Day 2 – Dynamic Web Issues & The Google Dance

Day two brought some great insight to the more technical aspects of SEO, such as a session on dynamic web sites and even ways to use cloaking in an ethical manner, where you server spiders and humans the same content, but show spiders different URLs. There was a great session on duplicate content, and some very good point brought out by the Google Master himself, Matt Cutts. There were many pointers on how to make your dynamic sites better for the search engines. As well as things to look out for, such as long URLs, duplicate content, requiring the engines to use cookies, geo targeting on the SEO side, password protection and form based navigation.

Google, Yahoo and Ask were all represented on the panel regarding duplicate content, and all seemed to be saying the same thing, have one URL for each page. There was a lot of talk about 301 redirects vs. 302 redirects, the use of cookies to store user information and how and why blogs and RSS feeds are not going to create duplicate content penalties.

The evening was topped off with a part that reminded me of my college days. It was like being back at one of the frat houses on the Umass campus. Good food, but bad for you, all the beer you can drink loud music and everyone dancing to it in their own way, even a few games. My favorite was a Sony game where you and two of your friends would sit behind a green sheet and wear green shirts to block out your body and then bop your head to a music video which superimposed your head to the video. You had to try and stay with the dancers. I will upload the DVD from my performance later this week.

Day 3: Small budgets but big ideas

Day three brought some humor and some great information on optimizing smaller companies’ web sites, or those sights with small budgets. I also explored the exhibitor hall and found some real gems. In one session a panelist suggested that search engines are like Pinocchio. How? Pinocchio wanted more than anything else to not be a wooden puppet, but rather to be a boy. Search engines just like Pinocchio want to be “real boys and girls”, or more specifically, they want to think like real people and not computer generated algorithms. In response to this statement a humorous panelist responded, well then if Google is like Pinocchio, then is Matt Cutts, Jiminy Cricket? The first panelist would not go down that road, but it did provide for a moment of great fun.

On the more serious side of day three, there were some very poignant tips made for optimizing small business’ sites. One such suggestion was to stop trying to chase the algorithms and concentrate on running your business, while using time tested techniques that are here to stay. The theme of the day seemed to be a reinforcement of what we already know, good content drives traffic, though the spin on it today was search engines are watching user behavior, and as such good traffic will give you good rankings. The other aspect of good content, is to write in English, and by that I mean, if there are industry terms that you and your competitors through around a lot, chances are your customers are not using those terms, but rather more simple everyday terms, so why not go after those simple terms for your product. The final point I want to bring up from