Entries Tagged 'SEO' ↓

We all know good coding is always a boost in search engine rankings, If we have a clean HTML coding every search engine will love to index our site, JavaScript, Frames, .INC files, .LBI files are always a small barrier to search engines, I can see today’s search engines particularly google can understand any sort of Crap coding but still they don’t give the best PR to pages which it finds difficult to crawl, We all know how important Page Rank is to a site so it is important we give the best coding to the search engines.

Very important thing when designing a site is to make sure we make the site navigation as friendly as possible, we have to make the site with the best navigation for the crawlers to dip deep into the site, If your Web pages are not accessible to a spider, no amount of content optimisation, Website popularity or submitting to search engines will improve their performance — they simply won’t be added to the index.

Some the stuff search engines find difficult to crawl is flash, DHTML, Javascript etc, Make sure you use all these things to the minimum level on the site.

On Monday, Sunbelt Software’s security blog revealed that thousands of malware redirects were showing up in search engine results. Network bots designed to post relevant keywords and spam links in various online forms (think forum posts or blog comments) helped attackers claim high-ranking search engine positions for various obscure and seemingly innocuous search terms. According to Sunbelt, two of the thousands of terms were “infinity” and “hospice.” Yeah, that’s cool. Search for hospice information for a sick friend or family member, potentially get your system infected with nasty malware.

On Tuesday, Sunbelt revealed more information about the ill-effects clicking on these fake links could have on a vulnerable system (as a reminder - ALWAYS keep your browser and Internet security tools up to date). Best case scenario - you might end up with one of those annoying toolbars and pop-up ads for fake security software. Worst case? Your computer could be used to generate false-clicks for the attacker’s pay-per click programs (so they infect your system so that you can make them money), or worse still, that bot could load other malware/worms/trojans onto the unprotected system. Further investigation also revealed that these SEO-poisoning attacks were targeted at Google, although other search engines may have also been victim to the attacks.

Google has cleansed more than 40,000 of these hosting sites from their index, so for now - it looks like the biggest source of this sort of attack has been taken offline.OK - you might be thinking, spam search results show up everyday - why is this a big deal? It’s a big deal because the techniques used for these attacks was more clever and thought out than the typical SEO-poisoning. It’s also a big deal just based on the sheer scale of sites and domains dedicated to hosting these links and because of the malware involved.

It’s great the Google stepped up and cleansed the index so quickly after being made aware of the problem, but this should be a big (or continuing) wake-up call to users who don’t stay up to date with security updates or don’t have some sort of Internet security solution. And while Windows users are obviously the users who are most directly affected by these types of attacks, having these kinds of search results show up as relevant, even if the link can’t harm your system, is bad for the Internet community as a whole.

There’s lots of talk within the tech community, especially the blogosphere about using SEO and how it’s GOOD for bloggers and doesn’t negatively affect readers/searchers/regular users. This is a lie. Instead of Search Engine Optimization, SEO should really stand for Search Engine Opportunism, because that’s what it really is. Look, we certainly don’t object to gaining revenue from ads or page-views on a web site, that’s why we are able to do what we do; we do object to gaming the system and using loopholes to insert web sites into search queries that really have nothing to do with the content. Techniques to make sure your relevant content shows up in corresponding searches is one thing — inserting back-door code that is aimed at getting higher page ranks and more page views, regardless if the targets are actually correct, is another. To us, the type of SEO attacks revealed this week are only a few steps away from what tons of bloggers/websites do every day: purposely try to game search engines just so they can get more hits to their site, and by extension, maybe make a few extra dollars. Unless you are running a straight-up scam link-farm or very, very lucky — the highest search engine rank in the world is not going to have lasting benefits if the content is nonexistent.

For many people the beauty of content writing on the internet is the fact that everybody has their own idea about what works and what will see you in trouble with the search engines.  Too much spam will see you pushed further and further down the rankings with much of your content possibly discounted by Google, but too many keywords may well alarm the Googlebot and also land you in trouble for being too aggressive.  So do you really need keywords in your content or should you rely on the overall power of your site to attract traffic?

No matter what some people will have you believe, there is no doubt that the more keyword rich your content is (within reason) the higher you will rank for certain keywords and phrases, which in turn has the potential to pull in massive traffic for your site.  By giving the surfers what they want to see, they will be attracted to your site and if you keep adding quality content, slowly but surely your traffic will continue to rise.  It won’t happen over night, but it will happen.

So do I just place a few keywords in my content and hope for the best?

If only! Keyword rich content is an art form because adding keywords and still maintaining the flow of the article is a much specialised art.  There is no point in attracting readers by placing keywords in your articles only for them to look at your site, read the full article and see that it does not make sense – it was just designed to get them there, and is of no value what so ever to them.  In this instance they would not return to your site – one customer lost.

You need to take your time when producing content and ensure that as well as containing the relevant keywords it also reads well and is informative.  Many people prefer to use content writers such as ourselves who are aware of the levels of keyword density which the likes of Google will accept, can research niche markets for you, and produce something which you readers will enjoy.

Very Nice: Google Ranking factors

Inaccurate and unreliable search engine optimization (SEO) advice is available with alarming regularity, it seems. You can find it almost everywhere you look on the internet.

Bad advice lurks in your e-mail as spam from shady fly by night companies calling themselves SEO professionals. Suggestions on improving your website’s position, found in the various internet message forums, ranges from tremendously helpful to downright terrible. Instead of boosting your blog or website in the search rankings, bad advice abounds that can at best drop your rankings below their current levels. At worst, bad advice can result in outright banning from the search engines entirely.

There are articles on SEO, widely read and believed, that offer not only questionable opinions, but are riddled with factual errors. Self styled SEO experts can be found on their websites, waiting to ensnare the unwary.

Following such dubious advice, some novice website owners could make some terrible errors, that could drop their website’s placement in the search engine rankings. Some of the advice can even get a website banned from the search engines, for violation of their webmaster guidelines.

Webmasters unknowingly read and hear bad SEO advice on a constant basis. Often, the advice is packaged in a fairly well written format, and carries a fairly authoritative tone. What many website owners don’t know, is how to select the solid and useful recommendations, from the concepts best ignored at any cost.

The internet in general, and search engine optimization in particular, are still very young in terms of years in existence. The idea, that SEO can even make a difference, to a website’s ranking in the search engines, is a concept still very much in its infancy.

The opportunity for the internet version of snake oil salespeople, and for outright charlatans, is certainly very high. The lack of peer review of information, creates an ideal environment, for both the dishonest huckster and the simply incompetent adviser.

The best defence for any website owner is to read carefully, and weigh the pros and cons of all advice on offer, prior to taking any drastic action. Find some reputatable SEO advisors and seek their opinions. Weigh the various suggestions offered to find agreement and consensus. Avoid any advice that recommends practices that violate the guidelines of the search engines themselves.

Whether the advice arrives from self styled experts, message forums, e-mail newsletters, or from a search result, it’s important for the website owner to be very cautious. While not all SEO advice is bad, there is much that needs to be taken with an entire shaker of the proverbial salt.

Search engine optimization advice is certainly a webmaster beware system.

Don’t get caught following harmful advice.

From the obvious to the “Hey-I-never-thought-of-that-great-idea-before”, here are 10 tips on how to optimize your website for its turbo-charge rocket ride up the search engine rankings.

Be bold. Use the <b> </b> tags around some of your keywords on each page. Do NOT use them everywhere the keyword appears. Once or twice is plenty.

Deep linking. Make sure you have links coming in to as many pages as possible. What does it tell a search engine when other web sites are linking to different pages on your site? That you obviously have lots of worthwhile content. What does it tell a search engine that all your links are coming in to the home page? That you have a shallow site of little value, or that your links were generated by automation rather than by the value of your site.

Become a foreigner. Canada and the UK have many directories for websites of companies based in those countries. Can you get a business address in one of those countries?

Newsletters. Offer articles to ezine publishers that archive their ezines. The links stay live often for many years in their archives.

First come, first served. If you must have image links in your navigation bar, include also text links. However, make sure the text links show up first in the source code, because search engine robots will follow the first link they find to any particular page. They won’t follow additional links to the same page.

Multiple domains. If you have several topics that could each support their own website, it might be worth having multiple domains. Why? First, search engines usually list only one page per domain for any given search, and you might warrant two. Second, directories usually accept only home pages, so you can get more directory listings this way. Why not a site dedicated to gumbo pudding pops?

Article exchanges. You’ve heard of link exchanges, useless as they generally are. Article exchanges are like link exchanges, only much more useful. You publish someone else’s article on the history of pudding pops with a link back to their site. They publish your article on the top ten pudding pop flavors in Viet Nam, with a link back to your site. You both have content. You both get high quality links. (More on high quality links in other tips.)

Titles for links. Links can get titles, too. Not only does this help visually impaired surfers know where you are sending them, but some search engines figure this into their relevancy for a page.

Not anchor text. Don’t overdo the anchor text. You don’t want all your inbound links looking the same, because that looks like automation - something Google frowns upon. Use your URL sometimes, your company name other times, “Gumbo Pudding Pop” occasionally, “Get gumbo pudding pops” as well, “Gumbo-flavored pudding pops” some other times, etc.

Site map. A big site needs a site map, which should be linked to from every page on the site. This will help the search engine robots find every page with just two clicks. A small site needs a site map, too. It’s called the navigation bar.