Posted by admin on Thursday Apr 14, 2011
Filed under :SEO
The Robots META tag is a simple mechanism to indicate to visiting Robots (Search Engines/Crawlers) if a page should be indexed, or the links on the page should be followed. The meta tags are placed in the <HEAD> section of an HTML page.
The META tag contents parameter contains one or more directives separated by commas. The currently defined directives are “[no]index” and “[no]follow}. The “index” directive specifies whether the robot should index the page. The “follow” directive specifies whether the robot should follow links on the page. The defaults are “index” and “follow”. The values “all” and “none” set all directives on or off: “all=index,follow” and “none=noindex,nofollow”. The META tag (as with all HTML tags) is case-insensitive.
Posted by admin on Wednesday Apr 6, 2011
Filed under :SEO
As described on URL Canonicalization article we published in March, having a unique URL (“canonicalization“) for each webpage is important in improving your “Pagerank“. Canonicalization is accomplished by redirecting non-standard webpages to a preferred (“standard”) webpage. There are a number of ways to redirect a webpage, but 301 (HTTP/1.1 Status Code, “Moved Permanently”) redirect is the search engine friendly method which passes the pagerank and search engine ranking status from old to a new page. Here is an examples of how 301 redirect can be implemented on LAMP (Linux/Apache/Mysql/PHP) environment.
Apache .htaccess: non-www to www subdomain redirect
1. Make sure your httpd.conf file has the “Directory” directive with the “AllowOverride All” setting.
<Directory /path/to/your/domain/document/root>
AllowOverride All
</directory>
2. Enable Mod-Rewirte Module
Your apache configuration should have the mod-rewrite module enabled, which is the default. You can verify this by perusing httpd.conf file for the following line:
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
3. Create a .htaccess file in the document root directory of your website with the following content.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{http_host} ^webtrafficexchange.com [nc]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.webtrafficexchange.com/$1 [r=301,nc]
Just replace the “webtrafficexchange.com” with the domain name you’re trying to redirect.
Posted by admin on Tuesday Mar 8, 2011
Filed under :SEO
One of the first things discussed when beginning SEO project is the URL canonicalization. You may argue that the impact on having multiple URLs resolving to a same page may not have huge effect on SEO (if you use it consistently internally), but it certainly doesn’t hurt to normalize the URL so that only one Url serves a single webpage. Implementation is not too difficult for most webmasters, and there is an evidence that URL canonicalization will have a positive effect on your SEO effort. You may use one form (www or non-www) of Url for all your internal linking, but you cannot guarangee that others will do the same on 3rd-party websites.
Search engines such as Google and Bing rank URLs, not websites or webpages. Having multiple URLs for single contents will hurt your ranking especially when Google implemented “Farmer” algorithm (February 2011) to penalize sites with duplicate contents. So, how do you canonicalize your URL? There are a couple of ways to achieve canonicalization. Suppose, we want www.webtrafficexchange.com to be the default homepage of our website. We can make our webserver so that if someone requests http://webtrafficexchange.com, we can do a 301 (permanent) redirect to http://www.webtrafficexchange.com. That helps Google know which url we prefer to be canonical.
If you have an ecommece website with a lot of GET parameters such as sort order, category ID, session ID or tracking ID for your conversion tracking; you may have single content served by various URLs like http://www.kiddietoys.com/?src=nextag&session=abc and http://www.kiddietoys.com/?src=shopping&session=xyz. To let Google or any search engines know that you have preferred url for all variation of those urls, you may use <link> tag inside the <head> tag as shown below:
Google will understand that the duplicates all others refer to the canonical URL shown above. Additional URL properties, like PageRank and related signals, are transferred as well.
What is URL Canonicalization?
URL Canonicalization (also known as URL normalization) is the process of resolving multiple URLs to a single standard URL known as the canonical name.
How does non-canonicalized URL impact your SEO?
If Google sees a page as being published at two different URLs, it may rank your pages lower than they would otherwise. Non-canonicalized URLs can split link juice between pages if people link to variants of the URL, and hence affects link popularity (or pagerank) of the URL as well as possibly affect depth of search engine crawl.
How do I resolve URL Canonicalization problem?
You can permanently redirect non-www URL to the www URL with 301 redirect. For apache web server, you can create a .htaccess file on your document root folder with the following content:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^webtrafficexchange.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.webtrafficexchange.com/$1 [L,R=301]
Posted by admin on Wednesday Oct 27, 2010
Filed under :SEO
Have you ever pushed your limit on SEO efforts, and experienced the OOP? On November 15, 2003, the Google SERPs were dramatically altered by Hurricane Florida, also known as Over Optimization Penalty. Google has increased the threshold for triggering the OOP since, and SERPs are back to pre-Florida level.
One of SEO technique well known for OOP target is over usage of anchor text. For example, you decided to change the navigation on your site to include a keyword, say “Keyword Home” instead of “Home”. After a few days, you lose search engine rankings. You change navigator menus back to original, without the keyword, and the lost rank comes back.
Google does not want a site to rank well overnight. If you start a new site, you can easily build search engine optimized pages with good backlinks and your site will be placed in a sandbox for several months before slowly rising to the top.
On the other hand, if you have an existing site and decided to optimize your site with the seo effort. The new pages are fully optimized, but now the OOP comes into play. The site does not rank well and gets held back for several months before slowing rising to the top. This isn’t proven, but OOP seems to play bigger role in more competitive keywords — money making keywords.
The OOP exists for the same reason Sandbox exists, and delays a site from rank well overnight. This might have some affect on Google Adwords sales, as new entrants will likely buy adwords for the keywords until its rank rises.
Posted by admin on Wednesday Oct 27, 2010
Filed under :SEO
If your SERP (Search Engine Result Pages) rank fluctuates, don’t be alarmed. Everyone’s rank fluctuates, and that is the nature of search engines. You may be happy to see your site rank highly on most coveted keywords, but don’t expected to last forever without constantly updating your site. Search engines are constantly tweaking their algorithms and new sites are constantly being added, so SERP ranking fluctuations are expected. Also, your competitions are updating their sites to achieve better rankings.
About once in every 30 days, Google recalculates the page rank of each web pages, and re-indexes the SERP for all keywords. The Google Dance is the time period between the start and end of the re-indexing. During Google Dance, the search results are different on www.google.com, www2.google.com, and www3.google.com. The www2 and www3 are known to be Google’s test engines. The dance normally takes about 4 days.
Even when no Google Dance is in effect, SERPs may be different for same keywords at different time of the day. This may be due to hitting different Google servers between searches. Search results may be different on different Google servers, and geographic location and load balancing potentially makes users land on different servers.
You as a website owner should concentrate more on targetted traffic and conversions rather than pure SERP rankings. As you enrich your website by adding more relevant contents and building backlink to your website, you are ultimately attracting more targeted and qualified traffic.
Posted by admin on Wednesday Oct 27, 2010
Filed under :SEO
HTML meta tags are not magic bullets that will magically boost your site rankings in search engine listings. They are one of many tools that will help improve your standings in search engines that use them. Google does not seem to value meta description and keyword tags anymore, but many other engines do. Use them with other search engine strategies will help improve your overall site rankings. We have only focused on the tags that have relevance in search engine optimization.
What is a Meta Tag?
Meta tag or what are officially referred to as Metadata Elements, are found within the <HEAD></HEAD> section of a HTML document. The information inserted in a meta tag is not visible to the user, but are intended for search engines. The meta tag has three possible attributes: content, http-equiv, and name. Meta tags always provide information in a name/value pair. The name and http-httpequiv attributes provide name information, and the content provides the value information. Meta tags do not have a closing tag. For detailed specification, please refer W3C Metadata Specification.
Why are Meta Tags used?
Meta Tags are originally designed to let search engines know what the site is all about. This information is in turn used by the search engines to decide how to rank the sites in their search results. However, as the competition increased, webmasters started manipulating this information for their advantage and search engines started withdrawing their support to meta description and keyword tags. For this reason, there is no guarantee that your website will do any better than the ones that do not have meta tags in search engine rankings. Apart from search engine rankings, some search engines use meta tags to describe its web pages on search engine result pages (SERPs).
Title Tag
The Title Tag of a HTML document describe title of a webpage. The Title Tag is NOT a meta tag, but it is defined in the <HEAD> block of a HTML page and it is displayed at the top title bar of the browsers. Search Engines use this title information in the hyperlink listings on the search engine results.
The title tag plays a vital role in describing your page to search engines, and it does influence your rankings on search engine results. The title of a web page should be carefuly assembled, especially the words that appear and the order in which they appear. Your targeted keyword should be stuffed in the title tag, instead of your company name to boost the content relevancy. You may also place the keywords in the order of their importance. Google is known to read only about 90 characters of the title tag, so you should leverage this length to cover prominent keywords relevant to the page. It is also helpful to have custom title tags designed for each page you have on your website.
META Description Tag
The Meta Description Tag is used to provide a short and concise summary of your web page contents. Some search engines index contents of META description tag to present the description of your site on their search engine result pages (SERPs). In the SERP, the users go through the description of the page and decide whether to visit your site or not, so it’s important that you compose an eye-catching and descriptive information about your website. About 25-30 words description should be used. Keywords and phrases should be included in the Meta Description Tag, though care should be given not to repeat them too often as over usage may penalyze your website ranking.
META Keywords Tag
The META keywords tag is use to list keywords and keyword phrases that you’ve targeted for your webpage. Most search engines do no longer value the Meta Keywords Tag anymore, so it is up to you to use them or not.
Posted by admin on Wednesday Oct 27, 2010
Filed under :SEO
There are probably more than 100 rules that Google uses to rank pages in the search engine result pages (SERP). No one really knows all the rules, and they’re changing on a periodic basis. Various confirmed and suspected SEO rules described here are educated guesses by SEO experts.
Positive Google Rules (On Page)
Keyword in URL.
Keyword in domain name.
Keyword in title tag.
Keyword in Heading tag (i.e. H1, H2, and H3).
Positive Google Rules (Off Page)
Google Page Rank (Higher the better).
Anchor text of inbound link to your site.
Link from “Expert” site.
In directories (dmoz.org, Yahoo, and etc.)
Site Age.
Negative Google Rules (On Page)
No body text. Text represented in graphics form.
Over Optimization Penalty (OOP) – Google Florida
Link to a bad link farm.
Redirect through refresh metatags.
Use of poison words.
Excessive cross-linking within same IP block.
Keyword Stuffing in body, meta tags, and alt text.
Posted by admin on Wednesday Oct 27, 2010
Filed under :SEO
As Google does not reveal its engine algorithms, no one really knows whether the sandbox really exists. The sandbox is nothing more than a theory developed to explain what many SEO experts have witnessed with their listings.
Google programmers may feel uncomfortable ranking new websites well until they have proven their viability to exist for a few months. The term “Sandbox Effect” refers to the idea that all new websites are placed in a sandbox (“away from real web sites”) for a period of time deemed appropriate before a ranking can commence. The usual holding period seems to be anywhere from 90 to 120 days.
The sandbox is a relatively new filter that appeared after the widely publicized updates of Austin and Florida. If you don’t know what Austin and Florida updates are, don’t worry they’re mostly in the past.
The Sandbox Effect is that new websites may get into Google’s Search Engine Results Pages relatively quickly and may even perform well for a couple of weeks. When the filter is applied to the new website it is referred to as being put in the “sandbox” status. The new website will still show in the result pages, but it will not rank well regardless of how much original, well optimized content and regardless of how many quality inbound links the site may have. The filter restrains new websites from having immediate success in the search engine result pages.
Is there a way to get out of the Sandbox? The simple answer is wait. The sandbox is not a permanent fileter, and is only intended to reduce search engine spam. If your website is in the sandbox, you may want to use this time to build traffic using traditional methods such as writing articles, building a strong community visitors, and partnering with companies. You may also use this time to build strong inbound links from other sites.
Posted by admin on Wednesday Oct 27, 2010
Filed under :SEO
Search Engine Optimization refers to the marketing technique of preparing a website (or web pages) to enhance its chances of being ranked well in the search engine result pages when a relavant search is undertaken. Search engine technologies are constantly evolving, and new algorithms are being deployed on a periodic basis. With ever changing search engine technology, a good way to keep your site at a top place is by applying basic SEO techniques and constantly monitor your website for improvements.
Ranking higher on search engines require persistence and dedication, and it doesn’t usually happen overnight. Even if you already have good placements on major search engines, they should be constantly monitored to maintain your rankings. The basic tips described below will help you improve your search engine placement.
Identify your keywords
One of the most essential aspect of SEO work is deciding on the keyword phrases. Think about what your intended audiences are looking for, and what they would type in the search engines to find your website. If you choose the wrong keywords, you will not be found by your intended audiences. Identify up to 50 keywords (and phrases), and evaluate them for their competitiveness and identify 5-10 keywords that you can optimize for your website. Use keyword analysis tool such as WordTracker and KeywordSpy to identify the keywords. It is practically impossible to optimize every keywords that you have in mind in a single web page. For best results, optimize one or two keywords in a page.
Title and Meta Tags
The title, meta keyword, meta description tags play important role in determining relevancy of your webpage compare to your competitors’. In general, make them concise and optimize for one or two keywords yields best result. Although some search engines neglect META tages, it doesn’t hurt to describe your keywords and description as there are plenty search engines still use them.
Relavancy
When a search engine rank one site higher over another, it uses relavancy rules. Searche engines use following criterias for determining relevancy of a web page on a particular keyword or phrase.
Prominence: Prominence is determined by how early your keywords appear in your tags and in the body contents. The earlier it appears better off it is.
Density: How many times have you used the keyword phrases in your webpage? More is not necessarily better, but it should balance overall length of the web page. The keyword density is appearance of your keyword phrases in relation to the total number of words in the page.
Proximity: Keep your keywords near each other.
Link Popularity: How many websites and webpages link to your website? More the better. Check out your Google page rank by installing the Google toolbar.
Use Root Path: Don’t place important pages in subdirectories. Place your keywords in all important pages. If you have directory structure in place, you may use Apache (IIS or web server) rewrite rules to achieve root path goal.
Add your website to directories
It is helpful to list your website in the directories such as dmoz.org and yahoo. Although it may take some time (and money for yahoo) to list your website in directories, they are worthwhile doing it.
