You may be in a position to dramatically increase the effectiveness of inbound links to your web site in a few minutes by editing the .htaccess (Hypertext Access) file and specifying your URL.

Canonicalization is the process by which the search engines choose the best URL when there are several choices.

Several choices look like this:

http://www.domain.com
http://domain.com
http://domain.com/index.html
http://www.domain.com/index.html
http://domain.com/index.php
http://www.domain.com/index.php
https://www.domain.com
https://domain.com
https://domain.com/index.html
https://www.domain.com/index.html
https://domain.com/index.php
https://www.domain.com/index.php

Multiple URLs and duplicate content

The search engines see these all as unique URL’s. But, they also have the same content on them. So, you could be dividing and diminishing your link love and presenting duplicate content, which search engines penalize.

Canonicalization to the rescue

What if we could get everyone to link to just one URL and get the search engines to see just one URL? This would gather up the power of all the links and focus them on “one web site” rather than many and eliminate the duplicate content problem.

Modify the .htaccess file

For those using Apache, the answer is .htaccess file and mod_rewrite.

Sample text to include in the .htaccess file

Directoryindex index.php index.shtml index.html index.htm
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^index.html index.php
RewriteRule ^([0-9A-Za-z_-]+).html index.php?page=$1
RewriteRule ^([0-9A-Za-z_-]+)/([0-9A-Za-z_-]+).html index.php?page=$1&subpage=$2

With Rewriterule on applied to non www

http://jbspartners.com —> www.jbspartners.com
www.jbspartners.com —> www.jbspartners.com - no action required.

With Rewriterule off

www.domainname.com —> www.domainname.com
http://domainname.com —> http://domainname.com

Multiple unique domain names can be eliminated by using the .htaccess file to canonicalize your URL’s. This eliminates the duplicate content problem and gathers up all of the inbound links pointed at your Home page and redirects them to one URL. This is awesome stuff!

More information

Hard core documentation from Apache
Google’s Matt Cutts offers his advice about canonicalization
Chris Hooley explains canonicalization

The picture above was created using Google Maps, zoomed in to individual buildings that are the shape of letters. Click on the image to visit the web site for the full effect. Pretty cool! Created by GeoGreetings.

Local search is geographically focused and growing

When a search is performed using local search the search results are limited to a geographical area, often a town or 20 miles from your address, for example.

Local search is expected to grow 80% between the years 2005 and 2009, according to Borrell Associates.

How can you position yourself to benefit from this growth? Increase your local presence on the Internet.

Grow your local search presence

Here are the first steps that I recently took.

I found a handful of directories that offer free listings. These directories allowed me to list my company information and a link to my web site; and one even let me add my logo.

Benefits of local directory listings

With each additional listing my company’s presence on the web grows. This provides another link at my web site and another way for customers to find me.

Local search directory suggestions

Below are links to the web sites that I used.

Google takes this a couple of steps further. Not only can you create a listing, you can also create a free advertisement and a free coupon which are presented on Google Maps.

Below is a linkable image of a local search on Google Maps for “domain name registration winchester ma”.

This is an example of how the Google Ad shows up in Google Maps search results.

In conclusion

Local search will continue growing in popularity.

Utilize the power of local search

We advise our clients to expand their local Internet presence by obtaining listings in local directories and local search engines.

JBS Partners can help

If you are presented with the opportunity to list in a local directory, but are unsure about the quality of the directory, send me an email and I will be happy to review the directory and share what I find with you.