March 6, 2009 Office Hours

March 6, 2009

Vanessa explains why hyphens are the best answer versus underscores in URLs and why it matters.

She also touches on her wikipedia page and whether the information is accurate. It happens to be accurate right now on March 6th, including her birthday. Does your birthday on wikipedia go over the line? For some people, yes. Vanessa just wants a birthday present.

Google has adopted and is actively using canonical tags, Yahoo! and Microsoft may or may not, but Vanessa doens’t quite know. Vanessa explains URL parameters and eBay URLs. Canonicalization is always ideal.

What should you do when you remove a URL. Vanessa talks about how a redirect is a good idea. If you’re going to 404 the pages, make sure they 404! Apple.com has great 404 pages because they don’t look like 404 pages. Webmaster Tools also shows how to make a great 404 page.

What’s the best way to block pages? Meta tag or robots file?
Vanessa explains why robots files are usually better, but explains benefits of both.

Listen to the episode at WebmasterRadio.fm

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