"Getting Down" With Google Panda and Search Engine Optimisation

Howdy, there folks. Welcome to another article about search engine optimisation. What we are talking about is this really exciting, outstandingly interesting, very controversial thing called Google Panda.
Let's look at some of the history so we understand the Panda a little more intimately. Panda is also known as "Farmer", and is an update that Google came out with in March, 2011. What it did was rejig a whole bunch of search results and sent a lot of websites down in the page rankings, jettisoned some websites up in the rankings, and people have been worried about the Panda ever since.
Since its birth, Panda has had several updates, new versions have emerged and changes in the Google algorithm have come out of the closet. Like a lot of people you probably have a lot of questions like, "What's this Panda all about and how to I make web friends with it?" What we want to unveil here are some of the principles behind this creature and how Google Panda really changes the way a lot of us need to approach strategize and target our Search Engine Optimisation (S.E.O.)
So let's get out the looking glass and start with a little bit of the history behind Panda. So where did the name come from? Google employed an engineer named Navneet Panda. Seems this guy has done some awesome work with another guy called Bill Slawski. These two guys were part of a patent application that found a great way to use some learning algorithms. Generally, learning algorithms, are very expensive and they take a long time to run. Even more so if you have extremely large data sets, including inputs and of outputs. Before Panda came on the scene at Google, these learning algorithms were at a lower level, and Panda took it to a whole other level.
What Google can now do, due to Panda is, take a whole bunch of websites that people like more and another bunch that people like less. How do they determine this? Well, it's essentially what the quality rater's at Google, yes those men in dark coats, hats and sunglasses that only come out at night, and tell them that a site is good. This means, "This is a good site" versus "I don't like to see this." From here Google Panda take the intelligence of their quality rating panel and scale it using this new learning algorithm process. Are you following?
Here's how it goes down. The quality raters tell Google's visitor's what they like. They ask and answer questions such as, "Would you trust this site with your credit card? Would you trust this expert's information that this site gives about your financial advice? Do you think this site design is good?" That's it, all sorts of questions about a website's trustworthiness, credibility, quality, how much they would like to see it in the search results. Then they compare the difference with where it is indexing and ranking now.
The websites that people like more are put into one group and the ones that people like less are put into another group. Then they get real serious with their interrogation and start looking at tons of metrics. All these metrics, numbers, signals, all sorts of search signals that probably come from data metrics, which historically Google has not focused in on as heavily. What the new algorithm aims to do they use those in the process is to separate the wheat from the tares, finding the websites that web surfer's like more and like less. They then downgrade the ones they like less and upgrade the ones they like more. Bingo, you have the Panda update at its best.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nyrie_Roos

Has Google Penguin Rendered SEO Pointless?

Worried About Over-Optimising Penalties due to Google Penguin? Heed This Advice
Google is at it again! With the Google penguin update, some websites have seen a big drop in traffic. If your site was considered spammy, Google may have knocked you down a few (or many) pegs on the search engine results pages.
No matter what happened with this SEO update it's important for you to realise something. Google will probably never stop tweaking and adjusting their algorithms. Your job with SEO is never ever going to be done (NEVER! Cue: evil laugh...)
Continually tweaking the algorithms is Google's concerted effort to operate with continuous improvement principles. It's how they hope they'll hang on to the lion's share of the internet search market by staying ahead of evil SEO super villains who find ways to fake their way to the top.
What does this mean to you, the company who isn't trying to game the system and who just wants to do the right thing so that you can attract customers to your site and provide them with an honest-to-goodness product or service? It means you'll want to continually watch your back, for one thing!
Should you just forget SEO and leave things to chance since Google seems like it is constantly trying to stop people from succeeding at it? No. The right strategy for SEO is more important than ever. The right strategy should encompass doing your very best to please your customers and to make quality a top priority.
• Don't get as hung up on keyword density.
• Don't be as concerned about link juice and linking strategies
• Do get really in tune with what your customers want.
• Do put quality at the top of the priority list and keep it there.
Sure, keywords, tags, and other SEO elements are still important. But search engines look at obvious attempts to game the system. They also look at your conversion rate to see if you're doing a good job of servicing the traffic they send you. When the search engines measure your site, they want to know if you're doing things in a way that is bringing you converting traffic. If they send you 10000 visitors today and 0 of them convert, search engines will re-assess whether or not you deserve that traffic.
By the same token, if you're on the bottom of page 1 and are getting more positive results than your competitors in spots 1 and 2, search engines will take notice and you'll inch your way up those ranks.
SEO isn't Pointless!
If you've lost rankings you might be thinking that SEO is pointless. But it's not. It's important to do things so that your customers can find you. The right SEO strategies also include smart on-page optimisation strategies that logically walk the visitor through the site. The best SEO results happen when you know your customers, know your industry, understand how search engines work, avoid duplicate content, avoid common SEO mistakes, et cetera.
SEO isn't the be-all and end-all. Make sure you employ diverse online marketing strategies. Content marketing, social media, pay per click, email marketing, and other marketing methods can all help you, too. Develop multiple streams of traffic and a solid customer relationship management strategy so that you don't have to continually chase after new traffic as your only source of income. Your existing customers can keep buying and can be a great source of word of mouth referrals, too!

Oracle Digital is an Expert SEO Company Perth specializing in a comprehensive range of internet marketing solutions for business. Our personalized and systematic approach to business ensures that we realize the goals of our clients. Our expert services include Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), and many more. Visit us today and get your site on top of the search engines!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Clint_Maher

The Google Over Optimization Penalty and My Google Penalty Checker Checklist

SEO is all about walking a tightrope of doing just enough but not overdoing the optimization of your site. The latter part of that statement is punishable by the Google over optimization penalty.
It got to this point because initially rudimentary search engines needed people to blatantly use tags to identify what their content was so that the search engines could organize it accordingly. Like with everything else in life, eventually enough people found a way to exploit the variety of factors which search engines used to rank a web page. Enter the Google over optimization penalty.
The reasoning for this penalty is straight forward and understandable. Google doesn't want to reward a website whose sole purpose appears to be satisfying Google before their users. Example, "my content is crap BUT I've still got tons and tons of links to my content... don't ask me how I got them".
This looks and feels fishy, and Google considers links as one of their Google ranking factors, so they don't like giving out high and visible rankings to crappy sites and only finding out after the fact that they did this, so they've tightened up on over optimization.
Google Penalty Checker
Here is my Google Penalty Checker Checklist - a list of things which can get you in trouble in terms of over optimization.

• Don't use the exact same anchor text when creating links back to a page, vary it up a bit with variations and LSI keywords.
• If you are creating lots of links to your site from the same IP address, this tells Google that it's one computer which is spamming, AKA this does not look natural.
• If your website uses one or multiple unscrupulous SEO techniques to boost rankings, Google can catch on to it and punish your site. This includes cloaking, doorway pages, buying links, using spammy link building tools, keyword stuffing, and other unnatural link building techniques.
• Building links too quickly or out of character for your site, meaning you average 5-10 new links to your site each day, then out of nowhere you pick up hundreds or thousands of links the next day.
• Anything which doesn't look natural in terms of SEO. No matter what you're doing when involving SEO with your site, make it (or make it look) as natural possible.

Again, remember that the user comes first in your mind and the search engine second, do this and you'll remain unpenalized and will enjoy rewarding rankings in time.

Don't get left out of the loop (and page one of the SERPs). Acquaint yourself with the important Google ranking factors to learn what exactly Google is looking for to rank a web page high; then refer to this post on LSI keywords for more information on how to effectively create your content.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Paul_M_Ventura

Exactly How to Rank Websites in Google in 2012, Right Now

This is just a short article about Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short and is the most important research that anybody who owns a website, or is thinking of setting up a website should implement on a consistent basis. Most importantly it takes in Keyword research and people should spend a lot of time on this item.
if you're like most people who have websites, you've probably noticed drops in your Google ranking over the past year or so. This maybe because you may have been a bit set in your ways and took your eye off the ball. In this year 2012 it's very important time to re-evaluate your website or sites and examine your SEO strategies for the rest of the year.
If you don't know what Google wants right now and beyond, you can bet other websites are going to outrank you and take the traffic that you could have potentially obtained. I constantly keep learning and I have various mentors that I respect.
You should always try and keep track of all the new ideas that are about and constantly keep researching. Time consuming I know, but worth it.
Here"s my Top Tips for 2012.
Bear in mind we are going back to basics. Treat this article as more of a refresher or beginners course. Apologies to all the SEO experts, this item is probably not for you!
1) When you create a site, make sure you have unique but valuable content. Google loves content. For example if you are starting a blog, just start with a couple of pages, but with plenty of content. This is the first stage as you want to be indexed.
2) As I mentioned earlier, make sure you do your keyword research, not only for main, but secondary key words, using Google's own Free Keyword Tool.
3) In your first post or page make sure you have your main keyword or words and any secondary keywords in the first couple of paragraphs and then spread evenly the words through your post. Aim for 7% to 10% density.
4) Make sure you also have your keywords and relevant keywords in all the correct areas, i.e.: Title, Header, Meta Tags etc.
5) If you are using WordPress, there are some beautiful themes to use, but do not over do it. I personal prefer something simple, even the default theme with its blue header is ideal for some niches, but I want visitors to my sites that can navigate round the pages easily, and find what they want and if interested buy products and services.
6) There are many sites now that offer links free of charge to your site. Obviously linking is important, but you need good quality links, so do not get involved in this, as search engine sites, such as Google, Yahoo etc class this as link spamming and they do not like it. This also goes for cloaking (hiding) links. Avoid!
7) Submit your pages to the most popular search engines and directory sites. It will cost, but it will be worth it in the long term. However do a manual submission, not one of those automated ones.
8) If you are using WordPress (doesn't everyone, for Google loves WordPress) make sure you change the default setting of your URL. You want your keyword in the name, not some horrible number. Log into Dashboard or your domain name/wp-admin and go to settings. Click on permalinks. Select custom structure and enter/%postname%. Save and this will improve your SEO .
I hope you find some of these tips useful for it is so important to keep abreast of new techniques as Google is constantly moving the goal posts.

Hadrian here:
I mentioned my Mentors in the article and these are Brad Callen, of SEO Link Monster fame and George Brown with his Google Sniper program.
For more information and to read all about SEO, free bonuses etc visit my website http://www.seolinkmonster.co.uk.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Hadrian_Royd

Tips on Avoiding a Google Penalty

At times, the smallest of things terrify a website owner more than the odds of being penalized by Google. Lack of conviction and faith is responsible for that fear. Almost nobody is aware of what will amount to violating the rules of this vast search engine. Therefore, most of the genuine webmasters, time and again, accept that a penalty applies even while it does not.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most important outlets of promoting businesses online. However, while conducting these exercises, one important subject that has to be particularly tracked is the way to avoid Google penalties, known as sandboxing.
Google is the most frequently used and favored search engine around the world. Hence, Google optimization is the fundamental element of any SEO strategy. It is therefore vital to take a place in the good books of this search engine. Nevertheless, while searching for top ranking, most individuals fail to see the possibility of incurring penalties on their websites and end up paying large amounts of money for the same. There are a few tips on how to avoid from the problems of Google.
Link with Caution
While placing the links on a website for a different site or vice versa, there should be enough buoyancy about the other domain being engaged in ethical conduct. Very often connections to black hat SEO operators can be the reason for demise. So it is essential to build and place links with caution.
Avoid Cloaking
Cloaking means padding of keywords on a webpage in an effort to make it SEO friendly. With fresh and enhanced etiquette, Google is able to recognize the difference between a genuine page created for users and the one that is meant only for the search engines. Hence, it's best to keep away from such methods.
Error 404
In case there are pages that are missing on a website, there is a huge penalty applied for the same reason. This is because most of the times a website will reroute or sidetrack that page to the Host Site, which can be a bad sign for the search engines because it breaks down the weightage or relevance of the former site.
Last but not the least, it is helpful to look at Google's webmaster guidelines and also have a good amount of access to forums that offer assistance. In this manner, Google penalty can be avoided and ensure that the SEO process runs efficiently. Always remember that Google optimization policies aren't affected because of the wrong reasons.

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=J_M_Dawson

SEO Basics: Learn How to Increase Your Google Page Rank

The Page Rank system at Google is the top search engine's way of determining the value of your website. For example, you will get a higher Page Rank value if you have a large amount of high-quality backlinks in place. Here is a list of 5 different things you can do to increase your Google Page Rank:

Step One - Add Your Site to Google

The best way to get a good ranking at Google is to submit your site to be considered for indexing at the Google.com website.

Step Two - Add Your Site to Directories

There are a number of popular link directories that will provide you with some very relevant, high-quality backlinks that will be used to determine your site's value and Page Rank. You should submit your site to at least 10 different link directories. It should be noted that most link directory listings are checked and added by hand, meaning that it could take months before your site gets listed unless you are willing to pay a fee for more immediate results.

Step Three - Article Marketing

If you are looking to get high-quality backlinks to your site you should consider article marketing. Just by writing a couple of relevant, keyword-rich articles each day and then submitting them to multiple article directories with your website link in the author's signature line will get you some pretty solid traffic.

Create writer's accounts with 5 of the top article directories and then submit at least one article to each site on a daily basis. Once you get going, you'll be amazed at how quickly your backlinks grow. Create articles that are around 500 words long - you don't want it too short, but then again you don't want it so long that people won't bother to read it. Make your articles easy to read and follow by using short paragraphs, bullet lists for quick tips and advice - all of these little extras will make your article stand out and be read.

Step Four - Try Blogging

Another great way to create high-quality backlinks to your site is to build and write your own relevant, keyword-rich blog. Blogs will only work to increase your traffic, however, if you make fresh posts on a daily basis and update the content on the blog regularly.

Step Five - Forum Marketing

Forum marketing helps to put you in direct contact with potential customers, discussing relevant topics and posting your opinions on something related to your products. Join a minimum of 5 forums that focus on a specific niche relevant to your website and post as often as you are able. A goal to shoot for is 3 times each week because you have to keep the momentum of the site going.

Don't forget to add a hyperlink to your website in your custom signature box at the forums, which will allow it to be automatically included at the end of your post every time you make a comment. It is important to note that you should never try to sell anything when you participate in forums, rather your main goal should be to build trustful relationships and, of course, backlinks to your site.

For more information, check out Increasing Google PageRank.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Staz_Johnson

How to Make Sure Your Site Gets Properly Crawled and Indexed by Robots

Search engines have robots that come to your site and grab everything there is to grab. But because competition is so fierce, there is no way to get in the search engines, unless you pay for ads or hire a SEO (Search Engine Optimization) consultant, right? Wrong!

Even if you pay big money, if your site is not properly seen by the robots used by search engines for indexing, chances are many of your pages will never make it.

In this article I will discuss the importance of having your website structured properly, the importance of using the old fashioned hyperlinks versus the modern Flash menus, scripts and extensions and provide you with a very simple and free tool that will allow you to see your site in a similar fashion most indexing robots do. But first, let's define some of the concepts.

What is a www robot?

A robot is a computer program that automatically reads web pages and goes through every link that it finds.

The first robot was developed by MIT and launched in 1993. It was named the World Wide Web Wander and its initial purpose was of a purely scientific nature, its mission was to measure the growth of the web. The index generated from the experiment's results proved to be an awesome tool and effectively became the first search engine. Most of the online stuff we can't live without today was born as a side effect of some scientific experiment.

What is a search engine?

Generically, a search engine is a program that searches through a database. In the popular sense, as referred to the web, a search engine is considered to be a system that has a user search form, which can search through a repository of web pages gathered by a robot.

What is a bot? What is a spider? What is a crawler?

Bot is just a shorter, cooler (for some) version of the word robot. Spiders and crawlers are robots, only the names sound more interesting in the press and within metro-geek circles. For reasons of consistency, I will use the term robot throughout this article, when referring to spiders, crawlers and bots.

Are there other... things that crawl out there?

Oh yeah, but these things are way beyond the scope of this article. Well, for the conspiracy theory aficionados, let's see... we have worms - self-replicating programs, webants (or ants) - distributed cooperating robots, autonomous agents, intelligent agents and many other bots and beasties.

How do robots work?

As with all other things technical, I believe that the only way you will utilize a technology to its full potential and to your best advantage is if and when you understand how that technology works. When I say how it works, I don't mean intricate technical details, but fundamental processes, big picture stuff.

Generally, robots are nothing but stripped down versions of web browsers, programmed to automatically browse and record information about web pages. There are some very specialized robots out there, some that look only for blogs, some that index nothing but images. Many (such as Google's GoogleBot) are based on one of the first popular browsers, called Lynx. Lynx was initially a pure text browser, therefore, in today's internet Lynx would be extremely robust and fast. Basically, if you can program, you can take Lynx, modify it and make a robot.

So how do these things actually work? They get a list of websites, and literally start "browsing" them. They come to your site and then start reading the pages and following every link, while storing different information, such as page titles, the actual text of the page, etc.

Based on the above, what would happen if instead of your beloved Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera or whatever browser you are attached to, you go dig on the internet and download a version of the venerable Lynx browser?

I'll tell you what would happen, and some will probably accuse me of giving away one of the secrets the SEO corporate community does not want you to know:

You will be able to see your site very close to the way a robot sees it. You will be able to look for errors in your pages and track down navigation errors that might block a robot from seeing portions of your site.

In plain English, let's say you built a great looking site. There is an index page, the first page one sees when entering your site. On that page you have the most incredible Flash navigation system, with a huge button pointing to your products and services and the rest of the site. If Lynx goes to your index page and will not see a standard link, it will not be able to see the rest of your site. There are extremely high chances that a lot of indexing robots will not see your site either.

You will then understand why your very large site, that has one of the most intricate and functional Flash based navigation systems on the planet never makes it high into the search engines, even after all your efforts of manually submitting it everywhere. It's simply because you forgot to add basic hyperlinks. It's because when you submit a site - even manually - all that really happens is you telling the search engine "hey, Mr. Search Engine, whenever you think you can find some time, please send your trusty robot to my site".

Folks, robots can't usually use a navigation menu made in Flash, Java script, PHP, etc. and will not be able to get to your pages, it's as simple as that.

How do I get Lynx?

Lynx first started life as a UNIX application, written by the University of Kansas as part of their campus-wide information system. It then became a gopher application (a pre-web search tool), then a web browser. The official page for Lynx is http://lynx.isc.org, however, if you are not a Linux geek, used to play with binary distribution files and used to compiling your own apps (don't worry about what I just said), you might want to find a version that someone else already made usable for your computer. For example, if you are a PC user running Windows, you might want to check links to "Win32 compiled versions". At the time of writing, one such site is http://csant.info/lynx.htm (called a distribution site) where you can download a version that will install onto Windows machines in a fashion that will be familiar to non-geeks. After you install the browser, you might want to read the documentation. To get you going and to alleviate your beginner frustrations, I'll tell you that you must press the G key (as in "go"), then type the complete URL of the site you want to browse (starting with "http://"), then hit Enter. Use the arrows to navigate.

Bottom line, use Lynx to verify that every page of site is accessible and let the robots do all the work for you. You'll save yourself a lot of aggravation and maybe some money that you would waste on advertising your otherwise non-indexable site.

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Andrei co-owns Bsleek - a company that specializes in web design, hosting, promotional items, printing, tradeshow displays, logos, CD presentations, SEO and more. Andrei has amassed an extensive technical knowledge and experience through his career as the CIO for a major travel management company and through his past careers in military research, data acquisition and airspace engineering. He also consults for Trinity Investigations, a New York based PI firm.

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Bsleek - Redefining cheap web hosting [http://www.bsleek.com/hosting/]

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrei_Smith

Get Indexed by Google's Googlebot Right Away, the Right Way

Everyone in the online world knows extremely well that the most sought after traffic to one's site comes from a Google search. Folks, 80% of searches on the internet are done in Google.

In theory, it is simple - if you have something interesting to someone else, if you build a website with the honest to goodness goal to provide something useful for someone else, that someone else will find you. That is also how the creators of Google describe their main goal, to more or less have a great repository of information, and help people of our planet find useful stuff.

In practice, it is not that simple. It is not that simple because there are thousands, possibly even millions of sites like yours, because you might be running a very honest online business, selling some very useful product, but do not have unheard of, exceptionally grand 'content'. If your site is listed on page 265 of a search results set, be sure you will never get any visitors that way.

Unlike Yahoo and others, who rely on human involvement, Google does everything through automation. Websites are indexed (or crawled, or spidered - all terms refer to the same process) by their indexing software called Googlebot. Googlebot looks at websites daily, and rules programmed into the software decide which of your pages make it into the main Google index and which don't. After your site was indexed, whether it was submitted for indexing by a human or the robot just stumbled upon it, your pages are ranked, so Google knows on which page of a search to put your site on, and on what search phrases should your site even be part of the result search.

The Googlebot is very smart and works really well. Keep in mind however, that is just a piece of software, a very sophisticated one, but it's just a computer program. Consequently, it has a set of algorithms (rules) it uses to index web site content (information), a set of capabilities (as I said before, Googlebot is really intelligent) and a set of limitations. As such, there is an impressive number of ways in which one can trip up the Googlebot and make it impossible for it to index your content. Alternately, the Googlebot can index your site well, and then people will find it when searching for words it contains.

This article will try to teach you all the basics necessary to achieve consistency and persistency in Google, starting with the very basic step: getting indexed by Googlebot, Google's indexing robot.

1. Read Google's own Webmaster Guidelines

The people behind Google seem to have two main things down to a science: One, most of their algorithms (rules) are so secret, that all us non-Google employees do is speculate. Two, their guidelines are very simple, direct and precise. Following their guidelines will never hurt your site's ranking. Disregarding their guidelines can and probably will hurt you in the long run. So go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html and read what Google has to say about itself.

2. Have text links.

Make every single page on your site accessible via a text-based link, as opposed to Javascript, Flash, DHTML (Dynamic HTML), etc. Googlebot's native language is text.
Google says: "Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link."

This is probably the number one key to your site's existence in Google. Googlebot is actually a robotic, browser-like software, based on the venerable Lynx browser. The reasoning behind this approach is that the creators are trying to get as close as possible to emulating human browsing, making sure your website is actually human friendly. Consequently, by downloading Lynx on your computer and looking at your site through Lynx (http://lynx.isc.org), you will see more or less exactly the information Googlebot can read and index and the links Googlebot can follow. You will also see HTML errors on your pages and places where a robot would be stuck and could not reach the rest of your site.

I know it is very unfair to those of us who understand and love the potential of websites built completely in Flash, or other engines. However, until the nice folks who run Google figure out a good way to crawl inside a Flash file and extract the appropriate information, we are stuck with standard HTML.

This is not to say that you cannot make your site really pretty and fill it with Java Script and Flash eye candy. But you must have regular text and standard text links. Usually you can achieve the desired effect by having extra navigation menus based on standard text links.

3. Avoid frames.

Avoid frames at all cost. If you must use them (for example to make someone else's page look like it's part of your site), do not use them on your front page.

Frames are like the plague, they sneak up on you. It is incredibly easy to lose Googlebot's tracks inside a badly formatted frameset. You might hear that some of the robots, including Google's Googlebot and Yahoo's Slurp are quickly gaining capabilities to go inside frames properly. My philosophy is, until a feature becomes ubiquitous, if you're uncertain, leave it in the closet.

4. Keep the number of links on a given page less than 100.

This comes straight from Google's Webmaster Guidelines: "Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100)."

This looks more like a suggestion and I am not 100% sure if you get penalized in any way or if Googlebot just stops reading your links after 100. I can however tell you from personal experience that I tried a page with 700 links and it seemed fine. Then one day I tried to view the page from my Blackberry PDA and I got this strange error message saying my page is illegally formatted. After I split the page into several ones with 80 links each, the pages worked on the PDA also.

Who cares about the Blackberry? Well, if you're reading this and your goal is to get visitors, then your main concern should be not to alienate anyone. Remember, today more than ever, people use different devices and different software to access the web. Every visitor is a potential customer. Every employee at a major US lawfirm and many other corporate people use a Blackberry.

Lastly, why would you need that many links on one page anyway? Let's say, for example, that you specialize in promotional products - corporate branded gifts, such as pens, caps, mints and other products (called sometimes 'premiums') imprinted with one's logo. Your name is John Doe, and you decided to name your company JDPromos (not very imaginative, but will do for our examples). You would want to have every item in your catalog as a text link, so every item gets indexed as a link and as a keyword. Also, those who run forums, ezines, blogs, might want to have standard links to their articles, as the software they use might create dynamic links, invisible to certain robots.

5. Give every page a meaningful title.

Give every single page on the site a complete and meaningful title. This is also directly from Google's Webmaster Guidelines. See Rule #1.

Incidentally, for those who are fascinated by the debates on the death of the Meta Tags, the

<title></title>
tag is not a Meta Tag, but a required element for every page.

The "title" tag is supported by every web creation tool out there, and goes in the header of a web page (between the "head" and the "/head" tags).

Google offers the 'allintitle' syntax, which lets users search only text that appears in a page title. A lot of people who integrate a Google bar into their websites allow users to get results only by title. There are over 29 million results returned for Untitled Document.

Most of us - myself included - copy and paste template pages, out of the convenience of not having to recreate all design elements from scratch. If you do so, do not forget to change the title.

Make sure your title is not just a list of keywords and that it is related to the actual content of the page. Google can and will check that, before deciding on your page's 'relevance'.

6. Do not place important text inside images.

Google says: "Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images."

It is very tempting to create images with text inside them, for the very simple reason that as designers, we are not limited to the very few font (type) options that basic HTML allows. Also, different browsers tend to display things differently nowadays, so it is much easier to create a text image, which will be shown consistently and not worry about styles, operating systems, etc.

7. Use descriptive "ALT" tags.

The "ALT" tag is used as a text alternative (hence the name) for images and image links and was designed so that text browsers (such as Lynx) do not just display a generic 'Image' for every picture link you might have. If all your links say 'Image', how would a potential visitor know what they are?

Make sure that the text description is meaningful and accurate. Take our promotional items company as an example. Let's say they have a picture of a tradeshow display, as an example of a service they provide outside the ordinary imprinted mint boxes, calculators and keychains. If the "ALT" tag only says "display", that is what Googlebot will see and index. If the tag says something like "example of a tradeshow display design", that is certainly more useful and more Googlebot friendly.

Please note that although the "ALT" tag does count and Google seems to put a high price on this tag, it ranks lower than plain text.

8. Use meaningful descriptions for links

With the risk of sounding like a scratched CD, I'll have to say this again: Whether you use picture links or text links, please use meaningful text inside your tags so that Googlebot can associate that text with that href link.

In other words, let's pretend again that we are designing that website for that imaginary promotional items company we called JDPromos. If you intend to put a link to a set of sample coffee mugs promos, say something like "link to JDPromos samples of branded coffee mugs", not just "coffee mugs", or even worse, "click here for pictures". Never use link text like "read more" or "go here" or "download it", "click here", "don't click here", you get the picture - I hope.

Don't try to fool the Googlebot with hidden links or duplicate content or irrelevant pages of words like "sex" and "hot girls." The Googlebot doesn't like being played and you will be penalized, one way or another, in the long run.

9. Use a "description" tag for every page

Include a

<meta name="description" content="[insert your site's description here]">

tag in your page header to summarize your site. Use a meaningful one or two sentence description, do not keyword spam.

Even better, include descriptive text on the site's front page where users can actually read it. This text will appear as the description for your site in Google results.

Place more important content higher in the page than less important content in a page, Google does categorize text on a page based on it's position, text at the bottom of a page is considered less important, or 'relevant', to use one of Google's own terms.

10. Use short query strings

Use URLs with query strings sparingly, if at all possible. Query strings are also called dynamic pages. You can usually recognize dynamic pages by the presence of the "?" character. Keep in mind that the shorter the list of query string parameters, the better. Be aware that not every search engine robot can crawl dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.

11. Never use the "&id=" parameter

If you must use query strings, or dynamic pages, never use the "&id=" parameter as part of the string.

I know this might sound ridiculous, as it might be hard or impossible for you not to use the "&id=" parameter, but if you are a programmer and you can change the variable's name, replace "id" with something else. Otherwise, Googlebot will just skip that page.

Google says: "Don't use "&id=" as a parameter in your URLs, as we don't include these pages in our index."

12. Use robots.txt

Use robots.txt to show the Googlebot around your site. This ancient and very standard mechanism for directing well-behaved robots like the Googlebot will allow you to specify places where the robot is not welcome, whether for privacy reasons, or for reasons of avoiding Google penalties. You might want to keep the robot away from your cgi-bin directory and other places you maybe don't want available to the entire searching population of the globe. Remember this is a guideline, not a barrier, robots that are not programmed to comply, will disregard. Bottom line, use the robots.txt to guide Googlebot, but not to enforce strict security.

Google says: "Make use of the robots.txt file on your web server. This file tells crawlers which directories can or cannot be crawled."

13. Make a sitemap

A site map is just a page on your website where you guide your users through the structure of your site. The most basic form of sitemap is a page that lists all of your pages, with a brief description and a link - all text, of course. When you make the sitemap, follow all the rules above and don't forget that the purpose of the sitemap is to guide your human visitor.

Google says: "Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages."

14. Use the Google Sitemaps project

At the time of this writing, the fastest, best and most accurate way to make sure your site is properly crawled and indexed by Googlebot is to participate in the Google Sitemaps project.

In a nutshell, you make a sitemap as an XML page and submit it directly to Google. Google then sends Googlebot to index your site. Besides the speedy free submission, you also get a good amount of statistics and the opportunity to fix potential errors in your site.

Please note that the XML sitemap needed for the Google Sitemap project is intended specifically for Googlebot, and is different from the sitemap described in the previous Rule, which is intended solely for human users.

Also, do not be afraid of XML, Google's sitemap is a very simple text file and they give you all the necessary information and directions at: https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps

Good luck!

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Andrei co-owns Bsleek - a company that specializes in web design, hosting, promotional items, printing, tradeshow displays, logos, CD presentations, SEO and more. Andrei has amassed an extensive technical knowledge and experience through his career as the CIO for a major travel management company and through his past careers in military research, data acquisition and airspace engineering. He also consults for Trinity Investigations, a New York based PI firm.

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Bsleek - Redefining cheap web hosting [http://www.bsleek.com/hosting/]

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrei_Smith

Getting Google to Index Your Website

When you first build a website, it can take anything from several days to weeks and months for search engines to include its pages in their indexes. Certain engines, such as Yahoo!, offer a premium service for sites to appear more quickly, whereas Google has no paid version for site inclusion.

Google's crawler is a process known as GoogleBot, which follows links on sites to discover new content and understand the connection of any given page to the rest of the Internet. GoogleBot then updates Google's indexes accordingly, and once the spider has visited your site, there's nothing you need to do to keep it coming back. GoogleBot will decide based upon your site's size, links and frequency of changing content how often to revisit to check for updates.

Contrary to common belief, there's actually no way to submit your site to Google. Even though they offer a "Submit URL" form, there's no evidence that it causes GoogleBot to view your webpages or has an impact on their crawling whatsoever. But although site submission is not possible, the simplest way to get Google to notice you is to have an inbound link from another site already in Google's index. This works because GoogleBot follows links it discovers, so if you can develop inbound links to your site, it will follow the trail and read your pages.

Another useful tool once you are indexed is Google Webmaster Tools, which allows you to register any site you administer, and provides statistics about how GoogleBot views your site. This can help uncover common problems, such as broken links, missing pages, malware and other issues that can cause your pages to lose rankings in the search engines.

James Beswick is the author of "Ranking #1: 50 Essential Tips to Boost Your Search Engine Results" available on Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1452849900?ie=UTF8&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&qid=1279571154&sr=1-1&linkCode=shr&camp=213733&creative=393177&tag=ekcy-20.

For more information, visit http://ranking-number1.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Beswick

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/4713221

SEO Basics - Don't Get Google Slapped

Trying to keep up with how Google works can be hard work and if you are new to this game, then it could be very frustrating, especially when the big G decides your site is no longer worthy of its position in the search engine rankings. The next thing you know all that free traffic you were getting is gone. You could be doing everything right as far as you know and then bang, that steady flow of traffic has turned into a trickle. Whether you had your SEO basics in perfect order or not, if you don't play by Google's rules then there is a good chance you'll get punished.

SEO Basics A Change is Going to Come

Google makes slight changes to the search and placement algorithms it uses all the time, this is to combat spam and to try to stop people playing the system. Another clever and I would say naturally accruing thing that holds back the spam sites is the fact that any changes you make to your site, like back links or the on-page SEO basics, can take a long time to register. If we placed a link on site-A linking back to our site then Google would have to crawl that page to see the new link and then calculate the importance of that link before making any changes to our sites/pages position. This could take months, so it makes it nearly impossible to measure. I read somewhere that Google looks at around one hundred different variables to determine where it places a page in the rankings. With these variables changing all the time, it makes it impossible to measure exactly what you're doing and the results it is producing. That being said, a few SEO basics have been proven to make a big difference time and time again.

SEO Basics Poor Quality Content

Why would any of Google's customers want to read poor quality content? Why would any of Google customers want to read (try to read) badly spun content? What would you do if you were searching for something and through Google and you landed on page where the content didn't make any sense? I would just hit the back button and look for something else. If I type something into Google, then I want Google to give me good quality relevant results not a load of spam garbage. This is exactly what Google strives to do and that is exactly what they were trying to achieve with the last major algorithm change.

SEO Basics Stick to the Rules

Back in the last week of February Google made one of the biggest changes to its search algorithms to date. If you were unfortunate enough to have bent the rules slightly with the quality of your content then your site or your articles may have been dropped in the search engine rankings or worse, disappeared completely. Some of the big article directory's were hit heavily and as a result they are now very strict on approving articles. Auto blogs, content farms and small websites with weak content were also hit hard. What can we learn from this? The first thing is, you should never have all your eggs in one basket and by that I mean; if the internet is your main source of income or you would like it to be, then spread out your business don't just rely on SEO and Google. Here are some of the rules to stick to, to make sure that no matter what Google does then you'll always have a good chance of staying in the big G's good books.

SEO Basics Rules for Keeping Google Happy

1. First and foremost, use your best content on your site and DON'T reproduce it anywhere else until it has been fully indexed on your site. Google doesn't punish duplicate content; it just won't show it in the search results. What I mean is, this article that you're reading now will get published, then once Google has indexed it can then be taken and published in an article directory. Google has already seen that this one was the original and so when someone searches for one of these keywords they will find this page and not the article in the directory. I will get visitors from the article directory though because they will find it surfing around the article directory. The main lesson here is writing the best content you can for your site, give you readers what they are looking for and not some rehashed garbage that doesn't make sense.

2. Make sure your site has all the Pages required for which you choose to monetizing your site. The main page to have is a privacy policy page and if you are selling affiliate products then you need to also have an affiliate disclosure page. A contact page will look good to Google as it proves that you not hiding from anyone.

Good quality, user-friendly, interesting content that your readers want to link to. Add to that some well-organized SEO basics and Google will love you for it.

I don't think many people even consider how Google works but when you think about what it is that search engines like Google are trying to achieve from a business point of view then it can make understanding Seo Basics a lot easier.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Richard_Ariadne_Webber

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6363042

Surviving Google's Aging Delay

Google has always been the search industry's innovator and that's just what Google's aging delay symbolizes, the evolution of search innovation... yet another significant step forward for Google.

Google's success as a search engine can undeniably be attributed to its ability to consistently return the most relevant search engine results. That's what kept the search giant on top of the pack and leading the multi-billion dollar search industry & that's what's going to keep them there!

Now that said, is it any wonder why Google incorporated the infamous aging delay into their ranking criterion? The simple truth is, Google's aging delay is a full frontal assault on artificial link inflation.

With the induction of multiple clever off-page reciprocal-linking strategies engineered to artificially inflate link popularity and PageRank, Googles aging delay wasn't only necessary and long overdue; it was the next logical step in the evolution of search.

The confusion and misunderstanding of the aging delay among site owners is nothing short of amazing. Many of my clients are confounded because their new sites are well positioned in Yahoo, MSN & the other large search engines while they're site is no where to be found in Google's search engine result's pages (SERPs)... except for perhaps on the most obscure search terms.

Current and unconfirmed speculation has been misplacing the blame on Google's 'sandbox' effect. While this is a possibility I believe it's also highly improbable.

The sandbox holding period is typically anywhere between 90 to 120 days, the aging delay appears to be much longer. I've seen new sites delayed for up to 6-8 months.

The premise of the sandbox delay theory suggests that new sites are being penalized for gaining too many links too fast. To date I haven't seen a scrap of evidence to support that claim.

The sandbox theory is further disproved by the fact that newer sites engaged in procuring relevant links experience the same delay in climbing Google's SERPs as other new sites utilizing scores of purchased text links. This lends credibility to my thought that new sites are not being penalized on the premise of acquisition or quantity of inbound links and; supports my theory that it's the reciprocated links that are being delayed by an aging filter.

It just doesn't seem 'reasonable' for Google to penalize sites for acquiring legitimate directory listings & building an optimized reciprocal link based network. In my opinion, mainstream SEOs are confusing the existing sandbox effect, with Google's new 'aging filter' that arrived on the search scene earlier this year.

It seems more likely that Google's aging filter is weighing the 'maturity' of inbound links and not the new site itself. Meaning that in addition to the traditional ranking criterion, the age of a sites inbound links are also now considered.

My own theory is that newly acquired inbound links are placed on a 'probationary' status until they've 'matured' before they're considered. For example, a new and relevant inbound PR 6 link would not be given the same weight or consideration as a 'grandfathered' PR 6 link until the aging delay expired.

By placing newly acquired links on a probationary period and delaying the ranking of newer sites Google has effectively offset the instant free ride to the top of their SERPs. Purchasing volumes of brokered links to that end is now a moot point. After all, your site will still be delayed regardless of the amount of links you purchase and you won't see any return on investment (ROI) for at least 6 - 8 months.

Existing Site owners interested in immediate (ROI) are now strongly motivated to build new pages or expand existing sites in order to avoid Googles lengthy aging delay. With the 'all-the-rage' mini-network strategy shifting to more of a long-term commitment it seems likely that's exactly what will happen!

Whether by clever design or not, the only alternative to riding out the aging delay that produces immediate results in Googles SERPs is to advertise through Google's AdWords Program. So it seems that Google's solution vis-à-vis the aging delay has turned out to be an excellent vehicle to promote Googles own AdWords Program as well. Hmm...

How do you survive Google's aging delay? By taking pro-active action!

I haven't seen any new sites with new domains appear at the top of Google's (SERPs) since early to mid 2004. I've consulted with and tracked many of my clients' new sites and despite the fact they have hundreds of #1 positions in Yahoo, Alta Vista, AllTheWeb & MSN for their keywords I've yet to see any remarkable results in Google until the 6 - 8 month period.

The trend I've noticed suggests that new sites are initially indexed; ranked accordingly in Google's SERPs for a week or so and then literally vanish from the SERPs for several months. In most cases they can't even be found with the most obscure search terms... including their own name and address.

If you're launching a new site don't panic. Once you've registered your domain name and configured the hosting, you should set up a few temporary pages. Obtain links to them from other sites in Google's index to start the aging delay count down. I recommend launching a site immediately with enough content to set up and facilitate the requirements for directory listings to start. The sooner Google is aware of your domain the better. Just don't hold your breath waiting to see results... It could be as long as 6 - 8 months!

Gauge your optimization efforts by where your site ranks in the other search engines. Provided you're not engaged in unethical practices and followed Google's Webmaster's guidelines this should give you a ballpark indication of where Google will rank your site after the aging delay, just be patient.

To that end, don't keep tweaking and changing your pages source code and trying to manipulate your rankings until your site has been in Google's index for at least 6 - 8 months. In other words, there's no need to reinvent the wheel here because it doesn't seem to matter what you do, your site will still be delayed regardless.

Don't keep submitting your pages to Google either! It won't make any difference.

Check your server logs to confirm Googlebots' crawl and then forget about it. Googlebot will find your site again if you're actively reciprocating links so your time would be better served building an optimized reciprocal link network to get your site out there and linked to as early as possible.

If traffic from Google is crucial to your marketing and promotion plan, and I don't know anyone who would argue otherwise... budget to run an AdWords campaign for a few months until the site is indexed and positioned. You might even consider running an Overture campaign as well!

If you purchase non-directory links, reallocate that budget to Adwords advertising.

It's pointless to purchase links when you can invest in an AdWords or Overture campaign. Purchasing links is an investment you won't see a red cent ROI for at least 6 - 8 months while an Adwords campaign will drive targeted traffic to your site that can convert immediately. Keep in mind that Lycos, HotBot, AOL, Ask Jeeves, Iwon, Netscape & Teoma also receive paid results from Google! MSN, AllTheWeb, AltaVista & Yahoo receives paid results from Overture.

Do other search engines have an aging delay?

Google provides primary search results to other search engines. It only seems reasonable to expect that your site may be delayed in Google's partner sites as well.

One-way you may be able to work around this, and I can't emphasize this enough; is to make sure you submit your site to DMOZ, the open source directory. Google, in addition to the other major engines, receives directory results directly from DMOZ.

Yahoo and its partner sites don't seem to be utilizing an aging delay, nor does MSN, so focusing your early efforts on these search engines might give you a competitive edge in the Yahoo network.

At the end of the day when it's all said and done surviving Google's aging delay is just a matter of time. The days of purchasing instant link popularity and PageRank are over and in due course you will see Google give your site the recognition it deserves.

Copyright 2005 Lawrence Deon

Lawrence Deon is a Search Engine Optimization/Marketing Consultant, Author and Developer of the popular search engine optimization and marketing model Ranking Your Way To The Bank. http://www.rankingyourwaytothebank.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lawrence_Deon

Why Anchor Text Could Be The Most Important Aspect Of SEO

Anchor text is perhaps one of the most important aspects of Search Engine Optimization but it is also one of the least talked about. This one element of SEO is important to understand because it can help your page get ranked for a target keyword and also help you evaluate your competition more precisely. The latter is critical and, in fact, if you don't take the text in backlinks into proper consideration when looking at the competition for a keyword you could be missing out on some hidden gems that are easy to rank for.

What Is Anchor Text?

This is the hyperlinked text you see on a webpage. It is the visible words that you can click to take you to another page. Anchor text HTML code looks like this:

<a href="http://www.yoursite.com">Your Anchor</a>

On most websites, you typically see this as blue text that is underlined and when you click on it with your mouse, you are taken to the corresponding URL.

How Bloggers Use It

Bloggers and website owners use anchors naturally to point to other pages on their website as well as pages on other sites that they find relevant to what they are blogging about. You've probably even done this yourself when writing a post where you referenced another post on your site, an affiliate product or even a post on another site.

Usually a blogger will use a phrase that indicates what the page is about in the anchor, as opposed to a URL, so that the sentence reads correctly.

The anchor text in these links helps both the visitor and the search engine spiders figure out what the 'linked to" page is about.

How Search Engines Use It

Search engines use this text to help them figure out what the hyperlinked page is about. So, as you can see, getting anchor text backlinks with relevant phrases in the anchor is pretty important if you want the search engines to rank you for a particular keyword phrase.

In fact, anchor text is such an important factor in ranking a page that pages can rank for a keyword phrase even when that phrase does not appear in the URL on on the page!

There are several cases where this has happened, but perhaps the most famous is where the Adobe Reader download page ranked #1 for the search term "click here" for many years even though those words were nowhere on the page. So many people had linked to that page using the text "click here" that it got to the #1 spot without any on page SEO for the term.

Search engines place a large importance on external anchor text (links coming in from other sites) and some importance on internal text (links from within your own site) when ranking a page so it stands to reason that you should make getting anchor text backlinks with your target keyword phrases a priority.

One important thing to note is that it is widely thought that if two links on the same page target the same URL, that only the first link is counted by Google so you want to be sure that you use your desired text in that first link.

How This Is Important When Judging Competition For A Keyword

If you think about how important anchor text is to the search engines when determining ranking for a keyword, then it's easy to see why it is a critical component of analyzing the competition for a particular keyword phrase.

Google even provides you with a search operator to do this - the allinanchor operator. You can use it by typing the following into the Google search bar:

Allinanchor:"your keyword phrase"

This will return the pages which have anchor text pointing to it that contain the quoted keyword phrase.

I hope you can see how powerful this is - first of all, Google must think it is an important element of a page because it provides the allinanchor operator. Just the existence of the operator would seem to indicate that it uses the anchor text when deciding what a page is about and ranking it. Secondly, using this operator will show you which pages are optimizing for your chosen keyword phrase!

It makes sense that only the pages that have anchor text backlinks with your phrase are the ones optimizing for it so you can forget about searching for your phrase in quotes or any of that non-sense. Not only that but, you can take a look at the actual backlinks for each of your competitors and see how many of them have that anchor text and what the strength of those links are to make a more educated guess as to how difficult they will be to beat out for that top spot.

Anchor Text "Best Practices" For Your Website

Now that you know how important anchor text is to your rankings, I'm sure you will want to pay more attention to it in your SEO efforts but you don't want to go hog wild and create tons of anchor text backlinks all with the same keyword phrase or you might find that your efforts don't yield the results you want. Here are some things to consider:

1. Vary Your Anchor Text - We all know that Google prefers it when people link to you naturally and when that is the case, they don't all use the same text when linking. So, when you are linking to your site from your articles or web2.0 properties you want to make sure you don't always use the same phrase as well. Using your target phrase in about 50% - 60% of the links is probably a good idea.

2. Links From Relevant Pages - For the best results, you want your backlinks to come from pages that are related to the topic because this is what would happen naturally if people were linking to you because you had great content it would most likely be from a blog post on the same topic.

3. First Link On Page - Don't forget that Google only counts the text from the first link that it sees so if you will have more than one link to the same URL on a page, act accordingly.

4. Plan For Natural Linking - There's nothing better than having people just naturally link to one of your posts but, of course, you can't control the anchor text they use when they do. Since most people will naturally use your headline for linking, you want to be sure to consider that when coming up with the title for your blog posts.

Anchor text is crucial to both your SEO efforts as well as when analyzing the competition for a keyword phrase. Taking the time to use it properly can be the difference between ranking in the top 3 and not ranking at all so it's in your best interest to use this important aspect of SEO wisely!

Anchor text plays a key role in SEO but there are many methods of backlinks to consider for your website promotion efforts. To find out about some of the most effective methods, I recommend my Free Website Promotion Blueprint guide which will reveal an easy to use blueprint for getting more traffic to your website. Also, check out my article on how to use anchor text backlinks to do better competition analysis that will help you nail a top spot in Google with little effort.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lee_Anne_Dobbins

SEO Traffic Models - Yahoo Search Engine Vs Bing

There's much recent debate in the media and in the court of popular opinion regarding the use of relevant content by the search engine Google for the sole purpose of sending spam. Instead of showing relevant search results, Google is pitted against its search engine rivals who are against dishing up a serving of spam with every search. The question becomes, are Yahoo and Bing failing in the search engine wars because they aren't using the same trick to show spam instead of delivering results based on relevant algorithms?

Of course, the biggest difference in the amount of SEO traffic between Yahoo and Bing is that each company employs a different interface technique for queries. The algorithm is a formula that determines the success or failure for that matter of certain relevant keywords. The search engines, Yahoo and Bing are engaging in a different war against each other using fair business practices by taping the keywords to drive traffic based on their unique algorithms. Unfortunately for Yahoo, so far, Bing is winning.

It may appear that there is a bias against Yahoo Search. But, this isn't the case. However, there's a discrepancy in Yahoo's organic search results and Bing results which are driven by the query. Bing has carved out a unique identity by filtering out what users don't want to see out of the search results and presenting to them a wide range of choices. The fallout is that Yahoo doesn't drive SEO traffic because thus far the search engine hasn't kept pace with its competitors. Bing is carving out a niche that is going to have a direct impact on the way Google does business. They are producing larger volumes of traffic for websites based upon a unique formula, delivering relevant results without spam.

When it comes down to it, there are two things that make or break a website in the search engine rankings it is algorithms, which function according to relevant content, and keywords. Bing is driving more SEO traffic because they are discarding spam tricks and bypassing irrelevant keywords and under-performing websites and are giving users exactly what they want-organic search results.

A recent analysis of search engine users revealed the demographics of the average user is between 20-40 years of age. This is an unusually wide range, considering that queries are made worldwide, Bing is receiving more search queries and therefore driving more SEO traffic than Yahoo, and there has been a significant increase in this pattern since the beginning of 2011. What does this mean? Well, simply put Bing is getting more users from the each age group, meaning that users in their 20s, 30s and 40s are currently using Bing as their preferred search engine.

Bing's current popularity may be credited to their large media presence with television and online advertising that is building an image for them as the "decision engine." Yahoo is slipping from view because there aren't any targeted ads that are directing SEO traffic and attracting new users.

Fred Meek is a professional Austin SEO consultant in Austin Texas.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Fred_Meek

What is Organic SEO?

Organic SEO Rankings Can Increase Web Visibility by 67%

Organic SEO is the procedure of getting your website ranked high in the Search Engine 1-10 positions on Google, Yahoo, AOL, & now Bing. Each Search Engine calls for a different SEO Process, but if you Optimize your website for Google, then that is a great start.

SEO / Search Engine Optimization can be very complex and will involve many fundamentals for good rankings on the Search Engines. We have outlined a few. Each Optimization process ties into each other. One of the most important factors that we have found as an SEO company is doing the correct research on the company we take on, such as knowing their industry, competing companies, location, target market, and the correct layout of our clients website, which plays a major role in how we Optimize their website.

Once we have ran a few SEO Stress Test on our clients website then we will proceed with the research and begin to build a SEO Blue Print with a some basic steps that we have follow to obtain high Organic Rankings via the Search Engines. Below are some basics and a brief explanation of what they mean, without getting into to much SEO jargon.

Search Engines will look for these pieces of information located in the websites source coding. Since Search Engine Robots/Spiders can not read images they follow html code.

Keywords- Are what you would like your website to rank on the Search Engines when a prospect types in a word or a long-tail stream of words. Looking and adding the right keywords to your website source code calls for extensive research on your competition, GEO targeting your prospects, and what a prospect will type in. There are may elements to keyword research, it used to be a 1 to 3 keyword term was the best now studies show 3 to 6 words per keyword is the best option now. Most Searchers are starting to use Questions, Area Codes, Zip Codes, Cities, Counties, States, and then some. Selecting the right terms for your website will make or break your SEO Process.

Meta Tags- Meta elements provide information about a given Web page, most often to help search engines categorize them correctly. They are inserted into the HTML document, but are often not directly visible to a user visiting the site. Typical Meta info is Title, Keywords, & Description. Since the Search Engines do not weight results completely on Meta Tags because of the abuse from some SEO Companies, you have to add other Optimization procedures to the SEO process.

Website Content- Well looks pretty self explanatory, on the other hand it is not. Search Engines do require good and precise content that is written for the end user which is a prospect for you. Most Search Engines will ask that a web page consist of about 1000 words. Now here is the tricky part, how do you develop keyword density that is written for the Search Engines but also for the prospect. Search Engines have become smarter than most SEO Companies would like to thing. If SEO Companies had content that was not keyword stuffed or with hidden keywords on the web page then we would not have this problem. There is a formula that calls for keyword density that depends on the amount of content VS. how much value a keyword has. This means that keywords have to be used a certain amount within the content and placed in the right spots located n the web page. Not as simple as just writin content for your website.

Header Tags- The to tags are used to define HTML headings. defines the largest heading and defines the smallest heading. Header tags are the outlines of the web pages which portrays the attention of the significant information to the users. Are those areas on a web page enclosed by heading tags. example: Position Masters (heading tags vary in weight (size & density) depending on the status of the heading or sub-heading, ie, H1,2,3,4. They are part of HTML language.

Alt Tags -Text that accompanies an image. If a user has the browser set not to display images, or is using a screen reader, they will rely on this text to tell them what the image is. The text can be seen when hovering the mouse over the image, or is read out in the case of a screen reader. This is very important is you have a website that has a lot of images. Since Search Engines read text and code having Alt Tags are essential so the Search Engines can pick up what the image is and also will add to keyword density in the source code.

Above are just a VERY FEW basic steps to follow. Search Engine Algorithms are very tricky and constantly changing. We have done Organic SEO for many different types of companies and we have successfully Organically Ranked them all.

SEO / Organic SEO is an Art and a Process that we take pride in. Once we have Optimized your website the fun starts. The purpose of you have a website is so that many prospects see & use your services or buy your products. I hope that this has shed a little light on a subject many do not understand

Lyle Hawkins

Organic SEO Professional & Social Media Consultant

Owner http://www.Searchenginesurgeon.com

Lyle@Searchenginesurgeon.com

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The Truth About Backlinks and Getting on the First Page of Google

Those of us that make our living on the internet know that page rank in the major search engines are important. We also know that Google is the king of all search engines and getting on the first page of Google increases your chances of getting targeted visitors to your web sites.

Search engine optimization is something that should be balanced and you should have many different avenues for Google and the other search engines to find you. I'd like to cover the backlink theories.

Many people think that the more backlinks you have, the higher in the rankings you will be and the search engines will eat that up. In a sense, that is true and in another sense that is false. I own about 15 sites and one has about 33,000 backlinks. No kidding, it's got more backlinks than Bill Gates has dollars but it's not on the first page of Google.

In this particular instance, that's not much of an issue for me because I get about 400 unique visitors daily and the site generates a nice little revenue stream for me and it only takes about 20 minutes a day to maintain.

I have another site that has only about 800 backlinks and it's on the first page of Google for several keywords. It's a competitive niche and this site makes me some real nice money... time to manage about an hour a week.

What's the difference? The quality of the backlinks. The first site I talked about was one I bought all set up and the previous owner thought that all those back links would get him rankings. Not.

The second site I set up and developed... it's less than 5 months old, is a PR2 and is on the first page of Google for 8 different keywords because of the quality of the backlinks. I have it linked to high PR sites using those competitive keywords and my url imbedded in the keywords.

Much less work, much better ranking on Google and much more revenue because of the quality of the backlinks, not the quantity.

Want your site on the first page of Google?

Be willing to spend about 15 - 20 minutes a day putting your information on PR5 sites and next thing you know, you'll be ranked on the first page of Google!

Will Stone owns and runs several web sites and has been involved in helping others get highly ranked with the search engines. Click here for a High PR Backlinks [http://backlinks.theleadsource.net] or to learn more about what Will Stone offers take a look at his Search Engine Optimization [http://theleadsource.net] site. It has always been important for one to optimize your site and although there are many ways to get highly ranked with the search engines, Will's techniques are second to none.

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Rank High On Google: How To Increase Google Ranking

Welcome back, I'm George Tiganus and today I will tell you some things about how to rank your website higher on the first page of Google search results. Ranking high with the search engines is what brings the traffic to your website, and if your website shows up in the first results for the keywords people are searching for, this is good for business!

Traffic means money!

So let's go ahead and briefly talk about the SEO concept. SEO is the acronym for Search Engine Optimization, and that's what gets you the high ranks on Google and other search engines. This kind of optimization depends on various aspects, and we will discuss some of them, so that you can understand what they mean and how you can make them work for you.

If I were asked which is the most important factor to improve your Google Rankings, I would definitely say BACKLINKING.

But what exactly is backlinking?

First up, think about some restless machines always scrutinizing the information on every website in existence.

This is exactly what the search engines are designed to do. They look at the content of websites and rank them by relevance of that content to the website's keywords. But there's much more than just the information you have on your website's pages. For every subject you can imagine, including the one your website is about, there could be thousands or millions of other sites.

One other sign that a website relevant to the subject it deals with is if it's referenced externally via links. Out of two sites on the same topic, the one that is referenced through more links over the internet will be considered more helpful for the users looking for info on that topic.

These are called, incoming links, inbound links or backlinks and they refer people from other sites to yours. The more quality your website has, the more backlinks you are supposed to get.

Google thinks of a link coming from some other website to your website as a vote and this is why backlinking plays a huge role on the way Google sets their rankings.

Think about Wikipedia and how they always show up within the first results for almost any search. Why do you think that is? 75,000,000 domain backlinks!!! (I know it is insane, but it's TRUE!)

So now you know the importance of backlinks, but it is more important to know HOW to get them for your own website.

There are several ways to do that and the most common are:

- reciprocal links - links between two websites to ensure mutual traffic
- forum links - using signature links on forums
- commenting on blogs - go to high ranked blogs and add a link to your comment
- links from other pages, such as video sharing websites, article directories etc.

Naturally, the more such backlinks your site has,the higher it will be ranked on search engines. But pay attention, this doesn't mean you should buy some automatic tool and just get 1000 backlinks per day. Bulding up backlinks at an unnaturally high rate or speed is suspect and Google has a very low tolerance of spam, going to such lengths as penalizing or even banning websites!

George Tiganus is an expert author providing valuable information on how to increase Google Ranking for any website. His MLM Training Secrets rise the successful building of an online business to new standards of efficiency.

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Google Page Rank Explained

Page Rank (PR) is an algorithm used by Google to compute the relative importance of a particular webpage on the internet and assign it a numeric value from 0 (least important) to 10 (most important). This value is calculated through an iterative analysis of the backlinks to the webpage. If webpage A links to webpage B then webpage B would receive 1 "vote" towards their page rank.

Fact: Page Rank is calculated on a webpage by webpage basis not on a website by website basis

The importance of the webpage casting a vote and the total number of outgoing links on the webpage casting a vote are the primary factors which determine how much "voting share " this webpage will transfer to each of the outgoing links on them. Google calculates a webpage's page rank by adding up all of the "voting shares " for that webpage through an iterative calculation.

Page Rank is one of the factors Google utilizes to help determine their Search Engine Ranking Positions (SERP's). It should be noted that this algorithm is only one part of their overall ranking scheme and not necessarily the most important one as many website's would have you believe. The general internet user has no idea about the concept of page rank and are unable to tell what a particular page's PR is unless they have the Google Toolbar installed (or use an online page rank checker). Since page rank is part of Google's search ranking algorithm an understanding of the concept is still important for any webmaster concerned with getting traffic to their site.

Fact: Not all links pointing to a webpage are counted as votes for that webpage

As soon as Google introduced the concept of page rank unsavory webmasters developed ways to manipulate the rankings. These webmasters began creating web pages with the sole purpose of increasing the amount of incoming links pointing to their website.

Common Black Hat SEO Techniques:

• Link Farms - pages containing long lists of unrelated links set up for the sole purpose of manipulating search engine rankings and page rank
• Doorway Pages - orphaned webpages either on the same website or distributed throughout the internet stuffed with keywords containing links to the offender's site. Used to artificially inflate the back link count for a website.
• Free For All Links Pages - a type of link farm where, as the name implies, anyone is free to post their link. Once a valuable way to spread the word about your website, abuse through auto submissions has rendered these sites worthless and are now viewed as search engine SPAM.
• Automated or Hosted Link Exchanges - sites that offer to provide "hundreds" of back links to your site instantly. Generally you will have to install some html code on your website to display their directory and in return anyone else who has this code installed on their website will be displaying your link. This is a case where "if it sounds too good to be true it is". The search engine's are wise to this technique and watch for unnatural "spikes" in the number of backlinks pointing to a website. In actuality it is possible to inflate your page rank with this technique but if the search engine's wise up to your practices (and they always do eventually) you risk being dropped from their index or black holed in their rankings.

How is Page Rank Calculated?

When Google introduced the concept of page rank they published the algorithm they were going to use to calculate it. The formula in it's current form is known only to the engineers at Google but it is fair to say it closely resembles the following formula.

PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + ... + PR(tn)/C(tn))

While at first glance this equation can seem daunting, in actuality the concept is not that hard to understand. Let's take a minute to break down the formula and see what conclusions can be drawn.

PR(t1)...PR(tn) - the page rank (PR) of each page from page t1 to tn. (each value of t represents 1 link to webpage A)

C(t1)...C(tn) - the number of outgoing links (C) on each page from page t1 to tn

d - damping factor

Quoting from the original Google Page Rank white paper:

The parameter d is a damping factor which can be set between 0 and 1. We usually set d to 0.85.

Knowing what these parameters mean and knowing the value of the damping factor we can simplify the formula from above:

PR(A) = 0.15 + 0.85*(A "share" of the PR of every webpage linking to page A)

The "share" each webpage passes to webpage A can be computed by dividing the Page Rank of the webpage linking to page A by the number of outgoing links on that page. Each outgoing link on that page would receive an equal voting share from the total available page rank of the page containing the outgoing link. The total available page rank each webpage has available to transfer to outgoing links is a little less than the total page rank of that page (PR of page * 0.85) which can be easily derived when the damping factor is known.Implications

Having a basic understanding of the algorithm we can now draw a few conclusions about page rank and it's implications to your website. For instance, it is very possible to have a link on web page X that has a high page rank transferring less page rank voting shares to your website than a link on web page Y with a lower page rank.

How is this possible?
Let's analyze an example:

Page X - page rank 4, outgoing links 10

Page Y - page rank 8, outgoing links 100

Page X would transfer 0.85(4/10) = 0.34 page rank voting shares to each outgoing link

Page Y would transfer 0.85(8/100) = 0.068 page rank voting shares to each outgoing link

Even though Page X has a much lower page rank value, due to the fact that the number of outgoing links on Page X is so much smaller than on Page Y it actually transfers more page rank voting shares to each outgoing link than Page Y .

Pages with no links back to them would still have a modest page rank value of 0.15 derived from the (1-d) portion of the equation. It is important to note that while this value holds true according to the equation, only Google engineers are privy to the knowledge of whether actual page rank voting share is transferred in this scenario. Google could easily say that pages with no incoming links transfer a page rank voting share of 0 with a click of a mouse and no one would know for sure except them.

Fact: The Google Toolbar displays Page Rank as a base 10 log scale that is not the "actual" result of the Page Rank calculation

The average page rank of all pages in the index is 1. It is possible to have an "actual" page rank value in the millions or much smaller than 1 using the page rank formula but the Google toolbar only displays integers from 0 - 10 on it's pr meter. Only Google knows how the scale is split up and where the basepoints for each level are. For example, it may take an actual page rank of 10,000 using the formula above to achieve a page rank of 4/10 on the toolbar scale.

Page Rank in Complex Networks

The example above does not actually duplicate a real world example since it is only computing the page rank "voting share" of the ffa page in an idealized situation where the page rank of the page is already known. In complex networks with links in and links out of webpages the actual page rank for a webpage cannot be known due to the interdependencies each web page has on one another to calculate their page rank.

Think of it as a "chicken and the egg" situation. The problem can be solved by taking a best initial guess for the page rank value of each webpage in the network and plugging it into the page rank formula. The results of these calculations are then used to calculate the next incremental page rank values for the webpages in the network. This calculation is repeated over and over again until the page rank value approaches a limit. This limit is then the actual page rank for that page. In a complex network like the internet finding the page rank for all webpages can take millions of iterations.

Click here [http://www.iprcom.com/papers/pagerank] for more detailed examples and an online page rank calculator

It is also worth noting that when a webpage transfers page rank voting shares to another webpage the page rank of the contributing page is not reduced in any way. There is no actual page rank transfer, only a weighted "vote" is passed to the outgoing links.

Links on webpages with a high page rank and little or no other outgoing links on them but yours will provide the best opportunities to improve your page rank (if that is your goal and it shouldn't be, link for traffic not pr). Make sure to work on your site content and design before approaching other webmasters for links. The bottom line is you need to have a site worth linking to in order to get people to link to it.

Resources

Google Page Rank Whitepaper

Complex Page Rank Examples including Calculations [http://www.iprcom.com/papers/pagerank]

Michael Lawrence is a University of Waterloo Engineering Graduate. Currently his projects include the Cobrasurf SEO Directory [http://www.cobrsasurf.org] and SEO Web Guide [http://www.seowebguide.com/]

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