Thanks for your continued support. I will try to keep my developers and non-developer readers happy, and adequately informed.

I chose Python for educational purposes, and because I am lazy. With Python you only need to think about the problem at hand, not about creating special data structures for your needs, etc.

Your question about the domains and cross linking requires a longer explanation. I will write post about that shortly.

Thanks for the reply, personally I like the level this blog is pitched at, which is why I read it… illustrations would be nice, but I like the fact you are posting scripts and more in depth info… but not too abstract…

On that note, why do you choose Python? I only ever used it at University… I liked the fact it is so clean (using indentation), but thought I would benefit more by learning more commercially used languages…

Finally, I am in the process of creating multiple sites around a similar theme. I have unique content for all sites, and will host on different servers in Europe and the US, however the whois for each domain will show my name (The company I used does not allow me to hide this info).

Is the common whois likely to make much difference when I begin cross linking the sites?

I know that whois info is hidden by search engine spammers as it is used to discover / uncover SE spam networks… do you think this applies to WH sites too?

Jez

I am glad you are asking this. It all depends on how successful you want to be.

If you are not targeting very competitive phrases, you can probably rank naturally by just creating useful content and by getting other blogs and sites to link to it.

If you want to compete with the big boys and make a lot of money, every step you take ahead counts.

These types of documents are scary, but they provide all the valuable insight that tells you what is the right direction to take.

For example, if you had read this post before, you wouldn’t have thought that the robots.txt was the problem in John’s case.

When learning SEO, you will notice that a lot of people have different opinions on the same topic. That is why I like to read from the sources and then make my own judgments.

What practical use do I get from this post? I can more easily solve SEO related problems for my sites.

I can tell if the problem is on my site or the search engine, what is causing it and how to solve it.

For example, if you find out that Google is not going to look deeper than X amount clicks into your site, then you make those pages accessible via a sitemap, etc.

Please note that you need to learn a lot of different things to succeed online. SEO and understanding search engines is just one of them. Learning about social media is an excellent complement. I can’t post about that yet, as I am learning about it myself.

I try to post on several related topics (PPC, conversions, affiliate marketing, etc).

My plan is to work on illustrations to make this content easier to digest.

I hope this encourages you to keep learning.

Its interesting stuff, but very conceptual. I am not sure how much practical benefit can be derived from this information.

Clearly you think this is worthwhile… how much did you gain from researching this?