Hello.  I have been having this problem for several days now and have
read every help section and combed the forums looking for answers to
no avail.  My site diagnostics says my URL is "not found".  I created
the robots.txt file and put it where I think the root directory is, on
my GPC page where it has a file area there.  The bots crawled again
last night and still say URL not found.  I really need help with this,
have no clue what to do now.  I appreciate any help you can give me.
Thanks.

barbara.durrance.googlepages.com

Initial I answered as follow:

Some links on your pages may be wrong link. May be you are missing the
http:// portion of external link. That's very normal cause for
abnormal 404 not found.

Robots.txt won't help against this error. If it does, it only block
the path to the invalid URL, which is not good because you need Google
to scrawl your pages to put into the search result page.

Your best choice now is to copy the exact invalid URL here and we can
type that on the address bar to see if it really return an error.

After that, I went a head and check the links from your site. And here are the results of 404 pages:

1) http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbarbara.durrance.go
oglepages.com%2Fhome&_gwt_nav=T%7C.1.0.0.&source=pagecreator&
;amp;gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbarbara.durrance.googlepages.com%2Fhome&_gwt_nav=T%7C.1.0.0.&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

404 Status returned: 404 Checker at: 2008-05-08 17:50:22

2) http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbarbara.durrance.go
oglepages.com%2Faboutme&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbarbara.durrance.googlepages.com%2Faboutme&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

404 Status returned: 404 Checker at: 2008-05-08 17:50:22

3) http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbarbara.durrance.go
oglepages.com%2Fwolfdog%27spackphotos&source=pagecreator&gsessio
nid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbarbara.durrance.googlepages.com%2Fwolfdog%27spackphotos&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

404 Status returned: 404 Checker at: 2008-05-08 17:50:22

4) http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbarbara.durrance.go
oglepages.com%2Fstrawberryandbananagreensmoothie&source=pagecreator&
amp;gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbarbara.durrance.googlepages.com%2Fstrawberryandbananagreensmoothie&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

404 Status returned: 404 Checker at: 2008-05-08 17:50:22

5) http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbarbara.durrance.go
oglepages.com%2FCORNUCOPIA.jpg%2FCORNUCOPIA-full%3Binit%3A.jpg&source=pa
gecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbarbara.durrance.googlepages.com%2FCORNUCOPIA.jpg%2FCORNUCOPIA-full%3Binit%3A.jpg&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

404 Status returned: 404 Checker at: 2008-05-08 17:50:22

6) http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tkqlhce.com%2Fc
lick-2239496-10415095&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tkqlhce.com%2Fclick-2239496-10415095&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

404 Status returned: 404 Checker at: 2008-05-08 17:50:23

7) http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=javascript%3Avoid%280%29%3B%3F_R
W_%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fbarbara.durrance.googlepages.com%252Fhome%7Conclick%7CW1
W0W0I0&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU&sig=ALE
brzk_N0H4K7_MlcU7a8fwsrGLEldB6A

http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=javascript%3Avoid%280%29%3B%3F_RW_%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fbarbara.durrance.googlepages.com%252Fhome%7Conclick%7CW1W0W0I0&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU&sig=ALEbrzk_N0H4K7_MlcU7a8fwsrGLEldB6A

400 Status returned: 400 Checker at: 2008-05-08 17:50:26

http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=javascript%3Avoid%280%29%3B%3F_R
W_%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fbarbara.durrance.googlepages.com%252Fhome%7Conclick%7CW1
W0W0I1&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU&sig=ALE
brzmA9q88MO9hPtQbIezc2rcOjy-PZA

http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=javascript%3Avoid%280%29%3B%3F_RW_%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fbarbara.durrance.googlepages.com%252Fhome%7Conclick%7CW1W0W0I1&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU&sig=ALEbrzmA9q88MO9hPtQbIezc2rcOjy-PZA

400 Status returned: 400 Checker at: 2008-05-08 17:50:23

9) http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fzytu.com%2Fgadgets_
adshare.php&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fzytu.com%2Fgadgets_adshare.php&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

404 Status returned: 404 Checker at: 2008-05-08 17:50:23

10) http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fzytu.com%2Fgadgets_
adshare.php&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fzytu.com%2Fgadgets_adshare.php&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

404 Status returned: 404 Checker at: 2008-05-08 17:50:23

11) http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zytu.org%2F&
;amp;source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zytu.org%2F&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

404 Status returned: 404 Checker at: 2008-05-08 17:50:24

12) http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbarbara.durrance.go
oglepages.com%2Frecipes&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbarbara.durrance.googlepages.com%2Frecipes&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

404 Status returned: 404 Checker at: 2008-05-08 17:50:25

13) http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbarbara.durrance.go
oglepages.com%2Fdisclaimer3&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbarbara.durrance.googlepages.com%2Fdisclaimer3&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

404 Status returned: 404 Checker at: 2008-05-08 17:50:25

14) http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/mailto:barbara.durrance@gmail.com

http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/mailto:barbara.durrance@gmail.com

404 Status returned: 404 Checker at: 2008-05-08 17:50:25

15) http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbarbara.durrance.go
oglepages.com%2Fprivacystatement&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l
0Jkcw8PUHU

http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbarbara.durrance.googlepages.com%2Fprivacystatement&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

404 Status returned: 404 Checker at: 2008-05-08 17:50:26

16) http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.statcounter.com

&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.statcounter.com&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

404 Status returned: 404 Checker at: 2008-05-08 17:50:26

17) http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbarbara.durrance.go
oglepages.com%2Fhome&_gwt_noimg=1&source=pagecreator&gse
ssionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

http://barbara.durrance.googlepages.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbarbara.durrance.googlepages.com%2Fhome&_gwt_noimg=1&source=pagecreator&gsessionid=l0Jkcw8PUHU

404 Status returned: 404 Checker at: 2008-05-08 17:50:26

Source: http://www.404checker.com/link-checker

I hope the website owner can base on this report to repair his site.

The strange thing that caught my attention is that PunBB is a very simple PHP-powered bulletin board. Why such a big company like Facebook didn't make their own forum CMS or use a commercial one such as vBulletin, or the free and famous one phpBB, or bbPress. Why PunBB?

I went ahead to PunBB and register for an account for their forum. I tested it and here are some findings.

PunBB features

PunBB claims to have the following features:

• is fast.
• has simple layout and design.
• is easy to administrate and moderate.
• doesn't output huge, non-valid, (X)HTML pages.
• has source code you could read and understand.

What I like about PunBB

1. The forum seem to be pretty simple and fast as they claimed it to be.
2. It's light weight.
3. Active support community.
4. Used by famous companies like Facebook.
5. (due to unexpected reason, this part is missing).

What I don't like

There are something I don't like though.

1. The system redirect the URL for almost every action related to the database. That's something very strange, and ofcourse it slightly increase the lag and wait time between operations.
2. The PunBB forum, just like other forums and unlike bbPress, doesn't have friendly URL. At this time I still don't know if there are plugins that provide friendly URL feature for this. If not, this will be a major drawback for the system and might be the cause for me not using it.

What's next?

I'm considering this to be the solution for my own help forum in replacement for the help page. I hate complexity in the interface and back-end system. Something like Joomla just isn't right for me.

If you are interseted in this system, please go ahead and visit their website PunBB and test out their PunBB Forums. And of course, you should check out how face book use it on their Facebook Platform Developers Forum. And (another and) don't forget to come back here and tell me how you feel.

1. This blog is being redesigned.
2. New sub domains or domains are coming up.
3. The URL structure is not finalized.

If you are kind-hearted, knowledgeable and give me suggestions, I will have rewards for you too. Don't worry, the minimum I could give you are some good keyword back links to your site from my PR3 blog. I'm not rich now so my pocket money is limited. I can make some nice award if what you give change my life.

1. This blog is being redesigned

Everyone who read my blog should know by now that this blog is under re-construction. The design work is totally delegated to Brain Purkiss from PlainBeta.com . For some reasons Brian has not responded to my email for a week already. Brian, if you are reading this I hope that's because you have commitment with college, not because you gave up on my hard requirements .

Brian gave me a sketch 9 days ago. I asked him if I could write a blog post and publish it. He said no. I respect his choice so until his Photoshop file is available I won't publish his progress. What I can say for now is that I like what it look in the sketch.

I hope Brian can code that before this end of month otherwise I will be in big trouble. I don't want to promote my blog only to see people visit it once and run away because it's ugly.

2. New sub domains or domains are coming up

Yes, I might have to buy new domains for each blog. I have a few passions and I want to make separate blog for each. Here I discuss about them.

1. Photos
2. Blogging
3. Web development
4. Computers
5. My life

2.1 Photos

I have too many photos waiting for upload. I have like over 10,000 photos for 2007 and few hundred for the past. I may keep it at photos.binh.name. However I might buy a new domain for that because that's a huge amount of photos and I need proper gallery software. Who would be kind enough to suggest me a perfect photo host and a perfect photo CMS?

Can anyone tell me their favorite photo hosting site? Flickr.com is out of my reach because apparently my ISP blocks it.

2.2 Blogging

I realized that not everyone is a pro blogger. And I realize not a single blog provide everything from A-Z to blogging. And I'm willing to take the challenge to make a blogging site/blog that help people from A-Z. If you want to contribute to my site than I will buy a new domain just for that. Otherwise I keep it at blogging.binh.name . the topics will range from high-technical approach for developers to money making.

2.3 Web development

Another word is Web Design but that's totally incorrect. I'm not a web designer, because that only involve in graphic and layout. I'm a developer from code to layout so I will talk about bottom to top. Especially I'm a SEO oriented developer so my service should be of somewhat unique.

I stumbled a lot of web design company who only provide you with beautiful website but absolutely no visitors at all. I admit I hate that and I would call them b..stards. For instant, I recently visit this of a new Facebook friend's work website Bella Sewing. The design company who did the site surely is some newbie who tried to make big some of money. Web design job for local companies always pay high. Look at that site and I wanted to vomit. He made at least 4 SEO mistakes that I will need to talk about in a separate post.

Brian suggested me to use web.binh.name for this blog and I think that might work. What is your own opinion on this?

While I will write a lot about stuffs like Webpage layout, website structure, ad placement, etc., etc. I might focus more on web programming aspect. I will keep it for broader adience by making use of least technical terms possible.

Does anyone suggest me to write those type of article in another web development site instead? Which is already well established and have many developers as audience and contributers? Like the codeproject.com?

2.5 Computers

I think so far only my Australian friends and my ex-bosses know and accept the fact that I'm a computer expert. I use the term expert and got a few very critism from fellows on Google AdSense Group. Which lead me to think ... what the heck, if I'm not an expert than are you? No, I'm not claiming I'm a better at computers than those guys.

Enough chatter about this topic. I want to emphasize it here because during the period of 7 years studying IT in Australia I was working part time as computer service technician. The term if you don't understand than let me explain, I repaired computers. People who suffer from hard-disk breakdown, graphic card not working, virus, too-slow, dead computer, software error, etc. etc. I have dealt with thousands of those cases. Sometimes I get things done in just 5 minutes, sometimes it take a day and cause me big headache.

Working as a technician was very fun experience and perhaps one of the most useful experience any IT student could get. I can tweak my computer at ease. I use the most useful software. I'm expert in detecting virus without any software.

Of course I won't write about what I did in the past. Instead I will confine them into useful articles and public on my website. My experience can't be described in this one blog post and if you seriously want to learn those real work experiences, you should subscribe to my computers feed as soon as it is out. For now here are some sample: computers tips.

Do you think computers.binh.name or computing.binh.name are good addresses? Should I choose a shorter address. I think I might make a separate domain for this purpose too? What do you recommend?

2.5 My life

Last but not least, I need to write about my personal life, too. I found out I'm very eager in writing about my love life, my travel, my everything so that I can make new friends online and keep my old friends and family members updated.

Who on Facebook would want to read my blog if the first time he visits he sees I'm talking about how to measure webpage's size? Wouldn't they be more interested in knowing what I did since I was a kid to find out our comment interest? Wouldn't they want to see my nice photos, cute dogs, scary snakes, big bears and sometimes my secrets?

What do you think? If what I think is true I definitely need to keep this www.binh.name my personal blog because that's what the domain says. Brian suggest me to put life.binh.name as the subdomain. What do you think about this? If that's the case I thinks diary.binh.name or memories.binh.name might work but they seem to bee too long to type. Of course I'm not going to buy a new domain for my personal blog, that's out of question.

3. The URL structure is not finalized

Uh! I'm feeling ashamed of myself for talking about this URL decision again.

Many bloggers have stripped of the yyyy/mm/dd prefix format for their posts. That works very well because the post look unrelated to time and shorter. I didn't use that because I thought my posts will be blog post and time dependent.

For my personal blog I might keep that date. But for my other 4 professional blogs I think I will strip that out. On the professional blogs I want to write articles not posts. Then that consideration make me think, why not make websites instead of blogs then?

In a comment on Why you should be using a framework, I said WordPress is giving me hard time and I'm considering getting rid of it. The current Category structure makes me feel too limited. I want to write some nice words to describe my categories, not just "Archive for "whatever' category". There are many more issues and I will write another post in relation to this later on.

What's next?

If you are new here, than I guess here is what you should read to learn about my Major Blog Building Considerations. That should give you some extra info about why I am writing this post.

I know this post is rather long. If you read it till this point please also give me some opinions. I will really appreciate your help because this stage is like the bridge to my new level of blogging.

Also... I didn't have enough time to fix my grammer and spelling. If you spot out any mistake please inform me with a comment and I will fix it. Thanks.

Blog Update Services

1. http://ping.feedburner.com
2. http://rpc.blogcatalog.com
3. http://1470.net/api/ping
4. http://api.feedster.com/ping
5. http://api.feedster.com/ping.php
6. http://api.moreover.com/ping
7. http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
8. http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
9. http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
10. http://bblog.com/ping.php
11. http://bitacoras.net/ping
12. http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
13. http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
14. http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
15. http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
16. http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
17. http://coreblog.org/ping/
18. http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
19. https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/pingPodcast
20. http://ping.amagle.com/
21. http://ping.bitacoras.com
22. http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
23. http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
24. http://ping.blo.gs/
25. http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
26. http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc/
27. http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
28. http://ping.feedburner.com
29. http://ping.myblog.jp
30. http://pingqueue.com/rpc/
31. http://ping.blogg.de/
32. http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
33. http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
34. http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
35. http://ping.weblogs.se/
36. http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
37. http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
38. http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
39. http://rpc.britblog.com/
40. http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
41. http://rpc.newsgator.com/
42. http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
43. http://rpc.tailrank.com/feedburner/RPC2
44. http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
45. http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
46. http://rpc.wpkeys.com/
47. http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx
48. http://signup.alerts.msn.com/alerts-PREP/submitPingExtended.doz
49. http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
50. http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
51. http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
52. http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
53. http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
54. http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
55. http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
56. http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
57. http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
58. http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
59. http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
60. http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
61. http://www.holycowdude.com/rpc/ping/
62. http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
63. http://www.imblogs.net/ping/
64. http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
65. http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
66. http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
67. http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
68. http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
69. http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
70. http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
71. http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/
72. http://www.zhuaxia.com/rpc/server.php
73. http://www.blogsdominicanos.com/ping/
74. http://www.xianguo.com/xmlrpc/ping.php
75. http://www.feedsky.com/api/RPC2

Wow, that's a long list. So, what is the benefit from getting it on my blog?

Yes, there is a benefit from reading here, because I got a warning for you. The list is very long and, suppose to be attractive. However, I found out that some services have, or may have the following issues associated with it:

1. Not working anymore
2. Different language than yours
3. Requires sign up
4. Requires backlink prior approval
5. Requires manual approval

What's Next?

Unfortunately I haven't got the time to go through all of them to check. So for now, I just leave the list as it is, and will post update as I check them up.

Beside, it's my Birthday coming, so I should be preparing for it... wow so many things undone.

The Bugs

The following are the bugs:

1. Redirect "/feed" URI to "/feed/" using 302 redirect. Ignoring the "/%postname%" rule having no trailing slash.
2. Redirect "/?paged=x" to "/page/x/" (where x is paging number) ingoring the fact ugly default URL is used, causing 404 message when paging.

There is no doubt about these bugs, because I test it by enabling and disabling Permalink Redirect plugin.

Fixing the bugs

Indeed being a programmer gives me some advantages, I could fix the bugs on the fly.

Feed redirect trailing slash

For the /feed to /feed/ redirect problem, I found these lines:

208 if (is_feed()) {
209 $link = trailingslashit($link) . 'feed/';
210 }

Solution:

1. If want no trailing slash, remove the "/" on line 209.
2. If it's WordPress 2.3.1+ simply remove the 3 lines because it's built-in.
3. If you don't want to touch code, include the following in the Options > Permalink Redirect > Paths to be skipped: ".+/feed.*" (without the quotes)

Page redirect ignoring permalink rule

For the /?page=x to /paged/x/ problem, I found this line:

204 if ($paged)
205 $link = trailingslashit($link) . "page/$paged/";

Solution:

1. If WordPress 2.3.1+, remove the lines because it's done better.
2. If you don't want to touch code, include the following in the Options > Permalink Redirect > Paths to be skipped: ".+/?paged=.*" (without the quotes)

Conclusion

Even being buggy, and not recommended by WordPress 2.3.1 which claim having internal redirect, Permalink Redirect still provide some benefit that built-in redirect doesn't offer, such as:

1. Redirect permalink from old structure to new structure
2. Redirect broken, or wrong URL, providing the post id is correct, or enough matching words in post slug.
3. Redirect feed url from "/?feed=rss" to "/feed" or "/feed/" depending your customization.

This plug-in is indeed getting a lot of my attention. I have more liking for it than the bult-in redirect. So, whenever I have time I will investigate deeper into the code and optimize it for better usage.

I started posting my blog entries with WordPress because I felt that's a necessary initiative. However, I strongly need to consider few things.

Website structure

The biggest issue I'm having is the website structure. I'm still wondering whether

1. putting niche topics on separate subdomains, and so using WordPress MU to power my site,
2. or just a single blog like right now with categories as niches.

Technically speaking, WordPress MU is capable of helping me separate the niches pretty well. SEO point of views, the 2nd option is much better, though require some serious initial design.

As for the niches, I have a few expertises and a few hobbies.

My expertises include:

• Software development
• Web development
• Software reviews
• Website reviews
• Reporting

My hobbies include:

• Photography - armature level, mostly common things and discoveries
• Giving opinions - just about anything I my find interested in having a say
• Learning - that's strange, but yes, I like to learn new things, and write about it.

Theme Design

The design is not finalized, yet. The design is a very important factor in retaining readers and building brand image. Hence, I need some serious time off writing and reading to do redesign the theme I chose, which is JustSimple.

URL structure

As you can see, my URL is still in ugly form. Earlier I wrote about the good URL structure choices, but since then haven't got good replies yet. I may need to visit some forum and invite people over for some feedback. Mean while, I still need to keep it like this.

WordPress Plug-ins

I installed and tested many WordPress plugins. So far I am very pleased with those:

• AdSense Manager
• All in One SEO Pack
• Google Analytics
• Google XML Sitemaps
• Inline Posts
• Permalink Redirect
• Post Teaser
• Subscribe To Comments
• wp-cache

The list for all plug-ins are long. Hence, I will keep it for another post summarizing those plug-ins and tell what worth using. The above plug-ins are nice to use, but new ones come out pretty often so they not yet for my permanent usage. For example recently WP Super Cache comes out and claim to take over 10,000 hits without a trouble.

Blog Directories

Yes, I have found out about those blog communities and was so surprise they existed and they really help. Recently as I go along learning, I stumbled on and signed up for the following:

• MyBlogLog.com
• BlogCatalog.com
• BlogFlux.com
• Technorati.com

I'm looking toward signing up on more directories. I will write review about each of them while I go along.

What's Next?

I planned to post about 10 articles a day. But due to those burdens I am delaying the writing. Struggling to start-up something does give much learning experience. I will be sharing my experience as I go along. Stay tuned for my progress on growing this baby "Binh dot Name" which ought to be a giant.

What about your blog? What do you plan with it? How will you achieve your goals?

I am asking myself "what is the best URL structure?" I want to achieve this URL structure for my "Binh dot Name" and all the following websites I create. The matter is that, I already spent a month or so thinking about this without getting the final decision. Along with the CMS choice, this URL thing delayed me from publishing my blog for too long until I finally fed up of waiting and decide to "Just do it".

What is a Good URL?

My own justification is that a Good URL have the following characteristics:

• Independent of other factors because Cool URIs don't change (SEO and human reason);
• It should be descriptive (we like it, so does SE);
• It should be easy to type (we like it);
• It should be memorable (we definitely like it).

Why we need good URL?

• In SEO point of view, a changed URL is not Google's friendly.
• In SEO point of view, keyword rich URL is good.
• In SEO point of view, short but descriptive URI give more value to selected keywords.
• In SEO point of view, memorable URI doesn't count, but for retaining users, short and memorable URL is best.

Top 10 URL considerations:

1. For website domain, should it be:
   1. http://binh.name, or
   2. http://binh.name ?

2. For the main blog, should it be:
   1. The main domain, or
   2. Sub domain http://blog.binh.name, or
   3. Sub directory http://binh.name/blog ?

3. For category:
   1. http://category.binh.name or
   2. http://binh.name/category ?

4. The URI should be:
   1. Ugly URI with (? And a query, ex: /?p=123), or
   2. Beautified URI /something/something-smaller?

5. The beautified URL should have:
   1. With trailing slash (/), or
   2. Without trailing slash ?

6. Beautified URI options for post:
   1. /%post%, or
   2. /%category%/%post%, or
   3. /archives/%post%, or
   4. /blog/%post%, or
   5. /yyyy/mm/dd/%post% ?

7. With %post%, should it be:
   1. Post name, or
   2. Post id ?

8. Beautified URL for category:
   1. /category/%category%, or
   2. /cat/%category%, or
   3. /type/%category%, or
   4. /group/%category%, or
   5. /%category% ?

9. With %category%, should it be:
   1. Category name, or
   2. Category id ?

10. The prefix first level options:
    1. Singular (ex: category), or
    2. plural (ex: categories)

11. Beautified URL for tag:
    1. /tag/%tag%, or
    2. /tags/%tag%

What's Next?

If you are an expert in blogging, or an expert web designer, or just someone who happen to know the best URL structure, then please have your say here. Currently I haven't put up the follow plugin, so as a reward the best commentator I will put your links inside my post without the rel="nofollow". Thank you in advance for participating.

Oh, as a matter of quality, please give a reason why you think your choice is good too. Thanks.