’m very new to search analytics, so I’m trying lots of different things to get a fuller understanding.  One thing I noticed today is that Google’s Blog Search is not pulling up results for my blog as well as the main Google Web Search is.  This differs from my experience a week or two ago, when Blog Search seemed to be picking up items within minutes.</p> <p><a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=spire+viro&um=1&sa=N&tab=bw">Searching for “Spire Viro” in Google Web Search</a> brings back two results from Xidey in the the top three results, including <a href="http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:5FVB-HdRAvUJ:xidey.wordpress.com/+spire+viro&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us">a recent result</a> from today at 11:28:57 GMT (about 18 hours ago).   That cached page contains a post whose title begins “Spire Viro” and whose sole tag is “Spire Viro”.</p> <p><a href="http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=spire+viro&um=1&sa=N&tab=wb">Google Blog Search for the same search term</a> only brings back a much older post from Xidey, from about six weeks ago.  When I narrow down results to <a href="http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&um=1&tab=wb&q=spire+viro&as_drrb=q&as_qdr=d">Last Day</a> or <a href="http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&um=1&tab=wb&q=spire+viro&as_drrb=q&as_qdr=w">Past Week</a>, no results are returned.</p> <p>Odd.  Something is going on.</p> <p>For what it’s worth, <a href="http://technorati.com/search/spire+viro?authority=a4&language=en">Technorati Blog Search sucks goose eggs for the same search term</a>, and <a href="http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic.php?id=10824&page">Wordpress.com doesn’t have a built-in search function</a> to compare against.</p> <p><script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Google Blog Search Broken?", url: "http://thepursuitofalife.com/google-blog-search-broken/" });</script></p> </div> <div class="post-foot"> <div class="post-comments"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/18.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;" /><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/google-blog-search-broken/#comments" title="Comment on Google Blog Search Broken?">1 Comment</a> </div> <span class="post-edit"></span> <span class="post-tags"><img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/36.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" title="Tags" alt="Tags" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;" /> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/blog-search/" rel="tag">Blog Search</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/google/" rel="tag">Google</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/search/" rel="tag">Search</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/wordpress/" rel="tag">WordPress</a></span> </div> </div> <div class="sep"></div> <!--/post --> <div class="post" id="comments"> </div> <!-- post --> <div class="post" id="post-849"> <div class="post-title"> <h1><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/flock-103-ongoing-issues-with-wordpress-authentication/" rel="bookmark">Flock 1.0.3: Ongoing Issues with WordPress Authentication</a></h1> </div> <div class="post-sub"> <div class="post-date"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/24.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Date" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;"> Dec 8, 2007 </div> <!-- // post author, remove comments if you want it displayed <div class="post-author"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/39.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Author" border="0" style="margin-right:3px;"> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/author/anthony-stevens/" title="Posts by Anthony Stevens">Anthony Stevens</a> </div> --> <div class="post-cat"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/34.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Category" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;"> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/category/software/" title="View all posts in Software" rel="category tag">Software</a> </div> </div> <div class="post-text"> <p>Flock 1.0.3 <a href="http://www.flock.com/release-notes/">was released a couple days ago</a> and auto-installed on both of my Vista machines without any problems (unlike <a href="http://www.flock.com/node/60514">this guy</a>). However, this release doesn’t do much. As best as I can tell from the <a href="http://www.flock.com/release-notes/">release notes page</a>, the only fix was for a code signing issue with the Windows Installer. In the meantime, the forums are filled with bug reports and suggestions.</p> <p>I like Flock so far. It’s a neat idea for a browser. However, my suggestion is for the Flock team to be a bit more proactive in summarizing existing issues, prioritizing them, and keeping the community aware of forward momentum. Otherwise they may lose their #1 asset they have right now, which is buzz and good word-of-mouth. My own issue #1 (WordPress login credentials not being saved properly) has been around <a href="http://www.flock.com/node/11702">for over five months</a>. I can think of a few reasons why this bug might still be open:</p> <ol> <li>It’s not a priority. I find this hard to believe since (a) Flock makes a big point of “integrating” with blog, photo, and social-bookmarking sites; and (b) WP is one of the biggest blog platforms around.</li> <li>It’s very technically challenging to fix. I also find this one hard to swallow since it’s just credential sharing. This problem has been solved 1,000,000 times.</li> <li>The team is overloaded. This one is more probable.</li> <li>The architecture is poor. I have no idea if this is the case, but as a software manager, if easy problems start taking a long time to fix, I start to wonder what kind of messes my developers have to wade through.</li> </ol> <p>Any ideas?</p> <p><script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Flock 1.0.3: Ongoing Issues with WordPress Authentication", url: "http://thepursuitofalife.com/flock-103-ongoing-issues-with-wordpress-authentication/" });</script></p> </div> <div class="post-foot"> <div class="post-comments"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/18.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;" /><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/flock-103-ongoing-issues-with-wordpress-authentication/#comments" title="Comment on Flock 1.0.3: Ongoing Issues with WordPress Authentication">3 Comments</a> </div> <span class="post-edit"></span> <span class="post-tags"><img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/36.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" title="Tags" alt="Tags" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;" /> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/flock/" rel="tag">Flock</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/wordpress/" rel="tag">WordPress</a></span> </div> </div> <div class="sep"></div> <!--/post --> <div class="post" id="comments"> </div> <!-- post --> <div class="post" id="post-778"> <div class="post-title"> <h1><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/the-bloggers-guide-to-search-engine-optimization-by-aaron-giovanna-wall-seo-bookcom/" rel="bookmark">Wordpress SEO</a></h1> </div> <div class="post-sub"> <div class="post-date"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/24.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Date" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;"> Nov 27, 2007 </div> <!-- // post author, remove comments if you want it displayed <div class="post-author"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/39.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Author" border="0" style="margin-right:3px;"> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/author/anthony-stevens/" title="Posts by Anthony Stevens">Anthony Stevens</a> </div> --> <div class="post-cat"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/34.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" title="Category" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;"> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/category/blogging/" title="View all posts in Blogging" rel="category tag">Blogging</a> </div> </div> <div class="post-text"> <p>Neat video from <a href="http://www.wolf-howl.com">Michael Gray</a> on Wordpress SEO optimization:</p> <p>[youtube src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BiCn6y6JU8o&rel=1&border=0"]</p> <p>(h/t <a href="http://www.seobook.com/bloggers">Aaron & Giovanna Wall : SEO Book.com</a>)<!-- technorati tags begin --></p> <p style="font-size:10px;text-align:right;">Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Blogging" rel="tag">Blogging</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Wordpress" rel="tag">Wordpress</a></p> <p><!-- technorati tags end --></p> <p><script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Wordpress SEO", url: "http://thepursuitofalife.com/the-bloggers-guide-to-search-engine-optimization-by-aaron-giovanna-wall-seo-bookcom/" });</script></p> </div> <div class="post-foot"> <div class="post-comments"> <img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/18.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" alt="" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;" /><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/the-bloggers-guide-to-search-engine-optimization-by-aaron-giovanna-wall-seo-bookcom/#respond" title="Comment on Wordpress SEO">No Comments</a> </div> <span class="post-edit"></span> <span class="post-tags"><img src="http://thepursuitofalife.com/wp-content/themes/disciple/images/36.png" width="16" height="16" align="left" title="Tags" alt="Tags" border="0" style="margin-right:4px;" /> <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/blogging/" rel="tag">Blogging</a>, <a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/wordpress/" rel="tag">WordPress</a></span> </div> </div> <div class="sep"></div> <!--/post --> <div class="post" id="comments"> </div> <div class="post"> <div style="float:left;"><a href="http://thepursuitofalife.com/tag/wordpress/page/2/" >« Older Posts</a></div> <div style="float:right;"></div> </div> <!-- /main column --> </div> <div class="c3"> <!-- right sidebar --> <div id="sidebar2"> <br/><br/> <ul id="widgets2"> <li id="text-432062574" class="widget widget_text"> <div class="textwidget"><div style="text-align:center;margin:15px 0"> <a href="http://www.deployday.com/" target="_tab"> <img src="http://www.seattle20.com/static/deploy2010/deploy_badge_speaker_165.png" border="0" title="Come see me speak at Deploy 2010 - 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