How to do a SOPA website protest while minimizing the impact with Google

How to do a SOPA website protest while minimizing the impact with Google Thanks to Pierre Far and Matt Cutts

#1 Scott S

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Posted 16 January 2012 - 03:09 PM

I found this wonderful article on twitter this morning and thought that some of you may be interested. @mattcutts tweeted the link saying "Here's how to do a SOPA website protest while minimizing the impact with Google: https://plus.google.com/115984868678744352358/posts/Gas8vjZ5fmB"

The advice holds true for any time you want have a blackout or maintenance page and not hurt your Google rankings.

Don't forget that many major websites are participating in the SOPA blackout this Wednesday. If you plan to join in, now is the time to plan how you will participate. More information regarding the SOPA blackout can be found on http://sopablackout.org/

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#2 Scott S

MDDHosting Staff

Group: Staff Administrator
Posts: 139
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Posted 16 January 2012 - 07:17 PM

For those of you using CloudFlare, Tech Crunch reports that CloudFlare now has an app that easily allows you to black out your site as well: http://techcrunch.co...t-against-sopa/

Or visit the CloudFlare site directly for more details: https://www.cloudfla...stop_censorship

#3 xe-cute

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Posted 17 January 2012 - 10:46 PM

I've just put my blackout in effect (as it's past 3am in the UK and I didn't fancy stopping up till 6am).
I came on the forums here before bed to see if any others where doing anything too in protest.

Fingers crossed I've done mine alright. I've put a 503 in the header, I think, hehe (first time I've actually attempted it, so hope I got it right)

I used at the top of my php file...

<?php
ob_start();
header('HTTP/1.1 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable');
header('Status: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable');
header('Retry-After: 3600');
header('X-Powered-By:');
?><!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
<html><head>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma" CONTENT="no-cache">

I also hope I used the no cache correctly too so visitors see the new page and not the old one in there browser cache.

On another note I had to switch Cloudfare off on my website awhile back as I saw no benefit speed wise and an actual decrease in ad revenue and visitors somehow. It may of been coincidence I suppose.