How to improve your site's performance with Apache and htaccess

A faster website means more revenue and traffic:

• Amazon's Greg Linden reported that 100 ms of extra load time caused a 1% drop in sales.
• Google's Marrissa Mayer reported that 500 ms of extra load time caused 20% fewer searches.
• Yahoo!'s Nicole Sullivan reported that 400 ms of extra load time caused a 5–9% increase in the number of people who clicked the back button before the page even loaded.

Reasons enough to make sure your site loads as fast as possible, so here's a tutorial on how to speed up your website using htaccess, mod_deflate and mod_expires.

90% of SEOs won't be using the Google disavow tool

We already talked about the Google disavow tool and why it is a bad idea to use it. A recent poll on SEO Training Dojo reveals that 89.3% of the SEOs who voted said they won't be using it.

Don't waste your time using the disavow tool. Instead, focus on expanding your network. Build more sites and get more links. Buy old domains and revive them. Get more social signals. In other words: building is better than snitching.

About.me is independent again

In 2010, AOL acquired the online identity platform about.me. Today, they announced they've been bought out:

Today, we're thrilled to announce that we'll be spinning about.me back out, returning to life as an independent company that is financially backed by our management team and a truly amazing group of investors who have backed companies such as WordPress and Google. Our team will remain the same for the most part, and we'll continue our roles as co-founders.
Our commitment is to make about.me the web's starting point for identity - we believe everyone will eventually have an about.me page they integrate into their email signature, add to their Twitter Bio or embed in one of their blogs.