How Do I Set My Time Zone?

If North American Central Time is not your time zone of choice, there's no reason you need to view your WunderCounter reports in this time zone. To choose a different time zone:

1. Log in to the WunderCounter
2. Choose "Options"
3. Choose "Time Zone"

From this page, select your country and then choose one of the available time zones. This will immediately switch all timestamps in your log files to the time zone of your choosing and you will no longer need to add or subtract time when trying to decipher your log files. :)

Myspace Headline Tracker Broken in Private Profiles

I've just had a conversation with WunderCounter user who has confirmed that the Myspace Headline Tracker is currently only working when profiles are set to public. (Thanks, Molly!)

I haven't played with this myself, but what I have been told is that if you have a WunderCounter Tracker in your Myspace headline, it will work when your profile is set to public. However, if you set your profile to private, Myspace will expose the WunderCounter code in the headline. This has the affect that:

1. Page hits will not be tracked
2. It looks really messy

There's no workaround that I know of at this time. If your profile is private, you'll need to put your tracker code somewhere other than your headline. That way you'll be able to track page views from your friends. Unfortunately you'll no longer be able to track page views from people who aren't your friends, but who tried to view your profile. This is a limitation imposed by Myspace (whether it's intentional or not, I can't say) and it's in no way a problem with the WunderCounter.

If, at some point in the future, this changes, please do let me know so that I can update this post.

Which Operating System is My Web Server Running?

Occasionally you may want to install some new software (perl/php/python/ruby etc) in your web hosting account. The developer you're working with may ask you which OS (operating system) your account is hosted on. You can actually use the WunderCounter to help figure this out.

If you have a Premium account, log in to the WunderCounter. Click "More Stats" -> "Advanced" -> "Server Headers"

Now, enter the domain name of your site and you'll get detailed information which is broadcast by your web server to the world (via HTTP headers).

Let's try a couple of examples. If you enter:

www.microsoft.com

You'll find the following information:

Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.0

OK, so that makes sense. Microsoft is using it's own products.

How about:

www.myspace.com

Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0

So, Myspace is also using Microsoft software, albeit an older version.

Now, how about:

www.wired.com

Server: Apache/2.0.52 (Red Hat)

Now, that's getting better. Wired is running off Red Hat Linux and Apache2. Now, that's an older release of Apache, but it's nice to see them using Open Source software.

Lastly, let's have a look at my favourite flavour of Linux:

www.ubuntulinux.org

Server: Apache/2.0.55 (Ubuntu) PHP/5.1.2 mod_ssl/2.0.55 OpenSSL/0.9.8a

So, that's a good sign. Ubuntu is running Ubuntu Linux. :) They have a recent version of PHP compiled in with the Apache web server as well as SSL for serving secure web pages.

You can use this feature to get lots of other interesting info from web servers (like the kinds of cookies they set etc). Feel free to play around with it and see what you might learn. Also, feel free to use this tool when trying to dig up information on your own web host as well.

How To Create Google Friendly URLs

When you're trying to drive traffic to your web site, it's a good idea to make it easy for Google to figure out what your site is all about. Now Google is already very good at doing this, but it doesn't hurt if you give it a little bit of help. One very easy way to do this is to give your pages appropriate URLs.

In the past, many web designers have been fairly unimaginative when naming their web pages. You'll often find pages with the following names:

contact.html
about.html
bio.html
directions.html

Those are good page names for a web designer because they're descriptive of the page content and they help the designer easily find the file s/he is looking for when edit the content of your site. The problem, however, is that these names are generic and they don't really tell Google too much about the actual type of content in your web site. What do I mean by this? Well, have a look at these page names:

contact-perl-web-developer.html
about-toronto-on-florist-shop.html
vile-richard-music-bio.html
directions-to-toronto-on-music-studio.html

Do you see the difference? When you see these page names you know what they're about, but you also have an idea of what sort of site you're dealing with.

a) a web developer who specializes in Perl (great choice!)
b) a flower shop in Toronto, Ontario
c) a musician's bio for "Vile Richard"
d) recording studio in Toronto, Ontario

If you can glean this sort of information just by looking at a page name, you know that Google can do the same. The key is to find a few keywords which you'd like to focus on when driving traffic to your site. Then, use these keywords when naming your pages. Take care not to stuff your page names with so many keywords that you've actually obscured the meaning of the title, but be creative.

The format you choose to use is up to you, but I personally prefer to keep everything in lower case, using dashes ("-") in place of spaces or punctuation. Google will be able to strip the dashes out of your page names and make sense out of the words. It will then take these words into consideration when ranking your site in importance for searches on these same words. So, if you choose your page names wisely, you may well drive extra traffic to your site with only a tiny bit of extra effort.

Should I Pay to Submit My Site to Search Engines?

This is a question which people ask me fairly regularly. The short answer is:

NO.

The long answer is:


You don't have to tell search engines where you are. The search engines will find you. After all, that's what they do.


So, please, whatever you do, don't spend your hard-earned dollars on a search engine submission service. If you really want to part with your money, donate it to your local SPCA, or the shelter where I adopted my cat. These are organizations which could really use your money. A search engine submission service is just going to bank your dollars and offer very little in return.

So, if this isn't a service you should buy, what should you do? Let's be realistic here. If you want to be found online, you want Google to find your site. Maybe you'll add Yahoo to that list, but after that it becomes fairly irrelevant how many other engines pick up your site. (I'm speaking of English language web sites now). The majority of users online are now in the habit of using Google (and occasionally Yahoo) to perform their web searches. There are lots of other search pages out there, but very few will ever drive significant traffic to your site. Trust me on this. In some cases these other search engines are really just portals which feed you information from a larger search engine anyway. The bottom line is that you want Google to find you. After that, everything else is gravy. So how do you do this?

Submit Directly to Google

Google has a page with some useful info to get you started. I recommend you have a look at that. However, if you just want to submit your site to Google directly and be done with it, you can use the Google site submission page. This will officially let Google know that you exist. Now just sit back and wait for the magic to happen. So, if you all you wanted was to have Google notice you, you're done. You can quit reading and check your TiVo to see if the latest episode of Chuck was recorded. If you want to improve your rankings once Google does find you, read on.

Have Other Sites Link Back to You

One way to ensure that your site will be picked up and treated well by Google is to have other sites link back to you. Send out an email to friends or businesses you work with, asking them to post a link back to your site. Offer to link back to their sites as well, since this may give them more incentive to add your link. You can also add your link to the WunderCounter's free directory. There's no requirement to link back to the WunderCounter, but it is appreciated. Find directories online which offer free listings. Use these listings to link back to your site.

How Do Links Help?

When Google is searching the web, it follows the links which it finds. When it stumbles across a link to your site, it will officially know that your site exists and you'll be scheduled to be added to its index. The more links which Google finds which point to your site, the more important Google will assume your site is. This is a simplification of how the process works, but basically, think of it this way:

If thousands of web pages link back to your web site, Google will assume that this is an important web site and will take this into consideration when spidering the site and producing search results -- this is a good thing. Conversely if zero or very few pages link back to your site, Google will also take this into consideration -- this is not a very good thing. You're not likely to appear in the top results of many searches, which means that you'll be in the Google index, but most people will never find you.

So, what you want to do is get your site out there. Let people know about it. Find online directories which offer listings for free. Pester your friends to link back to your site and just generally make sure Google is aware of your existence. This will not only get your site indexed by Google and the other search engines, but it will also increase the likelihood that user searches will produce results which list your site.

This really just scratches the surface of how you can get more people to find you online. If you're interested in further articles on how to optimize your site for search engines, email me or comment below. Or, if you have your own tips, you can add those in the comments as well.

Does the WunderCounter offer web hosting?

I do get a fair number of people contact me about whether I offer web hosting, so I thought I'd do a quick summary of what is available.

The short answer is yes. If you're interested in a web hosting package, have a quick look at the available packages: http://www.wundersolutions.com/hosting/hosting-fees/

If you're looking to host only static content (no Perl/PHP/Ruby/Python etc) and you don't need a database, the Webmaster plan is probably a good fit for you. It's the most economical and allows you lots of upload space, email and bandwidth.

If you're the kind of person who likes to do a bit of scripting or database work, then the Super plan is probably your best bet. I'm a programmer myself and I host my client work on the WunderSolutions hosting machines. So, if you've got a database question or a scripting problem, you'll be getting support from someone who understands your needs.

If you've got needs beyond the Super plan, then the Extreme plan is the next step up. This is generally used by corporate clients or clients with special needs, like lightning-fast mod_perl scripts. If you think you may need the Extreme plan, feel free to call or email me so that we can discuss your particular needs.

Lastly, if you're looking for a place to host or rent a dedicated server, contact me so that we can discuss your needs and get you set up with a solution which works for you. I can host single machines, multiple machines and even get you set up with sophisticated load balancing to ensure maximum uptime for your projects.

What Makes WunderSolutions Different?

My web servers are load balanced. This means that if I need to take a machine offline for maintenance, a backup machine automatically steps in and serves up your web site. This happens automatically, so you don't have to worry about downtime or hardware issues disrupting your web presence.

Often, when you work with a smaller web host, you won't get load balanced machines. In fact, a lot of web hosts run all of their services off the same machine. For example, your email, DNS, web hosting and database server may all be on the same machine with a smaller host. This means that if the machine goes down, all of your services go down with it. This is called an "SPOF" or Single Point of Failure.

WunderSolutions hosting keeps different services on different machines. This avoids the problem of the SPOF and means excellent uptime for web sites and services. If you're thinking of moving web hosts, but you'd like to speak with current clients, feel free to get in touch. I'd be glad to refer you to current customers who can vouch for the quality of WunderSolutions web hosting.

Tracking Facebook Links Outside of Notes

By now you may have already read the post on Facebook Link Trackers in Facebook Notes. There are a couple of other places on Facebook where you can place link trackers. Basically, you'll find that wherever you can post an URL, you can post a Link Tracker, since a Link Tracker is really just an URL. The catch is that outside of the notes, you'll probably only be able to enter the actual URL -- you won't need to enter actual HTML like you do with the notes.

There are 2 ways to get the straight link tracker URL. The first way would be to follow all of the same steps you followed in the original tutorial. Just copy/paste the URL (which is everything between the double quotes ("). The other way is to use the Adwords Tracker. Don't let the name throw you off -- it works.

1. Log in to your WunderCounter Account
2. Choose Adwords Tracker from the Generate HTML menu
3. Enter the URL of the page you're linking to. I'll use http://www.wundercounter.com
4. Give the tracker a name you can remember. I'll use fb_tracker/wundercounter.com
5. Take the URL which you're provided with and use it in your Facebook account as a tracker URL

Now, where can you place these URLs? I don't claim to be a Facebook expert, but here are a couple of places that should work:

1. Wall posts
2. Share a Link (under the Wall tab on your Profile page)
   
3. In comments on notes
4. In comments on status
5. In the website box under your Contact Information
6. You can experiment with the other boxes of the Contact Information area (under the Info tab on your Profile page). Many of them may accept tracker URLs as well.
   

If I've missed anything or gotten something wrong, please comment back and let me know.