Comments on: Matt Cutts at WordCamp SF – How to do better in Google

By: Derek (Cheap Websites) Carroll

Derek (Cheap Websites) Carroll — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 22:30:17 +0000

Thanks for that Don,
I remember seeing that on his video too.
I guess I’ve got to clarify what I want to do exactly for myself here.
Appreciated your input, it helps to clarify the situation.
Gets me moving though.

By: Don Campbell

Don Campbell — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 18:48:17 +0000

Hi Derek,
It doesn’t matter from an SEO perspective. In fact, I remember Matt saying in an earlier interview that the best arrangement is to have your home page on / and your blog in the /blog/ directory. It really depends on your situation and what you are trying to do, but there is no inherent disadvantage to putting your blog in a sub folder or sub directory.

By: Derek (Cheap Websites) Carroll

Derek (Cheap Websites) Carroll — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 15:48:17 +0000

Don,
Great post (as always)… I have a quick question if OK [this is how I actually found this post]
My review site is not WP, did Matt mention any disadvantages to having the blog located in a location other than the root, as yours is?
I would like my site up-datable from anywhere online, for example I’m away for 3 weeks now, but don’t want to lug my computer around all the time.
Would I be better to try to change it over to WP [it's +/- 25 pages] now before I go any further, or should I just add the “/blog” on?
I have quite some content ready to start drip-feeding over the coming months and I don’t want to mess up this site.
I know you have a lot of experience in this.. would appreciate your comments!
Cheers!

By: Larry

Larry — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:39:52 +0000

Got it. Thanks again for the quick reply. I’ve bookmarked your site for future reference.

By: Don Campbell

Don Campbell — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:37:10 +0000

Larry,
Ah, I see. Yes, the reason that /blog/ is in my post URLs is because for this site I’ve installed WordPress in the /blog/ directory. So you’ll see that in all of my URLs. /blog/ is the ‘root’ of my blog installation.

Many times it is better to just install your blog at the root of the domain, but in my case for Expand2Web I have other things going on and I wanted to keep the blog in its own directory.

By: Larry

Larry — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:33:56 +0000

Thanks for replying Don.

The reason why I asked is because when I am viewing this page on your site, it is showing up as:
http://www.expand2web.com/blog/matt-cutts-wordcamp-better-in-google/

By looking at the url, it appears that /blog/ is the category. As I mentioned above, I am new to WP but when I add a post using /%postname%/ in the settings, there is nothing else put in such as blog. You can see on my site I am setting up through my user link.

Either way, thanks for the good article. I think I will use /%postname%/ in my blog(s).

By: Don Campbell

Don Campbell — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:26:52 +0000

Hi Larry,
Thanks for your comment and the opportunity to clarify this.

I am using %postname% but WordPress automatically inserts %category% when you are viewing a category page. So if you view an actual post you will not see the category in the URL.

I used to use a format that included the date in the URL, and then I ended up removing that and moving to %postname% which I agree is the best URL structure for most cases.

By: Larry

Larry — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:49:15 +0000

Hi Don,
I just came across your post as I am new to WordPress and researching. I noticed in the post you mention that Matt Cutts recommended using /%postname%/ for the url and that you are using /%category%/%postname%/. Everywhere I read, someone has a different opinion on this. What do you think is better for a new WordPress Blog?

By: Keith davis

Keith davis — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 09:40:17 +0000

Thanks for the summary Don.
David is right, there are no great revelations to the world of SEO but perhaps the interesting point is the quote from Matt Cutts “WordPress takes care of 80-90% of SEO mechanics.”

I didn’t know that, but it’s a good reason to be changing over to WordPress for small business sites, which I guess is what you have been telling us for some time.

By: Don Campbell

Don Campbell — Sun, 31 May 2009 17:57:08 +0000

David ,
Right – I think Matt does a nice job of distilling the “mysteries” of SEO down to the basics that everyone can understand and repeating the message.

Every time I see him present he does this to debunk some of the myths of SEO and reinforce that what wins with Google are the basics – great content, basic site structure, and a few very basic mechanics (title, url, headers…) -vs- all the “tricks” that people think are the keys to manipulating the search results.