Testing structured data of the current URL with one click

Any SEO know about benefits of structured data. Google offers a special structured data testing tool to test the existence and quality of the structured data on the certain URL.

But what, if you want to test some URLs? Copy URL, switch the tab, go to the Google Structured Data Testing Tool, paste URL, press Enter. And again, and again...? Annoying!

I've coded a solution for this kind of routine task.

Free online SEO tools for TF-IDF calculation

First of all: what's TF-IDF? In German this content parameter is called WDF / IDF, but the subject is the same:

TF-IDF, term frequency–inverse document frequency, is, explained in short, from rookie to rookie, the relation of term usage frequency in the given document to usage frequency of this term in all documents containing it.

This relation mirrors how relevant is the given document for the given term in the manifold of all documents containing this term.

TF-IDF is successor of keyword density. Some non-demented SEO geriatrics can remind, what means keyword density: number of term's usage in the text divided through the number of all words in the text multiplied with 100. This formula is in reality both most used and wrong.

Well, i'm not your Wiki, and if you're in the full legal age and not banned by Google, you would find fast everything you need to know about keyword density and TF-IDF. I just say: nowadays TF-IDF is nearly the single numeric parameter of content quality. But this article is about something other - i've promised to share some freebies, right?

Freebase shuts down! Your free Google-proof way into Knowledge Graph closes at 31.03.2015

Everybody, who tried it, knows, whether it is possible and easy to publish an article about a business in the Wikipedia, specially if the business is far away from being in Fortune500, or Fortune 5k, or even Fortune 500k;) But small, local businesses, like individual entrepreneurs too, have an absolutely legit wish and need to get own websites into the Knowledge Graph...

The only free, public way to create a Google-proof web entity is (not much longer) a Freebase entry. Well, smart people create at least 2 entries simultaneously: first for the person, and second for the business entity, with the person entity as an author for the business entity. I wrote an article about an entity creation with a Freebase entry, which was highly spread and liked. But today is a day for the bad news:

Freebase will close in the nearest time!

And, from 31.03.2015 on Freebase will be available only in read-only status: no more new entries, no more edits. Freebase database will be then integrated into the Wikidata. I relate with it to the yesterday post from Freebase Google Plus account, where the closing and integration road map is detailedly described. In the mid 2015 Freebase will be shut down as the standalone project. But what means putting Freebase out of service for all of us, who wants appear in the Knowledge Graph, but haven't enough mana to appear in the Wikipedia?

How to create your own author-centered knowledge graph

I'm not a fear salesman, really! But the thought to name this article as "how to defend abusive content removal requests" comes to me from the reading of the Google's updated report on "How Google Fights Piracy". The following sentence makes me conceiving suspicion:

...sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in search results.

On the background of all known Negative SEO cases this can be the next thing, where a honest publisher will be punished for nothing.

There are enough known cases, where content scraping sites get better SERP places as the unique content providers. And there are enough abusive content removal requests - just read the Google's report. The best defense is a good offence. We construct our publishing identities network, which serves as our own author-oriented knowledge graph. Its purposes are, that

• always working removal requests at Google and DMCA takedowns,
• lack of effect in case of abusive third part removal requests,
• doubtless machine-readable relations between author's entity and author's creative work.

Our objective is a solid, structured and chained publisher identity, which will include the author, the publishing medium and the publication itself. Let's work!

itemId vs sameAs vs additionalType: how to distinguish and use correctly

One of the best methods to gain the topical relevance of a text is to use entities instead of "plain" keywords. The most simple way to create an entity out of a keyword is to extend it as a standalone type with the Schema.org-markup and prove it with additional trustful informations. Here is the applying point of HTML5 attribute itemId and Schema.org-properties sameAs and additionalType. All of them are used to provide additional informations to a type. But while itemId and sameAs are pretty much the same, additionalType is used for different purpose. Let's look at the use cases in detail to get clear about distinguishing and correct assignment. Accurate usage of these properties is crucial for semantic SEO purposes, cause the kind of the entity creation turns the algorithms opinion about the given text to finally more or less topical ranking.

Authorship is dead? No! It must be just implemented correctly!

Last news are all about authorship is dead. Don't misunderstand this statement! After thoughtful reading of this and that article it is clear, that really dead are only some actions, which Google performs with very special authorship markup, namely

1. data gathering and
2. partly showing of author's image and name as byline in search results,

based on rel=author. "Partly" cause author images and names are still shown, if you are logged in into your G+ account and the author is in your G+-circles.

I will not analyze the causes of dropping the processing of rel=author - such analyze is well done in articles linked above. I want rather reassure the community, that the authorship still alive and will be so. The only question is how to correctly implement authorship. Let's look a bit into detail:

C for Content: part 4 of the HASCH the OnPage SEO framework

How to create relevant content

Shortly i was asked about the definitive OnPage ranking factors. My first and short answer was, there isn't the single ranking factor, but a combination of some. Then it seemed to me, this question could be very relevant verbalization of the article about website content for the part 4 of the HASCH, my OnPage SEO framework. I don't want to rob your time with commonplace phrases about "the content is king, must be unique, interesting, well-written, useful, fresh, catchy, provoking, outrageous" or the like. I will instead explain, which tangible traits must own your content to rank well. With  "to rank well" i mean, that search engine algorithm will reckon your website text as topically relevant to your chosen and used in the text keywords. Let's ask:

• what makes content relevant?
• how to create relevant content?

To the answers →

S for Semantic: part 3 of the HASCH the OnPage SEO framework

The third part of my OnPage framework is dedicated to semantic of a webpage. With this article i will give an overview of benefits and usage areas of semantic markup. Use this article like a kind of cheatsheet for OnPage audits of existing website, SEO strategy for website under construction, or website preparation for semantic search before relaunch.

Why semantic?

• Search engines use semantic to improve the search results (semantic search).
• Using semantic OnPage makes texts better machine-readable (exacter understanding and distinguishing).
• All fresh kinds of search results output, like rich snippets, Knowledge Graph, the OneBox are based on and populated with semantically rehashed informations.
• Google accomplished a paradigm transition "from strings to things". The "thing" here is the main object of (web) semantic, an entity. An entity means in our context just a keyword, or keyword phrase, but more or lesser interrelated and explicitly verifiable by other sources,
• It's already proven, that semantic markup is a ranking factor: 0,3% of all sites make use of semantic markup, but 36% of sites at SERP encounter it.

Semantic website revamp is the key to being understood by machines. Quite enough reasons to scrutinize the subject! Lets go:

How to give a face to your entities? Earn SEO profit with making Wikimedia Commons to your media hosting!

We already know, how to become an entity - create a Freebase topic. But this is a common issue that add image to Freebase topic is no longer possible. Our goals regarding semantic SEO and our images are however:

• the ability to provide semantic informations about our images,
• a possibility to share images with belonging semantic informations
• embedding of semantically described images into web documents as images utilizing ImageObject class from Schema.org and, last but not least,
• to host these images with belonging semantic informations on an authoritative source.

All these tasks can be accomplished using Wikimedia Commons, a free media repository of the Wikimedia Foundation. I divide this article about using of Wikimedia Commons into 2 sections:

• How to upload to Wikimedia Commons (things like register, login, create user page, select and/or find out matching license, upload and describe image or other media file)
• How to cite Wikimedia Commons (using on websites, embedding into semantic markup)

A for Architecture: part 2 of the HASCH the OnPage SEO framework

What means a SEO talking about architecture? What kind of architecture matters for SEO?

SEO must clearly distinguish two kinds of website architecture:

• site-wide architecture,
• page-wide architecture.

Both site-wide and page-wide architectures have own rules to obey. I will formulate these rules flexible and adaptable enough to be applied to any content or ecommerce project.

H for Header: part 1 of the HASCH OnPage SEO framework

Each website begins with the header. There are no minimal or required values inside of it: the header content fully depends from our goals and laziness:) Another cause for poor designed headers is a meaning, that Google doesn't understand meta tags or doesn't take meta tags as a ranking factor. Well, Google says, it understands just a little amount of available meta tags. Here is Google's statement about understanding of meta tags. But i say:

• use not only meta tags, which Google definitely understands,
• use meta tags extensively,
• be redundant in meta tags using.

Why? Just because the web contains much more as only Google and you. There are very much bots and spiders in the internet, their goal is to parse web contents and to create different indexes. The parsing criteria could be a bunch of existing meta tags and the parsing results on their part could be parsed from Googlebot. So Google gets into its index the content from your meta tags, which Google means not to understand.

Good, now we are agreed about benefits of meta tags using. The main SEO point is utilizing header rules to give the searchbot so much information about our site as possible. Now i list meta tags one by one and give the correct syntax, some possible values, and my point of view of the practical SEO effects.

How to practice guest blogging successfully without penalty fear

There are hard times for guest bloggers and guest blogging platforms. Google's top spam officer  means, guest blogging is done. Even was penalized one of the most successful guest blogging brokers. There is a big chaos and panic in the webmarketing environment. "Guest blogging is dead" is one of the most searchable phrases. But in my opinion there is a kind of doing guest blogging, which allows the successful valuable guest blog practice. Lets look on what exactly hates Google on guest blogging, what exactly drives a guest blogger into penalty and how the common sense and semantic markup help us to spread our guest blog articles and get valuable backlinks for it without penalty fear.

Oftener and deeper into Knowledge Graph? - Become better entity at Wikidata!

Well my dear entity owners, i realize with pleasure, you really like becoming entity! You maked such stormy run on my previous topic about becoming entity with creating Freebase topic, that i decided to write a follow-up to tell more detailed about a further possibility of entity enriching and chaining of entities. I mean, as more structured and linked data we provide publicly, as more cause we give to the search algorythmus to interrelate us with our creative works, products and the like. Establishing and reinforcing of such interrelations gains firstly our author and trust rank, secondly it enhances our influence grad and our pubications authority. I see these interrelations like a relations between left and right brain hemisphere: the more synaptic relations are established (thickness of Corpus Callosum), the higher is creativity and intelligence. Then let's our entities interrelation as thick as possible, to achive such amount as it was by Einstein's brain;) Now we create our new entity at Wikidata, and then connect this new entity to our already existing.

How to become an entity? Create Freebase topic!

What? Are we individuals not already a kind of entity? Sure, but... Google would say - not enough, it lacks something important. Yes, if you not forget about rel="author", if you publish something, you are on the good way to become a real machine-readable entity. It remains just a little step to be affiliated in the community of the Knowledge Graph entities: yes, i mean your entry in Freebase.

Solution for "Rich snippets not showing"

During my microdata coding i quite accidentally realized, that "rich snippets are not showing" doesn't always mean "rich snippets not working"! My research was about nesting and inheritance of Schema.org's classes, and, playing with the Google's structured data testing tool, i detected a case where my microdata markup was correctly validated and worked properly, but rich snippets of this code weren't showing. After some tests i got to know about two causes of not shown rich snippets:

Authorship markup: how to combine correctly several kinds of it?

Yes, exactly, how to correctly combine them? More: why is it useful and needful to use several authorship markup and whether it produces any SEO-profit?

Some SEOs dispute about differences of using author and publisher properties, another SEOs advice to use only rel="author"... I say: use all you might use simultaneously! (it's needless to say, don't use something, what doesn't fit your context and could be ranked as e.g. rich snippets spam etc ).

Schema.org + Notepad++ = 💘

I love Notepad++. Since i use Windows this is my code editor of choice (there are 4 years, befor i was a Mac-fanboy using TextWrangler). It is free, stable, customisable (visually with themas, and with user defined languages), extendable with rich plugin repository, has active development team, so it gets offen updates. One day i thought, there could be something better beside of Notepad++ and searched. What i found, was an article about 15 most popular code editors and a poll - look at the poll results, you know, what was my decision;)

Since 2011 i love Schema.org too. I extensively use microdata on each site i get in my hands - my own record is 125 microdata classes and properties in a single web document (detail page of a books online shop), and no single one is spam, all of them are existing and useful product informations.

Getting married

It was just obvious i decided to optimize my handwork and make Notepad++ and Schema.org vocabulary working together (and, last but not least, to create a free additional value for all, who have similar needs).