Search Engines

How to resolve “Specifying a character set in HTTP headers can speed up browser rendering”

It is important for a number of reasons why your web site page load speed is as fast as possible. Our previous article “How to speed up your web page load time” explains the importance of the issue.

Increasing your web site performance usually involves a number of small changes to your web page. Some of Google’s PageSpeed suggestions are easier to resolve than others.

The Message:

Google’s PageSpeed reports “The following resources have no character set specified in their HTTP headers. Specifying a character set in HTTP headers can speed up browser rendering.”

The Issue:

Specifying a character set in the HTTP response headers of your HTML documents allows the browser to begin parsing HTML and executing scripts immediately.

The solution:

This is easy if your pages are PHP encoded. Simply add the following line of code to the top of your PHP page:

header(‘Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1’);

The Result:

Re-run Google PageSpeed and see the warning message vanish!

How to speed up your web page load time

Why speeding up your web pages is more important than you think

Even with today’s high performance web servers and mega bandwidth broadband to the home that web site page load speed is a massively important issue – yet many webmasters spend little time on the issue.

Would you be surprised to hear that 40% of users abandon a site that takes more than 3 seconds to load?

We are way past the days of modems and 128k ADSL so you would think all websites would load in an instant. Well, that is not the case. To compensate for the increase in bandwidth many webmasters have bloated their web sites with unneccessarily large images, slow plugin-ins and javascripts that simply are not used. Basically there does not seem to be a need to optimise page load time any more – or is there?

Ten years ago people expected pages to load within 30 seconds. Any slower than that and you would start losing users. Time is short and people demand more these days. Your target today has got to be 2 seconds or less.

Here’s five big reasons you need to increase your page load speed

  • A one second delay can reduce conversions by 7%
  • Faster web site is great for user experience
  • Conversion rates and ROI will increase
  • Site speed is incorporated in search rankings
  • Faster pages encourages users to view more pages
For statistics lovers, here is some data from Kissmetrics
  • 47% of consumers expect a website to load in 2 seconds or less
  • 40% abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load
  • 79% of shoppers are less likely to make repeat purchases from slow sites
  • 52% state quick page loads are more important then site loyalty
  • A 1 seconds delay decreases customer satisfaction by 16%
  • 44% of shoppers will tell their friends about a bad experience

Even looking beyond the user experience you will find that page load time is also a factor for search engine rankings, conversion and perception of your brand. So for many reasons, all important reasons, you need to get your page load time in check.

How to accurately check your page load times

There are a number of tools to help you squeeze the most of your web pages. If you have never optimised your pages before then there are lots of small things you can do increase the speed – you could get 300% with little effort.

The Google Developers are always quick to release super useful tools and PageSpeed is no exception, this should be your first port of call, a simply browser plugin and you’ll get a full report on what is slowing your page speed down and tips on fixing the issues.

My favourite online page speed tester is provided by Pingdom.com, you can compare your site over time and also against other sites. You get a performance grade and a page load comparison against all other tested websites.

Our result: We get a performance grade of 99/100 and our site is faster than 98% of all tested website.

Go to Pingdom now and start to increase your page load speeds as part of your regular webmaster tasks.

Are Web 2.0 Article Sites Still Useful for SEO?

Legacy Web 2.0 SEO advice

Creating multiple hosted blogs for keyword links is not a modern SEO strategy

The former list encouraged posting articles mainly to obtain anchor-text links. Many of those services have closed or changed, and scaled self-created links can be treated as spam. Use hosted platforms only when they serve a real audience and contain worthwhile original material.

Read the Current SEO GuideSee the steps
STARTConfirm the serviceUse the account-specific route
PROTECTRecord current settingsAvoid accidental disruption
CHECKTest the resultKeep the exact error if it fails

How should you use third-party publishing platforms now?

Follow the sequence and stop before any step that does not match the service shown in your UKC account.

  1. 1
    Start with an audience, not a link

    Choose a platform only when its users are relevant and you can maintain a useful presence there.

  2. 2
    Publish a distinct contribution

    Do not duplicate the article on your own site. Adapt the subject and add insight appropriate to that community.

  3. 3
    Link only when it helps the reader

    Use a natural destination that supplies evidence, a tool or further detail. Avoid repeated keyword anchor text.

  4. 4
    Maintain or close the profile responsibly

    Keep important information current and protect the account with unique credentials and multi-factor authentication.

What creates sustainable search visibility?

Search visibility is built from useful pages, reliable technical delivery, clear internal linking and genuine reputation, not a count of self-created profiles.

Helpful content

Answer the customer’s question early and support it with accurate, experience-based detail.

Technical quality

Use HTTPS, mobile-friendly layouts, useful titles, clean status codes and a crawlable internal structure.

Real authority

Earn citations, reviews and mentions through service, research, tools and relationships.

Measurement

Use Search Console to compare queries, pages, clicks, impressions and outcomes over sensible periods.

AvoidPrefer
Thin profile pagesMaintained expert profiles
Exact-match anchor campaignsNatural relevant references
Duplicate articlesOriginal platform-specific content
Password spreadsheetsA password manager and MFA

Common questions

Is posting on Medium or LinkedIn harmful?

Not when the post serves its audience. Do not treat the platform as a machine for manufacturing keyword links.

Should I delete every old profile?

Remove or update profiles that misrepresent the business or create security risk. Keep useful, maintained profiles that customers still use.

Do social links directly improve ranking?

Visibility can lead people to content and sometimes to genuine citations, but sharing alone is not a guaranteed ranking boost.

How quickly will modern SEO work?

There is no fixed timetable. Crawling, competition, demand and site quality all affect results, so evaluate trends rather than expecting an instant position.

Create one useful destination

Invest in the page customers should actually find

Then use relevant platforms to introduce it to people who can benefit from it.

Read the Current SEO GuideAsk UKC Support
nn

How to Block or Control YandexBot Crawling

Control YandexBot crawling

Use robots.txt first, then a server block only for abusive traffic

Yandex officially supports robots.txt and offers crawl-rate controls in Yandex Webmaster. Add a Yandex rule to a valid root-level robots.txt file and test it. A web-server block is stronger, but it also blocks legitimate access and can be bypassed by software that copies the Yandex user-agent name.

Use the robots.txt RuleServer blocking
FIRSTUse robots.txtOfficial crawl instruction
VERIFYCheck server logsConfirm the real problem
STRONG BLOCKUse only if necessaryUser agents can be spoofed

How do you know YandexBot is causing the load?

Review access logs

Compare request rate, paths, status codes and user-agent with the period of high resource use.

Find expensive URLs

Search, calendar, filter and parameter pages can create much more work than ordinary articles.

Separate bots from attacks

A user-agent string is not proof of identity. Malicious software can claim to be YandexBot.

Fix the bottleneck

Caching, database queries and unlimited URL combinations may need work even if one crawler exposes them.

How do you block Yandex in robots.txt?

Add this group to the plain-text robots.txt file at the website root:

User-agent: Yandex
Disallow: /

Confirm the public file returns HTTP 200 and plain text. Preserve existing sitemap and crawler rules. Yandex says a valid file can restrict crawling and reduce server load.

  1. 1
    Back up the current file

    Preserve all existing directives and sitemap locations before editing.

  2. 2
    Add the Yandex group

    Use the exact user-agent and disallow lines shown above.

  3. 3
    Test the response

    Open the file without signing in and validate it in Yandex Webmaster where available.

  4. 4
    Monitor requests

    Allow time for the crawler to refetch the file, then compare logs and load.

When should you block at the server?

Use a server block when traffic remains harmful, is impersonating a crawler or must stop immediately. The correct method depends on active Apache and Nginx configuration. A copied legacy Order Deny,Allow snippet may not suit a modern server.

How do you reverse the change?

robots.txt rule

Remove only the Yandex group and confirm the rest of the file still returns HTTP 200.

Server block

Restore the backup, test the site immediately and clear relevant caches.

Search visibility

Allowing crawl again does not guarantee immediate recrawling or indexing.

Long-term control

Block infinite URL spaces and fix expensive pages instead of blocking every crawler that finds them.

Read Yandex’s official robots.txt guidance.

YandexBot questions

Does Yandex ignore robots.txt?

Yandex states that its indexing robot supports robots.txt. A missing, inaccessible or invalid file may be treated as allowing crawl.

Will Disallow remove pages from search?

Not necessarily. Blocking crawl and removing an indexed URL are separate tasks.

Can I block by IP address?

Ranges can change and need verification. Do not maintain an unverified copied list.

Why is the old Apache rule gone?

It used legacy syntax and an imprecise pattern. Modern configurations need a rule suited to the actual server.

Still seeing heavy crawling?

Send UKC the time window and hostname

Include sample log lines with customer information removed.

Open a Support TicketView UKC Hosting

Top 5 Tips since Google Panda Update

The Google Panda update is well and truly rolled out to UK sites.

Some sites lost a high percentage of their traffic, others were unaffected. To minimise your site exposure to the new rules, consider the following 5 very important tips:

  1. Unique content is more important than ever
  2. Links from low quality directories and blogs are worth less
  3. Quality relevant backlinks are worth more
  4. Quality relevant links from authority sites are worth more
  5. Remove duplicate (and spun) content or risk being de-indexed.

Keep your site within the new rules and your traffic will return and if you were unaffected, significant gains could be realised.