DEVseo

Making It Your Web

Online Website Enhancement Tools from DeVSeO

by Paul Bourne (on 17th Aug 2009 @ 15:27:18)

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As I'm sure you've worked out by now, DeVSeO is about combining cutting edge development methods with search engine optimisation processes.

The use of online website enhancement tools is becoming more and more popular across the internet as webmasters look to gain a competitive advantage over the competition and we've currently got 6 such tools which are free for you to use to make the most from your website.

Whilst the tools we currently offer provide you with the building blocks and advice for a great website, we want to add more to our profile.

In addition to the new tools we are currently developing, we need your help. Is there a tool out there that could be better or a tool that doesn't exist that could make your life a whole lot easier? Then we want to hear from you, get in touch with us with your ideas and we'll look to get the tools you want and need out there for all to use.

And now for a shameless plug: you can now follow us on twitter, just enter your details into the 'Add Us to Twitter' section the left hand side of this page (Please note: we CANNOT see this information)

As always, we look forward to hearing from you with your ideas and thoughts.

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YSlow: How To Use Yahoo's Optimisation Tool Part 2 :: Development SEO

by Alex Hall (on 17th Aug 2009 @ 15:25:26)

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In the last installment of this tutorial I went through the first few parts of YSlow that tell you how your site is performing when it comes to page loading. After reducing the number of HTTP requests by reducing the number of files and images that the browser has to call and load from the server there are still a number of optimisation practices you can use to better optimise the front-end performance of your sites.

Adding An Expires Header

An expires header is basically a header that can be set up, which will tell the browser how long the file can remain in cache before the browser needs to request an updated version. If this is not set up the browser will decide when to request a newer version of that particular file, which usually isn't that long. This method specifically aims to target those files that you do not work on often, or ever, such as javascript library files, page images and some CSS.

The easiest way to add an expires header to the files on your server is by using an .htaccess file and setting the expiry there. An htaccess file is a file that should reside in the main directory of your web server and allows you to set up some server configuration before the browser even sees a file on the server. You can set up URL re-writing, header redirecting, in this case expires headers and many other configurations.

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YSlow: How To Use Yahoo's Optimisation Tool Part 1

by Alex Hall (on 17th Aug 2009 @ 15:24:17)

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What Is YSlow?

>YSlow is Yahoo's answer to showing you exactly why your web page is not performing to the highest possible standard in terms of speed, through optimisation. The add-on for Mozilla Firefox was written by Steve Souders and his team and Yahoo and aims to teach you good web practices in helping visitors get the best of your site.

The first point to make is that there are two ways in which you can optimise your web site: on the back end, and on the front end. If you are running a CMS or MVC framework on the back end of your site then the chances are that you are not going to have an easy job optimising the code to deliver the site as fast as possible.

Well, according to Steve, you're in luck! I'm not suggesting here that you should not worry about optimising the back end of your site, because you should, but it's a long and arduous process with little influence on the end user experience compared to front end optimisation. It has been claimed that you can save users about 5-10% of the overall optimisation of a web page optimising the back end. Compare this to the 80-85% optimisation you can perform on the front end and you certainly know where to start!

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