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Tag Archive for Major Search Engines

bikram | March 12, 2011
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HQ Content – A New Wave in SEO

The days of auto-blogs, low-quality sites, duplicate content and spun articles are numbered. Starting with the big daddy Google, all the major search engines are delisting the websites that do not add value to customers’ experience of the website.

Becoming the torch-bearer of the new change, Google has made some changes in its algorithm to exclude websites with low-quality content from its SERP. Following suit, a lesser search engine Blekko has banned more than 1.1 million for the same reason. Are we witnessing a new change?

I guess so!

So how SEO will change in this new light?

SEO will significantly change, and content will gain more importance. Thanks to the improved algorithm. So far backlink was all an SEO expert was concerned with. And for him content was evil, which was necessary because in its absence, Google will not rank his or his client’s website. Such SEO experts cared less about people’s experience.

All of this is going to change now. People are going to get high-quality content in return to the keyword phrase they enter in the search box.

Who is going to benefit

In the light of this new change, people with good writing ability are going to benefit. It will be tough time for people who worked as an article production machine. They are the ones responsible for adding up to the trash littered on the Internet.

What will be the new SEO game like?

Backlinks as usual will be important. But backlinks alone will not cut it for poor webmasters. They need to have high-quality content on their website as well. Website design is also equally important – the new Google Instant Preview feature has made it must for a website to look good should it want to be visited.

2011 has brought a set of changes in search algorithm. SEO experts must update their knowledge and include these changes, or else they might go the dinosaur’s way, which leads to extinction.

Category: SEO | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | November 15, 2010
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Local SEO – Fad, Fashion, or Gimmick

Local SEO, Google Map marketing, and Google Places listing are the buzz words, nowadays. Marketers and mentors of small businesses are swearing by this set of new marketing tools. The buzz is so strong that it makes people wonder if the new set of tools is a gimmick or a fad. Will it deliver on the promises it make? This is the question that bothers all. Let’s examine this in the following paragraph.

Why Local SEO?

The Internet has lived off its years of hype, and people at large have started using it for real work — to find the best plumber, a good restaurant, an odd-job doer, painter, etc., in their locality. In a world where local search results are not coughed out by Google against a location specific keyword, people have to waste hours and hours of their time to search for a plumber to fix their kitchen tap.

This is so because of the SEO optimization done by various experts. In a non-local-search-result world, a person searching for plumber in Milwaukee may get the phone number and addresses of a plumber in New York State, which is frustrating for the searcher.

To add up to the searchers’ experience, all major search engines (particularly Google) have come up with a solution. They started offering local listing with names, addresses, and phone numbers of the establishment. In case of Google, Google Places and Google Maps are two tools that enable local listing.

What so special about local listing?

For a business to be able to get listed in Google Places, a website is not required. All a small business needs is to add its name, address, photographs of establishment, contact details, and a small description of the business.

This is phenomenal. Now a small business does not have to have a website to get customers from Google or other search engines. They can get it merely by adding their aforementioned details in Google places, and pointing their location in Google Maps.

What I think of it?

I think local listing and local SEO have given a small business an unprecedented opportunity to get customers without even having a website. For me, Local SEO is neither fad, nor a gimmick. It is a fashion that is going to be there for time to come.

Category: SEO | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Scot Pelt | July 22, 2010
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Article Marketing Tip Submit Your Articles To The Directories Slowly

Writing articles as I am sure many of you know is a very popular way of increasing the amount of backward links that you have pointing to your site. In theory, the more of these backward links we are able to obtain, the more traffic our site should receive. There are however some very important things to take into consideration when writing and submitting your articles as you do not want to be wasting your time and you do not want your site to get dropped by the major search engines or put in some sort of sandbox.

The first thing to remember is that Rome was not built in a day. What I mean is if you have a new website, about for example weight loss, you may want to reach the top ten in Google for your keywords within say six months. You hear that one way to do this is by building up good number of back links to this weight loss site. You think that the more the merrier and start pounding out one article after the other and are very proud of yourself after the first month because you were able to write fifty articles all pointing to your new weight loss website.

I believe this approach to be totally wrong. The weight loss websites which are in the top ten of Google have probably been around for quite a number of years and will without doubt have a number of quality back links. If your site sticks around for a long time and you continue to build up its back links it will go higher and higher in the search engines over time.

The one thing you do not want to do is to raise any red flags with the search engines. A new site which has eight hundred back links after one month could raise this red flag. The search engines will now probably not trust this site and could easily put it in some sort of sandbox until it decides whether it is kosha or not.

In my judgment it is important to build up the number of back links to a new website fairly slow. When writing articles, I would personally only write one article with a link to a new website per week. Of course if you have ten websites, you are able to write ten articles if you only decide to have one link on each article etc.

I also think that it is very worthwhile to only submit the same article to around five or six of the different article directories. I would submit the article in total to around twenty-two article directories but would have around four variations of it etc. The differences in each article are not massive but are big enough to make it more original. There is a big thing being debated at the moment in webmaster circles about the potential damage that can be caused by duplicate content. From what I have read, everybody seems to have a different opinion on this subject. My opinion is that it is better to be safe than sorry, therefore why take the risk? It would be good however if the major search engines could clarify their position on the subject, but lets face it, that is never going to happen.

In conclusion, my advice is to enjoy writing articles, have patience, build up the number of backward links slowly and to submit different variations of the same article to the directories. Visit the Unique Article Wizard site. It could change your article marketing results forever.

Looking to find the best tips on Article Marketing Software, then visit www.uniquearticlewizard.ws to find the best advice on Article Marketing for you. Also published at Article Marketing Tip Submit Your Articles To The Directories Slowly.

Category: Articles | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | November 24, 2009
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SEO Tips – Optimize Your E-Commerce Website – III

In this part of e-commerce website optimization tips, we will see how much content is valuable and what mistakes does many e-commerce website when it comes to creating content for their website. This is the third post of the series, and I will help you tackle the problem of duplicate content that is hindering your upward movement in search engine listing.

Content

Writing content for your e-commerce website is the trickiest of all. Many people err here, which jeopardize their effort to optimize their e-commerce website for major search engines. Let’s see what we need to do to avoid this mistake.

Product description

This is the most potent area where search engines bury the red flag of duplicate content deep in the ground.

Most e-commerce websites commit the crime (note I have used the word crime not mistake or blunder) of lifting the product description directly from the manufacturer’s website. They select the product description of the product they are promoting, and copy it from manufacturer’s website and paste it in their CMS thinking they have done hell of a labor.

This is a huge mistake. Do not just copy product description, write your own. Duplicate content is not good.

User generate product review

Encourage your customers to write review about the product they have purchased. Ask them to write honest reviews about their purchase. This is good way to get original content for your e-commerce website.

iFrame and duplicate content

There are times when we cannot do without copying and pasting content from manufacturer’s site into your website like copying the product specification.

This is a big problem. If you copy specification from manufacturer’s website then essentially you are creating duplicate content, but if you do not copy them then how would you write specifications? You cannot possibly reword it for all the products.

How to do it?

It is here that iframe comes into play. If you have to use duplicate content then use it inside an iframe. This way you will avoid penalty. And keep the iframe borderless. This way your visitors will not come to know that the content they are viewing is not there. You can use iframe to solve any duplicate content problem in your website when you have to use same content on many pages.

Category: SEO | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | July 9, 2009
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SEO SIMPLIFIED – Robot.txt

Robot.txt Protocol, also known as Robot Exclusion Protocol or Robot exclusion standard is used by the webmasters to instruct the web spiders about their web sites. Robots or web spiders are the programs that search engines use to scan through each and every page of the website to categorize and archive the web site.

Let’s understand this by an example. Let’s say we have a website, , which we want to get indexed by every major search engines. To assist the search engines in indexing the web site properly, we create an XML sitemap (Click here to read more about XML Sitemaps). So far, so good, but there are pages that we do not want search engines to see, what should we do? We write an exclusion protocol for the web robots, and that exclusion protocol is commonly known as Robot.txt.

Now, you will be thinking, why we will not like search engines to see some of the pages? Well, there can be two reasons: (1) the information on the page is too critical to be shared freely on the Internet, and (2), the pages are restricted for paid or registered users.

How Robot.txt Works

When a search engine spider comes to our to index its web pages, it goes to Robot.txt see what protocol has been set for it before going forward with indexing anything that comes its way. Suppose a search spiders sees the following items written in Robot.txt:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /
Then it will interpret this message in the following way:
“User-agent: *” will say to the search spiders that the protocol written below is applicable to all types of web robots and
“Disallow: /” means the robots are instructed not to visit any page on the website.

Two Caveats of Robot.txt

I have heard many a newbie exclaim WOW on the first exposure to Robot.txt. They just get thrilled by the idea of controlling search engine spiders, but let me tell you do not use Robot.txt casually to hide information from the search engine spiders. And these are the reasons why I am instructing you so:

  1. The Robot.txt file is publically available, so any evil web master or malicious code will have access to it, which they can use to understand what parts of your web server you are not allowing them to see. This information will be enough to put you in uncomfortable position vis-à-vis hackers.
  2. Not all the robots follow the instruction written in a Robot.txt file. Malicious spiders do not look at it because their intension is not to index your web pages but to exploit the security vulnerabilities.
  3. If you only use Robot.txt to prohibit access to certain part of your web page then they come to know where to target, and they already know how.

I hope this discussion on Robot.txt must have helped you understand Robot.txt and its application.

Category: SEO | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | July 4, 2009
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SEO SIMPLIFIED: What exactly is Black Hat SEO – I?

In the last two articles, we have been talking about Black Hat SEO, and about the techniques that are out-and-out classified as Black Hat SEO techniques. The thing we are going to talk about in this article will tell you that there is no such thing as absolute Black Hat SEO technique, at least not in theory. Black Hat SEO may mean one thing to one group of people while something else to another group of people depending upon the SEO school of thought they subscribe to. In the course of next two articles we will try to analyze what these SEO schools of thoughts are. Let’s begin with The Search Engine Policy Approach, and we will also cover The Unnatural Ranking Approach in this article.

The Search Engine Policy Approach

The SEO professionals who follow this approach to classify an SEO practice into either Black Hat or White Hat believe that the SEO technique used by a website should be in sync with the policies and guidelines set by search engines, at least by the ones set by major search engines: Google, Yahoo and MSN.

For an untrained pair of eyes, this approach looks harmless, and more real than any other approach, but there is a slight problem with this approach. And the problem lies in the difference between policies and guidelines set by different search engines, which essentially means, you cannot optimize your website for all the search engines at once. You will need to ask yourself, which search engine you want your website to be optimized for? For example: if you put doorway page (Read about Doorway page here), Yahoo will not have any problem with that, but Google is not friendly to doorway pages. It, instead, suggest using 301 redirects.

The Unnatural Ranking Approach

The subscribers of this school of SEO thought has gone too far in professing that any SEO practice that unnaturally boosts the webpage ranking should be considered Black Hat SEO practice. On the surface this sounds good, but if we scratch the surface even with a coin, the real picture starts emerging.

There are two problems with this school of thought:

  1. The definition of “unnaturally high” is too vague to be accepted by everyone.
  2. According to this approach, every SEO practice is Black Hat. Think this over to the end and you will realize the truth behind this claim. This approach of thinking makes all the H1, H2, H3, Alt tags of your website Black Hat.

With this thought , I am concluding this article, and in the next article, we will discuss about The Visitors Value Approach and The Property Right Approach of SEO classification.

Category: SEO | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | June 26, 2009
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SEO SIMPLIFIED: Black Hat SEO

Now, as you are thinking about SEO, you must have started looking for information related to search engine optimization on the Internet, and the chances are quite fair that you bumped into something called Black Hat SEO. And there is also a possibility that you got fascinated by the quick result it claims to offer, but through this and other two articles let me warn you, on the onset, against the perils of using such unethical techniques to artificially boost the search engine ranking.

If you get caught, your website will be banned by all the major search engines. As it is Black Hat SEO tactics provide a short-term solution for the long-term problem, which is to build an exceptional user experience into your website in order to get repeat visits and loyal user base. One more thing, practicing Black Hat SEO will not win you many friends; rather it will push you to dark and dingy corner. Now, the question is what is Black Hat SEO and how to know, if I am using a White Hat SEO (acceptable form of SEO) or the Black Hat one? Let’s examine that. An SEO practice is called Black Hat SEO in the following situations:

  1. When the SEO technique used Breaks the policy and optimization guidelines set by search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.
  2. When an SEO professional uses an unethical technique of cloaking selective content behind the background to hide it from the eyes of users, but keeping it visible to the search engine spiders.
  3. Creating a poor user experience by excessive use of any SEO technique also gets categorized under Black Hat SEO heading.

In the next article, we will talk about the techniques that are considered as out-and-out Black Hat by the SEO community at large. In the article following that we will talk about what different school of SEO thoughts has to say about Black Hat SEO technique, and what according to them is Black Hat and what it is not?

Category: SEO | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | June 20, 2009
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SEO SIMPLIFIED: On-Page Optimization Part-I

Till now, we have been discussing separately different concepts and tools that you can use to optimize your website.  I hope you are comfortable with the concepts we discussed so far. When all of these concepts come together, we call them on-page optimization. In this and the following article, I will be sharing some valuable tips that will help you optimize your webpage for maximum result. I will recommend you to keep this and the next article handy.

Domain Name: Having your main keyword in the URL will help your website rank better. Hence, start with looking for the most-valuable keyword for the niche you want to operate into, before buying a domain name. (Read SEO SIMPLIFIED:  An Overview).

Static URL: Static URLs are considered search engine friendly. Keep the URLS short and static because major search engines do not like dynamic URL as it confuses their spiders. If you have a lengthy or dynamic URL in your website, convert it to short and static URL.

Example of Dynamic URL:

Example of Static URL:

Which one reads better?

XML Sitemap: XML Sitemap helps search engines in determining the kind of content your website has. It helps web crawler to index even those pages which are generally not accessible, like pages with rich media content, AJAX, JavaScript, etc. (For more details Read Sitemap Primer).

Keyword Density: Before making the webpage live, ascertain that the overall keyword density of the webpage lies between 2-7 percent. You should also avoid stuffing any one paragraph with keywords. The keyword density of each paragraph of the article/content as well as the overall keyword density of the article/content in question should lie between 2-7 percent. (Read Keywords in Content for more detail).

Title Tag: Put the main keyword in the title tag, and make the title tag interesting to read. The title tag should be very creative and should have crowd-pulling capability.

Meta Description Tag: You should write the description of your webpage here. Use the 160 characters available to you to describe the nature of your webpage. A good meta description tag increase the chances of click-through.

Meta Keyword Tag: List all the keywords used in the webpage here. Do not optimize any page for more than 3 keywords.

Image Optimization: Images and flash contents of the websites are inaccessible to the search engine. As the crawler cannot read or see the content of an image or flash file. You can use alt tag to make the image and/or Flash content of the webpage accessible to search engine spiders. (Read Keywords in Content Part –II for more detail).

Links: Avoid using any JavaScript, image or Flash link in your website. Always use text links, and use your primary keyword as anchor text for all the links.

Category: SEO | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | June 6, 2009
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SEO SIMPLIFIED: 5 Mistakes to Avoid Part -I

In the last post of the series, we talked about Sitemap, and I believe the importance of sitemap in SEO must have made home by now. Before moving forward to a new concept, I thought to share some important tips on SEO because I believe many of you must have started optimization process for your web pages. Until now, I have talked about what a concept is, and how to use it, but in this as well as the next post I will talk about five disastrous SEO practices that should be avoided, or else your website will be blacklisted by major search engines. In this post we will discuss about the mistakes related to the keyword usage.

Disastrous SEO Practice 1: Instinctive Keyword Selection

Do not use the keyword that comes first to your mind. Many people believe that the instinct is the best guide in selecting keywords for their websites. Instinct and hunches are indeed very important, and many a time they give us more accurate information about the future course of action, but when it comes to the information related to others, we shouldn’t rely more on the individual instinct of one person. Keywords are one such thing. We need to do the research to find out what people at large are searching for.

Disastrous SEO Practice 2: Optimizing website for every possible keywords

Do not use more than 3 keywords. The main strength of anything that is digital lies in the fact that the space is unlimited and so are the resources. Many people make the wrong use of this freedom and attempt to over use the resources. Keyword is one such resource. After completing keyword research, the beginners get awestruck by finding a huge list of keywords searched at least 100 times a day, and they find themselves undecided on which to use for optimization and which one to leave out. Their instinct suggests that if they leave some keywords out they are leaving an opportunity on the table. Let me tell you, if you follow this gut feeling, which is either untrained or partly-trained in the matters of SEO, then your website is doomed. Do not fall prey to optimizing your web page for more than 3 keywords.

Disastrous SEO Practice 3: Playing hide & seek with keywords

Do not try to fool search engines by hiding excessive keywords behind the picture, by writing the keywords using the color used as background color, or by keeping the keywords offsite. An SEO newbie often comes with a clever plan to use more keywords then are legitimately permitted by the search engines. This guy will use keyword stuffing but in a different way. He will hide the extra keyword behind the images, or make the color of the text and the background same. This person may also attempt to keep the keyword offsite, away from the eyes of the visitors.

Let me prick the false-hope bubble. None of the act will bear positive results, on the contrary, your website will be banned as the search spiders can see every bit written in any page of the website opened for optimization. They are not blinded by the image, or by the color. They are way smarter than what you think them to be.

I want you to know the harmful effect of using these practices. Hence, I am finishing this article here. In the next article, I will through light on the other two dangerous SEO practices.

Category: SEO | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | May 14, 2009
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SEO SIMPLIFIED – Keywords in Content Part – IV

So far in the series we have discussed about keyword density, keyword prominence and keyword proximity. In this concluding article on proper use of keywords in writing SEO content, we will talk about keyword ranking. When working hand in hand these four keyword usage techniques get better ranking for the your content. Hence, a proper use of each of them is necessary.

All keywords are not created equal. Some are more valuable while others are less, and for this reason we classify keywords in two broad categories, primary keywords and secondary keywords. This classification is done on the basis of the importance of the keywords for the website or blog in question. Once the keywords are ranked, we use primary keyword to optimize the tags, contents and HTML codes whereas secondary keywords are used to support the primary keywords. In other words, secondary keywords are used to strengthen the positioning of the primary keyword. Primary keywords are those keywords that get your website more visitors and have less competition, while secondary keywords are used less frequently by the searchers.

It is necessary to use a good combination of primary and secondary keywords to optimize a website for higher ranking. Although secondary keywords cannot get a huge fan-following for itself, but it creates the environment in which primary keywords flourish. Secondary keywords work as links between two or more primary keywords. There is no set rule for using secondary keywords in the content. Use it the way you like maintaining a separate keyword density of below 7 percent for each of the secondary keywords. Going over the limit will render your keywords inert, so keep even the secondary keywords inside the boundary imposed by major search engines.

This discussion on keyword ranking has led us to the end of the four-article long discussion on how to use keywords in content for better result. Continuing our SEO Simplified series, in the next article we will talk about sitemap.

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