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SEO frequently asked questions
| Back to seo general. tdv (2006-12-22) |
What are SERPs?
SERPs is an acronym for Search Engine Results Pages. Basically they are the search results you receive when doing a search at a search engine.
Why anchor text is so important?
See this HTML code :
<a href="http://www.ficgs.com/forums.html">SEO forums and chat</a>
The anchor text for this link is "SEO forums and chat". This is important in search engine rankings because the search engines use anchor text to help determine the relevance of a page being linked to for those keywords.
How do I get a lot of backlinks to point to my site?
A place to start is to submit to free directories. Find good ones in 'Promote your website' forum.
Do outbound links improve your ranking?
No.
How many keywords should I put into my <title>, <a>, and <h1> tags?
Best is to put only keywords that are most relevant to your pages. The more words you put in each tag, the more you dilute the value each keyword is given.
Meta Tags
The large majority of search engines do not use Meta Tags as part of their ranking algorithm. An exception is Yahoo which does use them (at least the meta keyword). So it's worth anyway to use it.
Is it better to submit my website to the Search Engines by hand?
Yes. It will not take long to do and will ensure that you are successful in submitting each form with the correct information.
How often should I submit my website to the search engines?
Once. Resubmitting your url does not get you indexed faster or improve your rankings. Also, resubmitting your site will never cause your site to be banned.
Pages with .php extensions don't rank as well as pages with .html extensions
Untrue. The file extension does not affect your rankings in any way.
I just changed from .html to .php. Will I lose my PageRank ?
There are two ways to prevent this:
- Tell Apache to parse all .html files a .php file. Using this method you do not have to change any files extensions or worry about any redirects. To do this, place this code in your httpd.conf file:
Code: AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .html
- Use a 301 redirect to redirect from the .html files to the .php files. You can do that by placing this code in the root directory of your website:
Code: RedirectMatch 301 ^/(.*)\.html$ ht*p://www.yourdomain.com/$1.php
I just changed my domain name. How can I switch without losing my rankings?
You'll need to do a 301 redirect from the old domain to the new domain. You'll need to add the following lines of code to a file called .htaccess and place it in the root directory of the old domain:
Code:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?old-domain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ ht*p://www.new-domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
Why aren't all my pages being indexed?
If your site is less then six months old, your site is too new to be worrying about getting all of your pages indexed. Be patient. It takes time to crawl through your whole website and add your pages to the index. If you are sure your pages are search engine friendly then you have nothing to worry about.
If your site is six months old or older you need to check your website to make sure all of your pages can be found and indexed. Have you:
- Made a sitemap?
- Used search engine friendly URLs?
- Used search engine friendly navigation?
Most important, get incomming links. These are important for the search engines' algorythms and may play an important part in how deep the search engines will crawl your website.
How do I check if my site is search engine friendly?
Turn off JavaScript, CSS, and cookies in your web browser and view your website. This is how the search engines most likely see your website. If you can successfully view your content and navigate your website your site is mostly search engine friendly. The only other thing to check is your URLs. Not using a session ID or 'id=' in your query strings is also very helpful.
Which is better for domain name and/or url: hyphen (-), underscore(_), or plus sign(+)?
Hyphens are the best keyword delimiter you can use in your domain name or URL. Hyphens are universally accepted as a keyword separator by all major search engines. Yahoo and MSN do recognize the underscore (_) as a keyword separator but Google does not.
See also - http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashes-vs-underscores/
It's also said that separators are not necessary as search engines can find keywords in URLs without assistance. Untrue. At least not entirely. They are smart and most likely can pick some keywords out of a URL. But they are not that smart. Sometimes it is not obvious where one keyword ends and another begins.
Will too many hyphens in your domain name will cause the search engines to label your site as spam?
No. This is a myth caused by many spam sites using multiple hyphens in their domain name.
Does the order of the keywords used in a search affect the search results?
Yes.
Does the order of the keywords in a domain name/URL matter?
Yes.
Can search engines see password protected pages?
No, search engines cannot go anywhere that a regular user cannot go. If you have a password protected area of your website that cannot be accessed without a login and password then the search engines cannot see it.
Which is better for SEO: text links or graphical links?
Text links are better for SEO. Text links can contain the anchor text that your page wishes to rank well for and that is an important factor in all three search engines, especially Google. Image links are still valuable but do have less benefits compared to text links. This is true despite image tags having the ALT attribute available.
Does validation help your ranking?
No. (if your page is correctly parsed)
Can the search engines read javascript?
Probably not.
What is a quality link?
A quality link is:
- On topic (The page linking to your page is about the same main topic)
- Ranked well for the keyphrase you are after (In the top 1,000)
- Contains the keywords you wish to rank well for
- Has high PR (PR 4 or higher)
Why should I not launch an incomplete website?
- Search engines may index incomplete pages and cache them and then not refresh their cache for months or years
Will changing hosts/IP addresses affect my rankings?
No.
What is referrer spam?
Referrer spam is when a spammer sends fake referrers to your server. They do this because they know most web stats lists referrers as hyperlinks. They then submit your stats to the search engines in the hopes that they will crawl your stats and find that link. They also hope you click on that link yourself.
What is a doorway page?
Quote from Wikipedia : Doorway pages are web pages that are created to rank high in search engine results for particular phrases with the purpose of sending you to a different page. They are also known as landing pages, bridge pages, portal pages, zebra pages, jump pages, gateway pages, entry pages and by other names.
What is cloaking?
Quote from Wikipedia : Search engine optimization technique in which the content presented to the search engine spider is different from that presented to the users' browser; this is done by delivering content based on the IP addresses or the User-Agent HTTP header of whatever is requesting the page. The only legitimate uses for cloaking used to be for delivering content to users that search engines couldn't parse, like Macromedia Flash. However, cloaking is often used to try to trick search engines into giving the relevant site a higher ranking; it can also be used to trick search engine users into visiting a site based on the search engine description which site turns out to have substantially different content. For this reason some search engines threaten to ban sites using cloaking.
Hidden Text/Hidden DIVs
Hidden text/DIVs are only bad if you are using them to manipulate the SERPs. There are many practical uses of hidden text/DIVs that enhance a web page without being malicious.
Good uses of hidden text/DIVs: Dynamic menus, dynamic page content
Bad uses of hidden text/DIVs: Text that is present on the page but cannot be viewed by human beings at any time
Glossary
Keyword Stuffing - This occurs when a web page is loaded with keywords in the meta tags or in content.
Link Baiting - Writing good content that people will naturally want to link to.
Link Building - Getting more links to point to your webpages. Also known as "acquiring inbound links".
Link Farm - Any group of web pages that all hyperlink to every other page in the group. Done with the intention of manipulating the SERPs and is usually penalized by the search engines.
Organic Search - The search results determined by a search engine's algorithm. The opposite of paid inclusion advertising.
Spider - Also known as a web spider, web robot, or bot is a program which browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner.
What would be a good SEO strategy?
Before you write one line of code:
Do keyword research to determine what keywords you want to target
While constructing your website you should do the following:
Use markup to indicate the content of your site
Optimize your <title> tags on each page to contain 1 - 3 keywords
Create unique Meta Tags for each page
Use header tags appropriately (H1 > H2 > H3)
Use <strong> and <em> tags if appropriate
Optimize your URLs
Use Search Engine Friendly URLs (for dynamic sites)
Use keywords in your domain ( ht*p://www.keyword1.com/ )
Use keywords in your URL (ht*p://www.example.com/keyword2/keyword3.html)
Use dashes instead of underscores to separate words in your URLs (keyword2-keyword3.html)
Optimize your content
Use keywords liberally yet appropriately throughout each page
Have unique content
Have quality content
Use search engine friendly design
Create a human sitemap
Do not use inaccessible site navigation (JavaScript menus)
Minimized outbound links
Kept your pages under 100K in size
Design the navigational structure of the site to channel PR to main pages (especially the homepage)
Create a page that encourages webmasters to link to your site
Provide them the relevant HTML to create their link to you
Provide them with any images you may want them to use (although text links are better)
Make sure your website is complete before launching it
Immediately after launching your site you should do the following:
Submit your site to all major search engines
Google (Use a Google SiteMap)
Yahoo (Use the page list option)
MSN
Ask (Finds your site via incomming links)
Submit your site to all free directories
DMOZ (also powers Google Directory)
JoeAnt
Submit your site to relevant directories
Find more at ISEDB
Begin a link building campaign (attempting to get keywords in the link anchor text)
Put a link to your website in your forum signatures
Reply to relevant blog posts (Don't spam please)
Submit articles to relevant websites
If you will pay to promote your website:
Submit your site to pay directories
Yahoo
GoGuides
Purchase text links from high PR (Pagerank) sites related to your site
Finally, as part of an ongoing strategy:
Continually update your website with quality, unique content
Continually seek free links preferably from sites in your genre
Do NOT do the following:
Make an all Flash website (without an HTML alternative)
Use JavaScript for navigation
Spam other websites for incomming links
Launch your site before it is done
Use duplicate content
Point several domains to one site without using a 301 redirect
Use markup inappropiately
Style <H>eader tags to look like regular text
Hide content using 'display: hidden' (for the sake of hiding text)
Use other "black hat" techniques (unless you accept the risk - Banning)
Doorway/Landing pages
Cloaking
Hidden text
Keyword stuffing
Additional Tips:
Usable and accessible sites tend to be search engine friendly by their very nature
Be patient! High rankings don't happen overnight
Don't obsess with any one search engine. They are all worth your attention
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