This essential update will bring to the table :

• Better link matching algorithm
• Up to 6 times increased performance over the old code
• UTF8 support
• Support for WP3.0 custom taxonomies
• Custom Link Templates (allows you to add CSS to your links for example)
• Entire new screen dedicated to custom keywords (with import/export to csv, search and visual interface)
• Custom box on write screen to override keywords per post
• Autolink to posts only in same categories
• Autolink also by post slug or custom defined keywords for every post
• And much more...

SEO Smart Links Preview screenshots

Custom Keywords got it's own screen

Many new features including UTF8 support, keyword overriders and link template

Better Auto-Interlinking

Custom boxes on write post screen to add additional keywords for matching and override custom keywords

Sign up below to receive an email when new version of SEO Smart Links is released.

• SEO Smart Links
• SEO Smart Links and Category Search plugins
• Fantastic new plugin: Front End Editor
• Insights
• Optimizing WordPress Permalinks

That's the beauty of 'Webification' - phenomenon of almost every tool or service getting it's reflection on the web.

And that is why I have decided to call our brand new website Webification.com.

The goal of the website is to keep track of latest news in the world of web design, development and applications. We will be closely monitoring the news so you do not have to.

I invite you to check out interesting feature articles about user interface design tools or find more about  desktop blogging clients, showing kind of content you can expect from the website in the future.

• Top Social Media Sites
• Future of Internet for developers
• What’s hot in tech right now
• Users of Amazing Grace theme
• Search Engine Optimization INDIA, does it work?

ManageWP.com

To set up your blogs for remote management, you need to follow these three simple steps.

1. Install ManageWP Worker plugin http://managewp.com/worker.zip on any blog you want to manage
2. Sign up to ManageWP http://managewp.com/wp-signup.com
3. Add your blogs using the ManageWP Dashboard

You can send all feedback to our features/bugs forum.

• Manage Multiple WordPress Blogs
• Plugin Central
• Plugin central released
• How to Speed up WP Super Cache
• Snazzzzzy Archives pre-release

I take keyword research very seriously as no matter how good your on-site optimization or backlink profile is, if you are not ranking for the right keywords you are going to have sub-optimal results.

In this article I will describe one of the methodologies I use.

Step 1 - Getting Keywords

Google Adwords Keyword Tool is usually a first stop for keyword research.

For this example I am going to research keyword 'shaving'. Let's image we are building a website about shaving related products.

We begin by typing a phrase, hitting search, and selecting "Phrase" match type instead of default "Broad".

The navigation categories on the left help us narrow the search and I select "Razors and Shavers" for the purpose of this example. This gives us about 10 keywords to start with.

After being satisfied with the selection, I download the keywords as CSV for Excel.

Notes: There are many keyword idea tools out there. Out of free ones, I sometimes use keyword expander for quick ideas without having to type in the captcha. You can also check out how to use keyword tools to pick up good domain names.

Step 2 - What People Search For? Is it Any Good?

After modifying the downloaded file in Excel, I leave only Global Monthly Searches and Estimated Avg. CPC columns.

Why Global Monthly Searches?

Because we want our phrase to be searched as many times as possible. There is no value in ranking for something that is never searched for.

Why Estimated Avg. CPC?

Because it gives a simple signal about commercial value of the keyword - the higher the better. This factor is mostly used for sites that are based on third party revenue streams like affiliate sales or adsense.

Not all sites are about commercial products, and on sites which sell their own products this factor may not be as important.

Step 3 - Who We Are Up Against?

Next step is figuring out how many competing pages we are going to be up against.

I perform a search for each of the keywords in quotes (this gives us more accurate, phrase matched results).

Write down the number of results (check "About xxx results" line). Note that you can use a local Google site if your site/product is competing on the local market. For most purposes I use Google.com.

Next, I perform the same search but this time I select "Past week" in search options on the sidebar. This gives me the number of competing pages from last week only.

Why Past week results?

Because it gives me up to date information about competing pages. Some keywords may have relatively low number of competing pages, but the last week results can be relatively big, indicating high level of interest. This keywords will obviously be harder to rank and vice versa.

Step 4 - Strength of Competition

Next thing I want to check is strength of competition. I use mozRank indicator, which is a rough equivalent of Page Rank but with better granulation.

If you use Firefox you can get mozRank through SearchStatus addon or SEO Doctor (OSE Metrics menu link).

Now check the search results and add to Excel mozRank for #2 search result. Why #2? This gives us better indication as often #1 is heavily skewed (for example Wikipedia) and in most cases we would be as happy if we ranked as 'just' #2.

Why strength of competing pages?

Because sheer number of competing pages is not good enough indication of competition. It is not same running against Wikipedia and a forum post. Using mozRank gives us a better perspective of the relative strength of the competing page.

Step 5 - Online Commercial Intention

This step helps answer one question - so, is anyone buying this?

And the tool that answers it is Microsoft Commercial Intention. Just type in the keyword, select "query" and hit Go.

Why commercial intention?

Did you know that only 2% people looking for 'razor burns' have intentions to buy against 96% looking for 'shaving razors'.

If you were trying to sell a registry optimizing software would you not like to know that people looking for 'registry cleaner' are more than two times likely to buy than people looking for 'optimize registry'?

Step 6  - Wrapping it up - Keyword Commercial Value

When I have all this data, I can easily get an answer I was looking for - which of these keywords are best to pursue?

To calculate this I create a simple formula.

On the good side I have Searches, CPC, Commercial Intent - I want this to be as high as possible.

On the bad side there are Competing Pages, Pages Weekly and Strength - I want them to be as low as possible.

So I multiply all the "good guys" and divide them by all "bad guys" multiplied together.

Finally I add leveling factor just to get the result in reasonable boundaries.

Final formula in Excel I used for this example is:

H2=1000000*B2*C2*G2/(D2*E2*F2)

What I can see right away is that if I was making a site about shaving, "straight razor shaving" would be my best bet among the selected keywords, and by a large margin too.

And keyword research does not stop here. This is just the tip of an iceberg, as we need to delve deeper into the variations of the favorable keyword and also try other keyword ideas that we might have missed.

It's both a science and an art but one thing is certain - do your keyword research properly and you will have a solid foundation to build your online business on.

• Quick Way to Measure Brand Impact
• How to Improve Page Rank? Linking is the Key!
• Advanced WordPress SEO: Page Rank Sculpting
• How to pick a great Domain name
• Optimizing WordPress Permalinks

I made a list based on sheer number of downloads with a quirk - the plugin has to be last updated this year to ensure the support is ongoing.

• Most Popular WordPress Plugin Authors
• SEO Experiment with Tags continued
• WordPress plugin recommendations
• Thank you for your comment!
• WordPress Fundamentals for Newbies

With today ranking of 9,964 the Alexa finally dipped below magical 10,000 number.

I expect this number to go back and forth and I know the significance of the number is purely psychological, but I am grateful and happy with what I have achieved as far as online footprint goes since 26th October 2007.

And just as a reminder here is the very first post I ever published. I followed with this post.

And now 318 posts and 10, 164 of your comments later, prelovac.com/vladimir has been a sanctuary only for the most persistent, and most courageous readers, ready to endure my ever going rants.

And I thank you all for that and the support through all these years, I could not do it without you. See you at the next milestone!

• Retrospective of the first year online with cool stats pictures
• phperrlog – Monitor and consolidate php and apache error logs on the server
• How to toggle comments with one line of code
• Quick Way to Measure Brand Impact
• Alexa new ranking change, Google on the move?

What say you?

• Professional WordPress and SEO service
• I got a fantastic new Laptop and I am on Twitter finally :)
• Quick Way to Measure Brand Impact
• Show Me Options
• Future of Internet for developers

Here is a quick tip to improve your website performance score (as measured by YSlow). It takes literally less then 5 minutes to implement.

Add these lines to your .htaccess file:

<FilesMatch "\.(ico|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|js|css|swf)$">
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
 ExpiresActive on
 ExpiresDefault "access plus 30 days"
</IfModule>
Header unset ETag
FileETag None
</FilesMatch>
 
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml text/css application/javascript application/x-javascript  application/rss+xml application/atom_xml text/javascript

What this does is adds far expires header (make sure mod_expires is loaded in your apache config if you have problems) to your static content (images, js, css), turns off ETag headers and compresses files sent to the browser (also saving your bandwidth bill).

This will improve your score by at least a full grade, if not more.

Of course, improving YSlow grade will be just a side effect - your site will feel much quicker for browsing.

Feel free to post your YSlow results in comments before and after applying this tip.

Resources:
Website Optimization guide (originally for WordPress sites)
Adding version to theme CSS file
Javascript to Footer plugin
Yslow
Using Site speed as search ranking factor

• WordPress Optimization Bible
• Alternative to YSlow – Page Speed
• Tools for Webmaster
• Adding version to theme CSS file
• Optimize your WordPress page loading times with a simple tweak

It is in my belief that much of the web spam appearing on top pages of search engines could be easily solved on the algorithmic level by simply 'penalizing' (or completely removing) pages with Adsense or similar contextual ads.

The reason for this is most of the spam sites were made to leverage not-so-perfect search engine ranking algorithms, get free traffic and use ads or affiliate links to make money. There are more subtle techniques that involve buying traffic but the end result is the same.

Simply if there are three or four Adsense blocks on the site and they have affiliate links on top of it, that's exactly the kind of site I don't want to be seeing in my search results.

The algorithm would simply penalize the sites based on number of ads they run, using exponential valuation. Adsense, affiliate links, banner ads - over do it and you get heavily penalized.

And there lies the biggest problem. Google makes bulk of their revenue through Adwords/Adsense. If they wanted to clean their search results in this way they would clean themselves of big portion of their profits.

On the other hand Bing does not have to rely on ads as Microsoft has other income streams, and nothing stops them from implementing such algorithm. And if a user likes to see ads they could just have an option to include these sites.

Does it make sense?

• Impending demise of Google world
• SEO Smart Links and Category Search plugins
• Near perfect analytics day
• Mind your comments, someone may be watching
• Get Rid of Spam While You Can

I believe it is in the human nature not to appreciate what is free. If somebody gives us something for free, most of us take it for granted as if it never happened.

And that creates the problem with free.

Because free also needs to make living somehow. But it got it's business model all wrong because we are not appreciative enough.

How do I know? If we were paying for the air we breathe I bet we would care more for our environment. That's just the way we are.

• Life, what was that?
• To the Moon and back
• Famous Quotes about Life
• The Ocean Race
• Langedrag Nature Park Fairy Tale

I have chosen managewp.com as the project home, and I am currently making finishing touches to the application.

Everything will be purely WordPress powered and all you will have to do is install a plugin on sites that you want to remotely manage.

Feel free to post any ideas or feature requests in a comment or contact me directly.

• Plugin Central
• Plugin central released
• Improve website YSlow performance grade in a blink of an eye
• How to toggle comments with one line of code
• ManageWP.com has been Launched!

Then came the PC and with it lazy programming. Now we are witnesses to the absurd such as 1 GHz processors installed in mobile phones, but switching from one menu to another is mysteriously lasting 5 seconds.

Programming is no longer considered an art, but just a way to get things done. If something is slow just buy better hardware, we are all taught to behave in this way.

Like many other things, coding has became a picture of a modern, fast-paced, profit oriented society.

But not everyone gave up. Cult of programming is still alive today thanks to sites like scene.org.

I recently saw a demo from this year's coding competition.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vzcMdkvPPg

Now you'll watch it and probably say OK it's nice. What if I tell you that the whole demo you just saw fits in 256 bytes of code. 256 bytes or 256 characters is all that is needed to setup exe, initialize graphics, and draw this beautiful 3D pulsating environment. Imagine having at your disposal the equivalent of  contents of this and a previous paragraph to produce that kind of stunning animation on the screen of your computer! Now watch that demo again and awe.

Download link

If we up the ante to 4096 bytes we come up with this

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YWMGuh15nE

Download demo

Amazing? Well not quite when you know that the computer that landed Apollo on the moon also had only 4096 bytes.

In the modern world your pen is likely to have more than that, let alone your watch or a phone which have thousands and millions times as much. But has the world really advanced millions or even thousand times? Not really.

We've simply pushed too many things too far. It's coming the time to go back to the roots.

• A Tribute to Commodore
• Embedding high quality YouTube videos
• Humble time
• Jonathan Zittrain and Jeffrey Sachs
• Top 6 reasons you should start playing the guitar

BuddyFox is an instant messaging addon, that allows you to chat with your friends without ever leaving the window of your browser. You can add friends and make groups pretty much like in standalone instant messaging tools.

When installed you will see a BuddfyFox icon in the status bar, which when clicked opens a chat panel.

As a first friend you can add me - my buddyfox id is vprelovac.

Register and download the addon on BuddyFox.com (I am expecting Mozilla inclusion any day now).

Feel free  to send in all bug reports and feature requests.

• Ubiquity and WordPress
• Plugin Central
• Theme Test Drive
• Page rank update, SEO Doctor success and more
• Projects

But my friend does not realize that this guy is near his sixties now. If anything we are in our thirties. And there is nothing more valuable than the time we have.

I make a joke that Heffner would probably gladly trade his millions, mansion and everything that comes with it for a chance to be in his thirties.

Strange, how most things people pursue come around as not relevant once they get them.

How do we know the important ones right from the beginning?

Enjoy time. Time slips away.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FvWFpU_uAw

• Forgotten Art of Programming
• News reporter gets owned compilation
• Top 6 reasons you should start playing the guitar
• Everybody stay cool, this is a robbery!
• Office stress

So we are doing this site redesign and inevitably we need to check if the site works correctly in all browsers including the notorious IE6. Of course it doesn't; it breaks the site in half and all kind of weird things happen as one would expect. But our web analytics show that 15% of all visitors to this site still use IE6. And what now? Bummer.

Frustrated, I open Microsoft's own site to check how it works in IE6, and to my amazement I find out that it doesn't!

See it for yourself.  Open the page of their flagship product Microsoft Office 10 beta.

Below are two screenshots, first from IE6 and another in Firefox to compare.

Office 10 page in IE6

Office 10 Page in Firefox

Designers all over the world are crying for this justice to be straightened out and I believe that the first person to come up with a browser or standard (or both) that will work across all platforms at all times will become famous (or at least rich).

As for Microsoft, shame on you. Again.

• Microsoft vs Google – Bing, LookingGlass, what’s next?
• Why is Facebook worth more then Ford and AMD combined
• Tools for Webmaster
• Google Chrome 2.0 beta is faster than light! I really mean it..
• Style up your website with this hot tip: Use Safari browser!