So after a very successful launch to the website interface my site was hacked with what is generally known as a Pharma hack.

It doesn’t affect you visitors visiting my site and you probably did not notice anything strange. However, it did affect my search ranking with certain keywords. Essentially, the purpose of the hack is so when Google searches my site to index the content, it triggers a script which would read an additional string of pharmaceutical links for things like viagra and cialis – which google would associate with spam on my page and make it less credible. From what I’ve read online, it appears that the reason for this hack is done for the purpose of reducing the page ranks for the top 100 sites for a particular keyword. In this case, I’m considered one the top 50 photographers when searching for “Toronto Wedding Photographer” through Google. After the hack, my page ranking is somewhere in the 600s.

Since then I’ve re-installed my database and put up some blockers in hopes that it doesn’t come back. You will see some dead links and missing photos on my website as I try to re-upload all my content to how it used to be pre-hack.

If you’re browsing my website, I apologize for the missing portfolio galleries and photos missing in the blog posts. I hope to have everything up and running again by the weeks end. If you want to see something in particular, please send me an email to info@ryanchan.ca.

And because no blog post is complete without a photo, here’s one I took this weekend at Owen Sound.

With 2011 behind us and 2012 ahead I’m starting out the year with a new look. The first item in a long list of focused rebranding is the website. It’s the first place clients come to before I even get a phone call or email. There are rare cases where my clients have shown their wedding photos to their friends and I get called up as soon as they are engaged (and sometimes even before!).

The website has been in the works for over three months and I definitely think it makes for a better browsing experience. The first thing you’ll notice is the blog is now front and center. It’s the most current material, and thus the most relevant. Every artist develops and grows over time, their work 10 years ago might not look like the work they are producing today. Photography is no different. My style has grown over the past few years and I like the believe that it has changed for the better. Having the most current weddings on the home page just makes sense.

On the blog, each post displays a feature image and a summary of the text. For those who prefer the traditional chronological blog, or if you just prefer to scroll endlessly from blog post to blog post, just click on blog in the navigation bar.

The portfolio has also been given an update is being updated. I pride myself in being a wedding photojournalist, so it only makes sense to show you galleries of full weddings. While an individual images can say volumes, a wedding is more than just one image of the bride and groom. There are hundreds of guests, and thousands of moments happening throughout the day – they are all equally important in telling the story.

I’ve also made posts much more social networking friendly. With each blog post, you can share to Facebook, spread the word on Twitter, share on Google+, or pin to Pintrest. These icons are streamlined into the heading on the upper right of each blog post. Feel free to test them out!

There’s a few more features on the site, but I’ll let you poke around to discover them yourselves.

I’m looking forward to a really awesome 2012!