Google will Begin Ranking Mobile Sites Higher Starting April 21

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Google Search

Google is making a significant change to its search algorithm. Beginning April 21st, Google will increase the ranking of websites that are mobile-friendly.

The company says that the change will have “a significant impact” on all mobile searches in all languages worldwide, but as a result Google says that mobile users will find higher quality search results.

Google will also start to use more information from indexed apps as a factor when ranking search results for users that are signed in and have apps installed.

These changes are great for mobile users as it should help motivate those websites that still aren’t responsive to actually make changes as soon as possible. Google actually started highlighting good mobile sites in mobile search results earlier this year.

Finding more mobile-friendly search results [Google Webmaster Blog]

Audio Engine D2 Wireless DAC: Better Than SONOS

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Most of you don’t know that I owned a loudspeaker design business in a previous life. Shawn Levin and I started Poseidon’s Voice after we graduated from college and we built high-end audiophile loudspeakers together for several years. Recently I uncovered a pair of our original Poseidon’s Voice bookshelf speakers and began to set up a system that would continue to be high-end that would allow me to use my old equipment with some newer gear so I could stream the music from my computer to the bookshelf speakers.

Poseidon’s Voice Bookshelf Speakers

Poseidon's Voice Bookshelf SpeakersPoseidon's Voice Bookshelf Speakers

 

The Old Equipment – Amplifier & Pre-amplifier

I have a pair of Llano Designs monoblock amplifiers and one of the earliest versions of Steve Deckert’s ZTPRE tube pre-amplifier.

Llano Designs Monoblock AmplifiersDecware_ZTPRE

The New Equipment – Audioengine D2 Wireless DAC

The audioengine D2 is a DAC (digital-to-analog converter) transmitter and receiver pair. It allows you to transmit and control a digital audio signal from one place, and receive it as either a digital or DAC-converted analog signal elsewhere.

While I have used an Apple AirPort Express and also several Sonos systems to play into a stereo system from laptops, ipads and ipods, not everything on my computer plays through iTunes and AirPlay. The reason for this wireless device is if you want to play everything from your computer through it, or play from a dedicated TOSLINK audio source.

With this pair, you can send digital (not analog) audio from your computer, CD player, iPhone, stereo receiver, or any type of digital device and have it received remotely at your power amplifier or active monitors. You control the volume at the transmitter, so all you need to do is plug the receiver into your powered monitors, power amplifier or pre amplifier, and you’ve got an instant remote-volume-controlled 24-bit playback system. Sit in your favorite chair next to your source, and control the volume and run great analog into your amps on the other side of the room for critical listening. You can play out of your computer via USB, and you can use the TOSLINK output at the other end.

One transmitter will talk to up to three receivers at the same time. The performance is absolutely fantastic.

The Audioengine D2 used to cost $599 but it’s currently available for $399.

How does it sound?

In a word, it sounds glorious. I forgot just how good music – particularly compressed digital music – can sound. The fact that the Audioengine D2 is both a DAC and a unique wireless music streaming device makes it even more worthwhile.

Why the Audioengine D2 is Better than Sonos

If you’re looking for a way to stream music from your computer to an existing stereo, you want to spend less than $500, and you want it to sound good, there is no better option. The fact that you can add additional receivers to the setup allows you to stream music from one single source to multiple locations in your house, much like Sonos without having to use Sonos speakers which just don’t sound particularly good.

Final Recommendations

I would also recommend ditching iTunes and using JRiver Media Center instead. JRiver sounds better, runs faster, and uses less memory. There’s a 30 day free trial and then after that it costs $49.98 for Windows only or $69.98 if you’d like to run it on both Windows and Mac devices.

And if you’re in the market for a subwoofer, check out Hsu Research. I bought their least expensive subwoofer – the STF2 – at $359 you would be hard-pressed to find a better subwoofer for less than $1,000.

 

 

 

Increase Search Traffic. Translate Your Blog Into Chinese.

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Chances are high that when you write your blog posts you are writing them in English. What if I told you that you could increase your search traffic by translating your blog into Mandarin and Spanish as they are the two most popular languages in the world?

There are a variety of translation plugins that can help you do this. There is no perfect plugin, however. The best plugin is called Transposh.

If you decide to do this to increase your search traffic, here are some tips.

  1. Download the plugin directly from the website – http://transposh.org/download/ and install it yourself. This works better than the plugin you will get if you search for it in the plugin repository.
  2. Transposh offers 92 possible languages for translating your content. If you select them all at once, however, the plugin crashes, freezes your browser, and will not translate all of your blog’s posts and pages. For this reason, you should select a few languages (usually fewer than 5) at first and see how it goes.Languages Transposh ‹ Connect4 Consulting — WordPress
  3. Once you select a few languages, find the Settings tab and uncheck the option that says “This enables auto detection of language used by the user as defined in the ACCEPT_LANGUAGES they send. This will redirect the first page accessed in the session to the same page with the detected language.” The reason you have to uncheck that option is because the plugin automatically sends people to a translated version when it shouldn’t.
  4. Once you hit the Save Changes button, head over to Utilities tab, and click “translate all now.” If you have a big blog, it’s going to take hours. The plugin is a little buggy so if nothing happens the first time, select fewer languages and then repeat the steps.
  5. When you publish new posts and pages, you won’t have to repeat these steps as the plugin will do it automatically, but you will need to repeat the process for older posts.

Troubleshooting Transposh

Not everything works perfectly. Although all content, text links, sliders, and button text gets translated, the title tag and meta descriptions are not. For that reason Google Webmaster Tools will show duplicate tags and meta descriptions. The plugin also messes with the design a bit as you can see below.

transposh-design-conflict

Finally, the plugin doesn’t translate everything perfectly on the first go-around. Sometimes you have to run it a few times to get it to work correctly and even then, sometimes the translations are horrible. The upside here is that you will undoubtedly increase your search traffic. The downside is the quality of the translation.