The name itself sounds a bit dangerous (and oddly reminiscent of pirate ships and holy water), however, this is something important when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. Canonicalization occurs when a particular website is able to be accessed with two addresses.

Canonicalization is a process where a search engine picks up the best URL when there are several options floating about cyber space. This could result in the popularity of a web page to go down. Since the incoming traffic that is supposed to go to a single URL now gets split up between two URLs. While sometimes, this might be nothing more complicated than one web page loading with the “www.” And the other loading without it, other, more extreme cases could result in more serious errors where two identical copies of your website ranks on two far apart pages on the search engine.

It is a complicated issue, but when it comes to SEO, you can’t really afford to have identical copies of your website on different rungs on the rankings ladder. So, in order to prevent search engines from making odd decisions about your website, you need to employ a few precautions to make sure that viewers are headed the right way. A ‘301 redirection’ is the most effective method to let the search engine know what your preferred URL to be directed is. This involves in the setting up of a .htaccess file in your domain root file to permanently redirect visitors to your preferred version of the URL.

Depending on the particular environment of your web, you can employ one of the many methods available to set up a 301 redirection. You will have the ability to set up the redirection using PHP, classic ASP, ColdFusion, ASP.NET or Perl. If your website has been subjected to canonicalization, it’s not the end of the world, simply employ a viable redirecting mechanism and you will be up and running in next to no time.

However, although there are other methods of redirecting to your favoured URL, they are to be avoided like the plague. The reason for me to say this is the fact that, methods such as Javascript and META refresh have been in use to obscure and disguise malicious redirection for quite a while. It is best to stick to legitimate methods rather than to experiment with fishy techniques (which could result in your website getting kicked out of the ranking lists for good. Believe me, it has happened.)

Link baiting is a great SEO method. The principle of link baiting is similar to that of fishing. But instead of worms, bits of shrimp and artificial lures, this method employs bits of interesting viral content. The idea is to get people to share the content through all sorts of internet platforms.  But, it is important to keep one simple thing in mind: the content has to make people ‘want’ to share it.

Rule no. 1

For a piece of content to be considered as effective ‘link bait’ material it has to be original, out-of-the-box and on top of it all, interesting. In other words, the content has to be extraordinary.

Rule no. 2

Articles posted on blogs are a great way to start. If the topic is interesting and the writing style is engaging, you may have a winner on your hands. Articles on controversial topics and articles featuring tips and tutorials are also great sellers. As for lists, people love lists: they are instantly attracted to anything that starts with “top #…” If the title doesn’t seem to be working, you might be violating rule no. 1.

Rule no. 3

Apart from gifts, people also love free stuff. Gifts, giveaways and freebies always have a strange sort of power over the wayward internet user. But try to be genuine and actually deliver what you preach. Or you will be plastered with the undesirable ‘scammer’ status.

Rule no. 4

Providing entertainment always works. Whether it comes in the form of a funny video, funny article or even an out of the box infographic, people will share it if it entertains them.

Rule no. 5

Create interaction opportunities.  You could also create polls and surveys based on the most current news to tempt net goers to interact. If they find the topic interesting and worth their time, they will definitely share it with their friends, thus generating traffic for you.

Rule no. 6

If you can’t come up with something original in any of these categories, why not try posting news? News is freely available all over the internet, posting your opinion on one of the latest news stories is oftentimes enough to create considerable traffic. Being the first to cover a certain news item will definitely be an effective method of link baiting.

Like I said before, link building is like fishing. But only better, as the fish you bait on the internet, will bring in a swarm of their friends along with them.