To build or not to build … that is the question

Is it better to buy an existing CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solution or to build it in-house? The answers is clear: If you have a website and need to manage clients, It’s much better to build your own application than to buy an existing solution… And in this article I’m gonna explain why.

How to do it?

The idea is not just to build any CRM in-house, but to treat it just as another administration module of your website. The trick is to plan and build the CRM system at the same time you plan and build your website’s architecture (not after). The same programmers that will program your website should program your CRM interface, and using the same programming language. At the end, the goal is to automate most of the tasks that a CRM system must register as an integral part of the website, reducing in this way the amount of information that Customer Support Areas have to enter manually. Just like Google Analytics does, the idea is to build your website inserting small pieces of code that will track predefined customer behavior, but behavior that Google Analytics doesn’t measure and that’s specific for your business. For example, if your client needs to complete a 5 step process online (registering, uploading a file, confirming by e-mail, etc) to finish a sale, you design your CRM to track each step for each client. This way customer support personnel can call/email each client, knowing beforehand in which setp they abandoned and why, helping them solve their specific problem. With offline CRM solutions you can’t track customer behavior this way. Having the CRM application online allows any other party to access the information in real time.

I started working this way with ImprimaOnline and have continued working with this methodology in all the websites I’ve been involved since then.

If you adopt this way of structuring your web projects, you’ll achieve the following benefits.

Save costs by saving personnel time

It might seem counterintuitive that you actually save costs with this option being so many cheap CRM Software options available but the reason is simple; You save on one cost that is usually the most expensive in the long run: People. Of course you have an upfront cost of development, but this is usually one upfront cost compared with the neverending data entry and data checking costs associated with buying off the shelf CRM software.

Automating and integrating tasks into your website from inception, reduces dramatically the amount of time needed by Support agents in updating, crosschecking, validating and entering data into the system, and therefore reducing your company personnel costs.

Avoid unnecessary features

CRM tools, like most software, are intended to wide markets. These pieces of software have to serve diverse businesses, people with different needs and markets in different geographic locations. In order to meet all that the market demands to a piece of software, it usually has to have a lot of features, most of which you’ll end up not using at all. At the end, as a user you pay for a CRM software that does A, B, C, D, E and F when you only need features B and E. It’s true, with some SaaS provided by some companies like Oracle or Salesforce you can avoid this shortcoming… but only this one, not the rest.

Real information in real time

The system doesn’t need to be “updated” or “checked for duplicates”. By having the entire application online what you have at all time is the latest version of your information, no manual tasks needed, no additional typing tasks at the end of the week, no actualization is required. Real information in real time.

Flexibility

The first and most important reason why most CRM solutions fail is that they don’t adapt to the needs of the end user, usually Customer Suport Agents or Sales Reps. People tend to use the system for a while, but if it really doesn’t adapt to what he/she really needs, it will end up being a waste of money. The advantage of building your own integrated solution is that you can constantly tweak it and fine tune it to meet your end user’s request. If you have your programmers in-house, you can even do it do it without having to subcontract constantly someone else, because the same developers that programmed your website programmed your CRM solution.

One centralized database

Usually, when using an external piece of software (not integrated from inception to the web’s architecture like proposed here) the most common problem is that you will end up having 2 client databases (at least). You have some information that comes through your web and other that is managed by your CRM Software. To centralize both on one single database often requires manual interaction by customer support agents or sales personnel. Most of the times, this time consuming tasks of actualizing databases or checking for duplicate info usually are needed for reporting reasons (management wants to see historical data, trends or analyze something) but without a direct impact on the people that actually enters it. For example, if your Sales Reps use GoldMine, they’ll need to fill several forms after visiting a client. These forms will not be on the same database if the client registers later via web and the only solution to have one centralized database would be by manual interaction.

By having your CRM built as a part of your website you avoid these unnecessary manual interactions, entering customer data only once while having the extra benefit of having a more actualized and only one centralized database.

This is my view, with my experience …. but what is yours? Maybe you think otherwise?

Feel free to open the discussion.

Here is the original post: MBA Internet Marketing Manager

This is the final post in a three-part series on writing for conversions by Tim Ash, author of Landing Page Optimization. Tim is an industry expert in website optimization and his company, SiteTuners, is one of ourAuthorized Consultants.

In two previous posts, I examined the structure and tone of your writing as a way to increase conversions. In this blog post I will cover the remaining key element – format.

Format

Since people don’t read on the Internet the same way they read offline, the format of your writing should support their scanning behavior. Use the following guidelines to help you write scannable text:

• Write in fragments or short sentences. Don’t worry about grammatical correctness if you have made yourself clear.
• Use digits instead of words to write out numbers (e.g. “47″ instead of “forty seven”)
• Highlight important information-carrying words. Don’t highlight entire sentences, stick to 2- or 3-word phrases.
• Use clear, emphasized titles for page headings and important subheads.
• Use ordinary language (avoid industry jargon and acronyms that are not widely understood).
• Use active voice and action verbs.
• Use bullet lists instead of paragraphs.
• Do not use more than 2 levels for lists or headings.
• Use descriptive link text that describes the information on the linked page.
• Use supporting links to present supplemental information and use “see also” for cross-referenced information.

If you review your website and landing pages with a critical eye and faithfully implement the recommendations above, I can guarantee that you will make a better and more persuasive connection with your visitors. This, in turn, should make your cash register ring more often.

We’d like to thank Tim for putting together this series. If there’s a topic you’d like to see us cover, please shoot us an email.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Website Optimizer Team

Fashion is the works of British designer Alan Meeks. Fashion Compressed is an elegant modern roman typeface suitable for a variety of advertising styles. The capitals can be used as initials or combined with the lower case letters. Fashion Engraved was produced when Meeks reworked Fashion Compressed, resulting in a beautiful, engraved typeface.

Equinox is the work of British designer Vince Whitlock. This lighthearted typeface is extremely versatile due in part to its array of alternative characters. Equinox should be set with tight letter and word spacing for maximum visual impact.

Font list in package: equinox, fashion, gill display compressed, heliotype, impakt, latino elongated, locarno light, mekanik, prague, premier, pump, regatta condensed, retro, robotik, romic, rundfunk, scriptek, teknik, university roman, wade sans light.

Download the Divergently Fonts Collection

Why do you need a character counter?

Many search engines will ignore your meta tag if it goes over 255 characters. So make sure your meta-description and meta-keyword fields fly under the radar. This practice makes and breaks a SEO success of a page and even a web site.

More meta-keyword tips

Should you repeat keywords? Not normally. But it is fine if it is part of several different phrases. For example, it is alright to include phrases in a tag as “commercial web building, business web building”. Still it is advisable not to repeat a word over 3 times or search bots may consider you keyword spamming. So we will append phrase “make commercial internet site” if we should extend our key phrase list.

Regarding word variations, like “advert”, “adverts”, “advertising”, “advertisements” and so on, they are tricky to handle.

Basically search engines prefer the shortest version. So if people are searching on keyword “advert”, all the aforementioned phrases have a chance to be listed. Be careful on the magic word chance. Even if you are listed a search engine still have to consider whom to be ranked first. Naturally “advert” pages will rank ahead of “adverts”, “advertisements” and as such pages. Moreover, keyword “ads” won’t be listed out of “advert” searches.

So our rule-of-thumb be, list as many word variations as you can within the 255 characters limitation.

Google Product Search (Google Base) is unveiling a new categorization system that sellers can use for describing the product type of your items. Product_type is an optional attribute that you can use to indicate the category (or categories) of the product being sold. It is suggested that you use the category paths and values from our new product taxonomy.

The Google product taxonomy is a tree of categories that describe product families, with verticals (Electronics, Home & Garden, etc.) at the highest level, followed by more specific product families or products within these broad categories (such as Electronics > Audio > Audio Players & Recorders > MP3 Players).

If you already have a system of categorization of your own, you may also use that. Just include the full category path as the value for the product_type attribute (e.g., Books > Non-Fiction > Sports > Baseball).

It is hoped that this new taxonomy provides sellers with more suggestions on how to accurately describe your items, so that they can help even more shoppers find their products!

What’s Google Base

Google Base is an online database provided by Google into which any user can add almost any type of content, such as text, images, and structured information in formats like XML, PDF, Excel, RTF, Word Perfect. As of 2008, it is available to the public as a beta version. If Google finds it relevant it may appear on its shopping search engine, Google Maps or even the web search. The piece of content can then be labeled with attributes like the ingredients for a recipe or the camera model for stock photography.

A major component of Google Base is acting like a online classified ads service, such as Craigslist. However it has also been used for such items as protein structures, current events, real estate, recipes, people profiles, and more.

Files can be uploaded to the google base servers by browsing your computer or the web, by various ftp methods, or by API coding. Online tools are provided to view the number of downloads of the user’s files, and other performance measures.

You can download a free copy of Google Base Connector here.

Source: < http://base.google.com/base/storeconnector >.

Interested to explore further the use of Google Base? We recommend this one:

The Complete Guide to Google Advertising: Including Tips, Tricks, & Strategies to Create a Winning Advertising Plan
Price: USD 16.47

38 used & new available from USD 10.93

This application was written using the Yahoo search API.  It will essentially run a search and display the results in a list box.  However the app has some unique features that make it very useful for anyone who needs to compile a long list of results or domain names (either random or based upon keywords).

Features:

• Can used specified keywords or generate random keywords
• Can retrieve up to 25,000 results for each search.
• Can strip the URL down and just return the Domain Names
• Excludes duplicate results
• Export the results to a plain text file.

** NOTE THAT YAHOO RESTRICTIONS LIMIT YOU TO APPROX 100,000 RESULTS PER DAY **

Proxyfire is a powerful proxy server hunter and checker !

About Proxyfire

Proxyfire is a powerful proxy server hunter and checker, which can not only support HTTP, SOCKS4, SOCKS5, Tunnel, SSL SMTP(E-Mail)proxies checking, but also classify them into SOCKS proxy,High Anonymous proxy,Anonymous proxy,Transparent proxy and Gateway proxy.It’s a strong and multifunctional tool, including Forums Proxy Leecher, Search Engines Proxy Leecher, Proxy Scan, IP to Country Query, Proxy Filter, RBL Filter, Dangerous IP Filter, Hostname Filter etc.You can get thousands of fresh proxies per day by using Proxyfire.

Proxyfire Master Suite Free 1.22

* Support Anonymity, SSL/Https, SMTP/EMail, Gateway, Socks4/5, Dangerous IP Test
* Support SMTP/EMAIL proxy Test
* Support Port, Country, dangerous IP, Duplicate Filter
* Support Planetlab/CoDeeN proxies Filter
* Support RBL, hostname Filter
* Support different type of forums leeching(support LOGIN)
* Support non-forum proxy sites
* Support different search engines leeching
* Support SYN scanning
* Support SYN scanning before checking
* Support IP to Country lookup
* Support Leech proxies from FILE, URL, FTP, EMAIL(pop3)
* Support proxies port connecting Test
* Max check threads: 1000
* Max forum leech threads: 10
* Max topic leech threads: 10
* Max search threads: 5

So, the other day, I was asked by the AJAX APIs dev team if I’d like to write a guest blog post, but they didn’t tell me what to write about. I thought about telling you how the AJAX APIs revolutionized how I think about life, design websites, and slice bread, but then I realized that I buy my bread pre-sliced.

So I started going back through the group looking for common questions or themes to threads, and I realized that a huge portion of the questions asked can be summed up like this: “How do I style the google.search.SearchControl?” For instance, how would one make it so that only a result’s title and URL appear (i.e., the description is not visible), or even just the URL? What if you want to change some of the default colors? What if you, being the stylish computer geek that you are, want to make your SearchControl into a 24th century Starfleet console to fit in with that first-season spandex Star Trek: The Next Generation uniform you’re wearing right now?

Well, you’re in luck! Using Mozilla Firefox with the Firebug add-on installed (an absolute must-have for any web developer, by the way), you can do all this and more simply by inspecting the structure of the default search control and taking advantage of the fact that almost every one of its individual elements is given at least one className that can be used with Cascading Style Sheets to apply different style rules. We’ve put together a spectacular video to provide a very brief overview of using Firefox and Firebug to inspect the structure (and tinker with) the structure of the control.

For even more information on how you can do more with Firefox and Firebug, you’ll want to check out Ben Lisbakken’s excellent tutorial, which includes even more video! And for good measure, we’ve included the control’s structure (complete with a few of my own comments) below:

<div class="gsc-control">
    <!-- FYI: This form is the same as the google.search.SearchForm -->
    <form class="gsc-search-box">
        <table class="gsc-search-box">
            <tbody>
                <tr>
                    <td class="gsc-input">
                        <!-- This next input is the search box itself -->
                        <input class="gsc-input/>
                    </td>
                    <td class="gsc-search-button">
                        <!-- This next input is the search button itself -->
                        <input class="gsc-search-button"/>
                    </td>
                    <td class="gsc-clear-button">
                        <!-- This next div is the clear button (i.e., the little x) -->
                        <div class="gsc-clear-button"/>
                    </td>
                </tr>
            </tbody>
        </table>
        <table class="gsc-branding">
            <tbody>
                <tr>
                    <td class="gsc-branding-user-defined"/>
                    <td class="gsc-branding-text">
                        <div class="gsc-branding-text">powered by</div>
                    </td>
                    <td class="gsc-branding-img">
                        <img class="gsc-branding-img"/>
                    </td>
                </tr>
            </tbody>
        </table>
    </form>
    <!-- In tabbed mode, this is where the tabs will appear; in stacked mode, this will be absent! -->
    <div class="gsc-tabsArea">
        <!-- The following div would be the active tab -->
        <div class="gsc-tabHeader gsc-tabhActive"/>
        <!-- These spacer divs will appear AFTER every tab to do exactly what their className would imply -->
        <div class="gs-spacer"/>
        <!-- And this one would be an inactive tab -->
        <div class="gsc-tabHeader gsc-tabhInactive"/>
        <div class="gs-spacer"/>
    </div>
    <div class="gsc-resultsBox-visible">
        <!-- The next divs contain the actual results. The classes in square brackets are ONLY present in TABBED mode -->
        <!-- This would be the active tab -->
        <div class="gsc-resultsRoot [gsc-tabData gsc-tabdActive]">
            <table class="gsc-resultsHeader">
                <tbody>
                    <tr>
                        <td class="gsc-twiddleRegionCell gsc-twiddleRegion-opened">
                            <div class="gsc-twiddle">
                                <!-- This next div will contain your searcher's title or label (e.g., Local), but it won't be visible in tabbed mode -->
                                <div class="gsc-title"/>
                            </div>
                            <!-- This next div will contain your search's estimated result count, but it's invisible in tabbed mode, too! -->
                            <div class="gsc-stats">
                            <!-- This is the selector that chooses 1, 4, or 8 visible results. Please note that only ONE of the options in square brackets will be visible -->
                            <div class="gsc-results-selector [gsc-one-result-active OR gsc-more-results-active OR gsc-all-results-active]">
                                <div class="gsc-result-selector gsc-one-result"/>
                                <div class="gsc-result-selector gsc-more-results"/>
                                <div class="gsc-result-selector gsc-all-results"/>
                            </div>
                        </td>
                        <td class="gsc-configLabelCell">
                            <!-- This next span will only be present if the searcher has configuration options -->
                            <!-- Also, it will only have ONE of the options in square brackets, depending on whether or not the configuration form is visible or not -->
                            <span class="gsc-configLabel [gsc-twiddle-closed OR gsc-twiddle-opened]"/>
                        </td>
                    </tr>
                </tbody>
            </table>
            <!-- This next div is the configuration form for a searcher. It is only present if the searcher has configuration options -->
            <!-- The exact className of the config form will depend on the type of searcher. So you'll only have ONE of the options below.  You can probably figure out which one your searcher will have -->
            <!-- By the way, I have no idea why it's gsc-locationConfig instead of gsc-localConfig   -->
            <div class="gsc-config [gsc-locationConfig OR gsc-videoConfig OR gsc-blogConfig OR gsc-newsConfig OR gsc-patentConfig]">
                <!-- The exact content of the config div will vary depending on your searcher's options -->
                <!-- Use Firefox with Firebug to explore the possibilities here! -->
            </div>
            <div class="gsc-results [gsc-localResult OR gsc-webResult OR gsc-blogResult OR gsc-newsResult OR gsc-imageResult OR gsc-bookResult OR gsc-patentResult OR gsc-videoResult]">
                <!-- This is your FIRST actual search result. All results will follow this pattern -->
                <!-- Please note, again, that only ONE of the classNames in the square brackets will apply, depending on the searcher -->
                <div class="gsc-result [gsc-localResult OR gsc-webResult OR gsc-blogResult OR gsc-newsResult OR gsc-imageResult OR gsc-bookResult OR gsc-patentResult OR gsc-videoResult]">
                    <!-- The contents of this div will be the same as outlined in the documentation for your searcher's results -->
                </div>
                <div class="gsc-expansionArea">
                    <!-- This is where the REST of your search results show up, again following the same pattern as above -->
                </div>
            </div>
        </div>
        <!-- And the inactive one -->
        <div class="gsc-resultsRoot [gsc-tabData gsc-tabdInactive]">
            <!-- All the rest of the structure of this is the same as above -->
    </div>
</div>

So, thanks to Firefox and Firebug, we have access to the SearchControl’s structure. Now we can get to work making our control look like one of those 24th-century consoles that we see every day on the starship Enterprise! To get this done, we’re going to start with the stock “Hello, world” example for the AJAX Search API. Then we’re going to remove the style element that comes with it and plug in a new external stylesheet below the inline script that initializes the whole thing.

Once that’s done, we need to (a) change a bunch of colors; (b) rework a number of background images; and (c) open a small hole in the space-time continuum to get ourselves a starship console to put it all on. Okay, so that last one isn’t exactly possible, but we can do all the rest with a little CSS. And the whole thing, put together, looks like this.

Now, you will notice that a number of those rules have complex selectors (e.g., .gsc-resultsHeader td.gsc-twiddle-opened…). This is because Google’s default CSS is rather specific in places. And it’s also why Firefox with Firebug is so very important. It really makes the whole process almost painless.

So there you have it: style. Well, for your SearchControl, at least. Next time, we’ll talk about why the Starfleet quartermaster abandoned spandex.

Until then, happy styling!

Jeremy R. Geerdes
Generally Cool Guy

Source: Google Labs

.htaccess file is the configuration file for the Apache Web Server that provides a number of directives for configuring Apache and Apache Modules. .htaccess files are similar to httpd.conf the main server configuration file, but htaccess is allowed anywhere and is used to control the directory (recursively) they are placed in. The .htaccess file is an incredibly useful powerful tool that WILL make your life so much easier if you learn to use it.

If you are unable to understand the purpose and capability of a htaccess file, you better consult with someone who knows before you will change any part of your htaccess file. For those who know and will take the risk, here are the example codes:

Redirect everyone except a fixed IP address to alternate page

ErrorDocument 403 http://www.allqoo.com/
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 207.58.167.118

When developing sites

This lets google crawl the page, lets me access without a password, and lets my client access the page WITH a password. It also allows for XHTML and CSS validation! (w3.org)

AuthName "Under Development"
AuthUserFile /home/sitename.com/.htpasswd
AuthType basic
Require valid-user
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 207.58.167.118 w3.org htmlhelp.com googlebot.com
Satisfy Any

Fix double-login prompt

Redirect non-https requests to https server and ensure that .htpasswd authorization can only be entered across HTTPS

SSLOptions +StrictRequire
SSLRequireSSL
SSLRequire %{HTTP_HOST} eq "allqoo.com"
ErrorDocument 403 https://allqoo.com

Set Timezone of the Server (GMT)

SetEnv TZ America/Indianapolis

Administrator Email for ErrorDocument

SetEnv SERVER_ADMIN webmaster@google.com

ServerSignature for ErrorDocument

ServerSignature off | on | email

Charset and Language headers

AddDefaultCharset UTF-8
DefaultLanguage en-US

Disallow Script Execution

Options -ExecCGI
AddHandler cgi-script .php .pl .py .jsp .asp .htm .shtml .sh .cgi

Deny Request Methods

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} !^(GET|HEAD|OPTIONS|POST|PUT)
RewriteRule .* - [F]

Force “File Save As” Prompt

AddType application/octet-stream .avi .mpg .mov .pdf .xls .mp4

Block access to files during certain hours of the day

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
# If the hour is 16 (4 PM) Then deny all access
RewriteCond %{TIME_HOUR} ^16$
RewriteRule ^.*$ - [F,L]

Show CGI Source Code

RemoveHandler cgi-script .pl .py .cgi
AddType text/plain .pl .py .cgi

Rewrite to www

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(robots\.txt|favicon\.ico|sitemap\.xml)$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.allqoo\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.allqoo.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Rewrite to www dynamically

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/robots\.txt$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.[a-z-]+\.[a-z]{2,6} [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ([a-z-]+\.[a-z]{2,6})$     [NC]
RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]

or

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.[a-z-]+\.[a-z]{2,6} [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ([a-z-]+\.[a-z]{2,6})$     [NC]
RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]

or

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.allqoo\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.allqoo.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Require no www

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^allqoo\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://allqoo.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Require no subdomain

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} \.([a-z-]+\.[a-z]{2,6})$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]

or

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} \.([^\.]+\.[^\.0-9]+)$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]

Rewrite underscores to hyphens for SEO URL

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

RewriteRule !\.(html|php)$ - [S=4]
RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_(.*)$ $1-$2-$3-$4-$5 [E=uscor:Yes]
RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_(.*)$ $1-$2-$3-$4 [E=uscor:Yes]
RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_([^_]*)_(.*)$ $1-$2-$3 [E=uscor:Yes]
RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_(.*)$ $1-$2 [E=uscor:Yes]

RewriteCond %{ENV:uscor} ^Yes$
RewriteRule (.*) http://allqoo.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Password Protect single file

<Files login.php>
   AuthName "Prompt"
   AuthType Basic
   AuthUserFile /home/allqoo.com/.htpasswd
   Require valid-user
</Files>

Password Protect multiple files

<FilesMatch "^(private|phpinfo)\.*$">
   AuthName "Development"
   AuthUserFile /.htpasswd
   AuthType basic
   Require valid-user
</FilesMatch>

Stop image/file hotlinking and bandwidth stealing

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?allqoo.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg|swf|flv|png)$ http://www.allqoo.com/feed.gif [R=302,L]

ErrorDocuments

ErrorDocument 400 /htaccess/400_BAD_REQUEST.html
ErrorDocument 401 /htaccess/401_UNAUTHORIZED.html
ErrorDocument 403 /htaccess/403_FORBIDDEN.html
ErrorDocument 404 /htaccess/index.php?error=404
ErrorDocument 502 /htaccess/502_BAD_GATEWAY.html
ErrorDocument 503 /htaccess/503_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE.html

Stop Looping

Sometimes your rewrites cause infinite loops, stop it with one of these rewrite code snippets.

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/(stats/|missing\.html|failed_auth\.html|error/).* [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [L]

RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} 200
RewriteRule .* - [L]

Setting the language variable based on Client

For sites using multiviews or with multiple language capabilities, it is nice to be able to send the correct language automatically based on the clients preferred language.

RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-Language} ^.*(hk|ch|tw|de|es|fr|it|ja|ru|en).*$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ - [env=prefer-language:%1]

Redirecting WordPress Feed to Feedburner

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/feed\.gif$
RewriteRule .* - [L]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(FeedBurner|FeedValidator) [NC]
RewriteRule ^feed/?.*$ http://feeds.feedburner.com/apache/htaccess [L,R=302]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

.htaccess Commands

Files

Container for directives affecting files matching specified patterns

Limit

Container for authentication directives when accessed using specified HTTP methods

LimitExcept

Container for authentication directives to be applied when any HTTP method other than those specified is used to access the resource

IfModule

Container for directives based on existance of specified modules

IfDefine

Container for directives based on existance of command line defines

FilesMatch

Container for directives affecting files matching specified patterns

AuthType

An HTTP authorization type (e.g., “Basic”)

AuthName

The authentication realm (e.g. “Members Only”)

Require

Selects which authenticated users or groups may access a protected space

Satisfy

access policy if both allow and require used (’all’ or ‘any’)

AddDefaultCharset

The name of the default charset to add to any Content-Type without one or ‘Off’ to disable

AcceptPathInfo

Set to on or off for PATH_INFO to be accepted by handlers, or default for the per-handler preference when AllowOverride includes FileInfo

ErrorDocument

Change responses for HTTP errors

Options

Set a number of attributes for a given directory

DefaultType

the default MIME type for untypable files

FileETag

Specify components used to construct a file’s ETag

ServerSignature

En-/disable server signature (on|off|email)

ContentDigest

whether or not to send a Content-MD5 header with each request

LimitRequestBody

Limit (in bytes) on maximum size of request message body

LimitXMLRequestBody

Limit (in bytes) on maximum size of an XML-based request body

ForceType

a mime type that overrides other configured type

SetHandler

a handler name that overrides any other configured handler

SetOutputFilter

filter (or ; delimited list of filters) to be run on the request content

SetInputFilter

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What featured over 750 webmasters and a large number of Googlers from around the world, hundreds of questions, and over one hundred answers over the course of nearly two hours? If you guessed “the Tricks and Treats webmaster event from this earlier this month!” well, you’re either absolutely brilliant, you read the title of this post, or both!

How did it go?

It was an exhilarating, exhausting, and educational event, if we may say so ourselves, even though there were a few snafus. We’re aware that the sound quality wasn’t great for some folks, and we’ve also appreciated quite-helpful constructive criticisms in this feedback thread. Last but not least, we are bummed to admit that someone (whose name starts with ‘A’ and ends with ‘M’) uncharacteristically forgot to hit the record button (really!), so there’s unfortunately no audio recording to share .

But on more positive notes, we’re delighted that so many of you enjoyed our presentations (embedded below), our many answers, and even some of our bad jokes (mercifully not to be repeated).

What next?

Well, for starters, all of us Webmaster Central Googlers will be spending quite some time taking in your feedback. Some of you have requested sessions exclusively covering particular (pre-announced) topics or tailored to specific experience levels, and we’ve also heard from many webmasters outside of the U.S. who would love online events in other languages and at more convenient times. No promises, but you can bet we’re eager to please! Stay tuned on this blog (and, as a hint and hallo to our German-speaking webmasters, do make sure to follow our German webmaster blog .

And finally, a big thank you!

A heartfelt thank you to my fellow Googlers, many of whom got up at the crack of dawn to get to the office early for the chat and previous day’s runthrough or stayed at work late in Europe. But more importantly, major props to all of you (from New Delhi, New York, New Zealand and older places) who asked great questions and hung out with us online for up to two hours. You webmasters are the reason we love coming to work each day, and we look forward to our next chat!

* * *

The presentations…

We had presentations from John, Jonathan, Maile, and Wysz. Presentations from the first three are embedded below (Wysz didn’t have a written presentation this time).

John’s slides on “Frightening Webmastering Myths”

Jonathan’s slides on “Using the Not Found errors report in Webmaster Tools”

Maile’s slides on “Where We’re Coming From”

Written by Adam Lasnik, Search Evangelist

Source: Google Labs