If you use Internet Explorer, I’m sure you’re just as annoyed as me with the need to click a Flash movie once just to activate it. Not sure what I’m talking about? Check out this website I built: http://www.coyledevelopment.com

Notice the Flash object is disabled (it runs, but you can’t interact with it) and your cursor has a little message that states “Click to activate and use this control”. Once you click it, it becomes “unlocked” and you can use it. What a pain, right? If the Flash object does any kind of posting back to the webpage and re-renders itself, you’ll have to click it again…meaning, your choice to activate it isn’t “saved” during your session.

Why must we deal with this? It’s because of a dispute between Microsoft and Eolas. Eolas owns the patent to the technology for rendering plug-ins in web browsers. Microsoft must license the technology in order to use it in IE. They don’t want to so they added this annoyance to better their case. Read more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eolas

So how can I get around it? It’s easy now thanks to deconcept and SWFObject.
1. Download the SWFObject Javascript file

2. Include the swfobject.js Javascript file and write a small amount of Javascript on your page to embed your Flash movie. Here is an example showing the minimum amount of code needed to embed a Flash movie:

<script type="text/javascript" src="swfobject.js"></script>  
<div id="flashcontent">
  This text is replaced by the Flash movie.
</div>
<script type="text/javascript">
   var so = new SWFObject("movie.swf", "mymovie", "200", "100", "7", "#336699");
   so.write("flashcontent");
</script>

This is just the basic explanation. You might want to know more about required parameters versus optional parameters or how to pass variables into the movie. For this information, visit their website to learn more.

From a WebProNews email I received recently:

Important SEO Tips Everyone Should Know
Chris Richardson | Staff Writer

During the Interactive Site Review session at the 2007 Las Vegas PubCon, various site owners submitted their site for the panel to pick apart. The panel consisted of heavy hitters like Matt Cutts from Google, Tim Mayer from Yahoo, Greg Boser from WebGuerrilla, and Danny Sullivan.

While some of the sites they reviewed may have been lacking in certain departments, the knowledge the panel bestowed is quite valuable for SEOers of all types. What follows is are some quotes and paraphrases that go a long way to demonstrating what it is search engines are looking for:

- each page of your site is an entry point, optimize (title tags, keyphrases) for what each page targets - Greg

- strive for quality links over quantity links - the entire panel

- if you are targeting your site geographically, get links from local entities (Chamber of Commerce, local directories)

- unique content is important (this and link bait are the prevailing themes of the Las Vegas PubCon)

- if you can get into the top 3 of Google Local, you will be on the front page of Google's standard search if the query is geographically based... - Danny Sullivan

- when optimizing for Google Local, navigate to the Google Local Business Center - this was suggested by Matt as a source to assist with being indexed by Google Local's index as well as a place to claim your business, similar to Technorati's blog claim function.

- one of the sites reviewed was a real estate site... during this portion, Greg revealed some interesting information about how this industry markets to the search industry: the real estate industry conducts SEO much like they did in 98, it's a bad field in reference to SEO...and while this may not be a tip per se, it's good information to be aware of especially if you are considering this industry...

- ditch javascript menus altogether... they are a red flag to ranking algos - Boser

- template-based sites may not rank well because they appear alike to the crawlers... - Tim Mayer and Matt Cutts both iterated this thought.

- Session IDs urls need to be blocked from crawlers because of duplicate content issues (don't serve session ids to bots)... this was emphasized by Matt who said: "session ids can be poison for crawlers"

- if your site sells manufactured products, don't use manufacturer copy... use your own descriptions - this was also stated by Heather Lloyd-Martin during the effective web copy session

- there's no good use for 302 redirects, ever - the entire panel

- blog about your product or target area, this provide so much of the original content the search engines are looking for - paraphrased from Matt Cutts

This last point plays into the whole link bait theory that was incredibly prominent during this conference (I cannot count the number of times I heard this phrase...). Keep these tips and ideas in mind when you are conducting any SEO or SEM-related process. They will serve you well.

 

I saw this forum entry on digg.com and had to share...pretty tricky:

When you give your email address to a website, you hope that they don't sell or trade your address to a bunch of spammers. Well if they do, here is a simple way to see what sites are responsible for what particular piece of email. This requires you have a Gmail account.

If your Gmail login name was mailto:username@gmail.comand you went to samplesite.com to fill out a registration form, instead of just entering mailto:username@gmail.comas your email, enter it as mailto:username+samplesitecom@gmail.cominstead. When Gmail sees a "+" in an email address, it uses all the characters to the left of the plus sign to know who to send it to. In this example it would still send it to mailto:username@gmail.com.

Now whats cool is if you search Gmail for username+samplesitecom, you will see all massages that were sent to that email address.

To see who is responsible for sending a specific message click the Show Details link and you will see the complete address.