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 Search Engine Bytes #2
Questions & Answers with Sumantra Roy
Q - I hear a lot about search engine optimization and I've recently subscribed to your newsletter. I would like to know whether I should apply general search engine optimization techniques or should I target a particular search engine in my attempt to boost traffic?
A - This is an evergreen topic for discussion in search engine circles, as both amateurs and experts often find themselves in the tricky situation of having to decide whether the next website they optimize should be geared towards a single or multiple search engines.
The short and simple answer, Richard, in my personal opinion, is that you should apply the general search engine optimization techniques you talked about rather than target your website for high rankings on just a particular search engine.
There may exist certain scenarios when it is better to optimize a website for just one search engine. A case in point would be when a local company in the business of renting musical instruments and equipment, would like to be ranked in the top results for just the regional search engine. Since this regional search engine would be used by the majority of internet surfers in the locality which would match the company's target audience, it therefore would be very appropriate to optimize the company's website primarily for just this one search engine.
Practically, however, the situation at most times is different from the one illustrated above. Dotcoms are opening online to improve business and to capture a larger market share. They are ready to sell to online consumers with credit cards, irrespective of their creed, color or nationality. Who would like to refuse customers coming in through the leading search engines that are generating the maximum traffic?
It therefore is a much wiser strategy to apply fundamental optimization techniques that would be favorable to all or most search engines rather than to work your website up just for any single search engine. Without going into full details, you must make sure you are using the techniques that I have discussed in previous issues of this newsletter and at the free articles present in our website:
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/articles.htm
Title tag - Begin your Title tag with the keyword you are optimizing for and keep this tag short and meaningful.
Meta Description - Very similar to the Title tag, however, the description can be a little lengthier and more descriptive.
Meta Keywords - Include some keywords that you are targeting. Remember though, you should not fill this tag with too many keywords nor should you write similar keywords one beside the other.
Next, include your primary keyword phrase in the ALT tag for an appropriate image on your webpage. Use the keyword phrase as the heading in an H1 tag on your webpage. Then proceed to write down well thought keyword-rich content on the page in the Body of the document. Remember the 1st few lines (approximately 50-150 words) will be crucial as sometimes this content is used instead of the Meta Description tag that some search engines have stopped using.
Create original content of acceptable quality that should go to at least 250-300 words per page. Last but not
least, link to the internal pages of your website from all other pages with the keywords used as the link text. Start exchanging links with other websites that fall within the same theme or category. Again use your keyword phrase in those links that other webmasters will have on their websites. If properly done you should be in the top results of several search engines very soon.
Contrary to what is often believed by novice search engine optimizers, you don't need to create different pages with different techniques in order to get top rankings in different engines. Although the algorithms employed by different search engines are different, done correctly, it is quite possible to get good rankings in all the engines by following the same basis optimization procedures.
Q - My webmaster created my website in 2001 and used many techniques to achieve top 10 listings at search engines such as Altavista,Yahoo and Google. My site was banned on Google recently. I am not sure for what reason, but what must I do next to get back into Google?
A - If getting banned from Google has got you worried then we sure know the reasons for it. Google is currently the undisputed numero uno search engine on the Internet. Getting banned would mean having committed the gravest of all sins by going against Google's own terms of acceptance.
There is no doubt that many of the policies that Google outlines and most of the terms they adhere to for accepting or rejecting websites are contentious and debatable. But this thin line that they have to tread on themselves, is one of the reasons that they are the king in search engine relevancy.
Going from what is mentioned in your email, I would advice you to get back to your webmaster and ask him to disclose to you all the techniques and strategies he used to get top listings in the search engine results page. If you have already read Google's guidelines on quality: http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html#quality you may be able to arrive at a conclusion as to whether your webmaster used any hidden text, cloaking techniques or doorway pages that was not acceptable to Google.
To directly read what Google has to say about webpages that were previously listed and are not listed anymore visit the following page: http://www.google.com/webmasters/2.html#usedtobe
Do you see something that strikes you ? Perhaps your website was not reachable when Googlebot (Google's software robot that seeks and indexes websites) tried to access it. This could be a temporary fault or glitch at your web hosting servers. If this is the reason, then your site should return to Google pretty soon.
However, if this is not the reason, the best way to get your website back into Google if it was banned is to write to
help@google.com explaining your situation. If indeed you are sure that techniques such as cloaking or writing text that can be seen by search engines but not by users or setting up pages/links with the sole purpose of fooling search engines etc... were used then you must clean your website of all such code and pages before writing to Google, to stand a good chance of possible re-inclusion into Google.
If you do not get a reply from Google within 2 weeks you may politely send them a second email reminding them about your case. Wait another week or two and if yet no reply comes forth try a third and final email to them at the same address. You should get a reply giving you further information and status of the website in question and if all goes well you could be re- included in the next update.
However, if three emails to Google still does not get you a response let alone re-inclusion then you should call up Google at 1-650-330-0100 to speak to them in person. When the menu is read out to you over the phone, press 0 to talk to a live operator who will tell you what to do in order to contact someone at Google. This should do the trick. Note, however, it is not advisable to first call them up before sending them an email, as email is the first medium of communication they prefer to use in discussing issues such as these.
Q - In your last issue, you mentioned that the Meta Keywords tag is no longer important for the search engines. Is the Meta Description tag important? Or has even that lost its importance?
A - While the Meta Keywords tag is no longer important, the Meta Description tag continues to be important for your site. It is important not because it boosts rankings in the search engines (most search engines will no longer boost your rankings if the keyword is present in the Meta Description tag), but because quite a few engines display the content of the Meta Description tag of your site when they are displaying your site in their search results.
By writing a Meta Description tag which is attractive to your human visitors, you can ensure that your customers click on your site in the search results instead of the sites of your competitors.
Furthermore, until recently, Google used to ignore the Meta Description tag completely - instead of displaying the Meta Description tag, it used to display text fragments (which contained the keyword that the user had typed in) from the body of your site. This often made it difficult to control exactly what description was displayed for your site in Google's search results.
However, recently, Google has started displaying the Meta Description tag of a site in the search results as long as the tag contains the keyword at least once. In fact, instead of displaying only a small text fragment from the Meta Description tag, it will display the entire sentence which contains the keyword.
Hence, as Google is by far the most important engine these days, it is vitally important that your Meta Description tag contains the keyword at least once and that it is attractive to your human visitors.
Q - I recently read in a newsletter I subscribe to that AltaVista has started giving more preference to sites which are part of its paid inclusion program. You had mentioned in an earlier issue that you do not recommend AltaVista's paid inclusion program. Would you still have the same recommendation?
A - While you are right in saying that AltaVista seems to be giving more preference in the search rankings to sites that are part of its paid inclusion program, I would still not recommend that you pay to get included in AltaVista. This is because, firstly, it is still possible to get good rankings in AltaVista without paying (although your chances of getting good rankings do improve if you are part of their paid inclusion programs).
Secondly, a good ranking in AltaVista is just not worth as much as it used to be a few years back. AltaVista simply does not get as much traffic as it used to earlier - most of their visitors seem to have shifted to Google. In fact, for many clients of our search engine positioning services, we have found that a top ranking in AltaVista for a particular keyword hardly brings in 1 visitor a day whereas a similar ranking for the same keyword in Google brings in dozens of visitors every day.
Thirdly, in light of the limited benefits that can accrue to web site owners from AltaVista's paid inclusion program, the prices charged by them - $39 for the first page, $29 per page for pages 2 - 10 and $19 per page for each page after the 10th page - is far too expensive in my opinion, especially when you consider that these are half-yearly rather than annual prices.
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Article by Sumantra Roy. Sumantra is one of the most respected search engine positioning specialists on the Internet. To have Sumantra's company list your site in the major search engines on the Net, go to http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/ For more advice on how you can take your web site to the top of the engines, subscribe to his FREE newsletter here:
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/newsletter.htm
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