Google Page Creator - Site Wide Navigation

So I found a work around so I didn't have to edit every page if I wanted to add a new navigation link or edit my existing navigation.

I decided to use a JavaScript file include like this using a script tag.

I then wrote some JavaScript to just do a document.write of my navigation menu.

Seems to work, but i question if using this type of document.write JavaScript for search engines. If I remember correctly, search engines bots don't have JavaScript enabled, so they won't spider my links.

Not sure what to do about that yet, I'll have to think some more and ask around about possible ways to handle this.

Google your name

So all of my posts have been about using only Google products to create a website and blog. Everything from domain registration to hosting to design and production to tracking web traffic. In the future I'll continue to post about Google tools for your website and further investigate the possibilities.

I do have other things I'd like to post about, and the heading for this topic is one of them. Googling your name. I'm sure any one reading has tried it already, and if you haven't check it out. Just enter your name in Google and click search. Some of the results are just funny and sometimes you find a reference to yourself you never even knew about. And sometimes, your unlucky to have a common name and all that comes up is references to other people you'd rather not be involved with.

This potentially could cause some serious damage, especially if a new employer or client uses this technique to "check you out". I've heard several stories (perhaps urban legends) about individuals applying for a new job and getting denied a position due to some information and HR rep dug up on them on the web, either in general or on their myspace or facebook account.

It's been a while since I Googled my name and I thought I'd give a try a few weeks ago since we were in the process of hiring a new Sr. Manager for our group at work and because I was researching domain names for this site, plus considering applying for a new Sr. level position with our Corporate Communications team.

To my surprise, there were a TON of results for my name: Brian Kopp. (I'm sure I'll just get traffic from Google now since I added my name to this page) Why, well apparently I share my name with someone else named Brian Kopp who's really into World of Warcraft (WOW). I used to play Warcraft, but never touched WOW. Anyways, I guess he wrote some unofficially strategy guide and he's in a lawsuit, or was in a lawsuit (don't follow this much myself) against Blizzard Entertainment, the makers of WOW. Sounds like he's got a few people pissed off.

Next I decided to try and narrow my Googling by adding my middle initial since I was interested in having a domain that related to my name and I wanted to avoid just using Brian Kopp. My search for Brian J Kopp resulted to several pages on Google making reference to yet another person I'd rather not be involved with. The results were referring to a Dr. Brian J Kopp who has some, how can I say it, has interesting articles on the web regarding to homosexuality and abortion. Now, I haven't read these articles and I cannot comment on them in any way, but the point is, I'd rather not have these results be interpreted by some HR rep as results for me.

And before I get a bunch of comments telling me how to properly Google someone using a combination of location information or industry related information, I know that stuff already. Problem is, my future client or employer may not be that savvy and unaware of the issues just using someone's name in a search engine. Their the ones I'm concerned about.

So what am I suppose to do?

• Change my name...not likely.
• Buy Adwords for my name and compete...not likely.
• Create a stronger online presence for my name...sure, but I'm up against some big communities.
• Advertise my "User Name", you know, the name you always use for every account you've ever created online...sure, great idea, if I want my clients and employers to know how many thousands of posts I've created on different car forums.

Want to read more about the importance of Googling your own name check out this Wall Street Journal article.

Just so set a few things straight. I live in Minnesota and I'm a professional web designer who graduated from the University of Minnesota with a BS in Scientific and Technical Communications and works for Medtronic. I guess that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

So what am I suppose to do?

Google Page Creator

Here's some of my thoughts and impressions regarding the Google Page Creator as a part of Google Apps.

It's annoying and time consuming to create a multi page design. Sure you can create a "template file" and duplicate that page to create all the rest of the pages, but anytime you want to change your navigation you must edit every page individually. I'm considering trying to use a server side include to see if that helps, that'll be in the coming days.

Second annoying thing, when you use the above description to create your site, the files are saved as home, home2, home3, etc. Not exactly what I'm looking for, and definitely not search engine optimized. So my site consists of home1 through home8 as the file names/urls.

Seems like it uses the site title as the page's title tag, which means your not able to maintain a site wide title. So in the upper-left corner of my site, I had to modify the site title to include the page title in order to save and link the pages correctly.

All in all, Google Page Creator was easy to use, but professional web people will realize the limitations quickly. As you can tell from my opening impressions, I'm already looking for ways to hack the pages to get a consistent navigation without having to edit every page. I'm also looking for a way to maintain a site title throughout and have readable context specific file/url names.

Google Analytics Working!

Here's my latest update, Google analytics is now working on both my web pages and on this blog. I guess I did screw up when I tried to first setup the script code on the Google Page Creator web page.

So to wrap this up, I pasted the script code provided by Google Analytics into the footer section of the page created by Google Page Creator.

I did pose the question about about weather I should use one or two accounts to track data on my blog and web pages to Ward Tongen, my SEO SEM budy. Guess we'll wait and see if he makes another comment here and answers my question. Well Ward??

Load Time

Not sure what the deal is, but it takes a long long time to load both my homepage and my blog page. My only guess is that Google is limiting the bandwidth, seems like really slow servers. Anybody else notice this either on my site or on your own. As I've described before, I'm hosting on Google servers with the domain registration going through enom, Google's default setup for the Google Apps standard edition.

Google Analytics with Google Page Creator and Blogger

So I got my tagging on my blog in and I'm collecting data now. It's a different story for the home page which was created using Google Page Creator. According to the directions on the analytics page, you have to include the script code before the closing body tag. Since I haven't found a way to edit anything other than the HTML in the selected elements using Page Creator, I decided to include the script in the footer for the page. So far I haven't had any tracking data come in. The analytics page says the tracking code is installed and that it's just waiting for data. Problem is, I've visited the site from home and from work and no tracking. Think I might try to re-paste the code in the page again. And check some help files.

EDIT: When I went back into Page Creator to look at the script I pasted yesterday, I couldn't find it. I'm guessing I must not have saved or posted it. Anyways, I pasted in the code again in the footer, so hopefully, it works this time. Keep you posted.

Last update for today ...

Ok I was browsing around the DNS provider (enom) again and this time I think I figured out how to add the URL forwarding for http://brianjkopp.com to go to http://www.brianjkopp.com. Add a URL redirect record under the Host Records section. It take up to 3 hours to take affect so I'll have to wait and see how it goes.

As for my other to do...add Google Analytics, I got my home page tagged and the blog sight tagged as well. This was very simple. I was debating using the same tracking code for both the website and the blog site. I decided to do two different tracking codes for now. Not sure if that's what I should do or not. Seems like for reporting I could then easily see my visitors for both sights. If I used one tracking code, then I'd have to create a filter if I only wanted to see one of the sites.

I think I'll ask my good buddy and co-worker Ward Tongen tomorrow during lunch, he's our SEO SEM specialist in our Medtronic eMarketing group.

Update...yes already

So following my last post I dug into the blogger settings and found in the settings tab a promising looking setting in the publishing section, publish to a Custom Domain. After looking at the setup instructions provided, I re-logged into Google Apps and navigated to the domain settings tab and found the advanced DNS settings link under the domain names section. From there I was able to log into enom, the DNS company Google is using to register your domains with when you sign up for Google Apps.

Found under the Host records section where to add my new CNAME entry. I added blog and assigned it to the Google address: ghs.google.com.

After that was saved in enom, I navigated back to blogger and added my domain. Wham, all done and it works great. Took me longer to write this and go back and look at how I did it then it did to actually do it.

Next on the to do list:

1. Add Google Analytics
2. Figure out how to get http://brianjkopp.com to forward to http://www.brianjkopp.com. (right now the first link just goes to the iGoogle (Personalized) start page with my domain in a big ugly gray bar on the top)

Welcome

Welcome to brianjkopp.

I'm experimenting with the new Google Apps standard edition. Where Google hosts you website. I have a very lame home page right now at www.brianjkopp.com. I'd like to have a home page, resume, and portfolio available on the site. I'm intersted in having a link to this blog in the right nav. I've only looked for about 5 minutes, and it doesn't look like I can host this blog on that account, but we'll see.

I saw there was the ability to host this blog on another hosting services, but I need the FTP settings, which I haven't found yet in the Google Apps standard edition.

Anyways, I altimitly want this blog to be about my experience with technology and the web, seeing as how I'm a Web Specialist for the medical device manufacture, Medtronic.