Author: Ash Nallawalla

About Ash Nallawalla

Ash Nallawalla is a consultant enterprise SEO with a long background in large companies with complex websites. He is a published author of several books and thousands of magazine articles.

Kalicube Knowledge Panels Course Review by Ash Nallawalla

Reading Time: 3 minutes
KP course
Course

The course is called “Triggering and Managing Knowledge Panels”. I paid full retail for this 12-month expiry course. It is a collection of videos and quizzes to be completed at one’s own pace. I completed it in 

Lesson 1

Duration: 12:35

The first lesson is an introduction to the course.

Lesson 2

Duration: 9:54

My main revelation here was that I needed an “Entity Home” – a definitive source of truth about me. I have a few websites that contain scattered information about me, so I need to create this Entity Home. That is probably my “name site” – https://ash.nallawalla.com.

Sample quiz.
Sample quiz.

Lesson 3

Duration: 6:35

This lesson asks you to confirm three things:

  • Who you are
  • What you offer
  • Which audience you serve.

This lesson reinforces the exhortation to implement schema tags, even though it has not been covered in depth so far.

Lesson 4

Duration: 8:10

This lesson is about building your Entity Home. You need to own and control it completely. I have one, but I need to improve it.

Lesson 5

Duration: 11:17

The next most important thing after the Entity Home is the Entity Description. It needs to begin with a “subject-verb-object” that describes the entity.

Lesson 6

Duration: 13:10

It is important to corroborate facts about the entity. Some sites are more effective than others when they mention you (the entity).

Lesson 7

Duration: 8:42

If possible, you need to link from the Entity Home to the corroborative sites and vice versa.

Lesson 8

Duration: 13:11

Using Schema tags is the best way to corroborate. I did this some time ago, tweaking it by adding subJectOf.

Lesson 9

Duration: 11:25

This lesson covers nodes, edges, attributes, and paths.

Lesson 10

Duration: 16:23

We learn about six knowledge verticals that can trigger a knowledge panel and the Google Knowledge Graph (Vault).

Lesson 11

Duration: 5:23

This lesson is about claiming knowledge panels (and when not to).

Lesson 12

Duration: 11:28

Sometimes, you may want to change the information Google has chosen to show for your entity.

Lesson 13

Duration: 6:08

This lesson describes what information Google shows in a knowledge panel and how to trigger and manage the information in your control.

Lesson 14

Duration: 11:47

In this lesson, you will learn that machine learning algorithms drive every aspect of the Knowledge Vault, Knowledge Panels, and brand SERPs. 

Lesson 14

Lesson 15

Duration: 9:48

This lesson is about the Google Knowledge Extraction Algorithm.

Lesson 16

Duration: 13:59

Jason explains how a Knowledge Panel Is built.

Lesson 17

Duration: 11:40

This lesson is about getting your entity Into Google’s Knowledge Vault.

Lesson 18

Duration: 13:44

This module is about getting your Knowledge Panel to show on your brand SERP.

Lesson 19

Duration: 9:15

Here, you learn about “People Also Search For”, “Related Searches,” and how these elements work.

Lesson 20

Duration: 8:32

This lesson covers how Google chooses what photos and logos to show.

Lesson 21

Duration: 8:48

Jason teaches us how to build Google’s confidence in your entity.

Outcome

I enjoyed doing the course.

Knowledge Panels Course certificate
Knowledge Panels Course completion certificate.

Did it give me a Knowledge Panel? No. Try searching for “Ashok Nallawalla“.

Partial knowledge panel.
Partial knowledge panel on the right.

I already had a “partial” knowledge panel before completing the course. I have a problem with my formal name being cited in authoritative places, such as the National Library of Australia since the early 1980s, and Amazon for my early books. My nickname “Ash” is the only name I use professionally all the time. It’s unique, as I know we are a small family and there is nobody else with my name. Yet, Google the “child” is too infantile to grasp that I am the same person as Ashok. It has not noticed that I published a new book in 2022, and it is still showing the previous book from 1985. If you search for “Ash Nallawalla“, the partial knowledge panel does not show.

Of course, this does not detract from the Kalicube course. You should consider doing it if you are serious about this topic.

BlackBriar 25L Range Backpack Review

Reading Time: 2 minutesSo, I’ve been using my new BlackBriar 25-litre Range backpack for three weeks and about 8,000 miles of air travel. Its impressive build quality will give premium brands such as Tumi a good run for the money.

BlackBriar Range 25L backpack
BlackBriar Range 25L backpack

Capacity

While there are larger models, the 25L was a perfect replacement for my old backpack, which has two vertical compartments for a laptop and some work papers or what-have-you. Backpacks come in many layouts to suit user personas, e.g., tourist, digital nomad, office worker, student, etc. My use case is that of an occasional tourist who carries a laptop for some light work back at the hotel.

My previous backpack was a freebie from a software company and made for nobody in particular. Its two vertical slots were fine for a laptop and some papers, but it wasn’t good as an overnighter or even for packing some last-minute purchases at the end of a vacation. It has a second pocket for smaller items.

The BlackBriar has a single large storage area that opens out like a suitcase, as shown in the photo.

Opened up view
Opened up view

There are six zipped pockets and a large sleeve. On the outside and under the main handle is a zipped area where you can keep stuff you are likely to access from the overhead bin on a plane.

Clothes and travel paraphernalia
Clothes and travel paraphernalia

In the photo above, I have shown three shirts and one pair of trousers, along with some paraphernalia. You can see there is room to spare.

Laptop sleeve
Laptop sleeve

My laptop is an old Dell Inspiron 15 5000 and fits comfortably, so a 17-inch laptop would also be happy there. I also keep my travel papers in this side pocket.

Build

The fabric and straps are top-class and will not wear out before you replace the backpack for other reasons.  There are generous side pockets for water bottles and loops for anything you care to carry. A thoughtful touch is a small ring for hanging the bag in an airport toilet cubicle. Two side straps are handy for grabbing the bag from either side.

Other colours are available, but I chose black to hide possible stains that bags seem to pick up from dirty airport floors. Dearer models also have a combination lock to deter theft at night while we sleep on those long trans-Pacific flights.

In Use

As a business traveller, I found it to be the perfect size for a short 3-day trip, going hand-luggage-only (HLO). It sits comfortably on my back, particularly on those long walks between terminals – have you walked from LAX’s Tom Bradley International Terminal to say, United at Terminal 7? At the Immigration counter, my travel papers are easily reached within seconds. At the hotel, I can easily access my folded clothes.

Rating

5.0 out of 5.0 stars

Submitting WordPress Site to HSTS Preload List

Reading Time: < 1 minuteIf you run a website, it will be more secure if you enable HSTS Preload correctly and submit it to a Google property known as https://hstspreload.org/. I tried some plugins, but they added validation errors. I prefer not using a plugin if there’s another way to solve the problem. This is the quickest method, so give it a try if you tried the above test/submission and your domain failed.

Netmagellan (this site) fails the HSTS Preload test.
Netmagellan (this site) fails the HSTS Preload test.

Edit the .htaccess File

Two entries are required in this file that lives in your website’s root folder. I added them after the # END WordPress line. The first entry adds the HSTS header. The next entry makes an HTTP request redirect HTTPS before anything else.

Header set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload"

#Redirection code starts

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

#Redirection code Ends

Check the Site Again

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