During the Rayvan re-branding to RayvanBros at the beginning of the year - we decided to leave our heavily seo-friendly website rayvan.net to become secondary - in order to migrate the individual page strength, we redirected relevant content to their newly due places. Leaving every other page to become a custom Page Not Found web page (404 error code) that leads back to the new website.

On the same topic - We were recently consulted for a private government contract to advise a realistic recommendation for migrating a 15,000+ page website into Drupal. But please do understand this is a totally different animal - although we are not talking about animals. Pages with 500+ pages should be systematically migrated.

So how do you assess if your website require systematic redirect or migration? does your website have a consistent URL file structure patterns? If so, they can redirected appropriately without the need for a 404. Here are 3 steps to make it happen (assuming your new web server is on an Apache-based server):

1. Setup the new website on a separate domain or private subfolder, if applicable. Generate a robots.txt file to block search engine crawls.
2. Use Apache's HTACCESS to setup a global redirect to identical file names to their respective directories or new domain name and/or directories.
3. All content that does not exist on the new domain should be connected to the new website's internal search engine that will use the previous file name's keywords to query all of the new web pages for relevance. If you do not have the time or budget to setup an internal search engine - contact us or use Google's Custom Search Engine - it is very easy to plug-in to your template and you can just pay the yearly commercial license fee if you need to remove advertisements

That's the gist. If you are an or hire an experienced web team performing this duty, it should take approximately 30 minutes for a small to medium scale website. Did anything confuse you, do need help with all or some of these steps? Drop us a line and don't be afraid to leave us feedback.

Thank you for your valuable time.

We apologize for the inconvenience but our customer service number has changed from (800) 809-4210 to (800) 495-5933. We were receiving an unruly amount of calls that were directed from AT&T and Napster so we had to change it. Please update your address books as needed and again, sorry.

Thanks,
RayvanBros Team

To analogize the Drupal to Joomla comparison – it’s like comparing CubeCart to Miva Merchant in the eCommerce world – why mess with a bulky system when a more beautifully framed system is ready, more search engine, modification and GUI-friendly at the base? by mere file size alone, the latest production sits at a little bit over 1 megabyte. Joomla is 6 times larger, lacking in content creation, skinning abilities and traffic intake...All effecting load times.  Some may argue that Drupal's skinning/template system is difficult but once you get over the learning hump. It makes sense and will make you question the use of any other system.

To compound the discussion, all of these high profile companies or entities use Drupal
Whitehouse.gov
Other US Government websites
General Motors
The World Bank
Sony
Symbian
nVidia
Procter & Gamble
Intel
The list just keeps going on...

Others choose to ask why we no longer put our very own OptionEdit content management system on production websites.  The answer is simple: Drupal has all the flexibility we need when building custom CMS websites. When customers, however, do just need the out-of-the-box features the OptionEdit contains. We work it like a bulb in a chandelier.

Have any questions? Give us a ring on our new 24/7 pre-sales/support line 1 (800) 495-5933. You won't be on hold long so savor the jazz music.

Let's go off on a quick but relevant tangent for the answer to this. Pepsi has recently announced detraction from the NFL's Superbowl this year to engage significantly into online social media. Approximately $17 more than one 30 second Superbowl advertisement.

Now lets address that your business may not have b2c (business-to-consumer) loyalty necessities. But if you only offer a b2b (business-to-business) product or service - would you want your prospect to follow you on Twitter or follow your competitor? As we grow in this information rich world, people go with what they know. And if they know you or your company because of helpful tweets, message board posts or media sharing. Then that's a conversion.

But what if my business is b2c-oriented? then even more so! one client put it in even simpler words than us techy guys can a few days ago..."even people with disposable income will only buy my leather product but once a year...it's that one time of the year that they think of my company that will guarantee a sale". This coming from the owner of a high-end online clothing store. The question now for you is, what can social media do for you? be it that one sale or multiple.

Thanks for reading

Blogging is rapidly becoming a new marketing technique on the web. And the later you start yours, the more likely your target market will become saturated with competitors. Why is blogging the new thing? Here is 3 key points:

• Social Media is now a widely recognized marketing tool
• Fresh website content in blogs keep search engine spiders coming back for more
• This is a blatant fact but if you position yourself as an expert and have the credentials/experience/license/bond/insurance to back it up to your visitors; Then you'll get loyal, repeat customers

Technical Details:
If you already have a website design/development company or individual working for you who has made a blog but you aren't seeing results. Firstly, be patient, search engine spiders can take a few weeks to a few months for results. Especially if your keywords have heavy competition or your designer/developer simply doesn't have search engine optimization experience.

The first things you want to look for are is your blog located within your domain. Quick methods of this would be going to your website, clicking the blog link, and seeing if your domain changes on the address bar. For example, yourwebsite.com changes to typepad.com/yourwebsite instead of being at, say, blog.yourwebsite.com (which is a sub domain). If you don't even have a domain, you're in a completely different world of hurt. You need a top level domain (.com or .net, preferably) to make a good mark on the internet.

The next thing is how easy is it to update your blog? are you using the latest and greatest Wordpress or Drupal?

But mainly and finally, you simply want to go over statistics over keyword traffic to your website. Niche targets are always a better start than broad terms.

So, what point are you at with your blog?
Give us a ring for some website training wheels.

Thanks for visiting.