The Google Sandbox is supposed to be a filter placed on new websites which is proving controversial. It is alleged that a site fails to receive good rankings for its rich keywords and keyword phrases. Strangely, even websites with well presented content, plenty of incoming links and strong Google page rank, are adversely affected by the Google Sandbox effect. The Sandbox acts as a deterrent for sites, possibly to discourage spam sites from rising quickly, getting banned, and reappearing.
The Google Sandbox may perhaps be deemed as a new website that is put on probation for proper behavior prior to being given full value for its incoming links and content.
Many believe that Google created the Sandbox new site filter, to arrest spam-related sites adding numerous purchased links, and getting ranked high for their keywords, right from the day they are launched. Google understandably considers a high number of links pointing to a site right from the start as suspicious. There is the distinct possibility that spam sites would use various undesirable tactics to get to the top of the search results and profit from heavy sales even prior to being banned. The danger also lurks of spam sites then repeating the process continually. Therefore, new sites are now subject to a form of probation by the Google Sandbox.
The controversy arises from the fact that not all agree that the Google Sandbox exists as a separate filter from other alleged Google filters. There are analysts who believe that the phenomenon merely results from the already existing Google algorithm calculations, and the Sandbox effect is nothing more than an illusion. But the one redeeming news is that Google has nearly admitted that the Sandbox filter is real.
Whereas all types of sites can be placed for scrutiny in the Sandbox, it is more of a threat to the new websites seeking rankings for highly competitive keyword phrases. For those who are anxious to know how long does the site stay in Sandbox, the answer is it varies from one to six months, with three to four months being the normal duration. The simple rule is the more competitive the usage of keyword, the longer the site spends in the Sandbox.
Some people are under the erroneous impression that by joining programs like Google Adwords and Google Adsense they can influence the duration of their website stay in the Sandbox. Please understand that participation in the various Google advertising programs will not keep your site out of Sandbox, or shorten your stay.
Many people wonder what to do when their sites are caught in the sandbox. They should know that it is the ideal time to continue to add fresh keyword rich content and new incoming links to their sites. It is also the right time to add more theme relevant content to the website. Concentrate on adding more keyword rich pages to both on page and off page factors. It is preferable to add a site map and make sure that all pages link properly to one another with appropriate link anchor text. Thus, when the sandbox filter is lifted, your improved site will rise rapidly to its proper place at the top of the search rankings.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Interesting post in webmasterworld on how punctuation in keywords affect results
"Various punctuation characters have a noticeable impact on search results - mostly from a searcher perspective. As a webmaster, you may find that your users include punctuation in some keywords, and so it can be of use to know what the effect on the results they see is. And besides, knowing how to search Google is one step towards understanding how Google works. This is a spot check of the current handling of punctuation by Google.
Indexed punctuation
Key_word
Underscores are treated as a letter of the alphabet, which is why you can search for an underscore directly. Use underscores in content if your visitors include an underscore when searching (e.g. if you had a programming site).
Key&word
Ampersands or 'and symbols' have fairly unique handling. They're both indexed and also treated as the equivalent of word "and". If there are no spaces separating the symbol and the adjacent letters, the search results are an approximate equivalent of combining results for ["key and word"] and ["key & word"] (note the phrase matching). Use ampersands in copy as is natural for your target audience.
Explicit search operators
Many punctuation characters are explicit search operators, with a documented effect on results. Search operators are not indexed (or at least, they can't be searched for) and so are usually treated as word separators when found within website copy:
Key¦word
An (unbroken) pipe character is the equivalent of boolean OR: a search for [key OR word]. It can be a handy shortcut when conducting complex queries.
Key"word
A double quote triggers an exact or phrase search for the proceeding words (whether you include a closing double quote or not). So in this instance, it's the equivalent of a search for [key word] since a single word can't be a phrase. ["key word] is the same as searching for ["key word"].
Key*word
An asterisk is a wildcard search for zero or more words: [key ... word]. Putting numbers on both sides will trigger the calculator. Occasionally, Google delivers (strange!) results if you search for an asterisk directly.
Key~word
A tilde triggers Google's related word operator - in this instance, a search for both 'key' and 'word', as well as other words related to 'word' - like 'Microsoft', 'dictionary' and others.
Search operator oddities
Key-word
A hyphen (as is probably consistent with language use) returns a mix of results for the words both used separately, and joined together - somewhere between [key word] and [keyword]. It's the preferred word separator within website URLs, since other punctuation characters that are treated as a word-separator have specific functions within a URL.
Others
A few punctuation characters have a strange impact on results - returning far fewer results than for either separated or concatenated words. They are neither known search operators, or indexed characters. These are . / \ @ = :
As far as I'm, aware, all other punctuation characters are treated as simply a space or word separator.
So, do I have too much time on my hands? Probably. But why not confuse whoever looks at Google's search logs by trying a few punctuation searches yourself? ;)
Do you know any punctuation with an effect on results not discussed here, or more about the effect on results of the punctuation above? "
Indexed punctuation
Key_word
Underscores are treated as a letter of the alphabet, which is why you can search for an underscore directly. Use underscores in content if your visitors include an underscore when searching (e.g. if you had a programming site).
Key&word
Ampersands or 'and symbols' have fairly unique handling. They're both indexed and also treated as the equivalent of word "and". If there are no spaces separating the symbol and the adjacent letters, the search results are an approximate equivalent of combining results for ["key and word"] and ["key & word"] (note the phrase matching). Use ampersands in copy as is natural for your target audience.
Explicit search operators
Many punctuation characters are explicit search operators, with a documented effect on results. Search operators are not indexed (or at least, they can't be searched for) and so are usually treated as word separators when found within website copy:
Key¦word
An (unbroken) pipe character is the equivalent of boolean OR: a search for [key OR word]. It can be a handy shortcut when conducting complex queries.
Key"word
A double quote triggers an exact or phrase search for the proceeding words (whether you include a closing double quote or not). So in this instance, it's the equivalent of a search for [key word] since a single word can't be a phrase. ["key word] is the same as searching for ["key word"].
Key*word
An asterisk is a wildcard search for zero or more words: [key ... word]. Putting numbers on both sides will trigger the calculator. Occasionally, Google delivers (strange!) results if you search for an asterisk directly.
Key~word
A tilde triggers Google's related word operator - in this instance, a search for both 'key' and 'word', as well as other words related to 'word' - like 'Microsoft', 'dictionary' and others.
Search operator oddities
Key-word
A hyphen (as is probably consistent with language use) returns a mix of results for the words both used separately, and joined together - somewhere between [key word] and [keyword]. It's the preferred word separator within website URLs, since other punctuation characters that are treated as a word-separator have specific functions within a URL.
Others
A few punctuation characters have a strange impact on results - returning far fewer results than for either separated or concatenated words. They are neither known search operators, or indexed characters. These are . / \ @ = :
As far as I'm, aware, all other punctuation characters are treated as simply a space or word separator.
So, do I have too much time on my hands? Probably. But why not confuse whoever looks at Google's search logs by trying a few punctuation searches yourself? ;)
Do you know any punctuation with an effect on results not discussed here, or more about the effect on results of the punctuation above? "
New Version of Google Talk for IPhone users
If you are a user of Google Talk program then you can now access this one via your iPhone Safari browser as well. It would further work with the iPod Touch. There are some slight differences when contrasted with the desktop version, or else Google kept it as same as possible.
Google's Official Mobile Blog stated "We've just released in the US a new version of Google Talk designed specifically for the iPhone and iPod Touch browsers. In addition to sending your friends Gmail messages from your iPhone, you can now chat with them while you're on the move, too! In your iPhone browser, just go to www.google.com/talk, sign in and start chatting. That's it. Google Talk runs entirely in the browser so there's no need to download or install anything.
There are some differences from using Google Talk on your computer. For instance, in order to receive instant messages with Google Talk on your iPhone, the application needs to be open in your Safari browser. When you navigate away to another browser window or application, your status will be changed to "unavailable" and your Google Talk session will be restarted when you return."
Google's Official Mobile Blog stated "We've just released in the US a new version of Google Talk designed specifically for the iPhone and iPod Touch browsers. In addition to sending your friends Gmail messages from your iPhone, you can now chat with them while you're on the move, too! In your iPhone browser, just go to www.google.com/talk, sign in and start chatting. That's it. Google Talk runs entirely in the browser so there's no need to download or install anything.
There are some differences from using Google Talk on your computer. For instance, in order to receive instant messages with Google Talk on your iPhone, the application needs to be open in your Safari browser. When you navigate away to another browser window or application, your status will be changed to "unavailable" and your Google Talk session will be restarted when you return."
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Index your catalog with Google
It is a case of dream coming true. You can get all the publicity in the world for your business and limitlessly sell products to online shoppers by indexing your catalog in one of the largest, most popular search engines on the Web - GOOGLE.
Google has lately introduced an advanced system whereby it scans printed catalogs (please note printed catalogs and not online catalogs) into a JPEG format and then runs what is known as an optical character recognition (OCR) program over the JPEG image to convert it into a Web page. The scanned information is then saved to a searchable database.
When browsers enter a search term that matches text in your catalog, Google's catalog search immediately displays a small version of your catalog. The search terms are highlighted in yellow and when they click on the small imagen they can view the entire page. The new service will allow you to search through the contents of catalogs from over 600 companies.
When you are viewing a catalog page, a friendly navigation bar appears at the top of the screen. This bar facilitates your browsing through the catalog page by page, as if you were flipping the pages of a real catalog. Additionally, you can also use a keyword to search within a particular catalog or jump to specific pages within it, using the navigation bar. The bar also lets you know the contact particulars about the catalog merchant.
During the trial period, the whole scanning and indexing process is done free by Google. But it certainly cannot be that such a potentially valuable service will remain free for ever. Rush your catalog to Google before the search engine decides to charge fees and makes this new project a commercial venture. You have two options. Either submit a form to Google recommending the catalog providing all contact information or mail the catalog to Google directly. It is now a great boon to all small businesses to compete with mail order giants without frittering away their entire promotional budget to print and mail catalogs to prospective clients.
As stated earlier, Google Catalogs currently has a collection from over 600 companies. If back issues are included, then the total number of catalogs indexed will be around 1,500. However, Google wants to further raise this number and are vigorously soliciting catalogs from its users as also other catalog vendors. Catalogs pertaining to liquor, tobacco, firearms, or similar products are not acceptable. Catalogs that do not clearly mention the product prices will also not be mentioned. Google is continuously updating its catalog index on an almost daily basis, so new catalogs may appear at any time.
It is pertinent to note that so far, all the catalogs are only from US-based companies. There are no immediate plans to add catalogs from other countries outside the United States. But a rethinking is very likely depending on feedback from users.
Even if you succeed with Google, an online catalog alone may not increase your sales meaningfully. Many online visitors will not be keen to take the pains to call to place an order. They may as well choose another site that allows placing orders online. Get into a state of total readiness if you want to be in the race. It's a great way to get a Web presence and when this is further strengthened by your top search engine rank, you will open the floodgates for interested visitors to enter deep into your Web site.
Google has lately introduced an advanced system whereby it scans printed catalogs (please note printed catalogs and not online catalogs) into a JPEG format and then runs what is known as an optical character recognition (OCR) program over the JPEG image to convert it into a Web page. The scanned information is then saved to a searchable database.
When browsers enter a search term that matches text in your catalog, Google's catalog search immediately displays a small version of your catalog. The search terms are highlighted in yellow and when they click on the small imagen they can view the entire page. The new service will allow you to search through the contents of catalogs from over 600 companies.
When you are viewing a catalog page, a friendly navigation bar appears at the top of the screen. This bar facilitates your browsing through the catalog page by page, as if you were flipping the pages of a real catalog. Additionally, you can also use a keyword to search within a particular catalog or jump to specific pages within it, using the navigation bar. The bar also lets you know the contact particulars about the catalog merchant.
During the trial period, the whole scanning and indexing process is done free by Google. But it certainly cannot be that such a potentially valuable service will remain free for ever. Rush your catalog to Google before the search engine decides to charge fees and makes this new project a commercial venture. You have two options. Either submit a form to Google recommending the catalog providing all contact information or mail the catalog to Google directly. It is now a great boon to all small businesses to compete with mail order giants without frittering away their entire promotional budget to print and mail catalogs to prospective clients.
As stated earlier, Google Catalogs currently has a collection from over 600 companies. If back issues are included, then the total number of catalogs indexed will be around 1,500. However, Google wants to further raise this number and are vigorously soliciting catalogs from its users as also other catalog vendors. Catalogs pertaining to liquor, tobacco, firearms, or similar products are not acceptable. Catalogs that do not clearly mention the product prices will also not be mentioned. Google is continuously updating its catalog index on an almost daily basis, so new catalogs may appear at any time.
It is pertinent to note that so far, all the catalogs are only from US-based companies. There are no immediate plans to add catalogs from other countries outside the United States. But a rethinking is very likely depending on feedback from users.
Even if you succeed with Google, an online catalog alone may not increase your sales meaningfully. Many online visitors will not be keen to take the pains to call to place an order. They may as well choose another site that allows placing orders online. Get into a state of total readiness if you want to be in the race. It's a great way to get a Web presence and when this is further strengthened by your top search engine rank, you will open the floodgates for interested visitors to enter deep into your Web site.
Safe linking in Google
Some useful tips on getting safe inbound links and going for safe reciprocal links
Dos and Dont's of link Building for Google,
Dont participate in any Free-for-all link schemes, all those techniques are not good anymore,
Dont save your links page as links.htm or links.asp, instead you can use names such as link-directory, related resources, related SEO resources, resources etc,
There has been discussions on top search engine forums on whether Google penalizes pages saved as links.html or whether they ignore them,
My point is Google identify's the page as links.htm and ignores the page from showing as backlinks, but the anchor text power is passed over definetely, I found this after a lot of analysis,
I can speculate one solid reason on this links page myth,
Say you have a page with the named links.htm, That page can be just built for links or it can also be a really good resource page, Some people who want to refer good resource sites z tend to name the pages as links.htm or links.asp, So if google totally ignores all pages named like this, then they will miss out lots of useful links,
So Google just take the power of the anchor text and the PageRank(PR) of links and just pass it over, but they prevent it from showing as backlinks( one more thing I have seen is they prevent PR being passed too but that link is counted as a vote) , This is a valid reason and this is what the Google engineers should have had in mind before implementing this kind of tactics, There is no reason this is wrong,
There is a similiar case where anchor text links from irrelevant sites( any page ) do pass the anchor power but dont show up in backlinks, There is a valid reason for it, Any site owner has the right to refer a site with any anchor text they want from any page they like, this is the law of internet, Say you like a site about ice creams but you have a real estate site will you just ignore refering the site because search engines dont like, As a end user many are not aware these links are valued by search engines, You just refer that site as say "best site for ice creams" in anchor text, so do you think Google should ignore this, NO if they do then their wish to crawl most of the web will only be a dream,
They can do 2 things on this case, one prevent PR being passed and other showing the link as backlink, But they should count the ANCHOR TEXT as a vote and the link it self as a vote,
I am thinking almost the same way what a Google Engineer should have thought before writing an algorithm for this, I may be wrong but when you sit and give a thought on how Internet works you can come out with a solution,
Always try to keep your links On-topic, Ontopic links are favoured by all the search engines and it helps search engine optimization a lot, Especially Google gives a lot of weight to links from On-topic sites, A themed relevance is a big boost in all the search engines,
When identifying the themed relevance of a link Google takes into account the title ,content ,anchor text of the page and the actual link of the text. If you are dealing with a really niche market it is hard to find good linking oppurtunities,
Always take the opportunity on inbound links and request sites linking to you to use your keywords in the link text.
That doesnt mean I say dont get links from irrelavant sites, All links are useful but On-topic links carry more value,
Avoid crosslinking between sites that are in the same IP range,
I have seen the following instances,
Instance - 1. Clients having their own server and running many related sites on just a single IP, actually it is a shared hosting different sites sharing the same IP this type of technique is easily detectable by search engines and there is a high change of penalty here,
One of my client who came to me- he has hosted 15 sites on the same IP all sites related to a single topic, say it is about real estate and he crosslinking them, 14 of his sites were penalized and given a PR0 and only one site was valued and the PR of it is 4,
Instance - 2. There had been discussions that happened where many sites are hosted in different IPs but same IP range, These sites were also related ones, they were related to one and other, finally google penalized them due to crosslinking between sites, Same Ip range I am talking something like 214.106.141.52, 214.106.141.53, 214.106.141.54, 214.106.141.55,
One client did this on his own server he crosslinked his related sites heavily almost referring to the other sites from almost all the pages of the other sites he had, and finally all his sites were penalized, none of them showed up even typing the domain name in the search bar,
so the problem here is cross linking, Not just cross linking from one page but cross linking heavily with sites in same Ip range,
Other things that might happen if one escapes cross linking with automated penality is google removing sites manually from the index if they get many complaints about one single person owning many domains and cross linking them,
I heard google guy say this once, they treat this tactic as a Super spam and will be ready to take immediately action when detected, But again it is very rare where people crosslinking sites heavily on their own server,
This is my understanding on crosslinking better stay away from all these stuff,
Don't participate in link schemes like links2you dot com designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
Linking to a "bad neighbourhood" could eventually lead to your own page receiving a penalty.
Ok so what happens when we link to bad neighbourhood, Popular and verified predications
1. Googlebot will stop visiting your site or they come once in a while,
2. Your number of pages will drop from the google index from time to time and finally your whole site will be removed,
3. Your site Will be totally removed from the index automatically when google detects you do excessivive linking to bad neighbourhood for the purpose of increasing link popularity or PageRank,
4. I have seen one type one penalty in google for linking to bad or doubtful neighbourboods or spam site,
What they do they stop regular visits to the site, Instead of doing regular visits they will visit the site once in a while and index it, No ranking penalty nothing but only penalty is reduction of regular visits, Other type of penalty I saw google is showing towards doubtful sites is by not showing any fresh dates near the ranking result of the site,
SO it depends, better to be on the safer side and not to do any linking to bad neighbourhood You should be checking the status of the outbound link often,
There are many instances where google cannot pose a penalty just because they link to a bad neighbourhood,
For example take directories, a guy submits a site a person reviews the site, that time the site might be a great site and he accepts and includes the site in the directory, Ok then after 2 months that site is given to some Search engine spammer and he does all sort of spam and illegal techniques on the site, google picks this up and penalizes the site, So my question should the directory which is still holding a link to a penalized spam site should be penalized,
NO right, the person or company who runs the directory is innocent and they are not aware there is a spam site in their index, google will see all these things, that is why any spam technique you take it is very difficult to implement a penalty due to these type of reasons,
Have you seen the google directory, Some sites on the bottom of the directory are without any PageRank and are listed in the bottom, Most of the sites that are like that are in the penalized list by google ( some might not be ranked) , that doesnt mean that whole category is penalized that is what I meant before, it is very difficult to penalize a site because it links to bad neighbourhoods but it will hurt to some extend,
GUEST BOOK SPAMMING,( dont do it)
Guest book spamming, oops sorry guest book listing is just like a FFA links page, doesnt make any big difference,
Initially when PageRank was introduced people started FFA links page, loading the guest books to increase the link popularity and PageRank, But now google has woke up to the occasion and now they are ignoring most of the links,
IMO guestbook links are totally ignored by google, how they do possible by the guest book code, mostly guest book coding has a definete pattern even if they are different guest books, Better stop linking to a spam guest book and stop spamming them for links
Dos and Dont's of link Building for Google,
Dont participate in any Free-for-all link schemes, all those techniques are not good anymore,
Dont save your links page as links.htm or links.asp, instead you can use names such as link-directory, related resources, related SEO resources, resources etc,
There has been discussions on top search engine forums on whether Google penalizes pages saved as links.html or whether they ignore them,
My point is Google identify's the page as links.htm and ignores the page from showing as backlinks, but the anchor text power is passed over definetely, I found this after a lot of analysis,
I can speculate one solid reason on this links page myth,
Say you have a page with the named links.htm, That page can be just built for links or it can also be a really good resource page, Some people who want to refer good resource sites z tend to name the pages as links.htm or links.asp, So if google totally ignores all pages named like this, then they will miss out lots of useful links,
So Google just take the power of the anchor text and the PageRank(PR) of links and just pass it over, but they prevent it from showing as backlinks( one more thing I have seen is they prevent PR being passed too but that link is counted as a vote) , This is a valid reason and this is what the Google engineers should have had in mind before implementing this kind of tactics, There is no reason this is wrong,
There is a similiar case where anchor text links from irrelevant sites( any page ) do pass the anchor power but dont show up in backlinks, There is a valid reason for it, Any site owner has the right to refer a site with any anchor text they want from any page they like, this is the law of internet, Say you like a site about ice creams but you have a real estate site will you just ignore refering the site because search engines dont like, As a end user many are not aware these links are valued by search engines, You just refer that site as say "best site for ice creams" in anchor text, so do you think Google should ignore this, NO if they do then their wish to crawl most of the web will only be a dream,
They can do 2 things on this case, one prevent PR being passed and other showing the link as backlink, But they should count the ANCHOR TEXT as a vote and the link it self as a vote,
I am thinking almost the same way what a Google Engineer should have thought before writing an algorithm for this, I may be wrong but when you sit and give a thought on how Internet works you can come out with a solution,
Always try to keep your links On-topic, Ontopic links are favoured by all the search engines and it helps search engine optimization a lot, Especially Google gives a lot of weight to links from On-topic sites, A themed relevance is a big boost in all the search engines,
When identifying the themed relevance of a link Google takes into account the title ,content ,anchor text of the page and the actual link of the text. If you are dealing with a really niche market it is hard to find good linking oppurtunities,
Always take the opportunity on inbound links and request sites linking to you to use your keywords in the link text.
That doesnt mean I say dont get links from irrelavant sites, All links are useful but On-topic links carry more value,
Avoid crosslinking between sites that are in the same IP range,
I have seen the following instances,
Instance - 1. Clients having their own server and running many related sites on just a single IP, actually it is a shared hosting different sites sharing the same IP this type of technique is easily detectable by search engines and there is a high change of penalty here,
One of my client who came to me- he has hosted 15 sites on the same IP all sites related to a single topic, say it is about real estate and he crosslinking them, 14 of his sites were penalized and given a PR0 and only one site was valued and the PR of it is 4,
Instance - 2. There had been discussions that happened where many sites are hosted in different IPs but same IP range, These sites were also related ones, they were related to one and other, finally google penalized them due to crosslinking between sites, Same Ip range I am talking something like 214.106.141.52, 214.106.141.53, 214.106.141.54, 214.106.141.55,
One client did this on his own server he crosslinked his related sites heavily almost referring to the other sites from almost all the pages of the other sites he had, and finally all his sites were penalized, none of them showed up even typing the domain name in the search bar,
so the problem here is cross linking, Not just cross linking from one page but cross linking heavily with sites in same Ip range,
Other things that might happen if one escapes cross linking with automated penality is google removing sites manually from the index if they get many complaints about one single person owning many domains and cross linking them,
I heard google guy say this once, they treat this tactic as a Super spam and will be ready to take immediately action when detected, But again it is very rare where people crosslinking sites heavily on their own server,
This is my understanding on crosslinking better stay away from all these stuff,
Don't participate in link schemes like links2you dot com designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
Linking to a "bad neighbourhood" could eventually lead to your own page receiving a penalty.
Ok so what happens when we link to bad neighbourhood, Popular and verified predications
1. Googlebot will stop visiting your site or they come once in a while,
2. Your number of pages will drop from the google index from time to time and finally your whole site will be removed,
3. Your site Will be totally removed from the index automatically when google detects you do excessivive linking to bad neighbourhood for the purpose of increasing link popularity or PageRank,
4. I have seen one type one penalty in google for linking to bad or doubtful neighbourboods or spam site,
What they do they stop regular visits to the site, Instead of doing regular visits they will visit the site once in a while and index it, No ranking penalty nothing but only penalty is reduction of regular visits, Other type of penalty I saw google is showing towards doubtful sites is by not showing any fresh dates near the ranking result of the site,
SO it depends, better to be on the safer side and not to do any linking to bad neighbourhood You should be checking the status of the outbound link often,
There are many instances where google cannot pose a penalty just because they link to a bad neighbourhood,
For example take directories, a guy submits a site a person reviews the site, that time the site might be a great site and he accepts and includes the site in the directory, Ok then after 2 months that site is given to some Search engine spammer and he does all sort of spam and illegal techniques on the site, google picks this up and penalizes the site, So my question should the directory which is still holding a link to a penalized spam site should be penalized,
NO right, the person or company who runs the directory is innocent and they are not aware there is a spam site in their index, google will see all these things, that is why any spam technique you take it is very difficult to implement a penalty due to these type of reasons,
Have you seen the google directory, Some sites on the bottom of the directory are without any PageRank and are listed in the bottom, Most of the sites that are like that are in the penalized list by google ( some might not be ranked) , that doesnt mean that whole category is penalized that is what I meant before, it is very difficult to penalize a site because it links to bad neighbourhoods but it will hurt to some extend,
GUEST BOOK SPAMMING,( dont do it)
Guest book spamming, oops sorry guest book listing is just like a FFA links page, doesnt make any big difference,
Initially when PageRank was introduced people started FFA links page, loading the guest books to increase the link popularity and PageRank, But now google has woke up to the occasion and now they are ignoring most of the links,
IMO guestbook links are totally ignored by google, how they do possible by the guest book code, mostly guest book coding has a definete pattern even if they are different guest books, Better stop linking to a spam guest book and stop spamming them for links
Monday, July 7, 2008
Solving Search Engine Problems
The performance of Search Engines are steadily improving and the problem areas are indeed getting narrower. Today, search engines have attained levels of excellence to serve up fast and relevant information whenever the browser wants it. But problems do arise when you type in a wrong Web address that leads you to a wrong site or receive a number of confusing error messages. You must learn the art of reaching the right website.
We must recognize that spelling errors commonly occur when typing the web addresses. Web addresses must be typed totally free from all errors as each slash, dash, and dot can sabotage your attempts in accessing the required web site.
When you type a Web address into the Address box of your Web browser, if the message you get states the page cannot be found, you have obviously made some mistakes in typing the web address. Check once again the spelling, capitalization, and punctuation of the Web address.
Many search engines are not always sensitive to uppercase or lowercase. For instance, if you type a word in lowercase, search engines will search for all variations. For example, if you search for the word "stores," the search engine will match "Stores," "STORES," and "stores," but if you search for the term "Stores," the search engine will not return sites with the terms "stores" or "STORES."
Whenever you receive the message, "Server error" or "Server is busy," you can experiment with clicking the 'Refresh' button or pressing 'Enter'. You may have presumably caught in traffic jam on the Internet and this is no fault of yours. These error messages are like your getting an engaged tone or a busy signal on the telephone when dialing. The simple message is 'try again'
Quite often it happens you do not get the type of information you are seeking and the results are disappointing. The reason is you have worded in such a manner that has narrowed down the scope of the search engine. Try removing specific terms, or any particular word or phrase and substitute them with synonyms, or more general terms. Are you often confronted with a message that 'page cannot be found'. This happens when a file has been removed or renamed.
When you follow a link and get an error response like - 'File not Found' or '404' or 'Internet Explorer cannot open' - then the reason may be the search engine may be out of date or the URL may have changed, or the site has been permanently gone.
If you find the URL unduly long, the technique is rather simple. All you need to do is delete everything in the address after the first slash. The shortened URL will take you to the main home page for the Web server. When you run into an error message that reads "A connection with the server could not be established, Operation timed out" This is nothing more than a busy signal or, in extreme cases, a power outage. All you have to do is to try again later - the problem is probably with the computer at the other end.
Of course, there are the Multiple Search Engines, otherwise called Meta Search Engines. These search engines query several other web search engine databases in parallel and then combine the results in one list. These multiple search engines are indeed a laudable effort helpful in many ways. However, the problems one encounters with Meta Search Engines are many. They are plagued by time-outs, when search processing takes too long. Since most only retrieve the top 10-50 hits from each search engine, the total number of hits retrieved may be far fewer than found by doing a direct search on one of the search engines.
We must recognize that spelling errors commonly occur when typing the web addresses. Web addresses must be typed totally free from all errors as each slash, dash, and dot can sabotage your attempts in accessing the required web site.
When you type a Web address into the Address box of your Web browser, if the message you get states the page cannot be found, you have obviously made some mistakes in typing the web address. Check once again the spelling, capitalization, and punctuation of the Web address.
Many search engines are not always sensitive to uppercase or lowercase. For instance, if you type a word in lowercase, search engines will search for all variations. For example, if you search for the word "stores," the search engine will match "Stores," "STORES," and "stores," but if you search for the term "Stores," the search engine will not return sites with the terms "stores" or "STORES."
Whenever you receive the message, "Server error" or "Server is busy," you can experiment with clicking the 'Refresh' button or pressing 'Enter'. You may have presumably caught in traffic jam on the Internet and this is no fault of yours. These error messages are like your getting an engaged tone or a busy signal on the telephone when dialing. The simple message is 'try again'
Quite often it happens you do not get the type of information you are seeking and the results are disappointing. The reason is you have worded in such a manner that has narrowed down the scope of the search engine. Try removing specific terms, or any particular word or phrase and substitute them with synonyms, or more general terms. Are you often confronted with a message that 'page cannot be found'. This happens when a file has been removed or renamed.
When you follow a link and get an error response like - 'File not Found' or '404' or 'Internet Explorer cannot open' - then the reason may be the search engine may be out of date or the URL may have changed, or the site has been permanently gone.
If you find the URL unduly long, the technique is rather simple. All you need to do is delete everything in the address after the first slash. The shortened URL will take you to the main home page for the Web server. When you run into an error message that reads "A connection with the server could not be established, Operation timed out" This is nothing more than a busy signal or, in extreme cases, a power outage. All you have to do is to try again later - the problem is probably with the computer at the other end.
Of course, there are the Multiple Search Engines, otherwise called Meta Search Engines. These search engines query several other web search engine databases in parallel and then combine the results in one list. These multiple search engines are indeed a laudable effort helpful in many ways. However, the problems one encounters with Meta Search Engines are many. They are plagued by time-outs, when search processing takes too long. Since most only retrieve the top 10-50 hits from each search engine, the total number of hits retrieved may be far fewer than found by doing a direct search on one of the search engines.
What Do Search Engines Really Want
Yahoo, MSN and Google are the big search engines and directories. Everyone who creates a site wonders how to obtain traffic to their recently created site, this is the most significant question every new webmaster asks, is how to do this.
Fresh content is very significant in terms of search engine optimization. For example, a page that has its content simplified daily will find that search engine crawls the page more often than the other less active pages. Adding more fresh content to your site is very important since it keeps the search engines coming rear to your site.
Make sure you let alone linking to other webmaster that is not ethical, if you link to someone who the search engines ban it may affect your rankings on the search engine. Try to get other websites that are applicable and that already appear in the search engines to link to your website. Indexing is when a web crawler or spider goes through your site and reviews all the relevant keywords, links, and information restricted on your site. Not surprisingly, they often rank very extremely when you search for relevant words.
To construct links many webmasters use directories, article directories and reciprocal link exchanges and some higher webmasters use associate programs. There are a few dissimilar reasons why search engines place a high value on the web directories which are human-edited. Humans take the time to assessment the links and the sites making the directory link a dependable link which is approved.
Fresh content is very significant in terms of search engine optimization. For example, a page that has its content simplified daily will find that search engine crawls the page more often than the other less active pages. Adding more fresh content to your site is very important since it keeps the search engines coming rear to your site.
Make sure you let alone linking to other webmaster that is not ethical, if you link to someone who the search engines ban it may affect your rankings on the search engine. Try to get other websites that are applicable and that already appear in the search engines to link to your website. Indexing is when a web crawler or spider goes through your site and reviews all the relevant keywords, links, and information restricted on your site. Not surprisingly, they often rank very extremely when you search for relevant words.
To construct links many webmasters use directories, article directories and reciprocal link exchanges and some higher webmasters use associate programs. There are a few dissimilar reasons why search engines place a high value on the web directories which are human-edited. Humans take the time to assessment the links and the sites making the directory link a dependable link which is approved.
GoogleBot and other Spiders
Googlebot, Yahoo Slurp, and MSNbot and such other spiders, bots and crawlers, shorn of their technical names, are merely programs that accumulate information for search engines.
These search engines bots, particularly Google, Yahoo and MSN bots, gather key information about your page for use in their respective search engines. These spiders are not wholly undesirable - it is because of these spiders, you are indexed more often to be displayed in the search engine results pages.
Let us understand that a spider only a computer program that follows certain links on the web picking up information as it goes. Because these crawlers are merely computer programs, they are not very intelligent and therefore get caught in endless loops - more so, in dynamic web pages.
Of course, there are times when you wish to avoid certain pages or images indexed and this is possible with what is called robots.txt file which is a document that instructs spiders what they may or may not index.
Should you choose to minimize the impact these spiders have, you can instruct them not to follow one specific link by inserting in the anchor tag: rel="nofollow". This will lessen the outgoing number of links and help you maintain your page rank.
Anyway, things are not always that simple. There are also bad bots that disobey your robots.txt and are unmindfully harvest your email address. To overcome these bad bots, some people use java script to "hide" their email addresses.
There was a time when predicting the behavior of common search engine spiders was not difficult. But, in today's changed scenario, predicting search spiders is not easy with a rapidly growing number of spiders and search databases galore to reckon with.
Till recently, GoogleBot was the only meaningful search spider in operation and Google fed search results to most of its competitors.
A period of couple of years is a long time for search engines to improve and develop. Today, there are four major general search engines and numerous vertical search tools, each with its unique algorithm and spider schedule.
Today's spiders have become extremely intelligent and there is no saying when and where a spider will crawl. Most spiders identify and visit an active website very frequently. It is found that spiders from Ask Jeeves visit at least once a day while MSN and Yahoo spiders visit the index page several times a day. Google only visits the index page, roughly twice a week.
A lot of developments have taken place and search engine spiders are now able to contextualize content within a domain and schedule visits accordingly. Although the timing and frequency of spider visits have changed radically, the behavior of the spiders remain the same.
It is found that of all the spiders, the most active is MSNBot. Visiting each document in its index page daily, MSNBot are sometimes unaware when to quit. Next to MSNBot, Ask Jeeves and Yahoo appear to be the most active of the major bots. Strangely, the least active is GoogleBot, which visits each document in site roughly once a month and does not follow any set pattern.
Now, a way has been found to navigate spiders through the site by creating a basic, text- based sitemap fixed to the back of your website. The sitemap must necessarily list every document in your website. Add a link to the sitemap as footer in each page. For Google, you must create a XML based sitemap.
A fortnight after implementing the HTML sitemap and uploading your XML sitemap to Google, observe where the spiders are visiting and which documents receive the maximum visits. You will realize spiders can be very friendly and helpful.
These search engines bots, particularly Google, Yahoo and MSN bots, gather key information about your page for use in their respective search engines. These spiders are not wholly undesirable - it is because of these spiders, you are indexed more often to be displayed in the search engine results pages.
Let us understand that a spider only a computer program that follows certain links on the web picking up information as it goes. Because these crawlers are merely computer programs, they are not very intelligent and therefore get caught in endless loops - more so, in dynamic web pages.
Of course, there are times when you wish to avoid certain pages or images indexed and this is possible with what is called robots.txt file which is a document that instructs spiders what they may or may not index.
Should you choose to minimize the impact these spiders have, you can instruct them not to follow one specific link by inserting in the anchor tag: rel="nofollow". This will lessen the outgoing number of links and help you maintain your page rank.
Anyway, things are not always that simple. There are also bad bots that disobey your robots.txt and are unmindfully harvest your email address. To overcome these bad bots, some people use java script to "hide" their email addresses.
There was a time when predicting the behavior of common search engine spiders was not difficult. But, in today's changed scenario, predicting search spiders is not easy with a rapidly growing number of spiders and search databases galore to reckon with.
Till recently, GoogleBot was the only meaningful search spider in operation and Google fed search results to most of its competitors.
A period of couple of years is a long time for search engines to improve and develop. Today, there are four major general search engines and numerous vertical search tools, each with its unique algorithm and spider schedule.
Today's spiders have become extremely intelligent and there is no saying when and where a spider will crawl. Most spiders identify and visit an active website very frequently. It is found that spiders from Ask Jeeves visit at least once a day while MSN and Yahoo spiders visit the index page several times a day. Google only visits the index page, roughly twice a week.
A lot of developments have taken place and search engine spiders are now able to contextualize content within a domain and schedule visits accordingly. Although the timing and frequency of spider visits have changed radically, the behavior of the spiders remain the same.
It is found that of all the spiders, the most active is MSNBot. Visiting each document in its index page daily, MSNBot are sometimes unaware when to quit. Next to MSNBot, Ask Jeeves and Yahoo appear to be the most active of the major bots. Strangely, the least active is GoogleBot, which visits each document in site roughly once a month and does not follow any set pattern.
Now, a way has been found to navigate spiders through the site by creating a basic, text- based sitemap fixed to the back of your website. The sitemap must necessarily list every document in your website. Add a link to the sitemap as footer in each page. For Google, you must create a XML based sitemap.
A fortnight after implementing the HTML sitemap and uploading your XML sitemap to Google, observe where the spiders are visiting and which documents receive the maximum visits. You will realize spiders can be very friendly and helpful.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Top ranking with Yahoo Store website
A Yahoo! Store website is an e-commerce platform in which an online business person is able to sell his products through a secure and dependable shopping cart system. Yahoo Store is a service provided by Yahoo to its customers to create online stores. This service is an excellent marketing tool for all those who are involved in selling goods and/or services. Some of its salient features include: Designing the site, creating a product catalog, providing customer service and product promotion.
Yahoo stores help those who use this service to obtain high rankings in search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL.
Yahoo Stores is an exceptional aid that provides a variety of solutions to promote online sales. The entire content of the site is modified into a more qualitative data as content is the only tool that connects search words to a site. The site is well-structured to facilitate the search engine Robot to find the site easily once a search word relating to the site is entered. Yahoo Stores is designed to help search engines make the site more visible and to stand out and stay ahead of their competitors.
People are impatient and want the search engine to find exactly what they want. So, you must provide the search engines what they need so that the search engines list your site first.
As you may be aware, a standard Yahoo store does not put any keywords on the item pages. There are two ways to overcome this shortcoming. You can change the RTML templates so that it picks up the keywords that are written in the Variables Section of Yahoo store OR more preferably write very specific keywords for each and every page of the website. This may entail lot of work that is annoying but it will also be rewarding.
Next, the search engines will study the Title Tag of the web pages to examine the nature of the items. You should therefore use apt descriptive name for each of the items and include one keyword that people will use to find the item. You should also bear in mind that a search engine can not read images. You will have to necessarily go into your RTML templates and change images to text.
Provide accurate product descriptions in the content to your page so that the search engines understand what your page is about. If only you add a description that is perfectly written and rich in keywords, you are bound to get listed higher in the search engines.
It is of paramount importance that you provide links that lead to the rest of the pages in your website. You must also ensure your website is easy to spider. These may appear as small steps but every little step you take will greatly improve your Yahoo Store SEO
Everybody is clamoring to attract more traffic as increased traffic will lead to higher sales. If the traffic to your website is poor, then obviously you remain unknown or less known and nobody will buy from you.
Therefore it is imperative that you should fully optimize your website for the search engines. Advertising may be purposeful but it will be even more rewarding to be listed in the top ten of search engines.
Yahoo stores help those who use this service to obtain high rankings in search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL.
Yahoo Stores is an exceptional aid that provides a variety of solutions to promote online sales. The entire content of the site is modified into a more qualitative data as content is the only tool that connects search words to a site. The site is well-structured to facilitate the search engine Robot to find the site easily once a search word relating to the site is entered. Yahoo Stores is designed to help search engines make the site more visible and to stand out and stay ahead of their competitors.
People are impatient and want the search engine to find exactly what they want. So, you must provide the search engines what they need so that the search engines list your site first.
As you may be aware, a standard Yahoo store does not put any keywords on the item pages. There are two ways to overcome this shortcoming. You can change the RTML templates so that it picks up the keywords that are written in the Variables Section of Yahoo store OR more preferably write very specific keywords for each and every page of the website. This may entail lot of work that is annoying but it will also be rewarding.
Next, the search engines will study the Title Tag of the web pages to examine the nature of the items. You should therefore use apt descriptive name for each of the items and include one keyword that people will use to find the item. You should also bear in mind that a search engine can not read images. You will have to necessarily go into your RTML templates and change images to text.
Provide accurate product descriptions in the content to your page so that the search engines understand what your page is about. If only you add a description that is perfectly written and rich in keywords, you are bound to get listed higher in the search engines.
It is of paramount importance that you provide links that lead to the rest of the pages in your website. You must also ensure your website is easy to spider. These may appear as small steps but every little step you take will greatly improve your Yahoo Store SEO
Everybody is clamoring to attract more traffic as increased traffic will lead to higher sales. If the traffic to your website is poor, then obviously you remain unknown or less known and nobody will buy from you.
Therefore it is imperative that you should fully optimize your website for the search engines. Advertising may be purposeful but it will be even more rewarding to be listed in the top ten of search engines.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Making Your Content SEO Friendly with Title Tags
The most important place to insert your keywords is at the title tag of the page. The nice part about blogging software is that your page or post title will automatically be transformed into both title tags and either an H1 or H2 heading tag as well. Remember that your headline should wrap your keywords in a pithy promise which perfectly communicates what the content has to provide.
Another important place where keywords can appear is on the subheadings which aid readers in navigating down the page. A resource which matches up really well with the targeted keyword phrases will find natural opportunities to restate the keywords in subheads, as an introduction to the next topical section of the page. Typically subheads are formed using the H3 tag.
SEO experts have always found that it is useful to repeat the targeted keywords in the opening sentence, as long as it can be done in a way which is appealing to the readers and reinforces relevancy. Since lot of search engines use this initial copy as the description of the article or post, you want to make sure you are accurately selling the searcher on clicking through as well.
Another important place where keywords can appear is on the subheadings which aid readers in navigating down the page. A resource which matches up really well with the targeted keyword phrases will find natural opportunities to restate the keywords in subheads, as an introduction to the next topical section of the page. Typically subheads are formed using the H3 tag.
SEO experts have always found that it is useful to repeat the targeted keywords in the opening sentence, as long as it can be done in a way which is appealing to the readers and reinforces relevancy. Since lot of search engines use this initial copy as the description of the article or post, you want to make sure you are accurately selling the searcher on clicking through as well.
5 Seo Secrets For Copywriters
They make every title of an article rock! Yes, articles which have great titles get linked to a lot more than articles which have titles that are boring. Getting your writing linked to is more important than any other factor of SEO copywriting.
SEO copywriters must make every post scannable! Your readers must be able to scan all the articles and posts you write, don't expect them to read each and every line of the article to be read. They must be able to easily find the headings which explain to them what the next section is about. They should also find numbered and unordered lists. This leads to increased links from other websites.
Advanced SEO copywriters must target a set of keywords with each and every post. You must have noticed that the word 'SEO copywriters' has already appeared nearly three times on this page, this is because I'm trying to target that keyword with this post! It is generally recommend to insert at least 3 to 4 keywords on a single page.
Writers must get the keyword into a few heading tags on the page or post. If you're a Blogger this means to make sure your keyword(s) is in the title of your post. You can also add your keyword(s) into headings within your post. Bloggers of WordPress can take advantage of this: Secret 'Blogging Traffic Booster' In WordPress.
SEO Copywriters know must that there are many variations of the target keywords which could be searched for. If a post targets 'SEO Copywriter', it should probably also target terms like 'SEO Copywriting' and 'SEO Copywriters'.
SEO copywriters must make every post scannable! Your readers must be able to scan all the articles and posts you write, don't expect them to read each and every line of the article to be read. They must be able to easily find the headings which explain to them what the next section is about. They should also find numbered and unordered lists. This leads to increased links from other websites.
Advanced SEO copywriters must target a set of keywords with each and every post. You must have noticed that the word 'SEO copywriters' has already appeared nearly three times on this page, this is because I'm trying to target that keyword with this post! It is generally recommend to insert at least 3 to 4 keywords on a single page.
Writers must get the keyword into a few heading tags on the page or post. If you're a Blogger this means to make sure your keyword(s) is in the title of your post. You can also add your keyword(s) into headings within your post. Bloggers of WordPress can take advantage of this: Secret 'Blogging Traffic Booster' In WordPress.
SEO Copywriters know must that there are many variations of the target keywords which could be searched for. If a post targets 'SEO Copywriter', it should probably also target terms like 'SEO Copywriting' and 'SEO Copywriters'.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Shortcuts in Google Search
Have you ever wondered how to search Google for terms inside a specific website? Or find how many sites link to yours? Below is a list of common advanced search techniques with descriptions and examples:
Search for an exact phrase
"exact phrase to search"
Will return only results with the exact phrase.
Search within one website
site:www.website.com "search phrase"
This example searches through www.website.com for the phrase “search phrase”.
Search for link to a specific website
link:www.website.com
Will return all the websites that have a link to www.website.com.
Exclude words or phrases from search results
search phrase -excluded
Searches for the phrase but will only return results excluding the text after the minus sign.
View a cached version of a web page
cache:www.website.com
View a cached version of www.website.com
Search for a specific type of file
google ebook filetype:pdf
Searches for only PDF files containing ‘google ebook’
Search for phrase only in websites’ title tag
allintitle:"google articles"
Searches for web pages with “google articles” in the title tag.
Search for keyword only in website’s URL
inurl:googlearticles
Searches for pages with ‘googlearticles’ in the URL, including the domain name and subdomain or page names.
These are a great way to quickly search from Google’s home page, without having to click over to the advanced search.
Search for an exact phrase
"exact phrase to search"
Will return only results with the exact phrase.
Search within one website
site:www.website.com "search phrase"
This example searches through www.website.com for the phrase “search phrase”.
Search for link to a specific website
link:www.website.com
Will return all the websites that have a link to www.website.com.
Exclude words or phrases from search results
search phrase -excluded
Searches for the phrase but will only return results excluding the text after the minus sign.
View a cached version of a web page
cache:www.website.com
View a cached version of www.website.com
Search for a specific type of file
google ebook filetype:pdf
Searches for only PDF files containing ‘google ebook’
Search for phrase only in websites’ title tag
allintitle:"google articles"
Searches for web pages with “google articles” in the title tag.
Search for keyword only in website’s URL
inurl:googlearticles
Searches for pages with ‘googlearticles’ in the URL, including the domain name and subdomain or page names.
These are a great way to quickly search from Google’s home page, without having to click over to the advanced search.
What is search engine optimization?
SEO is the process in which your website undergoes redevelopment to more effectively communicate your keywords to search engines. Optimizing your website enables it to rank higher on major search engines. Search engines rank websites based on two major factors: unique content that contains pertinent keywords, and link popularity - the number of quality incoming links to your website. Other important factors that determine your ranking with search engines are the architecture of the site, the visibility of your content, its underlying code and how natural your site appears to the engines.
How do I create a Google friendly site
What Google Said When You Weren't ListeningGoogle wants to create quality Search Engine results just as badly as you want to acquire high Search Engine rankings. Fortunately for us, Google provides web masters with plenty of guidelines and tips for building a Google-Friendly site.
Unfortunately, many web masters simply aren't listening. Most web masters seem to be pulling tips and strategies from almost every source but Google itself. However, Google has some of the most beneficial SEO tips to be found online.
Below are just a few of the questions that you can find answered directly by Google.
Does Google index dynamic pages?
Yes. Google indexes dynamically generated pages. This includes pages with the following file extensions: .asp, .php, and pages with question marks in their URL's. However, these pages can cause problems for the Googlebot and may be ignored.
Fortunately, there is a solution. If you feel that your dynamically generated pages are being ignored, you may want to consider creating static copies of those pages for the Googlebot. Keep in mind, if you choose to do this, be sure to include a robots.txt file that disallows the dynamic pages so that Google doesn't see those pages as duplicate content.
Does Google index sites that use ASP?
Yes. Google is able to index most types of pages and files with very few exceptions. This includes pdf, asp, jsp, html, shtml, xml, doc, xls, ppt, rtf, wks, lwp, wri, swf, cfm, and php. This is not a complete list, but it gives a good overview.
Does Google index sites that use Macromedia Flash?
Yes. Google indexes pages that use Macromedia Flash. However, Google may have problems indexing Flash pages. If you are concerned that your Flash content is inhibiting Google's ability to crawl your site, you may want to consider creating HTML copies of those Flash pages. As always, you will need to include a robots.txt file that disallows the Flash pages so that Google does not recognize those pages as duplicate content.
How do I add my site to Google's search results?
According to Google, inclusion in Google's search results is free and easy. They also state that it is unnecessary to submit your site to Google. Google uses software known as "spiders" to crawl the web on a regular basis and find sites to add to the index.
The site launched after Google's most recent crawl was completed.
Poor web site design makes it difficult for Google to effectively crawl your content.
The site was temporarily unavailable at the time of crawling or an error was received. You can use Google Sitemaps to see if the Google crawlers received errors when trying to crawl your site.
When a spider misses a site, it is often because of one of the following reasons:
The site is not well connected with other sites through an inbound linking structure.
How can I get my web site into Google's Mobile index?
Google Mobile offers Google Web Search, Local Search, and Image Search for web sites that are configured for mobile devices. Google adds new sites to their mobile Web index every time they crawl the Web.
To let Google know about your mobile site, it is best to submit a Mobile Sitemap. To help ensure that Google's mobile crawlers can crawl and index your site, you should:
Use well-formed markup
Validate your markup
Use the correct DOCTYPE and Content-Type for the markup language that you are using.
Will participation in Adsense or Adwords
affect my listing in Google's free search results.
Google's advertising programs are independent of their search results. Participation in an advertising program will have no effect on your organic Search Engine rankings.
Why does my site have a PageRank of zero?
Yes. Google has an answer for this as well. According to Google, a page may be assigned a rank of zero if Google crawls very few sites that link to that particular site. In addition to this, pages that have recently been added to the Google index may also show a PageRank of zero. This is simply because they haven't been crawled by Googlebot yet and haven't been ranked yet.
The key is to be patient. A page's PageRank score may increase naturally with further crawls.
My URL changed.
How can I get Google to index my new site?
Google cannot manually change your URL in the search results. However, there are steps you can take to ensure a smooth transition.
First, you can redirect visitors to your new site. To do this, simply use an HTTP 301 (permanent) redirect. This ensures that Google's crawler will discover your new URL.
To preserve your rank, you will need to tell others who link to your site about your change of address. To find a portion of the sites that link to yours, you can go to the Google Search Engine and type in: site:www.mydomain.com . To obtain a comprehensive list of links that point to your page, perform a Google search on your URL in quotes: "www.mydomain.com".
How often does Google crawl the web?
Google's spiders crawl the web on a regular basis to rebuild their index. Crawls are based on a number of factors, including Pagerank, links to a page, and a web site's structure. This is just a small list. There are a variety of factors that can affect the crawl frequency of individual sites.
How do I create a Google friendly site?
To help Google find, index, and rank your site, it is suggested that you follow their Webmaster Guidelines.
Here are some of the general guidelines that Google offers to web masters:
1. Have other relevant sites link to yours.
2. Submit a sitemap.
3. Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo. For a complete listing of web directories, go to StrongestLinks.com.
4. Make sure each and every page is reachable from at least one static text link.
5. Offer your visitors a site with links that point to the most important parts of your site. If your sitemap is larger than 100 links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.
6. Keep the links on any given page to a reasonable number (less than 100).
7. Check for broken links and correct HTML.
8. Create a useful site that is full of information-rich content. Your pages should be written in a way that clearly and accurately describes your content.
9. Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags are descriptive and accurate.
10. Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your web site. Most Search Engine spiders see your site in much the same way as Lynx would.
11. Allow search bots to crawl your sites without session Ids or arguments that track their path through the site.
12. Make use of the robots.txt file which tells crawlers which directories they can or cannot crawl.
How can I report a site
that is spamming the Google search results?
Google is constantly working to improve the quality of their search results. Therefore, they have implemented a program that allows web searchers to report spam that they find within the Search Engine results. These Spam Reports are submitted directly to Google engineers and are used to devise long-term solutions to fight spam.
http://www.Google.com/contact/spamreport.html
Unfortunately, many web masters simply aren't listening. Most web masters seem to be pulling tips and strategies from almost every source but Google itself. However, Google has some of the most beneficial SEO tips to be found online.
Below are just a few of the questions that you can find answered directly by Google.
Does Google index dynamic pages?
Yes. Google indexes dynamically generated pages. This includes pages with the following file extensions: .asp, .php, and pages with question marks in their URL's. However, these pages can cause problems for the Googlebot and may be ignored.
Fortunately, there is a solution. If you feel that your dynamically generated pages are being ignored, you may want to consider creating static copies of those pages for the Googlebot. Keep in mind, if you choose to do this, be sure to include a robots.txt file that disallows the dynamic pages so that Google doesn't see those pages as duplicate content.
Does Google index sites that use ASP?
Yes. Google is able to index most types of pages and files with very few exceptions. This includes pdf, asp, jsp, html, shtml, xml, doc, xls, ppt, rtf, wks, lwp, wri, swf, cfm, and php. This is not a complete list, but it gives a good overview.
Does Google index sites that use Macromedia Flash?
Yes. Google indexes pages that use Macromedia Flash. However, Google may have problems indexing Flash pages. If you are concerned that your Flash content is inhibiting Google's ability to crawl your site, you may want to consider creating HTML copies of those Flash pages. As always, you will need to include a robots.txt file that disallows the Flash pages so that Google does not recognize those pages as duplicate content.
How do I add my site to Google's search results?
According to Google, inclusion in Google's search results is free and easy. They also state that it is unnecessary to submit your site to Google. Google uses software known as "spiders" to crawl the web on a regular basis and find sites to add to the index.
The site launched after Google's most recent crawl was completed.
Poor web site design makes it difficult for Google to effectively crawl your content.
The site was temporarily unavailable at the time of crawling or an error was received. You can use Google Sitemaps to see if the Google crawlers received errors when trying to crawl your site.
When a spider misses a site, it is often because of one of the following reasons:
The site is not well connected with other sites through an inbound linking structure.
How can I get my web site into Google's Mobile index?
Google Mobile offers Google Web Search, Local Search, and Image Search for web sites that are configured for mobile devices. Google adds new sites to their mobile Web index every time they crawl the Web.
To let Google know about your mobile site, it is best to submit a Mobile Sitemap. To help ensure that Google's mobile crawlers can crawl and index your site, you should:
Use well-formed markup
Validate your markup
Use the correct DOCTYPE and Content-Type for the markup language that you are using.
Will participation in Adsense or Adwords
affect my listing in Google's free search results.
Google's advertising programs are independent of their search results. Participation in an advertising program will have no effect on your organic Search Engine rankings.
Why does my site have a PageRank of zero?
Yes. Google has an answer for this as well. According to Google, a page may be assigned a rank of zero if Google crawls very few sites that link to that particular site. In addition to this, pages that have recently been added to the Google index may also show a PageRank of zero. This is simply because they haven't been crawled by Googlebot yet and haven't been ranked yet.
The key is to be patient. A page's PageRank score may increase naturally with further crawls.
My URL changed.
How can I get Google to index my new site?
Google cannot manually change your URL in the search results. However, there are steps you can take to ensure a smooth transition.
First, you can redirect visitors to your new site. To do this, simply use an HTTP 301 (permanent) redirect. This ensures that Google's crawler will discover your new URL.
To preserve your rank, you will need to tell others who link to your site about your change of address. To find a portion of the sites that link to yours, you can go to the Google Search Engine and type in: site:www.mydomain.com . To obtain a comprehensive list of links that point to your page, perform a Google search on your URL in quotes: "www.mydomain.com".
How often does Google crawl the web?
Google's spiders crawl the web on a regular basis to rebuild their index. Crawls are based on a number of factors, including Pagerank, links to a page, and a web site's structure. This is just a small list. There are a variety of factors that can affect the crawl frequency of individual sites.
How do I create a Google friendly site?
To help Google find, index, and rank your site, it is suggested that you follow their Webmaster Guidelines.
Here are some of the general guidelines that Google offers to web masters:
1. Have other relevant sites link to yours.
2. Submit a sitemap.
3. Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo. For a complete listing of web directories, go to StrongestLinks.com.
4. Make sure each and every page is reachable from at least one static text link.
5. Offer your visitors a site with links that point to the most important parts of your site. If your sitemap is larger than 100 links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.
6. Keep the links on any given page to a reasonable number (less than 100).
7. Check for broken links and correct HTML.
8. Create a useful site that is full of information-rich content. Your pages should be written in a way that clearly and accurately describes your content.
9. Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags are descriptive and accurate.
10. Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your web site. Most Search Engine spiders see your site in much the same way as Lynx would.
11. Allow search bots to crawl your sites without session Ids or arguments that track their path through the site.
12. Make use of the robots.txt file which tells crawlers which directories they can or cannot crawl.
How can I report a site
that is spamming the Google search results?
Google is constantly working to improve the quality of their search results. Therefore, they have implemented a program that allows web searchers to report spam that they find within the Search Engine results. These Spam Reports are submitted directly to Google engineers and are used to devise long-term solutions to fight spam.
http://www.Google.com/contact/spamreport.html
Google TrustRank
There has been an ever increasing awareness to the value of Google's "TrustRank" algorithm. While there are many factors that are "Off-page", there are a number of simple actions you can take to make sure your site earns the trust from Google by employing these easy techniques.
The best way to think about Trustrank is to compare it to if you were to purchase a product or service in the real world. There are many built-in factors that we use to pre-qualify a business to see if we are willing to part with our cash for their goods or services. This is the same approach Google takes in order to measure the quality of a site, and doing this will get you out of the so-called "Sandbox" much faster than the typical 4-6 months.
While in no particular order, some are most costly than others, but all are worth doing.
Register your domain for 10 years. If you can't afford the $70 it costs at GoDaddy then are you really serious about your site?
Buy a SSL certificate - this tells Google that you are a legit business since they know you have to have a verified checking account to get a SSL cert. (And buy it for as many years as you can at a time, at the very least for 2 years)
Have a privacy policy that tells in exact detail what happens to the information about the visitor that is collected from the site.
List a mailing address (no P.O. Boxes) - Just as in real life, you feel better purchasing a service or product from a place that has a physical location.
List your contact information - telephone, fax (if needed), email & name.
If you have a bigger budget, use any of the "Hacker Safe" services and place those icons on your site. Again, this tells Google that you are seriously committed to protecting your visitor's experience on the site.
Those are simple techniques that you can directly apply to your site, and are signals to Google that you take your online presence seriously.
As far as the "Off-page" factors, it's really about linking to quality sites that are relevant and sometimes considered "authority sites" by Google. Also, getting links from those trusted sites will help re-enforce the quality of your site in the eyes of the Google spiders.
The best way to think about Trustrank is to compare it to if you were to purchase a product or service in the real world. There are many built-in factors that we use to pre-qualify a business to see if we are willing to part with our cash for their goods or services. This is the same approach Google takes in order to measure the quality of a site, and doing this will get you out of the so-called "Sandbox" much faster than the typical 4-6 months.
While in no particular order, some are most costly than others, but all are worth doing.
Register your domain for 10 years. If you can't afford the $70 it costs at GoDaddy then are you really serious about your site?
Buy a SSL certificate - this tells Google that you are a legit business since they know you have to have a verified checking account to get a SSL cert. (And buy it for as many years as you can at a time, at the very least for 2 years)
Have a privacy policy that tells in exact detail what happens to the information about the visitor that is collected from the site.
List a mailing address (no P.O. Boxes) - Just as in real life, you feel better purchasing a service or product from a place that has a physical location.
List your contact information - telephone, fax (if needed), email & name.
If you have a bigger budget, use any of the "Hacker Safe" services and place those icons on your site. Again, this tells Google that you are seriously committed to protecting your visitor's experience on the site.
Those are simple techniques that you can directly apply to your site, and are signals to Google that you take your online presence seriously.
As far as the "Off-page" factors, it's really about linking to quality sites that are relevant and sometimes considered "authority sites" by Google. Also, getting links from those trusted sites will help re-enforce the quality of your site in the eyes of the Google spiders.
Hollywood vs Google
Everyone knows the impact Google has had on both the Internet world and the real world. With Google trying to actively list and maintain all the touch points to any piece of information, it only makes sense that Hollywood would have issues with Google and the other search engines.
People want information and access to anything instantly. Google feeds this desire by returning blazingly fast results anytime someone enters a query into the site. It's from this ability to be only one click away from a competitor is what frightens Hollywood so much.
With the click of a mouse, I could download the latest movie in the theaters - with minimal chance of getting caught - and while the quality and convenience is not to the same level as a dvd release, if I am looking for free entertainment, it's easily available.
Hollywood needs to embrace the new technology and it's ability to deliver what the people want. Imagine walking out of a theater with a fantastic movie you just watched, and waiting for you was a representative from the studio with that exact movie you just watched available on dvd. $20 on the spot, and you have a top-quality version of the movie.
There is a delicate balance that must be determined because currently, dvd sales are what can turn a clunker in the theaters to a money maker in post release.
Hollywood also needs to figure out a way to let the consumer order a movie over the Internet via streaming, or even if I wanted to order a movie through my TiVo. They need to create an encryption technology that allows for only 1 copy to be made, and even have something that subtly alerts a viewer that the product they are watching has been copied. This marking technology is already in place for dvd screeners that the studio releases.
At a certain interval, there is a specific series of lights (that usually form a letter or number) which identifies to whom the screener was released to. This way if that copy gets on the Internet, they not only have a quick reference point, but can also have a starting point as to how that movie got pirated.
Another thing that Hollywood needs to consider is the technology used to display it's products:
Film and a silver screen as seen through a dusty projector. While the film enthusiast in me absolutely loves the look and feel of seeing a movie in the theater, there is a huge segment of customers who purposely wait until the movie comes out on dvd simply because they have a better looking and better sounding system at home to watch the movie with!
Hollywood had really begun to reach it's commercial end by allowing for traditional advertising before a movie plays. While I fully understand and recognize why it's being done (Russell Crowe ain't cheap!), it REALLY takes away from the movie experience. I fully expect to see trailers for upcoming movies - but not commercials. That's what television is for.
By including commercials before a movie gets played, they have connected the movie experience to that of watching the boob tube.
It's in all of this that Hollywood and Google should get together and create a solution that is amicable to everyone involved. There will always be bootleggers - that is a given. But if you can reduce the number of illegal downloads and copies being marketed, the studio can keep more of it's money used to get people to see their films in the first place.
The search engines provide value, and Hollywood provides the experience. Marrying the two would create an instantaneous feeling of overwhelming satisfaction for the new age user.
People want information and access to anything instantly. Google feeds this desire by returning blazingly fast results anytime someone enters a query into the site. It's from this ability to be only one click away from a competitor is what frightens Hollywood so much.
With the click of a mouse, I could download the latest movie in the theaters - with minimal chance of getting caught - and while the quality and convenience is not to the same level as a dvd release, if I am looking for free entertainment, it's easily available.
Hollywood needs to embrace the new technology and it's ability to deliver what the people want. Imagine walking out of a theater with a fantastic movie you just watched, and waiting for you was a representative from the studio with that exact movie you just watched available on dvd. $20 on the spot, and you have a top-quality version of the movie.
There is a delicate balance that must be determined because currently, dvd sales are what can turn a clunker in the theaters to a money maker in post release.
Hollywood also needs to figure out a way to let the consumer order a movie over the Internet via streaming, or even if I wanted to order a movie through my TiVo. They need to create an encryption technology that allows for only 1 copy to be made, and even have something that subtly alerts a viewer that the product they are watching has been copied. This marking technology is already in place for dvd screeners that the studio releases.
At a certain interval, there is a specific series of lights (that usually form a letter or number) which identifies to whom the screener was released to. This way if that copy gets on the Internet, they not only have a quick reference point, but can also have a starting point as to how that movie got pirated.
Another thing that Hollywood needs to consider is the technology used to display it's products:
Film and a silver screen as seen through a dusty projector. While the film enthusiast in me absolutely loves the look and feel of seeing a movie in the theater, there is a huge segment of customers who purposely wait until the movie comes out on dvd simply because they have a better looking and better sounding system at home to watch the movie with!
Hollywood had really begun to reach it's commercial end by allowing for traditional advertising before a movie plays. While I fully understand and recognize why it's being done (Russell Crowe ain't cheap!), it REALLY takes away from the movie experience. I fully expect to see trailers for upcoming movies - but not commercials. That's what television is for.
By including commercials before a movie gets played, they have connected the movie experience to that of watching the boob tube.
It's in all of this that Hollywood and Google should get together and create a solution that is amicable to everyone involved. There will always be bootleggers - that is a given. But if you can reduce the number of illegal downloads and copies being marketed, the studio can keep more of it's money used to get people to see their films in the first place.
The search engines provide value, and Hollywood provides the experience. Marrying the two would create an instantaneous feeling of overwhelming satisfaction for the new age user.
Why Search Engines Fail
Imagine asking a stranger for directions to a clothing store. Chances are, the stranger will tell you one of two replies. They'll direct you to the nearest clothing store they know of, or they'll send to to the last one they just passed. But you're looking for the latest Spongebob Squarepants kid's shirt. You didn't tell the stranger that, did you? Probably not. So, you got directions to the local Disney store, which of course, would not be selling any competitor's clothing.
How did this happen? Simple.
Like most of us, when we type something into a search engine, we just assume that the search engine knows what we mean. A computer can only do what we tell it to do, so that's why we may not get the desired results that we are seeking. Back when the 'Net was young (1990), you could get away with such simple phrases because there wasn't much content on the Internet as there is now. This is why when you're searching, be sure to be as specific as possible. The Search Engine's entire existance is to provide relevant and specific results to you, the user. Tell the engine more relevant phrases, and you will be rewarded accordingly.
Even when searching for a singular or plural version of something, you will get different results. Some words are even more complex. For example, if you enter "wheelchair", Google will tell you there are about 1.4 million results. Add a space, and now you have "wheel chair" and Google will tell you that there are about 4.6 million results! Now to even complicate matters more, if you enter "wheel chairs" there are only 760,000 results. Remove the space and for "wheelchairs" you now get about 1.2 million results.
How does this happen?
Remember, the search engines are programmed to try and deliver the best document for each given keyword/phrase. Through a complex algorithm, they mathmatically determine which page has the most relevant content. They do this for every possible keyword and phrase that they are aware of. This why you see such a disparity in the search results.
How can I rank for all of my similar keywords?
Glad you asked. One of the many factors used in determining keyword relevancy is proximity. By using the variations of the spelling in a logical manner - such as the example I presented above, describing the different ways it can be spelled - the search engines will use this to determine that since your page talks about these variations of wheelchairs, this page must be relevant. Of course there are many other factors involved, but for the sake of this discussion, that's all we need.
How did this happen? Simple.
Like most of us, when we type something into a search engine, we just assume that the search engine knows what we mean. A computer can only do what we tell it to do, so that's why we may not get the desired results that we are seeking. Back when the 'Net was young (1990), you could get away with such simple phrases because there wasn't much content on the Internet as there is now. This is why when you're searching, be sure to be as specific as possible. The Search Engine's entire existance is to provide relevant and specific results to you, the user. Tell the engine more relevant phrases, and you will be rewarded accordingly.
Even when searching for a singular or plural version of something, you will get different results. Some words are even more complex. For example, if you enter "wheelchair", Google will tell you there are about 1.4 million results. Add a space, and now you have "wheel chair" and Google will tell you that there are about 4.6 million results! Now to even complicate matters more, if you enter "wheel chairs" there are only 760,000 results. Remove the space and for "wheelchairs" you now get about 1.2 million results.
How does this happen?
Remember, the search engines are programmed to try and deliver the best document for each given keyword/phrase. Through a complex algorithm, they mathmatically determine which page has the most relevant content. They do this for every possible keyword and phrase that they are aware of. This why you see such a disparity in the search results.
How can I rank for all of my similar keywords?
Glad you asked. One of the many factors used in determining keyword relevancy is proximity. By using the variations of the spelling in a logical manner - such as the example I presented above, describing the different ways it can be spelled - the search engines will use this to determine that since your page talks about these variations of wheelchairs, this page must be relevant. Of course there are many other factors involved, but for the sake of this discussion, that's all we need.
How to Create a Google Site Map
Officially announced on June 6th, 2005 at Google'e Blog, Google Site Map allows you to submit a listing of all your urls for Google to crawl. There have been many questions concerning the procedure of creating a Google Site Map. Below is the non-Python way of creating one. (Note: Google has further documentation at their site) First, create a file named sitemap.xml Use the following code in any HTML editor:
http://www.seoforgoogle.com/
2005-06-30T14:12:14+00:00 daily
1.0
http://www.seoforgoogle.com/glossary.cfm
2005-06-30T14:12:14+00:00 weekly
1.0
Here's a breakdown of those properties:lastmod - This is the date the document was last modified and uses the following formats:
dd.mm.yyyydd.mm.yyyy
hh:mmdd/mm/yyyydd/mm/yyyy
hh:mmchangefreq -
Tells Google Sitemaps the frequently that content of a particular URL will change. Your options are "always", "hourly", "daily", "weekly", "monthly", "yearly" or "never". The value "always" should be used to describe documents that change each time they are accessed. The value "never" should be used to describe archived URLs. priority - The priority of a particular URL relative to other pages on your site. You may select between 0.0 and 1.0, where 0.0 identifies the lowest priority page(s) on your website and 1.0 identifies the highest priority page(s) on your website. Add as many pages as there are in your website. Google Sitemap supports up to 50,000 pages per XML file. Once you've completed all of those steps, you'll need to submit your site map page. Submit to: (requires gmail account)https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login [If you don't have a gmail account send an email requesting a gmail account and I'll give them out until I run out of invites. (ts@seoforgoogle.com)]
Here's a breakdown of those properties:lastmod - This is the date the document was last modified and uses the following formats:
dd.mm.yyyydd.mm.yyyy
hh:mmdd/mm/yyyydd/mm/yyyy
hh:mmchangefreq -
Tells Google Sitemaps the frequently that content of a particular URL will change. Your options are "always", "hourly", "daily", "weekly", "monthly", "yearly" or "never". The value "always" should be used to describe documents that change each time they are accessed. The value "never" should be used to describe archived URLs. priority - The priority of a particular URL relative to other pages on your site. You may select between 0.0 and 1.0, where 0.0 identifies the lowest priority page(s) on your website and 1.0 identifies the highest priority page(s) on your website. Add as many pages as there are in your website. Google Sitemap supports up to 50,000 pages per XML file. Once you've completed all of those steps, you'll need to submit your site map page. Submit to: (requires gmail account)https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login [If you don't have a gmail account send an email requesting a gmail account and I'll give them out until I run out of invites. (ts@seoforgoogle.com)]
Blogs Versus Articles
Blogs have arrived as a means to get your message across in a personal way. Articles are usually considered to be more informative and accurate where details are concerned. From a search engine perspective, both are a great source of information. But which one to rank better? First, let's look at the value each one brings: Blogs: Timely, personal, have "inside point of view" usually updated on a frequent basis Articles:Informative, Authorative, detailed, marketing driven. From a freshness perspective, Blogs clearly win out over the articles. Exposure:Unless your blog is highly ranked, the articles will get more exposure, since there are more chances of your article being seen by more people. There are many sources on the internet that you can submit your articles to, here is a link for some: seoresources.seoforgoogle.com From a business perspective, I can tell you that articles help re-enforce what you are selling. By writing an article instead of a blog, there is a perception that more care is taken to writing an article, therefore the information contained within is worth more. People know that a blog will have a personal spin to it, whether the author is blasting a company, or promoting something that they have a personal or professional interest in. From my own trials, no one has made any purchases for any product being pushed in a blog, but instead there has a distinguishable influx of sales that can be directly traced back to an article. So what does this mean to you? If you have a product or service you want to promote, use an article. If you need to get something off your chest, create a blog. While both are thought of very well by the search engines, you're ultimate goal is to convert the user, not confuse the search engines.
Local Search Engine Optimization
As the fastest growing vertical in search, many people are now starting to recognize the value of local search engine optimization can have on their site traffic. Also known as regional search, it's basically geo-targeting your audience when they search.Local search works best for the service provider, or a retailer that has numerous locations. While the search volume won't be as great as a non-regional phrase, the person who reaches your site will be a more targeted visit and most likely ready to convert.Another happy accident in local search is that for sites that are well optimized may also pick up rankings in mobile search. So, here's what you need to do in order to rank for local seo:
Be sure to have your location(s) full address
If you have a regional number, list that as well since some people start with an area code
Be sure to include driving directions to your location
Use a mapping service to display your location
Have pictures of your locations and name them with your street address
Make sure your site appears in any regional directory that might be online
If you can afford it, get listed in your local yellow pages
Place the regions you want to rank for in your page titles
Get text links that contain the regional phrase Most of these techniques are are not only common sense, but also good web design. If you're in business, you want people to be able to find you, right?
Be sure to have your location(s) full address
If you have a regional number, list that as well since some people start with an area code
Be sure to include driving directions to your location
Use a mapping service to display your location
Have pictures of your locations and name them with your street address
Make sure your site appears in any regional directory that might be online
If you can afford it, get listed in your local yellow pages
Place the regions you want to rank for in your page titles
Get text links that contain the regional phrase Most of these techniques are are not only common sense, but also good web design. If you're in business, you want people to be able to find you, right?
One Word Rankings
Well now, it's been quite some time since an article was posted on here so I feel like I owe everyone something really good.
It's common in seo to make suggestions to potential clients to not go after that elusive one word phrase. But by doing so, and with seemingly all seo professionals on board, has it gotten easier to get ranked for one-word phrases?
I've personally have been able to get some top rankings for clients of mine within the past year - I'm not saying this to brag, but if everyone's drinking that kool-aid, how will anyone know how hard it is to go after one word?
Now, there are those that will tell you that a one-word phrase doesn't convert. In my experience, these phrase drive a ton of traffic to the site (as much as up to 10k unique visitors a day) - of course not all of them convert.
But about 20% do.
Yes, 20% of all people coming in on a one-word phrase converts at that rate for something on the site. Maybe not for the phrase that brought them in, but that person converts on something.
Now, using WebTrends or Google Analytics will tell you the phrase on which the person came in from, but to get the granular level detail, the only system I've been able to come up with and rely on is a site database capturing system. It's been custom created, but it can track all the pages visited and will tell you that if someone originally came to the site for the term "KVM" but ended up buying USB Cables, that data is retained.
Now, all of a sudden, those one-word phrases are looking pretty good. And, with soo many seo's purposely not going after them, I think it presents an opportunity to grab those top rankings for those magical traffic drivers.
So, go get those words!
It's common in seo to make suggestions to potential clients to not go after that elusive one word phrase. But by doing so, and with seemingly all seo professionals on board, has it gotten easier to get ranked for one-word phrases?
I've personally have been able to get some top rankings for clients of mine within the past year - I'm not saying this to brag, but if everyone's drinking that kool-aid, how will anyone know how hard it is to go after one word?
Now, there are those that will tell you that a one-word phrase doesn't convert. In my experience, these phrase drive a ton of traffic to the site (as much as up to 10k unique visitors a day) - of course not all of them convert.
But about 20% do.
Yes, 20% of all people coming in on a one-word phrase converts at that rate for something on the site. Maybe not for the phrase that brought them in, but that person converts on something.
Now, using WebTrends or Google Analytics will tell you the phrase on which the person came in from, but to get the granular level detail, the only system I've been able to come up with and rely on is a site database capturing system. It's been custom created, but it can track all the pages visited and will tell you that if someone originally came to the site for the term "KVM" but ended up buying USB Cables, that data is retained.
Now, all of a sudden, those one-word phrases are looking pretty good. And, with soo many seo's purposely not going after them, I think it presents an opportunity to grab those top rankings for those magical traffic drivers.
So, go get those words!
SEO for Digg
In case you haven't been on the Internet for the past year or so, there has been a tremendous amount of attention being captured by socially-powered sites such as digg. So, what does this have to with the world of Search Engine Marketing? There is something called the Digg effect, which essentially brings a ton of traffic to your site in a small amount of time. (Usually within minutes of a posting). While digg readers despise seo-planted stories, if you do have something topical or free to use or even something that's just "cool", you won't feel the wrath of the digg community, and end up with your post getting buried. So how can you leverage this site? One of the key elements of getting a story on the home page is to have either a ton of people who have "dugg" your posting, or if you happen to know some of the top users on digg to vote for your story, you'll have no time reaching the front. For the rest of us, we need to work harder. While there are sites that sell services to "digg" stories for you, at some point in time, digg will wise up and stop that. There is another site that allows you to alert any of your friends when you have posted on digg, called Digg Alerts. But despite all the "gaming" that goes on, at the end of the day, you need to have a compelling story to have the readers interact with what you're saying. As for the SEO coding and copy writing element of digg, you need to have a great title and summary to get any reader to even bother checking out your site. Another course of action you need to take is to review all of digg's categories - if your story would not fit on the site, don't waste your time. The expectation set forth when using digg in as part of your marketing strategy should be to create buzz, build brand name and drive traffic to your site. To expect digg users to click on your Adsense ads is non-sensical - digg readers are tech-savvy and can smell that technique a mile away. Be patient, post often and become part of the digg community by also submitting great stories you find - often times it will already be posted, but every once in a while you can beat them to the punch, and you gain a little bit of credibility on the site.
How to Write a Better Web Page Title
Titles are everywhere. Some people are defined by titles, some people loathe titles, and others like giving titles. Why do we do this? With so much information getting processed by our minds everyday, we need a way to categorize these groups of associated content in a quick referencing way. This is the same methodology a search engine applies when it crawls a page. When you title a page, you are telling a search engine or user what the page is supposed to be about. We've all seen the one sentence summaries of television shows on the T.V. Guide. It allows for quick referencing and decision making by telling us what the show is going to be about. This is part of the reason why naming your page titles is so critical to getting your site ranked. I can't tell you how many times I have seen a site that had one of the following two titles throughout the entire site: "untitled" or "company name". While having the company name on all the pages could be a potential branding strategy, chances are, most visitors to your site don't know your brand name yet and are looking for the product or service that you're selling. You could incorporate the company name into the title, but it should be placed after the main message you want to convey about that particular page. Every page should have a unique title. While you may have a subject that needs to be explained over a few pages, you should use the page title as an index of information for the reader. Sites that sell multiple products should have a unique title for every product. If you can't make the time to make each page stand out, why would you expect that page to ever appear in a search engine? If possible, you should try to place your keywords in the title, since this will help the search engine determine where your page should be ranked. Remember, the search engines rank each page individually, that's why it's so important to use proper naming methods. When you determine which keywords to use, go for a 4 to 6 word title when possible. After 58 characters, the title in the search engine results page will be truncated and will not be visible to the reader. Also, the longer the title, the less weight is given to each word. The entire time you are conjuring up titles, always keep the reader in mind first. While some phrases may rank well in the search engines, a reader may never enter that phrase and you'll lose that targeted traffic you were trying to reach. Sometimes the phrases work out well for both the user and search engine, and in those cases success is usually quick to follow. -To your online success!
Does SEO Die on Web 3.0?
Hey, Marty, would you mind parking the DeLorean for me while I finish up this blog post? Thanks.
Hi, everyone! I’ve just come back from the future. Well, not really. I’ve actually just been reading through a bunch of articles about the Semantic Web as envisioned by Tim Berners-Lee and other brilliant thinkers. My appetite to research this topic was spurred by this article I read about two weeks ago. It’s been a fun escape into the world-of-tomorrow. Some have already assigned the moniker “Web 3.0″ to the Semantic Web. Here we go again…
So did I find anything of value on my futuristic escapade? Well, I started my trip (as always) by going to see The Oracle to find out what she thinks of the Semantic Web. It’s still unclear to me how people will interact with such a system—from what I can tell there are no consumer apps yet that handle these types of semantic web interactions. But according to the Wikipedia article, computers will do most of the menial pairing of search results that we currently do manually.
Funny enough, there are many who believe that this particular vision of the future cannot come to fruition. Others say it has already begun to happen. I don’t know enough about it yet to base an opinion either way, but I do see elements of a semantic web in now widely used web techniques like tagging.
According to Tim Berners-Lee, Google will not survive on the semantic web—at least not in its current state. Yahoo even recently announced that they will begin supporting certain semantic web standards and technologies to let people produce much richer search results.
So if search engines as we know them need to change at the advent of this new Semantic Web, do SEOers need to follow suit? Will SEO become the task of simply building properly formatted semantic markup for digestion by future search engines? That could be part of it. In fact, part of good SEO practices now include creation of semantic based data feeds (think RSS). And now with the birth of Yahoo’s open search, website owners will be rewarded for producing more semantic data and suppling it to Yahoo. I expect Google has something similar in the works.
But how far out is our paradigm shift? How quickly will the bandwagon pass? Is there a bandwagon at all? The more you think about it, the more you think, “wow, this Web 3.0 is going to be pretty cool! It’ll make SEO and search in general a lot cleaner”. As I began to ponder all of these new ideas, The Oracle sent me to this other article. Stopped in my tracks.
Mr. Doctorow is right on. One of the huge problems Google et al currently face is the overabundance of garbage on the web. This must be what Berners-Lee meant in part when he said, “…make sure people aren’t using their authority to do things that they shouldn’t be doing”. Unfortunately, that’s much easier said than done. There will always be people who are trying to game the system. Website owners of the future will be creating oodles of inaccurate meta-data about their spam sites to trick your computer into pulling bogus information into your data mash-up. Can you imagine searching for a good Italian restaurant near the place you have a meeting tomorrow at noon and you’re given a map full of bogus locations all advertising male enhancement pills. No thanks.
Let’s get back to the original question quickly: does SEO die on the semantic web? I think the answer is a resounding no. In fact, an understanding of keywords, search engines, markup, and semantics will play an even bigger role as time goes on. But who knows what the real future will bring.
Alright, I’m outta here. Where I’m going I don’t need—roads. But I do need to add some quick semantic metadata to this post before signing off (*throws in another old can and a banana peel*). OK, I’m off!
Hi, everyone! I’ve just come back from the future. Well, not really. I’ve actually just been reading through a bunch of articles about the Semantic Web as envisioned by Tim Berners-Lee and other brilliant thinkers. My appetite to research this topic was spurred by this article I read about two weeks ago. It’s been a fun escape into the world-of-tomorrow. Some have already assigned the moniker “Web 3.0″ to the Semantic Web. Here we go again…
So did I find anything of value on my futuristic escapade? Well, I started my trip (as always) by going to see The Oracle to find out what she thinks of the Semantic Web. It’s still unclear to me how people will interact with such a system—from what I can tell there are no consumer apps yet that handle these types of semantic web interactions. But according to the Wikipedia article, computers will do most of the menial pairing of search results that we currently do manually.
Funny enough, there are many who believe that this particular vision of the future cannot come to fruition. Others say it has already begun to happen. I don’t know enough about it yet to base an opinion either way, but I do see elements of a semantic web in now widely used web techniques like tagging.
According to Tim Berners-Lee, Google will not survive on the semantic web—at least not in its current state. Yahoo even recently announced that they will begin supporting certain semantic web standards and technologies to let people produce much richer search results.
So if search engines as we know them need to change at the advent of this new Semantic Web, do SEOers need to follow suit? Will SEO become the task of simply building properly formatted semantic markup for digestion by future search engines? That could be part of it. In fact, part of good SEO practices now include creation of semantic based data feeds (think RSS). And now with the birth of Yahoo’s open search, website owners will be rewarded for producing more semantic data and suppling it to Yahoo. I expect Google has something similar in the works.
But how far out is our paradigm shift? How quickly will the bandwagon pass? Is there a bandwagon at all? The more you think about it, the more you think, “wow, this Web 3.0 is going to be pretty cool! It’ll make SEO and search in general a lot cleaner”. As I began to ponder all of these new ideas, The Oracle sent me to this other article. Stopped in my tracks.
Mr. Doctorow is right on. One of the huge problems Google et al currently face is the overabundance of garbage on the web. This must be what Berners-Lee meant in part when he said, “…make sure people aren’t using their authority to do things that they shouldn’t be doing”. Unfortunately, that’s much easier said than done. There will always be people who are trying to game the system. Website owners of the future will be creating oodles of inaccurate meta-data about their spam sites to trick your computer into pulling bogus information into your data mash-up. Can you imagine searching for a good Italian restaurant near the place you have a meeting tomorrow at noon and you’re given a map full of bogus locations all advertising male enhancement pills. No thanks.
Let’s get back to the original question quickly: does SEO die on the semantic web? I think the answer is a resounding no. In fact, an understanding of keywords, search engines, markup, and semantics will play an even bigger role as time goes on. But who knows what the real future will bring.
Alright, I’m outta here. Where I’m going I don’t need—roads. But I do need to add some quick semantic metadata to this post before signing off (*throws in another old can and a banana peel*). OK, I’m off!
Choosing the Best Keywords
Ah, the beauty of search marketing! What other marketing medium lets you get your ad in front of your potential customer at the precise moment they are looking for exactly what you sell? Of course, your success with search marketing hinges on your selection of the right keywords. Good keyword selection starts with a brainstorming session. Get together with your team and make a list of all the keywords and phrases that people might be searching for to find a business like yours. Try to include terms that people outside your industry would use. Take a look at your competitors’ websites to see what keywords they are targeting. Review their meta keywords, titles, and content on their websites to identify additional keywords to add to your list. Another great place to look for keywords is forums, blogs, industry sites, and Q&A sites like Yahoo Answers. What are the words people use to find the product or service you offer? Once you’ve built your list, use online keyword tools to see how often your keywords are searched on and refine your list. A few of these tools are Keyword Discovery, WordTracker, Google’s Keyword Tool, and Yahoo/Overture Keyword Inventory Tool. These tools will allow you to see how often your keywords are searched on and give you ideas for other keywords to consider.
It’s important to target keywords that are relevant to your business, but don’t sacrifice relevance for search popularity–I mean don’t forget about your most targeted keywords just because they aren’t as heavily searched. You want to use keywords that will drive traffic to your site AND increase sales. Once you identify the keywords that are most relevant to your website, you can use that list for search engine optimization, pay-per-click (PPC) keyword ads, and any other keyword advertising. After you start getting traffic for these keywords, spend some time reviewing your analytics reports. Monitor the keyword conversion report to see which keywords are generating sales. If you find certain keywords perform better than others, shift your focus to those keywords to achieve the best possible results. Over time you will fine-tune your keyword strategy to the point where you know exactly which keywords perform best and you will enjoy a steady flow of new business from the search engines.
It’s important to target keywords that are relevant to your business, but don’t sacrifice relevance for search popularity–I mean don’t forget about your most targeted keywords just because they aren’t as heavily searched. You want to use keywords that will drive traffic to your site AND increase sales. Once you identify the keywords that are most relevant to your website, you can use that list for search engine optimization, pay-per-click (PPC) keyword ads, and any other keyword advertising. After you start getting traffic for these keywords, spend some time reviewing your analytics reports. Monitor the keyword conversion report to see which keywords are generating sales. If you find certain keywords perform better than others, shift your focus to those keywords to achieve the best possible results. Over time you will fine-tune your keyword strategy to the point where you know exactly which keywords perform best and you will enjoy a steady flow of new business from the search engines.
Top 6 SEO tips for bloggers
Millions of blogs, and only the top 10 results. It seems like a recipe for headaches and back pain. If you don’t mind, I’ll see if I can give you some pain medication in the form of tried and true methods for getting your blog to show up in those top 10 results.
1. If you are using WordPress, start by installing the all in one seo pack. You can specify unique titles and descriptions for each post using the all in one. The reason you want to have unique titles and descriptions is so that single posts show up easier for long tail keywords, which sometimes bring in visitors or clients 6 months down the road. It’s always nice to be there for an obscure search term, so you can beat out your competitors who aren’t showing up for that term.
2. Headlines: Should be no more than 60 characters, How to’s and top 5 or 10 lists usually work the best to bring in readers. It is also easy to digg a “How To List” or “Top 10 list”. If your keywords are “Internet Business” or “Movie Critiques”, an example could be “The top 5 movie critiques for online shoppers.”
3. Text: Make your paragraphs no more than 6-7 sentences. Lists and bullet points are easier on the eyes and help people read your whole post. Obviously your keywords are an important consideration, have your keyword research handy when writing any post. First and foremost is your reader though, so don’t sacrifice semantics/readability for your keywords.
4. Links: Link to influential blogs or sources as much as possible (no more than 8 links in one post though, you don’t want the reader to get all confused by the abundance of outbound links). There are at least two reasons for this: 1) If you link to an influential blogger, they will see your link, and possibly reciprocate one back to you if your article is good enough. 2) Trusted sources are worth their weight in gold if you want to be seen as an industry expert and to keep your readers coming back for more.
5. Ultimately you will want people to read what you write on your blog. That’s why we have to prepare your blog in such a way that the search engines will find it easier. There are ways to get immediate traffic to your site using Stumbleupon or Digg or some other social bookmarking service, which we use extensively. But the real value in having your post or article go “viral” is for the links that almost automatically come from people who like what you have written. Relevant, keyword targeted text links from a high profile blog or site counts alot towards how well you rank for a particular keyword phrase. Use Stumbling and Digging as much as needed, but first write good content, and make your site search engine friendly.
6. Last but not least, make your RSS feed readily available at the top of your page somewhere. That is usually the first place people look for an RSS feed if they like your post, and if someone wants to link to you or a post of yours, you should give them as many options as possible to do so. An RSS feed is great for publishing content that will then get read and possibly linked to more often.
1. If you are using WordPress, start by installing the all in one seo pack. You can specify unique titles and descriptions for each post using the all in one. The reason you want to have unique titles and descriptions is so that single posts show up easier for long tail keywords, which sometimes bring in visitors or clients 6 months down the road. It’s always nice to be there for an obscure search term, so you can beat out your competitors who aren’t showing up for that term.
2. Headlines: Should be no more than 60 characters, How to’s and top 5 or 10 lists usually work the best to bring in readers. It is also easy to digg a “How To List” or “Top 10 list”. If your keywords are “Internet Business” or “Movie Critiques”, an example could be “The top 5 movie critiques for online shoppers.”
3. Text: Make your paragraphs no more than 6-7 sentences. Lists and bullet points are easier on the eyes and help people read your whole post. Obviously your keywords are an important consideration, have your keyword research handy when writing any post. First and foremost is your reader though, so don’t sacrifice semantics/readability for your keywords.
4. Links: Link to influential blogs or sources as much as possible (no more than 8 links in one post though, you don’t want the reader to get all confused by the abundance of outbound links). There are at least two reasons for this: 1) If you link to an influential blogger, they will see your link, and possibly reciprocate one back to you if your article is good enough. 2) Trusted sources are worth their weight in gold if you want to be seen as an industry expert and to keep your readers coming back for more.
5. Ultimately you will want people to read what you write on your blog. That’s why we have to prepare your blog in such a way that the search engines will find it easier. There are ways to get immediate traffic to your site using Stumbleupon or Digg or some other social bookmarking service, which we use extensively. But the real value in having your post or article go “viral” is for the links that almost automatically come from people who like what you have written. Relevant, keyword targeted text links from a high profile blog or site counts alot towards how well you rank for a particular keyword phrase. Use Stumbling and Digging as much as needed, but first write good content, and make your site search engine friendly.
6. Last but not least, make your RSS feed readily available at the top of your page somewhere. That is usually the first place people look for an RSS feed if they like your post, and if someone wants to link to you or a post of yours, you should give them as many options as possible to do so. An RSS feed is great for publishing content that will then get read and possibly linked to more often.
Google Trends Predicts Winner of American Idol
A few months back, we analyzed Google Trends data to see which presidential candidate was most likely to win the election. The Democratic nomination process has drawn out longer than we ever anticipated, but it looks like Obama will come out on top in that one, and he stands a great chance of winning the entire election in November. If so, Google trends called it way back in February.
The presidential election is interesting and all, but it’s about time we look at Google Trends for a much more important issue: Who will win this week’s finale of American Idol?
It is down to the two Davids–David Archuleta and David Cook. I’m pulling for Archuleta, mostly because he’s from my home town, Murray, Utah. However, if the Google Trends data holds up, Cook will end up on top when the dust settles. Keep in mind that this is preliminary data because it could change once they perform the final time this week, but for now it looks like David Cook is most popular, so he should end up with the most votes and be crowned the 2008 American Idol.
Here’s a graph showing the Google Trends search data for the two Davids (the blue line on top is Cook):
Seo.Com
The presidential election is interesting and all, but it’s about time we look at Google Trends for a much more important issue: Who will win this week’s finale of American Idol?
It is down to the two Davids–David Archuleta and David Cook. I’m pulling for Archuleta, mostly because he’s from my home town, Murray, Utah. However, if the Google Trends data holds up, Cook will end up on top when the dust settles. Keep in mind that this is preliminary data because it could change once they perform the final time this week, but for now it looks like David Cook is most popular, so he should end up with the most votes and be crowned the 2008 American Idol.
Here’s a graph showing the Google Trends search data for the two Davids (the blue line on top is Cook):
Seo.Com
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