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Squarespace Launches SEO-Friendly 301 Redirects

Bonnie Gibbons — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:13:52 UT

As a somewhat long-time Squarespace user I'm thrilled at the giant SEO step they've just announced: 301 Redirects are now available for every URL on a Squarespace website, making it possible to move your website to Squarespace without (much) disruption in existing organic search engine traffic. (Learn how Squarespace's SEO-friendly redirects work here.)

I've had a blog on Squarespace since July 2007 (it's a classical music blog, if you're interested). I've found it the best hosted blogware/site builder for SEO ever since -- but the lack of support for 301 redirects was an obstacle to those wishing to migrate an existing blog with any significant SEO juice. Back in September, the Squarespace team launched their SEO-friendly blog importer, taking care of the problem for blog posts imported from certain popular blog formats. That obstacle is now history.

(Yeah, sure, everyone in SEO knows that a properly tricked-out Wordpress blog -- or equivalent content management software -- hosted on a server you control is theoretically best for seo. But that defeats the purpose of using a hosted service in the first place. I've got a day job, a handful of personal/family blogs and sporadic freelance and charity work. As a work/life balance decision I'm limiting my use of self-hosted software to the Big Medium CMS that drives the page you're reading right now.)

Because it's not free like self-hosted Wordpress -- and because it's not super-cheap like TypePad -- Squarespace is sometimes an afterthought in the "where to host your blog" equation. As a business, they've gone after a niche market that appreciates the platform's design flexibility but is willing to pay $14 and up per month to be free from hosting and software worries. As an experienced content creator and coder who's not a visual designer, I find it hits a sweet spot of flexibility, convenience and value for money that works for me. And now that the most significant hurdle to migration is gone,

More importantly, paying real (but, in the scheme of things, cheap) money for hosting and software can get you listened to. The $14 I pay for HoldeKunst.com has paid off many times over in the fanatical support I've received -- often within minutes of opening a ticket, and unfailingly gracious even when I'm in the middle of nitpicking about a feature I'd like to see improved. I've tried to give back from time to time by participating in the Squarespace developer forum, which is itself a close-knit, helpful community that delivers even more value to Squarespacers. This upgrade is just the latest response to the user community that I've seen in the past two years.

But Wait - There Should Be More

Not to be ungrateful on this geekily giddy morning, but:

We could still use some kind of bulk uploading -- currently each redirect must be added manually.
We could still use canonical URL tags, especially with Google's announcement this very week that they'll be supported across domains. This would require the ability add code to the HTML header on a page-by-page basis. Squarespace already offers header access on a larger scale at the sitewide and module level.

To be fair, canonical tags are a pretty new feature, though they've gotten the necessary industry buy-in to be taken seriously by now. I'm confident, however, that my whining um... energetic advocacy) for this feature will be addressed in reasonable time.

Can Kurt Greenbaum Get His Social Media Brand Back?

Bonnie Gibbons — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:50:00 UT

Ten days ago, Kurt Greenbaum was just the social media director for Stltoday, the website of the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Today he's the target of a social media backlash that particularly stings -- instead of finding himself in the eye of a twit-storm on behalf of his employer, it's personal. Worse, the scandal casts doubt on his ability to function in a social media leadership role.

If you haven't heard about how Greenbaum reported an inappropriate comment to the poster's boss (getting him "resigned"), see below for some background links.

If you're up to speed, just ponder these screen shots showing what has happened to Greenbaum's personal brand in the ten short days.

Kurt Greenbaum's Google search results, retrieved on the morning of Monday, November 23, 2009.

A ridicule site that chronicles the social media backlash against Kurt Greenbaum

While I consider Greenbaum's action outrageous, I'm not posting to indulge in Schadenfreude. Ever since "Reply to All" was invented, it's been ridiculously easy to screw up online. Instead, what lessons can we learn from this debacle?

Register your personal domain name

The current content at kurtgreenbaum.com. Since Greenbaum didn't register his full name as a domain, it was grabbed by others and used as a doorway into the Greenbaum ridicule site.

Or, really, the inverse: don't leave a domain like kurtgreebaum.com out there for someone else to grab if you publicly screw up. For whatever reason, Greenbaum blogs at igreenbaum.com. But looks what happens when you visit kurtgreenbaum.com: an invitation to visit kurtgreenbaumeisapussy.com.

If someone's already using your name as a domain, it's still worth keeping an eye on it and calling "dibs" through your registrar in case it becomes available.

Don't use anything close to vulgarity while denouncing someone else's vulgarity

Commenters were quick to pick up on a Tweet from Greenbaum that went like this:

"...Amazed at the readers who comment in defense of a jackass who posted a vulgarity on our site..."

Jackass is certainly considered less profane than pussy in the context under discussion. But still, it was easy pickings for Greenbaum's critics.

Sometime over the weekend, Greenbaum locked down his Twitter stream.

Admit you screwed up. Don't be sanctimonious

When Greenbaum crowed about consequences imposed (with his help) on the "resigned" school employee, the smackdown came swiftly with commenters siding against Greenbaum about 37 to one.

In a dismayingly unapologetic follow-up post, Greenbaum's damage control is lacking.

Greenbaum didn't mean to sound boastful. (Translation: he recognizes -- but cannot admit -- the he was bragging, but now understands he was wrong to do so.)
Greenbaum acted on his own, with no input from editorial or legal higher-ups. His managing editor has his back, though, conceding that the action was hasty but claiming it was "consistent with what they've done in the past."
Greenbaum might have overreacted.
Greenbaum emphasizes the legal nicety of whose IP address the comment came from (in an attempt) to silence accusations that he violated the St. Louis Dispatch's privacy policy. Nary a glimmer of awareness the he violated readers' trust.

Background

KMOV-TV Coverage - includes disturbing comment from Managing Editor Rose that Greenbaum's behavior is consistent with things they've done in the past.

Post a Vulgar Comment from Work, Lose Your Job - Kurt Greenbaum's initial brag

Kurt Greenbaum's Follow-up Post - Greenbaum denies bragging and admits he went for the nuclear option without input from higher-ups, but is unapologetic.

Interview with Webmaster of Kurt Greenbaum Ridicule Site

Miss Austen, Meet Mr. Verne - Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters

Bonnie Gibbons — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:35:06 UT

Monsters (OK, mostly vampires) have been all over every kind of screen lately. Jane Austen fans, meanwhile, have had four new TV adaptations and the unintentionally hilarious Lost in Austen to pick over. Capitalizing on a likely overlap between these audiences, Quirk Books (famed for the "Worst Case Scenario" series) released Pride and Prejudice and Zombies -- "restoring the lost scenes of Zombie mayhem" that somehow got edited out back in the early 1800s. No vampires, because that would be too obvious.

Admittedly under pressure from the (well-founded) threat of imitators, Worst Case Scenario author Ben H. Winters was tapped to come up with a follow-up, and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is the result. Still no vampires, because that would have been too obvious.

Mild Spoiler Alert! Consider yourself warned.

Anyway...

Winters reveals the new book's backstory in a Slate confessional that tantalizes and disturbs. (Like Dr. Watson's cryptic reference to the case of the Giant Rat of Sumatra, we can only hope the world will one day be ready to learn of Jurassic Mansfield Park.) That's the tantalizing part, wherein Ben discusses what he decided not to write, and recounts his preparatory reading of Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson and H.P. Lovecraft.

That's also where it starts to get a little out of hand. When I noticed this book was coming out, I wondered, "Why not use Persuasion, the Jane Austen novel that actually features sea and sailors?" Anticipating this caveat, Winters concedes the landlocked nature of Sense and Sensibility's Devonshire setting, but finds Persuasion a less fertile ground for satire.

The fun of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies consisted specifically in seeing just how little the original needed to change to make room for the 10% zombie mayhem. A similar amusement awaits in Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen -- how the "rediscovered scenes" can be worked in without affecting the rest of the story, or ever being spoken of again. But since the Dashwood girls never get near salt water in Sense and Sensibility, Ben had to do slightly more editing:

In Austen's original, the Dashwoods, upon their disinheritance, are invited to live in what is essentially the guest house of a wealthy relation, Sir John Middleton. In my version, their move is to Pestilent Isle, part of a vast archipelago controlled by Sir John—now an elusive explorer/collector with a beard "as white as the snows of Kilimanjaro" and a necklace of human ears.

The long, central portion of Sense and Sensibility takes place in London, a bustling cosmopolitan capital in Austen's time as in ours. I needed to transfer that big hunk of story to a location that could represent all that London represented for the Dashwoods and also be beset on all sides by hideous sea monsters. My answer was Sub-Marine Station Beta, a great domed city planted on the floor of the ocean, "the greatest engineering triumph of human history since the Roman aqueducts." (Ben H. Winters)

Jules Verne's lavish descriptions of the undersea fantasy world are as inspiring and uncannily prescient as Winters says. But Sub-Marine Station Beta is overthinking the whole Austen crossover thing -- as is sticking poor Col. Brandon with a face full of tentacles. Doesn't the guy have enough trouble being taken seriously, even while blessed with the face of Alan Rickman?