Effective Web Site Promotion…

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Copyright (c) 2009 Titus Hoskins

As we enter into what many enlightened souls are calling the most dire economic times since the Great Depression, online marketers need all the help they can get – regardless of the source. You have probably heard of Google; but chances are almost 100% certain, you have never heard of me. Lucky you!

Actually, the only thing you need to know about me is that I am a full-time online affiliate marketer and I make a very comfortable living from the web. Last year (2008), was my best year online so far, which left me scratching my head and saying what recession?

But that may be something of a false positive, as I will never know how much I could have made if the economic times had been good instead of bad. Plus, judging from my own limited experience, selling and marketing online may not have been hit as hard as those businesses in the real world in 2008, since consumers are doing everything to save a penny and shopping online has become a much cheaper alternative for many.

As we enter into these uncertain times, online marketers and webmasters need all the help they can get. Recently, Google mailed a small booklet to its Adsense users; in it Google gives “6 Top Tactics For Tough Times.” It is obviously referring to its Adwords PPC (Pay Per Click) program and clients but Google’s advice can be applied to your own general online marketing.

These tactics include: (quoting directly from the Google mail-out)

1. Focus your ads on low prices and savings.

2. Use Value-related keywords.

3. Ensure your ad groups are targeted and relevant.

4. Don’t waste money on irrelevant clicks.

5. Make it easy for customers to buy.

6. Focus your money on your high-performers. (End Quote)

Sound advice and I especially like the idea of focusing your marketing on low prices and savings mainly because people want bargains in tight economic times. I also like the fact that you must make it easy for your customers to buy… something as simple as putting your “order/buy link” above the fold can increase your conversions.

Also, targeting value-related keywords, is a very effective marketing tactic. Relating your keywords to “discounts, bargains, cheap, inexpensive, lowest prices…” will help increase your sales. So too, is catering to phrases that suggest the searcher is in a buying mind-set: gifts, presents, gift ideas, wedding gifts… shoppers searching those words are ready to buy.

Plus, focusing your time and money on your high-performers is solid advice. Sometimes succeeding online is simply finding a market niche that works/performs – then running with it. Once you have found the keywords and products that perform well with your site or sites – focus the majority of your time and energy developing those niche markets.

Now here are some of my most effective marketing tactics that have worked for me and tactics I will be relying on in the coming years – even in these hard times.

o Make Keywords Your #1 Goal

This is the single most important factor for my own online success. You have to make keywords and ranking high for them in all the search engines your main objective if you’re marketing online. Might sound obvious, but many beginning marketers don’t truly understand how important getting top rankings for your chosen keywords will be in your online success.

Target less competitive long tail (multi-worded) keywords to get started and slowly work your way up to more popular keywords. Center your marketing around getting those first page listings (Top Five) for your keywords. Achieve this goal, (especially in Google) and it will be almost impossible for you not to succeed and make a profit with your online marketing even in bad times.

o Autoresponders, List Building & Online Relationships

Keeping in contact with potential buyers is mission critical. You must use autoresponders to send follow-up messages to build trustful relationships with your potential customers.

So building a large contact list is essential. That’s why the social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace can be very effective marketing tools for building this online contact and trust. Truth be told, all these social networks are, more or less, just glorified autoresponders and list builders!

o Your Unique Selling Position

You must give potential customers some very good reasons for them to buy from you or your links. Offering special bonuses and discounts works wonders for your sales. Some of my most successful pages simply consists of coupons and discounts offered by different companies. If buyers can save $100’s OFF by buying thru your links, they will.

Always remember, besides looking for the best deal or bargain, consumers are also looking for a quality product. If you’re into affiliate marketing, only pick top quality products to promote. Picking top brand names also makes it easier to make sales. So too is only promoting popular online merchants like Amazon, can be an effective marketing strategy. Most importantly, always remember consumers are also looking for INFORMATION on the products they are considering buying, give them helpful information and you will succeed.

o Go With The Flow

If you’re marketing online, you have to follow what’s working for you. Most times you will try countless ideas or tactics – once you have found a process or system that works, really work it or scale it up. Making your first dollar is the hardest, but once you do something that earns you that dollar, just repeat that “something” a thousand times.

Tracking what works is very important so keep a close eye on your site’s traffic logs to find where your customers are coming from. Something like Google Analytics is simply priceless for “fine-tuning” your site and your online marketing. It will tell you what’s working and what’s not.

o Target Recurring or Residual Income

One of my most effective marketing strategies is to promote and sell products and services that give you a recurring or residual income. Make one sale and get paid for years or for the life of that referred client. Concentrate on services like web-hosting, telephone, marketing programs… once customers sign up to these services, they will likely keep them for years. I am still earning income from sales I made five years ago.

Building a large residual income could be the key to surviving in tough economic times. This will be income which will carry you or your business over the rough patches since it is based upon past performance and not on your current selling situation.

o Automate Everything

The real beauty of marketing online and using computers… you can automate just about every process in your marketing system. Make it a point of automating everything you do… use autoresponders to follow-up with potential buyers, use automatic check-outs, automatic reporting… just set-up your whole online marketing system that runs itself with little or no supervision from you. This will free up your time to concentrate all your efforts on marketing/promoting your site or product. Besides, nothing beats coming back from a vacation and finding out you have earned the cost of your vacation and then some – all the while you were lying in the sun and miles away from any computer.

o Find The Top Online Marketers

If you’re just starting with online marketing, you need to find the top successful marketers and “model” what they’re doing. This is relatively a new industry and you have to seek out the experts and pioneers who have set the groundwork. When I first started marketing online, I was quite fortunate to come into contact with some web marketing heavy-weights such as Marlon Sanders, Ken Evoy, Neil Shearing… and SEO experts like Brad Callen and Aaron Wall.

o Make Google Your Friend

Whether you love or hate Google doesn’t matter, you just have to make it your number one ally in your online marketing. Google has just about conquered the world-wide search market, Yahoo and MSN are still important, but Google is the deal-breaker when you’re selling stuff online. Consumers have enormous respect for Google, a number one listing for a lucrative keyword simply means money in the bank.

I have found using Google Search, Google Adwords, and Google Adsense have played a more than significant role in the success of my own online sites and marketing. Google tools such as Google Analytics, Google Alerts, Webmaster Tools… all have been invaluable and an enormous help in achieving my “web-based” lifestyle and livelihood. Of course, Google has also driven me around the bend more times than I can count, but no one is perfect. Besides, when it’s all said and done, anyone marketing on the web must truly embrace Google if they want to reach their highest level possible.

Titus Hoskins
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/internet-marketing-tactics-for-these-tough-times-from-google-and-me-716203.html

Google is by far the most important search engine on the net. To rise to the top of their search engine, you need to improve your link popularity and you need to understand how they measure your link popularity (over 50% of all search engine traffic comes from Google, and if you can rise to the top, you will likely rise to the top of all the other search engines as well).

Link popularity is defined as the number of sites that are linking to your site. Some websites have thousands or even millions of sites linking to them, while others might have only a few. The search engines use the number of inbound links your site has as a measure of how important your site is, which translates into your search engine ranking.

The actual number of links to your site is not the only variable used to calculate your link popularity. The search engines also examine the relevance of the links to the subject matter of your site. For example, if a website that sells vitamins has 4,000 inbound links, but the source of most of the links are websites that have nothing to do with vitamins, then the algorithm that search engines use to determine link popularity will take that into account, and the link popularity score will not be very good.

It is possible for a website with a relatively small number of quality inbound links to be ranked higher than a site with a bunch of irrelevant or insignificant links. If I have a website that offers quotes for auto insurance, and I have 800 quality inbound links, then I might receive a much higher search engine ranking than another mortgage site that has 3,000 links that stem from link farms or Free For All (FFA) pages.

If you try to acquire inbound by using link farms or FFA pages, not only will it hurt your search engine ranking, but you might get permanently removed from the search engine listings. Links farms are sites where you can instantly exchange links with all the sites listed in that directory. FFA pages are pointless link directories. The search engines usually discount any links that come from either of these sources.

Now that we understand what link popularity is and how it works, we need to look specifically at how Google measures it. They use a number of variables in their algorithm to calculate your overall link score. The higher your score, the higher you will be ranked in the search listings.

One factor that Google uses in their algorithm, obviously, is the total number of sites linking to you. The more links you have, the higher your score will be. However, their algorithm is a little more complicated than that, and it is possible for a website with fewer links to be ranked higher than a website that has more links.

The reason for this is because Google also measures the quality of your links. If your website is about vitamins, and the site linking to you is a video game site, then that is not considered a quality link. The link still helps your score, but the link would help your score much more if it were from a website whose subject matter is the same as yours.

Also, Google gives a higher score to a link if it comes from a page that has actual content that relates to your keywords. For example, if your site is about jewelry, and another jewelry website has posted a link to your site on their links page, that link is not as valuable as a link to your site coming from a blog or a message board where a lot of information about jewelry is being written or discussed.

Also, they give an even higher score to a link if it contains anchor text that matches one of the keywords that describes your site. For example, if I have a site that sells lawnmowers, and a blog about lawnmowers has posted a link to my site, it helps my score even more if the link text (also known as anchor text) is LAWNMOWERS. To learn more about anchor text, go to a search engine and look up ANCHOR TEXT and you will be able to learn about it.

Another factor used by Google to score your link popularity is the diversity of keywords contained on sites linking to you. For example, if you have a site that sells handbags, and all the links to your site are from other sites that contain nothing but the keyword HANDBAGS, Google considers that to be abnormal. To get a higher score, you need to have links coming from sites that contain a variety of keywords related to handbags, such as BUY HANDBAGS, LEATHER HANDBAGS, etc.

It is difficult to increase your link popularity, but now that you understand how your score is calculated, you can devise a plan to improve your score. You might want to consider posting to forums and blogs that contain information that is related to your site, and when you post, include a link to your site.

Jim Pretin
http://www.articlesbase.com/link-popularity-articles/the-google-algorithm-for-link-popularity-124521.html

Google is by far the most important search engine on the net. To rise to the top of their search engine, you need to improve your link popularity and you need to understand how they measure your link popularity (over 50% of all search engine traffic comes from Google, and if you can rise to the top, you will likely rise to the top of all the other search engines as well).

Link popularity is defined as the number of sites that are linking to your site. Some websites have thousands or even millions of sites linking to them, while others might have only a few. The search engines use the number of inbound links your site has as a measure of how important your site is, which translates into your search engine ranking.

The actual number of links to your site is not the only variable used to calculate your link popularity. The search engines also examine the relevance of the links to the subject matter of your site. For example, if a website that sells vitamins has 4,000 inbound links, but the source of most of the links are websites that have nothing to do with vitamins, then the algorithm that search engines use to determine link popularity will take that into account, and the link popularity score will not be very good.

It is possible for a website with a relatively small number of quality inbound links to be ranked higher than a site with a bunch of irrelevant or insignificant links. If I have a website that offers quotes for auto insurance, and I have 800 quality inbound links, then I might receive a much higher search engine ranking than another mortgage site that has 3,000 links that stem from link farms or Free For All (FFA) pages.

If you try to acquire inbound by using link farms or FFA pages, not only will it hurt your search engine ranking, but you might get permanently removed from the search engine listings. Links farms are sites where you can instantly exchange links with all the sites listed in that directory. FFA pages are pointless link directories. The search engines usually discount any links that come from either of these sources.

Now that we understand what link popularity is and how it works, we need to look specifically at how Google measures it. They use a number of variables in their algorithm to calculate your overall link score. The higher your score, the higher you will be ranked in the search listings.

One factor that Google uses in their algorithm, obviously, is the total number of sites linking to you. The more links you have, the higher your score will be. However, their algorithm is a little more complicated than that, and it is possible for a website with fewer links to be ranked higher than a website that has more links.

The reason for this is because Google also measures the quality of your links. If your website is about vitamins, and the site linking to you is a video game site, then that is not considered a quality link. The link still helps your score, but the link would help your score much more if it were from a website whose subject matter is the same as yours.

Also, Google gives a higher score to a link if it comes from a page that has actual content that relates to your keywords. For example, if your site is about jewelry, and another jewelry website has posted a link to your site on their links page, that link is not as valuable as a link to your site coming from a blog or a message board where a lot of information about jewelry is being written or discussed.

Also, they give an even higher score to a link if it contains anchor text that matches one of the keywords that describes your site. For example, if I have a site that sells lawnmowers, and a blog about lawnmowers has posted a link to my site, it helps my score even more if the link text (also known as anchor text) is LAWNMOWERS. To learn more about anchor text, go to a search engine and look up ANCHOR TEXT and you will be able to learn about it.

Another factor used by Google to score your link popularity is the diversity of keywords contained on sites linking to you. For example, if you have a site that sells handbags, and all the links to your site are from other sites that contain nothing but the keyword HANDBAGS, Google considers that to be abnormal. To get a higher score, you need to have links coming from sites that contain a variety of keywords related to handbags, such as BUY HANDBAGS, LEATHER HANDBAGS, etc.

It is difficult to increase your link popularity, but now that you understand how your score is calculated, you can devise a plan to improve your score. You might want to consider posting to forums and blogs that contain information that is related to your site, and when you post, include a link to your site.

Jim Pretin
http://www.articlesbase.com/sem-articles/how-google-ranks-websites-138863.html

Site owners are on the hunt for the green numbers on the Google page rank toolbar. That’s no secret, but do they all really know what Google page rank is about? How much should you really worry about your online business before you check page rank results? Information is the key to obtaining traffic and becoming the best in a line of business. But not many people pay attention to the numerous articles and websites that offer valuable data on how a site should be made and promoted.

Google page rank represents the basis of Larry Page’s and Sergey Brin’s search engine’s system of calculation. It is only a little part of how it really works and proves that Google’s fame and attention is not random, but obtained due to the quality of its searches. Google is the best search engine currently available and its efficiency is not equaled by any other existing search engine. Webmasters looking to evolve know that the Google page rank is the one who gave it its surplus of query validity and accuracy.

The value of a website on a certain keyword or key phrase (usually typed in by a user) is determined by the way that site is linked to other more or less valuable sites. In turn, those sites are evaluated by Google using the same criteria. In a few words, the whole process resembles a complex web, a combination of variables which are constantly and continuously changing.

When you check page rank, the number you read reflects a current status which might already be changing. Because the Internet consists in so many websites that are updated daily and because so many new pages and links constantly appear, Google needs to make updates as well. These updates can be seen once 2 or 3 months when the “Google dance” takes place and when all new variables have to be taken into consideration. Of course, the process takes place all the time, but only then are we able to see its results through the change of the Google page rank.

If you are interested in how well your site performs when it comes to such an evaluation, you should seriously consider these aspects before you check page rank again: links pointing to your site, the Google page rank of the sites that contain these links, the anchor text of the links and the on-site optimization (meta tags, tags, titles, description, keyword density for site content). As you can probably see, this means there are a lot of aspects involved in page ranking. Many things are controllable and web development companies take care of them in a professional manner. Webmasters are very careful with how they optimize their sites, for example. They carefully observe their Google page rank and constantly seek to raise the number shown by the Google toolbar. Some things are however, uncontrollable. If someone chooses to post a link to your site on his own site which is poorly optimized, his action might have negative effects on yours.

The Google page rank is a very sensitive issue which concerns a lot of webmasters who want their website displayed among the first results Google offers web surfers on certain keywords. Some don’t find it satisfying just to check page rank evolution in time. If for some reasons unknown to them, their Google page rank is modified, even for a short while, PR paranoia can set in. Some optimization methods can even be considered damaging because the PR the webmasters were observing has suddenly changed. The Google page rank is important, but must not be taken that seriously. Google constantly makes changes because the Internet itself is daily enriched with new information. Its spiders crawl up and down the web and their findings can have an effect on your site as well.

Errors can occur, like the very famous “spoofing” effect when a new page can borrow the Google page rank of another better ranked page to which it is connected. But errors can be corrected and so can the result you find when you check page rank. Good PR can turn bad because of a mistake, but it can also turn better just as fast. Your main worry should be to offer valuable information to your targeted public and do so by using the available optimization techniques provided by specialized companies. To regularly check page rank is not a bad practice. It is necessary to keep in touch with how Google sees your site. This is why we recommend using quickpagerank.com, a site that supplies valuable information about ranking in major search engines as well as number of backlinks pointing to your site.

Amelie Mag
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/known-facts-about-the-google-page-rank-122945.html

Imagine this scenario ? You build a website of your dreams and it is ranking high in Google. Suddenly, the next day it completely disappears from Google search results. That can be extremely distressing for the website owner!
How can you check if Google has banned your site?

Open your browser and enter the URL http://www.google.com. Enter your entire URL into Google’s search box. If Google does not have information available for this URL then this means that the URL is no longer in Google’s database. Please note if your website is brand new and has not yet been indexed by Google, then you will get the same results until the website has been indexed.

Another quick way to check if you website is banned is by installing the Google Toolbar. Once it is installed visit your website. If the Google toolbar is gray and does not show a page rank, then the website has been banned by Google.
Some of the reasons Google can ban a site are:

Duplicate Content – This is when multiple web pages on your website have the same content. Basically, the same page is repeated hundreds of times, but with a few unique lines of text and a unique title.

Cloaking – This is when web pages are created just for search engines, where it delivers one version of a page to an Internet user and a different version to a search engine.

Hidden text or hidden links – This is text or a link that is invisible to the naked eye, but is seen by search engine spiders. For example if you a have a white background, you can create text in white, therefore it is not visible to a web visitor. Some webmasters will do this so that they can add keywords throughout their web page without it interfering with what the visitors actually see. The search engines can still see this hidden text.

Keyword stuffing – Keyword Stuffing is when you load a Web page up with keywords in the Meta tags or on the Web page content.

Linking to bad websites – If Google believes you are linked to a site that has facilitated the distribution of malicious software in the past they can ban your site.

Buying links for Search engine ranking – This where a Web site owner buys links just to increase his or her ranking. This is also used to increase Page Rank.

How can you report a site to Google?

If you think a website is violating Google policy, you can report it to Google at this URL: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport.

What can you do if you get banned from Google?
If you are in violation of Google Webmaster Guidelines then you should fix the issues that have caused your site to be banned. Once you have made the necessary corrections, log on to your Google Webmaster Tools account and select “Request Reconsideration”. Google will confirm receipt of the reconsideration request and revaluate your site.

Rhonda Baynes
http://www.articlesbase.com/web-design-articles/can-google-ban-your-website-715727.html

I’ve been running a blog for almost a year now, but what baffled me was that it wasn’t appearing Google. I even tried searching for the URL itself, and still, Google shows as if my site is not online. Back then, I had no idea what san diego seo is, or that there’s such a thing as webmaster guidelines. Also, I’ve noticed that google has regular page rank updates and there are times when my site is high up on the scale, or it gets a PR 0.

I know a lot of you have this same experience, and like me, some might be new to san diego seo. Well, you are in luck, because I will give you several ideas to help you troubleshoot this Google issue so you get the page ranking that you deserve. Of course, in order for you to take advantage of the information on this article, you need to have your site re added and verified in your Google websmaster tools account.

According to several professional seo company, there are two kinds of Google penalties – algorithm based and manually driven. Algorithm based penalties means that your site may have been filtered by Google’s algorithm due to some linking or onsite issues. Sometimes, Google will penalize your site for sending a weak signal i.e the topic of your site cannot be discerned by the search engine or it is not relevant to searches. Your site can also get penalized for hidden texts especially when they are placed on important pages.

Sometimes when violations are too serious, Google take action and one of their human staff will review your site for violations of their quality guidelines and can possibly result to your site getting banned from Google.

Now that you understand how Google can penalize you, here’s a checklist you can use when troubleshooting for page ranking issues.

1. Check your site using this query site: www.yoursite.com or site:yoursite.com if you use the non-www version.

2. If your site does not appear, check your Google webmaster dashboard. Here, you will see if the googlebot has problems accessing your site. Sometimes it is blocked by a robot.txt so you’ll have to remove that.

3. It will also help to check if your homepage contains this source code: <META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW”>. Of you find it, then you need to remove it because this script is an instruction for google not to index your site.

4. Check for hidden texts on your site or possible keyword stuffing issues.

5. Check for duplicate content. Duplicate content does not cause your site to be banned by Google but their algorithm checks for other versions and yours could end up at the bottom of the SERPs.

6. Check for the quality of your inbound and outbound links. Make sure that these are related to your niche. Be honest – buying links from sites are no longer as effective as before and can even harm your site’s standing.

Louie Ang
http://www.articlesbase.com/web-design-articles/did-you-drop-your-page-ranking-735893.html

Google is one of the most popular search engines on the Internet today. According to statistics about 50 to 80 percent of searches made by users worldwide are being done on Google. That is probably one reason why most Internet marketing strategy, either search engine optimization or pay-per-click, consider every action done by Google as vital factor.

How so? Well, Google works by “spidering” or “crawling” web sites. Once this is done, the web sites are then added to the Google “index”. This index is pretty much like a phonebook, it is Google’s very own list of pages on the Internet. After that, Google performs several operations on the information they had accumulated. Eventually, it decides where each page will appear on the list of results for searches.

Every once in a while Google would start using a new index for its search results. This time is called the “Google Update”. Currently, the Google updates occur about once in a month. It usually takes a few days and is quite an anticipated and dreaded event for most site owners, since this is the time when their listing in Google changes. Is it for the better or for worse? You be the judge.

Now, the latest Google update has gained the nickname “Jagger”. It is probably due to the fact that it is causing major distress to site owners all over the globe. Why you ask? Well, like what happens in most Google updates, an initial period of movement in ranking position has recently occurred.

As with every algorithm update, Google attempts to take out the spam from its database. So what kind of changes had been made as a result of this update? Only the Google engineers have the answer to that. But, there are some factors which seem to be important in this update. For instance, hidden text spam seems to be taking quite a hit. Whereas most search engines consider white text on white background spamming, it seems that Google has now also take text that is hidden in invisible CSS layers. Another noticeable change is that links from automated link exchanges and text link advertising systems seem to count less.

But, before you picture the worst case scenario remember that this is pretty natural. Soon enough things will get back to normal. Google updates may last barely a day or it might take as long as 8 weeks, depending on how extensive the update is. After all, Google have about 16 to 24 billion web pages in its database, so they probably need some time.

While the Google update is still ongoing, site owners will probably see their search engine results change from day to day. But there is still no need to panic! For any given key phrase the ranking results may drop from 1 to 100, or vise versa. Either way, do not get use to them yet. These are just temporary results and will change once things settle down. So in order to put your fears to rest check your Google Page Rank and see if it has moved as well. If it remained the same then you can be certain that the key phrases will pull through. But, if your PR has also dropped just like your key phrase ranking then it may be time to take a closer look to see what is going on.

So how do you deal with this latest update? First of all, do not panic. If your site rankings dropped, give it another week just to be sure that the index update is really over. Now if your site is still no where to be found, then its time for some serious consideration. What do you think went wrong?

For example, if you use CSS in order to hide text on your web pages think about removing those hidden text. If you use other techniques that Google might consider a spam, then remove them from your pages immediately.

If you have a links page, instead of using a link exchange system with a central server why not host your link pages on your own site. If you are part of a centralized system your site will be at risk if the centralized system is considered spam.

Once you have removed the spam elements from your pages, there are two things that you can do in order to tide you over from this crazy phase. First, optimize your site. Consider using “IBP’s Top 10 Optimizer” in order to optimize your web pages for the new Google algorithm. This optimizer utilizes the current ranking algorithm and will help you to determine which web page elements Google wants to see on a web page for your keyword and your web site.

The second thing you can do is to expand your promotion efforts. Consider trying out other search engines. Do not put all eggs in one basket. Even if you did manage to get high rankings on Google, it’s still a better idea not to rely on Google alone.

Why not try Yahoo and MSN? They are also quite popular among users and can bring you qualified traffic. After all, the key to a successful online business is to get qualified traffic from all big search engines. If your site has good rankings on the other search engines then dropping out on one will not have much effect on you.

Keep in mind that Google updates their Page Rankings a couple of times a year. Regardless of your position it is still highly anticipated, because it can be a good barometer that can help you gauge your site.

With the ever changing factors to Google’s obscure ranking algorithm remember that you are not alone in this. If your site has suffered lower ranking so have millions of other web site owners out there. So, sit back and relax. Once the update is over and thing settle down again you will be able to see just exactly where you stand. Then you can adjust your SEO plan accordingly, and resume your pursuit of gaining key phrase dominance!

Danny Wirken
http://www.articlesbase.com/communication-articles/google-update-a-test-for-keyword-dominance-68963.html

Google’s sweeping changes confirm the search giant has launched
a full out assault against artificial link inflation & declared
war against search engine spam in a continuing effort to provide
the best search service in the world… and if you thought you
cracked the Google Code and had Google all figured out … guess
again.

Google has raised the bar against search engine spam and
artificial link inflation to unrivaled heights with the filing
of a United States Patent Application 20050071741 on December
31, 2003. On March 31, 2005 is was available online for the
first time.

The filing unquestionable provides SEO’s with valuable insight
into Google’s tightly guarded search intelligence and confirms
that Google’s information retrieval is based on historical data.

What exactly do these changes mean to you? Your credibility and
reputation on-line are going under the Googlescope! Google has
defined their patent abstract as follows:

A system identifies a document and obtains one or more types of
history data associated with the document. The system may
generate a score for the document based, at least in part, on
the one or more types of history data.

Google’s patent specification reveals a significant amount of
information both old and new about the possible ways Google can
(and likely does) use your web page updates to determine the
ranking of your site in the SERPs.

Unfortunately, the patent filing does not prioritize or
conclusively confirm any specific method one way or the other.

Here’s how Google scores your web pages.

In addition to evaluating and scoring web page content, the
ranking of web pages are admittedly still influenced by the
frequency of page or site updates. What’s new and interesting is
what Google takes into account in determining the freshness of a
web page.

For example, if a stale page continues to procure incoming
links, it will still be considered fresh, even if the page
header (Last-Modified: tells when the file was most recently
modified) hasn’t changed and the content is not updated or
‘stale’.

According to their patent filing Google records and scores the
following web page changes to determine freshness.

·The frequency of all web page changes ·The actual amount of the
change itself… whether it is a substantial change redundant or
superfluous ·Changes in keyword distribution or density ·The
actual number of new web pages that link to a web page ·The
change or update of anchor text (the text that is used to link
to a web page) ·The numbers of new links to low trust web sites
(for example, a domain may be considered low trust for having
too many affiliate links on one web page).

Although there is no specific number of links indicated in the
patent it might be advisable to limit affiliate links on new web
pages. Caution should also be used in linking to pages with
multiple affiliate links.

Developing your web page augments for page freshness.

Now I’m not suggesting that it’s always beneficial or advisable
to change the content of your web pages regularly, but it is
very important to keep your pages fresh regularly and that may
not necessarily mean a content change.

Google states that decayed or stale results might be desirable
for information that doesn’t necessarily need updating, while
fresh content is good for results that require it.

How do you unravel that statement and differentiate between the
two types of content?

An excellent example of this methodology is the roller coaster
ride seasonal results might experience in Google’s SERPs based
on the actual season of the year.

A page related to winter clothing may rank higher in the winter
than the summer… and the geographical area the end user is
searching from will now likely be considered and factored into
the search results.

Likewise, specific vacation destinations might rank higher in
the SERPs in certain geographic regions during specific seasons
of the year. Google can monitor and score pages by recording
click through rate changes by season.

Google is no stranger to fighting Spam and is taking serious new
measures to crack down on offenders like never before.

Section 0128 of Googles patent filing claims that you shouldn’t
change the focus of multiple pages at once.

Here’s a quote from their rationale:

“A significant change over time in the set of topics associated
with a document may indicate that the document has changed
owners and previous document indicators, such as score, anchor
text, etc., are no longer reliable.

Similarly, a spike in the number of topics could indicate spam.
For example, if a particular document is associated with a set
of one or more topics over what may be considered a ’stable’
period of time and then a (sudden) spike occurs in the number of
topics associated with the document, this may be an indication
that the document has been taken over as a ‘doorway’ document.

Another indication may include the sudden disappearance of the
original topics associated with the document. If one or more of
these situations are detected, then [Google] may reduce the
relative score of such documents and/or the links, anchor text,
or other data associated the document.”

Unfortunately, this means that Google’s sandbox phenomenon
and/or the aging delay may apply to your web site if you change
too many of your web pages at once.

From the case studies I’ve conducted it’s more likely the rule
and not the exception.

What does all this mean to you?

Keep your pages themed, relevant and most importantly
consistent. You have to establish reliability! The days of
spamming Google are drawing to an end.

If you require multi page content changes implement the changes
in segments over time. Continue to use your original keywords on
each page you change to maintain theme consistency.

You can easily make significant content changes by implementing
lateral keywords to support and reinforce your vertical
keyword(s) and phrases. This will also help eliminate keyword
stuffing.

Make sure you determine if the keywords you’re using require
static or fresh search results and update your web site content
accordingly. On this point RSS feeds may play a more valuable
and strategic role than ever before in keeping pages fresh and
at the top of the SERPs.

The bottom line here is webmasters must look ahead, plan and
mange their domains more tightly than ever before or risk
plummeting in the SERPs.

Does Google use your domain name to determine the ranking of
your site?

Google’s patent references specific types of ‘information
relating to how a document is hosted within a computer network’
that can directly influence the ranking of a specific web site.
This is Google’s way of determining the legitimacy of your
domain name.

Therefore, the credibility of your host has never been more
important to ranking well in Google’s SERP’s.

Google states they may check the information of a name server in
multiple ways.

Bad name servers might host known spam sites, adult and/or
doorway domains. If you’re hosted on a known bad name server
your rankings will undoubtedly suffer… if you’re not blacklisted
entirely.

What I found particularly interesting is the criteria that
Google may consider in determining the value of a domain or
identifying it as a spam domain; According to their patent,
Google may now record the following information:

·The length of the domain registration… is it greater than one
year or less than one year?

·The address of the web site owner. Possibly for returning
higher relevancy local search results and attaching
accountability to the domain. ·The admin and the technical
contact info. This info is often changed several times or
completely falsified on spam domains; again this check is for
consistency! ·The stability of your host and their IP range… is
your IP range associated with spam?

Google’s rationale for domain registration is based on the
premise that valuable domains are often secured many years in
advance while domains used for spam are rarely secured for more
than a year.

If in doubt about a host’s integrity I recommend checking their
mail server at www.dnsstuff.com to see if they’re in the spam
database. Watch for red flags!

If your mail server is listed you may have a problem ranking
well in Google!

Securing a reputable host can and will go a long way in
promoting your web site to Google.

The simplest strategy may be registering your domain several
years in advance with a reputable provider thereby demonstrating
longevity and accountability to Google. Google wants to see that
you’re serious about your site and not a flash in the pan spam
shop.

http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-1604302-10294265

Googles Aging Delay has teeth… and they’re taking a bite out of
spam!

It’s no big secret that Google relies heavily on links when it
comes to ranking web sites.

According to their patent filing, Google may record the
discovery date of a link and link changes over time.

In addition to volume, quality & the anchor text of links,
Google’s patent illustrates possible ways how Google might use
historical information to further determine the value of links.

For example, the life span of a link and the speed at which a
new web site gets links.

“Burst link growth may be a strong indicator of search engine
spam”.

This is the first concrete evidence that Google may penalize
sites for rapid link acquisition. Whether the “burst growth”
rule applies to high trust/authorative sites and directory
listings remains unknown. I personally haven’t experienced this
phenomenon. What’s clear for certain though is the inevitable
end to results orientated link farming.

I would point out here that regardless of whether burst link
growth will be tolerated for authorative sites or authorative
link acquisition, webmasters will have to get smarter and work
harder to secure authorative links as their counterparts become
reluctant to exchange links with low trust sites. Now Page Rank
really has value!

Relevant content swaps may be a nice alternative to the standard
link exchange and allow you some control of the link page
elements.

So what else does Google consider in determining the aging delay?

·The anchor text and the discovery date of links are recorded,
thus establishing the countdown period of the aging delay.
·Links with a long-term life span may be more valuable than
links with a short life span. ·The appearance and disappearance
of a links over time. ·Growth rates of links as well as the link
growth of independent peer pages. Again, this suggests that
rapid link acquisition and the quality of peer pages are
monitored ·Anchor text over a given period of time for keyword
consistency. ·Inbound links from fresh pages… might be
considered more important than links from stale pages. ·Google
doesn’t expect that new web sites have a large number of links
so purchasing large numbers of brokered links will likely hurt
you more than help you. Google indicates that it is better for
link growth to remain constant and naturally paced. In addition,
the anchor text should be varied as much as possible. ·New web
sites should not acquire too many new links; it’ll be tolerated
if the links are from trusted sites but it may be considered
spam.

So how do you build your link popularity / Page Rank and avoid
penalties?

When it comes to linking, you should clearly avoid the hocus
pocus or magic bullet linking schemes. If you participate in
quick fix link exchange scams, use automated link exchange
software or buy hundreds of links at once, chances are Google
will interpret your efforts as a spam attempt and act
accordingly.

Don’t get caught in this trap… the recovery period could be
substantial since your host and IP range are also considered!

When you exchange links with other web sites, do it slowly and
consistently.

Develop a link management and maintenance program. Schedule
regular times every week to build the links to your site and
vary the anchor text that points to your site.

Obviously, the links to your site should utilize your keywords.
To avoid repetition use lateral keywords and keyword phrases in
the anchor text since Google wants to see varied anchor text!

Your sites click through rate may now monitored through
bookmarks, cache, favorites, and temporary files.

It’s no big secret that Google has always been suspected of
rewarding sites with higher click through rates (very similar to
what Google does with their AdWords program) so it shouldn’t
come as a great surprise that Google still considers site
stickiness and CTR tracking in their criterion.

What’s interesting though is Google is interested in tracking
the behavior of web surfers through bookmarks, cache, favorites,
and temporary files (most likely with the Google toolbar and/or
the Google desktop search tool). Google’s Patent filing
indicates Google might track the following information: ·Click
through rates are monitored for changes in seasonality, fast
increases, or other spike traffic in addition to increase or
decrease trends. ·The volume of searches over time is recorded
and monitored for increases. ·The information regarding a web
page’s rankings are recorded and monitored for changes. ·Click
through rates are monitored to find out if stale or fresh web
pages are preferred for a search query. ·The traffic to a web
page is recorded and monitored for changes… like Alexa. ·User
behavior may be monitored through bookmarks, cache, favorites,
and temporary files. ·Bookmarks and favorites could be monitored
for both additions and deletions, and; ·The overall user
behavior for trends and changes.

Since Google is capable of tracking the click-through rates to
your web site, you should make sure that your web pages have
attractive titles and utilize calls to action so that web
surfers click on them in the search results.

It’s also important to keep your visitors there so make your web
pages interesting enough so that web surfers stay some time on
your web site. It might also help if your web site visitors
added your web site to their bookmarks.

As you can see, Google’s new ranking criterion has evolved far
beyond the reliance of criteria that can be readily or easily
manipulated. One thing is for certain with Google, whatever
direction search innovation is going; you can trust Google to be
pioneering the way and setting new standards

Lawrence Deon
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/cracking-the-google-code-under-the-googlescope-2391.html

How do you create a website that the search engines love? It’s simple really – have lots of targeted content that closely relates to your site theme.

Recently though, we have heard a lot about “duplicated content” and how that can damage your site rankings in Google. You’ll see a frenzy of people saying things such as:

“Oh I mustn’t publish this article, I’ll get done for duped content”.

“I shouldn’t use private label rights content because others will be using the same content and that will hurt my chances of getting free search engine traffic.”

But do you know what? Before jumping on the “duped content is evil” bandwagon, consider these facts:

(a) There are a LOT of high ranking websites that are just plastered with nothing BUT duplicate content. If duplicated content really does matter, why aren’t these sites being banned from the engines?

(b) Google itself has not said that duplicated content is a no-no. Sure, it doesn’t exactly wear its heart on its sleeve when it comes to disclosing the factors it uses to rank sites but even so there has been little indication from Google that duplicated content will hurt your website.

(c) There are those to whom this “duplicated content” hysteria is very convenient and profitable. For example it gives people the opportunity to create products, books and software that deals with the dreadful issue of duplicated content. Article content changer software is a prime example of this – this niche market is worth a small fortune as content publishers who buy private label rights are forced to fork out a hundred or so bucks to allow them to make their purchased content unique in the eyes of search engines. It’s in the software developers interests to cause a stir about duped content because the moment it’s revealed that duplicate content isn’t really an issue they’ll lose a lot of sales overnight.

So how do you move forward with any level of certainty? You know search engines do like fresh content but what if you just don’t have the time to plug in content that’s 100% unique? The best way is to use a model that adds both unique content as well as purchased content (or free content from article directories) and optimise the page accordingly (remember – your page titles should all be individually optimised to the content).

Ultimately, unless you are employing blatantly unethical tactics to trick the search engines, the issue of duplicated content will not be a particularly tricky one for your websites. What does matter is that your site is well optimised and has plenty of back links from high ranking sites coming in. That’s the sort of thing that gets you rated high – even if your site has some content that’s commonly plastered over the internet.

Tuks Engineer
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/the-duplicated-content-debate-will-google-cripple-your-website-ranking-85879.html

How many sites link to your site? In other words, state the link popularity health of your site. Have you ever been asked this question? And, did not know what to say?

Go to Google. Type in link:www.cnn.com in the search box. The number that Google throws up, namely, 115,000 (on the blue-colored bar present on top of the page) at the time of writing this article, is the total number of sites that are currently linking to www.cnn.com, and which have been indexed by Google. In other words, this number can be greater than 115,000, or more than 115,000 sites may have currently linked to www.cnn.com, but it won’t show up with the (link: www.cnn.com), because those sites are not in the Google’s Database.

Methodology for building link popularity through Reciprocal Link Exchange Programs

1.Create a html page, preferably named as “Resources/Links/Partners” and place a link of this page from Index Page of your site. This page should never be more than 1 click away from the index page of your site, else webmasters won’t be interested in participating in the reciprocal link exchange program.

2.Target both “industry-related” and “non-industry-related” websites as your link exchange partners. For example, if you are providing SEO services, then try getting links from “industry-related websites (i.e. websites dealing with SEO, maybe your business rivals). This is important, because if 10 of your rival (here SEO) sites give link to your site, then Google will surely pay importance to your site, because getting links from rival companies are difficult. Your site MUST be of some high caliber, else the other 10 sites won’t have linked! Also, try procuring general links as well.

3.Always exchange links with websites which have high PageRank (PR) (at least 4, the more the better!) (both Index Page as well as Resources/Links Page of the Link Partner’s site should have PRs of >=4)

4.Have a link code ready for participating in link exchange program. Here is a sample link code for a SEO company.

Search Engine Optimization, Ranking, Placement Services – Offers Search Engine Optimization, Ranking, Placement Services to get top ranks in various Search Engines.

Always prefer a text link (as given above) in comparison to a banner link, where your chance of Google spiders, i.e. Googlebot finding the potential keywords is limited only to the “alt tag” of the banner. Also, Google pays importance to the text of the incoming link/anchor text (i.e. the incoming link text must contain high potential, relevant keywords),

so develop a link text with title (”search engine optimization ranking placement services”) which will help you in Google Ranking.

5.Refrain from java script link code because Google spiders find it difficult to index.

6.There are various ways of approaching and procuring potential link partners. Firstly, how to get industry related websites to link to yours? Suppose, “search engine optimization”, “search engine promotion” and “search engine ranking” are 3 of your core keywords. Go to Google. Type in each of the three keywords, and find the top 10 sites for each keyword. Now, you have 10 * 3 = 30 websites. Visit the links page (if applicable, since some sites refrain from participating in link exchange programs) of each of the 30 sites, and note down all the sites that are linking to these sites. For example, if each of these 30 sites have 10 sites linking to it, you have 10 * 30 = 300 potential websites to exchange links with. (Please note that our experience shows that conversion rate of successful link exchange is 1 in 4-5, i.e. if you approach 4-5 websites, 1 site will ultimately provide you with reciprocal link, so in order to get high incoming links, you must research extensively and find more potential link partners. Also, as mentioned above, always try to exchange links with websites having PR >=4).

7.If you request a link to a top-level page or the homepage of your site, this will have a positive effect on this page. If the PageRank of this page increases, then the page below it will increase (if the internal linking structure is correct), but it will still be one PageRank number below the page above it that was linked to.

8.Manually submit the page to Google where your link partner has placed the link of your site.

For example, if your link partner’s website is www.abc.com and he has placed your website in his resources page, namely, www.abc.com/resources.html, then go to http://www.google.com/addurl.html and submit www.abc.com/resources.html. It is very essential for getting good ranks in Google that you submit the page where your site has been placed by your link partners.

Prabuddha S Raychaudhuri
http://www.articlesbase.com/link-popularity-articles/role-of-link-popularity-in-getting-top-google-rankings-69345.html

Google is the leading search engine but not the only search engine. Search engines like Yahoo, MSN, Ask and so on are also important. Although Google, followed by Yahoo!, is the global player on the search engine scene, MSN, owned by the giant Microsoft Corporation has a small role in the search engine market. However, MSN could become serious competition. Microsoft is a power. MSN search is already built into the home version of Windows XP and many users search with it. Who knows what Microsoft will decide to do next to gain popularity. Professional SEOs will not ignore this fact and optimize websites for all search engines.

The good news is that optimizing your website for Google will definitely help with the other search engines. To index a website and position it high on its results, Google requires valuable content, good linking strategies, ethical SEO and so on. MSN wants the same. The differences are in the search algorithms. These algorithms could change overnight. There was a time when Netscape ruled the Web. The switch to Google took place almost in a flash. You never know what will happen next: that’s the beauty of SEO. SEO is always challenging, changing, stimulating. When you optimize your web pages for one search engine only you are doomed.

Google ranks a website mainly for its incoming links, especially when these have good link anchor texts. MSN places more importance on keywords and content, especially on page content, but doesn’t ignore incoming links either. To rank well in both search engines you should concentrate your efforts on both site optimization and linking.

SEO with Equilibrium

SEO is a tool. Like any tool it has to be used and handled with care. For example Google and MSN value links, but if you have too many links and poor content, that will not help. You need to maintain an equilibrium between content and links. Google paces importance on linking power while MSN is more concerned about the content of the links. As a matter of fact Google states the same: quality, industry related links but so far content links weigh heavier on MSN.

External links are important for both MSN and Google. However, don’t ignore internal linking. Your web pages have to be properly interlinked. This is not only good for Google and MSN, but it will provide for your visitors as well.

Google doesn’t have the same keyword density tolerance as MSN. As a matter of fact it’s lower. So if you place too many keywords in your text to rank high in MSN you’ll probably not see the same results in Google, as Google might consider your keyword rich content as spam. So once again: handle SEO with care.

Both Google and MSN like fresh content. The best way to use this SEO tool is to host a blog on your domain.

Directory Listings Boost Your Website’s Rankings in All the Search Engines

It is good to have your website listed in all the major industry relevant directories. MSN has its own directory: Microsoft Business Central. Inclusion is not free, but affordable. If you respect their guidelines, inclusion is guaranteed. DMOZ, Google’s directory, is free. But inclusion is rather hard. Being a human edited directory you’ll have to wait months to be included if at all. Other important directories you might want to consider are Yahoo! Directory, Best of Web and Looksmart/Zeal. Don’t ignore smaller directories either.

Scott Lindsay
http://www.articlesbase.com/communication-articles/seo-and-equilibrium-for-google-and-msn-54427.html

http://www.outsourceworkshop.com | Need help installing wordpress and doing seo? Let us teach you how by using virtual assistants and outsourcers.

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