Post

This is more of an article "stub" than anything since some of the planned content for this site on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has been delayed. But a quick FYI post seemed appropriate.

I've noticed a fair amount of content on the internet in various places - not all of which is "old" - urging website owners to pay attention to including meta keywords in their site's pages. But here's the thing: you would probably be wasting your time.

Unless you are targeting a smaller or more obscure search engine that does use meta keywords, there is little point in including such in the head tag of your website. Google doesn't use it. Some mentioned that Yahoo still does so I did a test the other day. Conclusion: Yahoo doesn't use meta keywords either.

I posted recently about using the Ubercart Custom Price module for things other than changing the price, like changing the quantity instead: Ubercart Custom Price Module Can Be Used for Non-Price Adjustments Too. Well, you really can change other things, including things that don't affect the price even indirectly. For example, you could even change the title. Try this out: $item->title = 'My funky test title';

If you are using development (snapshot) releases of modules on your Drupal site, please note that you may be seeing incorrect messaging on your Updates page. Development releases of modules are generated automatically on Drupal twice a day. There was an error a few days ago that causes all modules with an available development release to have the time stamp marked July 10, 2010.

There may be times when you want to display taxonomy terms for a node separately for a specific vocabulary. Or perhaps you only want to display the terms for a specific vocabulary and hide others.

In most themes, the taxonomy terms for a node are displayed via the $terms variable in a node template (node.tpl.php, etc.). With a little bit of Drupal theme development and customization of your theme, you can display the node's taxonomy terms separately by vocabulary - or display some and not display others.

The following is code that can be added to the template.php file in your theme. You can replace "phptemplate" with your theme name or leave it as is. If your theme already has a preprocess node function, then you can simply add it into the function.

This is just a really brief post about the Ubercart Custom Price module (http://drupal.org/project/uc_custom_price). As the name suggests, it was primarily intended for custom adjustments to the price of a product. This is can be used in many different ways, whether its using CCK textfield values, Ubercart product attribute values, or in other ways. For example, one could count the number of letters in a textfield and then alter the price or use the value of an product attribute.

We really haven't quite reached the point of making a formal announcement about a project that has been in development for quite some time. However, we saw the recent notice posted by Gaia that the online community site will be shutting down and closing its doors soon. Gaia's announcement mentioned some things for current group leaders and moderators on the Gaia Community site - in regards to relocation.

If you are currently a Group leader and moderator on Gaia who is trying to make plans for the group - please contact us. We would like to better understand your specific needs to see if we might be able to accommodate you.

A while back I found myself trying to explain to someone how a Drupal theme that was purchased was not going to result in an entire website being created simply by installing the theme. And I don't think the confusion was simply about content being added. The confusion seemed to be more centered on some very specific and robust features that were desired for the site. And simply put, the Drupal theme was not going to provide those features.

But that's not the fault of the Drupal theme. The particular Drupal theme was going to do it's specific job. And a very robust and/or highly customized Drupal theme may take some very specific features and modules into consideration.

If you've ever had Cron get stuck in Drupal and wondered what to do, you've probably run across instructions to clear some variables in your Drupal database - specifically the cron semaphore. That generally solves the issue. But, if you've tried that and have not found it fixes the issue, there's another seemingly simple but useful step. Before you do anything else after deleting the the necessary variables, go to the Performance tab in Drupal and clear your cache. This will help ensure that the variables you just cleared don't go right back in!

The search Engine Referrers module for Drupal is a module that allows you to see recent search engine queries that led visitors to your website. As the module's project page on Drupal states, the Search Engine Referrers module is intended to be very simple and lightweight. It does not create additional database tables or log entries. It simply provides a display of certain existing data already stored in Drupal.

The module's settings allow you to see up to 50 most recent entries per search engine. We currently use a modified version of the module on Web New Castle. You may find that if you only check statistics periodically (like us) or if you have a high volume, you want to see more than it's current limit.

There are many ways to increase your presence of major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, and others. There are many ways to optimize your website for search engine optimization (SEO). And finally, there are many legitimate services providers who can help you with search engine optimization. For example, WebNewCastle.com provides SEO services focused on the foundational side of search engine optimization - the way in which your website is constructed is one of the first places to start.

However, a little caution and a little understanding of search engine optimization will help ensure you avoid scams if you are looking for SEO services.