As a somewhat long-time Squarespace user I'm thrilled at the giant SEO step they've just announced: 301 Redirects are now available for every URL on a Squarespace website, making it possible to move your website to Squarespace without (much) disruption in existing organic search engine traffic.  (Learn how Squarespace's SEO-friendly redirects work here.)

I've had a blog on Squarespace since July 2007 (it's a classical music blog, if you're interested).  I've found it the best hosted blogware/site builder for SEO ever since -- but the lack of support for 301 redirects was an obstacle to those wishing to migrate an existing blog with any significant SEO juice. Back in September, the Squarespace team launched their SEO-friendly blog importer, taking care of the problem for blog posts imported from certain popular blog formats. That obstacle is now history.

(Yeah, sure, everyone in SEO knows that a properly tricked-out Wordpress blog -- or equivalent content management software -- hosted on a server you control  is theoretically best for seo. But that defeats the purpose of using a hosted service in the first place. I've got a day job, a handful of personal/family blogs and sporadic freelance and charity work. As a work/life balance decision I'm limiting my use of self-hosted software to the Big Medium CMS that drives the page you're reading right now.)

Because it's not free like self-hosted Wordpress -- and because it's not super-cheap like TypePad -- Squarespace is sometimes an afterthought in the "where to host your blog" equation. As a business, they've gone after a niche market that appreciates the platform's design flexibility but is willing to pay $14 and up per month to be free from hosting and software worries. As an experienced content creator and coder who's not a visual designer, I find it hits a sweet spot of flexibility, convenience and value for money that works for me. And now that the most significant hurdle to migration is gone,

More importantly, paying real (but, in the scheme of things, cheap) money for hosting and software can get you listened to. The $14 I pay for HoldeKunst.com has paid off many times over in the fanatical support I've received -- often within minutes of opening a ticket, and unfailingly gracious even when I'm in the middle of nitpicking about a feature I'd like to see improved. I've tried to give back from time to time by participating in the Squarespace developer forum, which is itself a close-knit, helpful community that delivers even more value to Squarespacers. This upgrade is just the latest response to the user community that I've seen in the past two years.

But Wait - There Should Be More

Not to be ungrateful on this geekily giddy morning, but:

• We could still use some kind of bulk uploading -- currently each redirect must be added manually.
• We could still use canonical URL tags, especially with Google's announcement this very week that they'll be supported across domains. This would require the ability add code to the HTML header on a page-by-page basis. Squarespace already offers header access on a larger scale at the sitewide and module level.

To be fair, canonical tags are a pretty new feature, though they've gotten the necessary industry buy-in to be taken seriously by now. I'm confident, however, that my whining um... energetic advocacy) for this feature will be addressed in reasonable time.

If you haven't heard about how Greenbaum reported an inappropriate comment to the poster's boss (getting him "resigned"), see below for some background links.

If you're up to speed, just ponder these screen shots showing what has happened to Greenbaum's personal brand in the ten short days.

While I consider Greenbaum's action outrageous, I'm not posting to indulge in Schadenfreude. Ever since "Reply to All" was invented, it's been ridiculously easy to screw up online. Instead, what lessons can we learn from this debacle?

Register Your Name As A Domain

Or, really, the inverse: don't leave a domain like kurtgreebaum.com out there for someone else to grab if you publicly screw up. For whatever reason, Greenbaum blogs at igreenbaum.com. But look what happens when you visit kurtgreenbaum.com: an invitation to visit kurtgreenbaumisapussy.com.

If someone's already using your name as a domain, it's still worth keeping an eye on it and calling "dibs" through your registrar in case it becomes available.

Don't use anything close to vulgarity while denouncing someone else's vulgarity

Commenters were quick to pick up on a Tweet from Greenbaum that went like this:

"...Amazed at the readers who comment in defense of a jackass who posted a vulgarity on our site..."

"Jackass" is certainly considered less profane than pussy in the context under discussion. But still, it was easy pickings for Greenbaum's critics.

Sometime over the weekend, Greenbaum locked down his Twitter stream.

Admit you screwed up. Don't be sanctimonious

When Greenbaum crowed about consequences imposed (with his help) on the "resigned" school employee, the smackdown came swiftly with commenters siding against Greenbaum about 37 to one.

In a dismayingly unapologetic follow-up post, Greenbaum's damage control is lacking.

• Greenbaum didn't mean to sound boastful. (Translation: he recognizes -- but cannot admit -- the he was bragging, but now understands he was wrong to do so.)
• Greenbaum acted on his own, with no input from editorial or legal higher-ups. His managing editor has his back, though, conceding that the action was hasty but claiming it was "consistent with what they've done in the past."
• Greenbaum might have overreacted.
• Greenbaum emphasizes the legal nicety of whose IP address the comment came from (in an attempt) to silence accusations that he violated the St. Louis Dispatch's privacy policy. Nary a glimmer of awareness the he violated readers' trust.

Background

KMOV-TV Coverage - includes disturbing comment from Managing Editor Rose that Greenbaum's behavior is consistent with things they've done in the past.

Post a Vulgar Comment from Work, Lose Your Job - Kurt Greenbaum's initial brag

Kurt Greenbaum's Follow-up Post - Greenbaum denies bragging and admits he went for the nuclear option without input from higher-ups, but is unapologetic.

Interview with Webmaster of Kurt Greenbaum Ridicule Site

Firefox's four-year head start has already siphoned off developers, and users who were actively looking to dump IE. That leaves what we might call the ordinary user -- someone who doesn't really care what browser they use. In theory, these users have no reason not to try Chrome, but the reality is they have a no reason to stop using their system's default browser. In some cases it's simple inertia, but in other cases, it's that they actually don't know what a browser is. Here's the proof, found via the Slate article.

Videos like this are a crucial reality check. I've been involved in website creation since 1997, when "The Browser Wars" forced us into aggravating, antediluvian cross-browser coding practices.  Next came the late-Clinton-era lawsuit against Microsoft for "bundling their browser with their operating system." How could the term browser have failed to sink in over the past 15 years?

Then I remembered the recent day we opened my husband's new laptop. John would score better than some of the folks in the video, because he'd answer "Firefox!" if asked how he gets on the Internet. But he looked at me blankly when I asked him what default browser he wanted to use. Ironically, this laptop (a Sony Vaio) did come preloaded with Chrome. But to my knowledge he has never clicked the icon.

Imagine going to all this trouble only to discover from your ticket agent at check-in that the "direct" flight you found and booked actually includes a stopover. Imagine the chagrin, considering that you've been consoling yourself all morning that, hey, you may be dragging yourself miserably out of bed at 5:00 AM, but at least it's a direct flight.

Take a look at this itinerary, representing the wonderful trip to Spain that John and I just finished yesterday. What would a normal person conclude about the flight schedule?

Doesn't this look like a 1-stop departure from Chicago to Granada (via Madrid), followed ten days later by a direct flight from Barcelona to Chicago? This is how it looked when I was selecting flights on my build-a-vacation site of choice, EuropeanDestinations.com, and to the best of my recollection I accepted an uncomfortably early departure in exchange for what I thought would be a direct flight.

With difficulty, you can see "Stops: 1" at the bottom of the screen shot. But the location of the stop is a secret. More importantly, the departure itinerary establishes the precedent of listing each leg individually. I wonder how many passengers will zoom in on the fine print and wonder where the plane will stop -- I know that none of the English-speaking passengers checking in with us had done so. All were shocked and disappointed to hear the ticket guy apologetically mention Madrid. For his part, this young man shrugged his shoulders apologetically and said "happens all the time."

John and I live in the Chicago area and tend to spend our big vacations in Europe, so direct flights really do make a difference. On the way to Europe, a long layover or missed connection due to weather problems, etc. can "steal" a day of your vacation. It makes it unwise to schedule activities and performances on the evening of your arrival, though that's sometimes unavoidable. A stopover on the way home is less risky, but far more exhausting. As we squeezed ourselves in airline steerage seats for the third time yesterday, John commented that he was glad the secret Madrid stopover came as a last-minute surprise, because he'd been enjoying the thought of a direct flight home for the entire trip. Along with a preference for Midway departures over O'Hare, direct flights are a factor for which we are willing to pay a little extra.

Insult Added to Injury

We quickly got over our disappointment and took the BCN-MAD leg without incident, and what turned out to be a three-hour layover allowed plenty of time for the bewilderingly unnecessary passport control between two Spanish cities -- I know Barcelona is in the autonomous region of Catalonia, but come on! It also allowed plenty of time for the several-kilometer journey to the new gate.

In fact, there were no problems at all, until (moments after being sternly ordered to get into our seats ASAP so we could get TF outta there) the pilot announced the first of many ten-minute delays due to a technical problem. At least we were only stuck on the tarmac for two hours. And in the terminal for another two hours. We ended up leaving Spanish airspace about 12 hours after our stressful, pre-dawn wake-up call, and our time in transit stretched to 21 hours, counting our foolish decision to travel home from O'Hare on public transportation rather than blowing $31 on a cab ride.

It would be unfair to blame this miserable trip home entirely on Iberia's hidden stopover, since the same thing could have happened to a BCN-ORD flight. As unfair as hiding a stopover in the fine print?

Hunch mixes collaborative filtering with machine learning to build an algorithm for answering the kinds of questions co-founder Caterina Fake once helped faciliate at Yahoo Answers. As great as Yahoo Answers can be, it has a significant limitation -- a human being has to answer your question (or perhaps pretend to answer your question while really advertising some service). Hunch will attempt to answer your question algorithmically by asking you ten questions or fewer and comparing your answers to its "taste database."

To brief the uninitiated I might call it a TypePad competitor, but Squarespace is much more than that.  It is hosted hosting, if you will and so there are limitations. And sometimes the supercool interface is more bewildering than beguiling. But what you can do with SQSP is amazing -- even for the money, which is a step up from TypePad. For SEO, Squarespace is very good, especially if you're starting a new site. Based on their track record in the two years since I launched my first Squarespace site, I am confident that the remaining refinements are already being dealt with.

Anyway, here's what's going on. Squarespace is coming out with an iPhone app to update sites with.  To generate buzz, they're giving away one "iPhone" (Actually a $199 gift card to the Apple store) every day till July 7. At 5pm Eastern they'll do a "drawing" from among the tweets containing the hashtag #squarespace. Here's the explanation.

If you're looking for a reliable place to host a blog, with beautiful templates out of the box, consider a Squarespace free trial. (And yep -- that's an affiliate link -- if you actually become a paying customer I get the small bucks.)

The user had some basic SEO questions, including a request for advice about getting body text onto a homepage that was mostly images. What mystified me -- and prompted an immediate ALL CAPS response -- was whether "transparent text" would do the trick.

The user was an admitted newbie, so I took that into account and suggested some learning resources without presuming any nefarious intent. But in a sense, that puzzled me more? How would a user who knows nothing about seo find blackhat suggestions so easily? Wouldn't the most obvious, popular, mainstream seo information be considerably more findable at this point than trickery, especially to a newbie who doesn't know the terminology ("black hat," etc.) to search for? Or is this a testiment to the fact that once something's out there on the web, it's out there indefinitely?

Disclaimer: it's possible the newbie was interested in the visual effect of transparent text overlaid on his images, which would be moot in terms of search-engine-friendliness. But I made the assumption that, since he was trying to get readable body text onto the page, he was talking about hidden text using CSS tricks of the sort that had become useless long before I ever did SEO.

The problem with the immediate assumption of intentionality on Amazon's part is selection bias. The twit-storm focused almost exclusively on the glitch's impact on gay subject matter, because an author in that community brought the issue to light, and the community response, accordingly, focused on gay material. In fact, the glitch affected many topics that all have in common the frank discussion of sexuality, issues tangentially related to sexuality, or (more below) certain individual or subcultural biases that are inconsistent with Amazon's intended policies.

At this point, it's easy to believe the glitch story -- although I would describe it as a taxonomical glitch rather than a technical one. And an interesting discussion not taking place is the overlap of gay-related (and other affected) categories and keywords in family-friendly and adult contexts. The confusion this can cause may be ideologically neutral -- or not. I'm reminded of Olympic hopeful Tyson Homosexual, whose last name (guess what it is) was auto-replaced in news feeds by an "inappropriate language" filter on a conservative website. One can certainly infer an attitude toward gay people by a preference for the term homosexual (as if it were still a medical disorder), along the lines of what happens when you Google "Jew" as opposed to "Judaism."

Update April 14: Interestingly, a language-cultural barrier may have contributed to Amazon's glitch, which they've now attributed to a change to adult flagging made on the French Amazon site.

But something like that could just as easily happen by an effort to filter out any colloquialism. On my first web job, at a software company with worldwide reach, we tried to avoid American slang because so many of our users weren't American or even native English speakers.

What got people thinking about the possible role of tagging in the glitch was the discovery that gay and lesbian authors were also affected, regardless of book content. A list of wrongly-flagged authors and books grew quickly, courtesy of that part of the outraged blogosphere not attending family events yesterday. Along with the books containing G-rated, gay-related subject matter were books in which the only gay aspect seemed to be the sexual orientation of the author -- but Amazon users had tagged them with gay-related keywords anyway. It suggested that someone over at Amazon had adjusted the adult filter to cast a wide net specifically for gay-related keywords and many concluded that Amazon as a company (in their Seattle office, no less) had decided gay=dirty. I'd prefer to confine my ideological quarrels to users who tagged an Ellen Degeneres book with "exhibitionism" and a book about one gay adoption with "gay love," since an adoption memoir by a straight couple would simply be tagged with "adoption."

It's unlikely that tagging would be used for a purpose that had such real financial consequences as loss of sales rank and invisibility in best seller lists -- that's putting too much trust in crowdsourcing.

Did I mention crowdsourcing? Among measures like blog posts, petitions, open letters, etc., a retaliatory tagging campaign was launched. On Amazon, the tag #amazonfail appears on affected books (which, by now, are no longer flagged as adult). And in a variation on Google-bombing that I find guiltily amusing, check out the user-submitted tags for Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality. This work of science fiction, adding insult to injury, was one of the few "gay" books that avoided the adult tag. "Hmmmm," mused the Twittersphere and went to work vandalizing the book listing.

Tags for Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality as they appeared on the morning of April 13, 2009. Click picture to enlarge.

The moral of the story: Tags are an easy way to allow users to participate in your site organization. But they aren't "Set It & Forget It!" Now Amazon will need to decide what to do about a) #amazonfail as a tag and b) the tags and off-topic reader reviews now appearing on the Parent's Guide page. For all my ideological sympathy, I can't condone the gesture on user experience grounds, however half-hearted my disapproval must be.