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Charlotte, NC
Search Optimization
Don't Go Overboard -
and whatever you do, don't put up spam
pages!
You clearly want to have your important
keyphrases on your page more than once,
because this is what gives the search
engines a clue as to what your page is
really about. But you don't want your
keyphrases to appear too many times,
because that might make the search
engines think your page is a spam page
trying to rank highly for a particular
phrase.
The question then becomes, how much is
too much? And the answer is, nobody
knows for sure, and it's going to be
different from search engine to search
engine. Rumor has it that Google likes
pages with less than 13 repeats of a
keyphrase, for example.
My advice is to try and keep the number
of repeats of important phrases down to
10 or less; this means all instances, in
title, meta tags, and the text of the
page. Sometimes this simply isn't
possible, because the phrase is so
integral to your topic, so don't get
paranoid about this. Just keep it in
mind.
There are certain classes of sites and
pages that the big guys consider spam,
and either won't list, or will penalize.
The major indexes consider the following
kinds of sites to be spam and will not
list them:
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Affiliate sites with same or similar
content (even with a different site
design). This includes most
"virtual" sites.
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Mirror sites. Submitting mirror URLs
to different categories is also
considered spam. Multi-lingual sites
are acceptable as long as the URL
resolves to the appropriate
language.
-
Sites that use redirects or any type
of bait-and-switch practice. Using
frames to hide a real URL, commonly
referred to as "poor man's
cloaking," may also be considered
spam under some circumstances, so
avoid doing it unless you have no
choice.
-
Sites whose sole purpose is to drive
traffic to affiliate links or sites
that contain these types of links.
-
Sites without original content.
-
Sites that are repeatedly
resubmitted (over 5 times) without
being accepted.
In
addition, the major search engines are
actively penalizing/banning sites that
employ the following techniques:
- Web
pages that are built primarily for
the search engines and not your
target audience, especially
machine-generated pages.
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Pages that contain hidden text and
hidden links.
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"Great quantity and little value"
pages.
-
Link farming and link spamming,
particularly free-for-all (FFA)
links.
-
Cloaking, a practice in which the
search engine and the end user do
not view the same page.
-
Sites with numerous, unnecessary
host names (i.e. poker.abc.com,
blackjack.abc.com, etc.).
-
Excessively cross-linking sites to
artificially inflate a site's
apparent popularity.
-
Affiliate spam.
People who
repeatedly submit spam sites to the big
guys have not only been blacklisted, but
in some cases, their previously
submitted (and legitimate) sites have
been removed. So be nice to the Indexes,
and they'll be nice to you.
Got Search Optimization Links?
Once you have your pages up and running,
and chock full of useful content, it's a
very good idea to try and get other
people to link to them. It's not enough
to just get them in the search engines.
There are three very good reasons for
doing this: First, many search engines
are now using link popularity (how many
other pages link to your page) as a
ranking criteria -- they figure that if
other sites link to your page, it might
be useful. Second, it's recently been
revealed that Inktomi applies a ranking
penalty to any url submitted through
their free "Add URL" system, but removes
it if their spider also finds the page
by following a link from another site
(they do this in an attempt to find and
penalize "doorway" pages). And third,
you'll get traffic from the websites
that link to you.
Getting links isn't that hard. When you
find a website that has content similar
to yours, email the webmaster and ask
for a link, pointing out why it would be
appropriate. If he has content on his
site useful to your visitors, link to
him without even offering to trade
links. Link to him, then email him and
ask for a link back.
The biggest search engine to use link
popularity is Google (who came up with
the idea), and the two sites that
generate the most link "value" on Google
are Yahoo and Open Directory. For many
people, the true value of the $299 a
year cost of a Yahoo listing isn't the
clicks from Yahoo, but the boost in
their rankings on Google. Open Directory
doesn't cost anything, but getting in
can be time consuming.
Flash is a plague upon
the net
Avoid using Flash in your website. Flash
is a black box to the search engines,
they can't see inside it. Anything
presented by Flash is invisible to them.
So that means it is invisible to people
trying to find your product or service.
But time and time again, I see entire
sites created in Flash. What's the
point? Since the search engines can't
see the Flash content, the chances are,
these sites won't rank well for the
searches they want to rank well. Which
means they won't get traffic. Which
means almost nobody will see the
high-tech super-cool way-keen website
that they paid a huge amount of money to
a "web design expert" to create. My
advice is simple. Do not use it. If a
consultant recommends that you use Flash
in a website, run for the door.
Javascript suffers from similar
problems. It clutters websites, and
doesn't work on all browsers. Use it
only for absolutely essential functional
activities. Never use it to create
flashy effects.
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