Monthly Archives: November 2009

SEO Works: UTD Web Design Ireland on Page 1 Google.ie for Search Term ‘Web Design Ireland’

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Just a quick blog to demonstrate that when you practice what you preach good things happen.  As of today UTD Web Design Ireland is on page one of Google.ie search results page for the search term Web Design Ireland. OK it’s in 10th position, but when you consider that UTD Web Design is only registered since February 2009 this is a very good result given that this term would be highly sought after with 42,100,000 other results for the that key phrase.

web design ireland

UTD Web Design Ireland in Google's Top 10 Results

In order to achieve this I simply ensured that my content was simplified so that spiders can traverse it easily and got some high quality links back to the site.  Hopefully, as time passes I will further climb the top 10 results based on a continued sensible approach to SEO.

The basics of SEO are so important as outlined in my SEO Simplified blog entry.

Some of my other sites that have done quite well out of SEO are slang.ie (search for ‘irish slang’) and upthedeise.com (search for ‘waterford discussion’).

If you need assistance with your SEO, don’t hesitate to contact me at info@utdwebdesign.com and we can put in place an SEO plan for your business.

Public Disclosure Requirements: Company Websites Legal Obligations

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With effect from 1 January 2007 the information required to be specified on paper company letters and order forms will be extended to electronic form. In addition every company that has a website will be required to display on its homepage those same particulars or identify on its homepage and make readily accessible a webpage on which the particulars appear.

The particulars are as follows:

(a) that the company is registered in Ireland and the number with which it is registered;

(b) the address of the registered office;

(c) in the case of a company exempt from the obligation to use the word “limited” or “teoranta” as part of its name, the fact that it is a limited company;

(d) in the case of a company that is being wound up, the fact that it is being wound up.

(e) where there is reference to the share capital of the company, the reference shall be to the capital that is subscribed and paid up.

Here is a link to the to the Information Leaflet No. 7, “Disclosure And Publication Requirements In Relation To Companies And Business Names“

Changing Domains and 301 Redirects

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If you want to move your business to a new domain and you have a popular domain name with a decent Google Page rank you will most certainly want to redirect traffic from your old website to your new website.

There are many ways to do this. Some of the most popular are:

  • using meta tags: this is a client side method that redirects the browser after a certain amount of time
  • using a server side script: this could be a simple .php that redirects users from a page (generally homepage) to your new site
  • use a .htaccess file and a rule to redirect traffic to your new site

META REFRESH REDIRECT

The meta refresh mechanism is quite simple, you insert code like this into the header of the page you wish to redirect:

<META http-equiv=”refresh” content=”5;URL=http://www.yournewsite.com/”>

This will redirect to your new site 5 seconds after the page loads on the viewer’s browser.  This method is simple and require no server side scripting knowledge.

PHP 301 REDIRECT

With languages like php you can use the header function to redirect to other pages. Here is an example of how to perform a 301 redirect with php.

<?php
header( “HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently” );
header(‘Location: http://www.yournewsite.ie/’);
?>

NOTE: this code must appear at the top of the .php file as if the script echoes anything at all to the client the redirect will not work.

This method is good as it performs a proper 301 redirect so that your new site picks up all of the page rank associated with the old page, the only disadvantage here is that it must be done page by page.

This 301 has been tried and tested on http://www.utdwebdesign.com and redirects to http://www.utdwebdesignireland.com

.HTACCESS 301 REDIRECT

This is the preferred method of performing a 301 redirect for all pages of a site but only works on Linux hosting. Here is an example of a .htaccess file with a 301 redirect rule for all pages of a website:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^yournewsite.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yournewsite.com/ [L,R=301]

This .htaccess 301 Redirect has been tried and tested on Godaddy hosting for the website http://www.barrackstreetconcertband.com and redirects the user to http://www.barrackstreetband.com

Transferring a .ie domain from one hosting provider to another

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Transferring a .ie domain is not as simple as a .com, however you can transfer a .ie domain without involving the web design company that registered it for you.

Generally with .ie domains you need to send in a scanned letter (on company headed paper) to the IEDR (IE Domain Registry) telling them that you want to transfer the domain to a new domain registrar. In order to do this you must be the original domain administrator (which the previous web design company you used should have set). If this person is not working at your company any more you can simply state this in the letter and specify a new administrative contact.

Domain transfer can be a little tricky and generally takes a few days to do, so if you want to do this make sure you give yourself plenty of time. It can take longer and more consideration if you have lots of email addresses that you need to transfer also.

Just take your time and be careful and get professional advice if you are not sure.

UTD Web Design Ireland provides such as service so don’t hesitate to contact them if you need assistance.