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

Increase Search Engine Ranking Through Page Rank

Organic search engine ranking should be a key component of your SEO (search engine optimization) efforts. There are a wide variety of techniques available for increasing rankings. These include submitting articles, creating blogs, and web 2.0 properties that include your key words and a link back to your site. But how do you know which sites will be advantageous to your SEO efforts.

What is Page Rank?

Page Rank, or PR, for short plays and important role when linking back to your site. PR is a number from 0 to 10. 10 being highest quality and 0 having no page rank value. Sites with 4 and above are normally considered high quality back links. While those with 6 and above are very sought after for creating backlinks (linking back to your site).

Finding the PR of a site can be some what involved. However, there are services that do provide this information. Normally lists are available that categorize sites by topic or type. For example, a list ordered by topic might include real estate or credit repair. A list ordered by type may include blogs, web 2.0 properties, or article directories.

As high page rank sites link back to your site, it will become more important to search engines. Assuming you have good content, you should with time see the PR of your site begin to increase. As your page rank increases, it will propel your site higher in search results for your keyword. Also, as your domain ages, it will help to increase your page rank.

Supplement PR With Common SEO Techniques

Of course, you should still use common SEO techniques as outlined above for articles, blogs and web 2.0 properties. Additionally, relevant keywords in the content of your site, your url (especially domain) will also help increase your site's page rank. In regards to keywords, it is important to focus on the same keywords for all of your backlinking and website content. Having backlinks and website content focused on the same keywords will help focus your SEO, which search engines like.

Just as good website content is important to getting better rankings, good content is also important when submitting articles, creating blogs and web 2.0 properties. Search engines will look at where your keywords are embedded in the content, and relevance of surrounding content. You don't want to have your only keywords next to a buy now button. Search engines will rank this type of density lower. Try not to take short cuts or play games with search engines and they will reward you.

To learn more about how page ranks can benefit in increasing search engine ranking, please visit http://www.eincreasesearchengineranking.com

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

Discover How High PR Backlinks Can Boost Your Rankings

Backlinks contribute to the major share of the success of your website. That is why people are constantly in search for such high PR links. These links will effectively improve your search engine rankings. However, there are significant difference between good backlinks and bad backlinks. A good backlink can be identified by its endurance. The longer a backlink exist, the more valuable it is. A link that exists more than a year is more valuable than a link that exists for one month and will provide more PR value.

An analysis of Google algorithm will show that a website that provides irrelevant backlinks will be ignored by Google. Also, if a particular backlink is found to violate search engine regulations, then that too can be a cause for low backlink value. Backlinks having less PR value are also useless. Such backlinks will not be crawled by Google. Hence, high quality backlinks are what you need for your website.

But how do you get High PR Backlinks?

In order to get high PR backlinks you must first of all know what high quality backlinks are constituted of. Strong backlinks can be obtained from websites with page rank value of 4 to 7. There are several standard networks through which people can get high quality backlinks. If your site is linked with that particular website, then you can easily receive strong backlinks. This will significantly increase your website rankings.

The first major step is therefore finding the PR of the particular website. Today, it is not at all difficult to find the PR of a website. Numerous websites are out there which will give you access to SEO tools. These tools will help you with graphical representation of the website page ranking. Any website with a PR above 4 can be considered as a top ranking website. You can select a particular link building package from these websites and effectively improve your search engine rankings.

Providing appropriate tags is one way of getting quality backlinks from a high PR website. Also analyze social networking sites and try to get your site into one of these. However, submitting your website to a social networking site can be a pretty difficult process. Providing relevant tags is one method by which you can get attention from these sites. No matter what you do, never receive outdated backlink services from link exchanges or reciprocal links. These are pretty outdated and search engines do not promote such services anymore.

Search marketing practitioner Sheldon Smith is a SEO Link building expert who helps increase Internet Marketers, Webmastes and Online Business websites rankings and now he is uncovering exactly how you can obtain an endless supply of high pr backlinks that will help increase SEO rankings in all of the major search engines. Anyone who is looking for high pr backlinks to help build your websites authority simply log onto http://contentgenius.com

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

Is HomePage PageRank Important In SEO?

High HomePage PageRank (HPR) does not ensure high positioning of webpages competing for a keyword but if a website does not have sufficient HPR for that keyword, it will have no chance of top page positioning on Google.

Keyword Difficulty and Keyword Difficulty Programs

Keyword difficulty is an indication of the strength of competing websites for a keyword.

There are a number of keyword difficulty programs. With one recent exception, the scoring systems have been unspecified with no means to identify the competitive strength of a website competing for a keyword. Before entering any competition, it is advisable to know your strength relative to that of your opponents.

As search engine optimisation (SEO) involves a competition for keywords, optimizers need means to identify keyword difficulty and a credible way to determine the competitive strength of a website that might wish to compete for that keyword. High quality SEO is the scientific application of search engine approved methods to increase targeted traffic to a website.

The Crucial Interim Step for SEO Success.

The majority of SEO and keyword related programs imply that any website can successfully compete for any chosen keyword and they suggest a two step process:

• Choose your keywords
• Optimise your webpages for all those keywords.

The author takes the view that there is a crucial interim step that has not been previously discussed in the literature. That interim step is the identification of those keywords that a website has even a chance of top page positioning on a search engine results page (SERP) and in particular the top Google SERP.

SEO involves time, effort and usually financial expense. If no attempt is made to focus SEO efforts on keywords that are within range for a website most of these efforts will be wasted chasing rainbows. There is no value in competing for keywords that are well out of range for a website having any chance of reaching the top SERP.

HomePage PageRank Keyword Difficulty (HPR-KD)

There is compelling, verifiable and published evidence that the top factor in the Google algorithm is HomePage PageRank. The second factor (G-Factor 2) is the boost to the effective HPR given to HomePages that are competing for a keyword. This boost increases the effective competitive strength of HomePages with HPR0-4 up to 5. There is no discernible increase for HomePages with HPR5 or above.

HPR-KD for a keyword is calculated by averaging the HPRs, including the G-Factor 2 adjustment, of the webpages on the top Google SERP. Guidelines are available indicating the minimum HPR required to have any chance of top page positioning on Google for a keyword depending on the HPR-KD. HomePages competing for a keyword have a better chance of succeeding than internal webpages because of the G-Factor 2. The guidelines, therefore, include two columns for minimum required HPR - one for HomePages and one for internal webpages. Internal pages on a newly indexed website will not reach the top Google SERP for any useful keywords as their associated HPR is 0.

The vast majority of small to medium sized business websites have HPRs of 3 or less which significantly limits those keywords in range for top positioning on Google. Those with HPR 2 or less may be able to compete for keywords with low HPR-KD with their HomePages, because of the second Google factor.

Whereas, we know that a newly indexed website has an HPR close to 0.0, we cannot at first sight look at more mature and successful websites with the same degree of accuracy.

An HPR of 4 requires about 2,500 average value links from other websites whereas an HPR5 requires 75,000 such links. We will see both as PR4 as we are not privileged to the decimal information known to Google. There is a large difference in the competitive strength of a website with an HPR of 4.01, as known to Google, and another with HPR 4.99.

Enormous insight is provided on a website's authority, as Google sees it, when there is a change in HPR following a PageRank update. One of my websites recently moved from HPR3 to HPR4 and another dropped from HPR4 to HPR3. Neither suddenly changed positioning in Google's SERPS for the keywords being monitored. The changes in HPR of both websites show that they have HPRs in the region 3.9-4.0 and this allows new avenues for future research.

HPR-KD in SEO Practice

When choosing keywords for the theme of a webpage, care must be taken to determine if the website has what it takes to achieve top page positioning on search engines. This will depend on:

· Whether it is the HomePage or an internal page.

· The HPR of the website.

· The HPR-KD of the keyword for the relevant Google domain (Google.com; Google.co.uk etc).

Targeting keywords that are in range allows a website to be found and potentially acquire natural links. In addition, if the website has high quality content that is well presented, Google Panda will pick this up by favorable user signals and could well gradually elevate the webpages up the SERPs. Whilst it may seem tempting to target keywords that have higher search volumes, if they are out of range for the website, top positioning will not be achieved and the website's authority development will be unnecessarily slow.

It is unlikely that a small or medium sized business website will ever acquire HPR5 or higher, Websites with HPR5 or more are in the privileged position to be able to compete successfully for relatively high keyword difficulty keywords. Good luck to them.

David Viniker MD FRCOG is a doctor trained to practice evidence based medicine. He has applied the principles of evidence based practice to SEO. David believes that HomePage PageRank (HPR) is the top factor in the Google positioning algorithm and that Google provides a boosting adjustment to the HPR of HomePages that are competing for a keyword (G-Factor 2). He has developed a new, essential keyword tool - http://www.KeywordSEOPro.com which calculates keyword difficulty for a long list of keywords based on average HomePage PageRank (HPR-KD) of the URLs on the top Google search engine results page (SERP) for each keyword, including the G-Factor 2 boost. Guidelines have been produced indicating the minimum HPR required for a website to have a chance to achieve top page positioning for both HomePages and internal webpages depending on the HPR-KD of the keywords. His website http://www.firstwebsitedesign.com provides valuable information for beginners and intermediates in website design.

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

5 Ways To Increase The Page Rank Of Your Website

Search engines are the main method people use to find the websites that they are looking for, Google being the most popular. Google uses a complicated system for calculating the individual page rank of each site, and not all if it has been confirmed. Despite this, however, we are still aware of some of the methods that can be used to boost your page rank.

1. Link Building

Link building is the technique used by the majority of high-ranking pages. It refers to both putting links to other sites on to your pages, and getting other people to put links to your site on their pages. Google considers each link as a kind of 'vote' towards the sites PR. Therefore, the more incoming links you have, the higher your page rank is.

You can build links in a number of ways, and the most immediate way is to link each of your pages to each other. You can also link to other pages that relate to your page, and a link to Google actually gives you good karma points in their eyes. Note that if you are linking to bad websites, it can actually lead to your site being flagged, and being removed from the PR.

2. Posting Quality Content

When people go to a website, they generally leave immediately if there is nothing of quality on it. This has a very negative effect, and can lead to people removing links to your site from their pages. This decreases your page rank dramatically. To avoid this, always make sure your content is useful and high quality.

3. Using Commonly Searched Keywords

Since Google matches a user's search term as exactly as they can, throwing in a few of the more commonly searched terms can work wonders on your page rank. This is known as search engine optimization, or SEO, and is used in a lot of successful websites to get more views, therefore getting more incoming links, and finally getting higher up in the listings.

4. Advertise and Popularize Your Site

In order to get a lot of incoming links built up, you need to have people see your site. Submitting it to web directories, advertising through social media or advertising programs such as Google Adsense are all very good, legitimate ways of advertising your site. There are also a lot of others ways that can be thought of with the right resources.

5. Don't Use Any Unethical Tactics

This simply means that you should always stick to legitimate techniques for improving your page rank. Never turn towards anything dodgy, despite how high it says it may get you in the page rankings. Always remain legitimate, no matter what.

With these simple steps, you can make it all the way up the page rankings so you have a popular and quality site that can be earning you revenue even when you aren't there. Improving your page rank is the perfect way to maximize your earnings, with little effort required.

Frank Breinling is a recognized expert in generating targeted traffic to websites. Find out fantastic ways of generating free traffic with his FREE REPORT, his newest Project Twitter Traffic Explosions - learn how to get free targeted twitter traffic.

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

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/]

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

Blog Backlinks - How to Improve PageRank With Google For Your Online Business

Getting Google backlinks to your site is more important for your page rank than your outgoing links. You want high ranking sites to link to your page or site for Google SEO to sit up and take notice.

So how do you get them?

First... let's define "Backlinks" or "Incoming links."

Definition: Direct links to your websites through other sites. This is called Off-page SEO, or links from other websites back to yours to gain popularity with search engines.

Getting backlinks from sites that have high readership or ranking, are the sites you want to link to your site or pages.

Here are a few simple methods of how to get backlinks that are high in quality and will help to improve your page rank.

EzineArticles: EzineArticles get thousands of viewers a day visiting their site. They have extremely high Google page rank.

Write an article and have a link that points back to a page on your blog site. When a reader clicks the anchor text in your signature area, it then becomes a quality link coming from EzineArticles. This strategy is excellent for a new blog.

Squidoo: Build a simple Squidoo Lens and have it link to a page on your blog that contains similar information. Squidoo is an authority site that will help you improve your page rank backlinks.

HubPages: HubPages is much like EzineArticles. The incoming links to your blog will be high quality links. Tip: Use only original content in HubPages. You cannot re-purpose content from other sites or sources.

YouTube: Ahhh! One of my favorites! I have 28 videos that point to pages on a blog that I have in another niche. Videos have served me well in sending me high quality backlinks from other sites who have used one of my videos on their site.

Get busy and produce a video that you can point back to your site. Point an anchor text link in your description box back to your blog. When folks click on it, you will get a superior incoming link from YouTube.

Good luck in your efforts for getting solid page rank backlinks to your blog. Remember to use strategies that will encourage strong Google backlinks. You will find additional Internet marketing secrets by visiting Online Marketing | There you will find marketing and promotional strategies revealed that will super charge your Online Business. "There Are Big Profits In Knowledge."

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

Building Backlinks in Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about building relevance and trust for your website. Between the two, a higher weightage is naturally given to the latter because it is obviously much easier to manipulate one's own website to improve relevance.

So, how do you build trust for your website? You build trust by creating backlinks from external sites - every backlink is considered a vote of trust towards your website. Alas, this is a simplified explanation because the search engines actually consider many other factors such as the trust of the linking site, the number of external links on the page, the placement of the link, text surrounding the link, theme of the website, anchor text used, whether a nofollow attribute is applied, etc.

Unless you have a relatively big company that is able to generate media attention, chances are you are going to have to actively go out and build your own backlinks. The trick is to build backlinks from different types of websites so that you have a mixed backlink profile. You should also spread the link-building work over an extended period to make the growth look natural, in order not to raise a red flag with the search engines.

One of the most popular places to obtain backlinks are from web directories. However, the search engines have caught up with the trend, and Google for example, started penalizing web directories in their search index and lowered the value of directory backlinks. However, there are still a handful of directories that are still worth considering like DMOZ, Yahoo! Directory, Business.com, and Botw, although they are quite expensive - an annual listing in one of these directories alone can run you up to $299/year.

Another major source of backlinks are content sites like Squidoo and Hubpages. You have the freedom to submit articles of any topic and add your backlinks in the content. Because these types of sites receive millions of visitors every month, you not only gain the benefit of a backlink from a high trust website, but also potential customers who visit your website from the links in the article.

It is worth noting however, that sites like Hubpages have very strict editorial policies, such as the published articles should be original and not published elsewhere before. Authors are also scored based on the quality of their articles and their participation in the community. The author score is very important because a nofollow attribute will be applied to the articles if the score falls below 75, rendering the backlinks in the articles useless.

Online press release sites like PRweb and Singapore365.com are also worth exploring. Due to the nature of these types of websites, companies are given more leeway in promoting their products and services in the content - in fact, it is expected! And because most of these press release sites only accept paid submissions, you can expect your press release to almost always get approved, no matter how commercial they may sound. Most of the press releases submitted to bigger sites like PRweb also gets syndicated on Google News and Yahoo! News, giving your press release added exposure.

Larry Lim is an SEO specialist, having consulted for multi-nationals like SPH, Edelman, TM, Popular, Knight Frank and iProperty, since 2005. Visit SEO Company to learn more about his Search Engine Optimization services.

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