SEO and Link Popularity

What is Link Popularity?

Link Popularity refers to the number of links pointing to your site, from other sites on the web. The Search Engines consider your site important and rank it higher if several other sites link to your site. Type in your domain name in the box below and hit the 'search' button, to find out the link popularity of your site.

You can also search for this on Google by typing in the following command -

Link: www.yourdomain.com

The above command gives you a selective list of links, usually from PR4+ link pages. For a more extensive list, you may search the following syntax -

"yourdomain.com" -site:www.yourdomain.com

For a detailed Link Popularity report, you can use our Link Popularity Analyzer Tool, which checks the link popularity of your site across various search engines like Google, MSN, AltaVista, HotBot, Yahoo and AlltheWeb.

The History of LInk Popularity and PageRank

History behind Link Popularity and Google PageRank
Web, by its very nature is based on hyperlinks, where sites link to other prominent sites. If you take the logic that you would tend to link to sites that you consider important, in essence, you are casting a vote in favor of the sites that you link to. When hundreds or thousands of sites link to a site, it is logical to assume that such a site would be good and important. Taking this logic further the Google founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page formulated a Search Engine algorithm that shifted the ranking weight to off-page factors. They evolved a formula called PageRank (named after its founder Larry Page ) where the algorithm would count the number of sites that link to a page and assign it an importance score on a scale of 1-10. More the number of sites that link to a page, higher its PageRank.

Google's PageRank is important because it is one of the primary off-page factors that influences your page's ranking in the search engine result pages.

PageRank in Google's own Words
Google explains PageRank as follows ( http://www.google.com/technology/):

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."

Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query.

For more information on Google PageRank, go to

http://www.google.com/technology/

http://www.google.com/webmasters/4.html

Benefits of Building Link Popularity

Building Link Popularity is one of the most important and critical aspects of any effective Search Engine Optimization campaign today. The 'off-page' factors such as link popularity, PageRank and Anchor Text in incoming links play a major role in your site's ranking in the search engine results pages (SERP).

Search Engines consider your site more important if more links point to your site. Building link popularity improves the PageRank of your web pages (Read more about PageRank). The higher the PageRank of your website, the higher its importance for search engines and higher it gets ranked in the search engine result pages. Search engines also take into account the PageRank of the pages that link to your site and its industry relevance to your own industry. Links from higher PageRank pages and industry relevant sites give your site a higher value.
Types of Links

There are two types of links you can establish on the web. One way is to trade links (Link Exchange), where you give a link from the links Page on your site to the partner sites. The second method is to establish 'only-incoming' links also called 'one-way links' or 'Non-Reciprocal links'.

Only-Incoming Links

Only incoming links are the links established on the other websites where you do not need to link back to them. There are various compelling reasons and methods to establish such one-way links which include linking back from a different website that you may own, publishing articles on sites, content syndication, listing in trade directories and giving out press releases in news networks.

Link Exchange

Link exchange is an easier way to establish links from other websites to your website. In link exchange process, you trade links with prospective partner sites by offering a link to their site from your own site. This method is a fast way to establish several hundred links to your website. However, it may not get you great benefits.

Only Incoming Links vs. Link Exchange

Google developed the PageRank algorithm to provide authentic and quality information while making it difficult for webmasters and site owners to contaminate the search results by artificially inflating their PageRank.

The new algorithm came into effect with the launch of Google in 1998. Google's PageRank was based on the logic that more the number of sites that link to a page, higher its PageRank.

As Webmasters realized the importance of PageRank, they found ways to artificially inflate their PageRank by manipulating direct link exchanges. This defeated the very essence on which the Google PageRank algorithm was build. To counter this, Google has constantly been fine-tuning and updating its algorithms. Read about Google's latest algo updates.

The search engines are aware that a large number of sites are deploying link exchange campaigns to boost their site's PR. Search engines are working towards fine-tuning their algos to discount direct link exchanges in order to preserve the effect of their link popularity related algorithms and rationalize artificially inflated links popularity of sites.

While the algos are yet to reflect this change, we believe that it may happen soon enough. In the long run, we recommend investing your resources in an ' only-incoming links 'campaign for your website which is likely to benefit your site more as opposed to a direct link exchange campaign.

Important Parameters to Consider while Building Link Popularity
Some of the important parameters that you need to consider while establishing links with any website are discussed below:

Factors To Consider

PageRank or PR of the Linking Page

PR of the linking page is one of the most important factors. PR of the linking page determines how much value of importance is passed on to your page. Higher the PR of the linking page, higher the value you get. The home page PR is not as important, but it is an indicator of how much PR a linking page may jump to, in due course of time. For instance, if the PR of the site's link page is 0, but the home page PR is 6, then, there is a bright possibility that in a month or two, the link page PR may also jump to a PR of 4 or even 5 due to the internal linking structure of the partner site. While sites would be happy to give out links from a PR 0 page, you can estimate that in two months time, this link page can jump to a high PR, giving you great value in the future.

Identifying Total Number of Links on the Link Page

The value your web page gets from a linking page is equal to the total PR value of that page divided by the total number of outgoing links on that page. Getting a link from a PR4 page that has only 20 outgoing links is much better than getting a link from a PR4 page that has 60 outgoing links. With the same philosophy, it is better to get a link from a PR2 link page that has only 10 outgoing links than getting a link from a PR4 page that has over 100 outgoing links. It is therefore as important to evaluate the total number of outgoing links on a links page, as it is, to evaluate the PR of the linking page. This is where many people often falter, as they usually insist on getting a link from a high PR page, but if that page has 100 outgoing links, your page would only get 1/100th of that value.

Industry Relevance

Search engines give high importance to links pointing to your site from your own industry segment as opposed to those from an un-related industry. For instance, a hotels and reservations website is likely to benefit more from links pointing from a related industry site like travel, vacation packages or cruises, than those from an unrelated industry like a drug site.

Industry relevance also needs to be given a high weight while creating resource directories. For example, if you have a site related to hotels, then you can create a resource directory related to your business that could be pertaining to travel, tourism, cruises, vacation rentals, vacation packages, car rentals, food and beverages etc.

Page Relevance

Most sites offering links have several categories listed on their sites. Try and get a link from a category that closely matches your own industry. For instance, if you have a site related to hotels, then, on your partner site, a tickets site for example, try and identify a resource directory pertaining to hotels, resorts, reservations, vacation packages, travel, tourism, food and beverages etc. If the concerned site has a directory on hotels, you should request a link in that category, as a link from that page would be relevant to a hotels site, thus getting you more benefits. An algorithm called "Applied Semantics" determines the industry relevance of a page within a site. Applied Semantics algorithm studies various keywords on a web page and tries to determine the industry or business segment of each page. Applied Semantics estimates the industry segments that are relevant to a particular page. If the link to your page is coming from your business specific segment, then you are likely to draw more benefit.

Anchor Text

Anchor Text is the visible hyperlinked text on a web page. Since anchor text is very important, make sure that your most important keywords appear in anchor text from the link pointing to your site. You should try and work with at-least 10-20 keyword and link text options. If you are creating a large number of links using only one standard link text, then the search engines are likely to detect a pattern. It is possible that future algo updates may do away with all repetitive and similar looking links to your site. You can also refer to our article on Anchor Text Optimization for more details.

Pre-Indexed Pages

Try and find link partners in Search Engines like Google and Yahoo, and check if the links page is already indexed in the search engines. Search Engines frequently re-index the pages in its database. They are likely to detect your link faster on a page already existing in their database as compared to a 'yet-to-be indexed' page. The safest way to check is to copy the prospective link page URL and paste it into Google Search. If the page is indexed, Google would show a result in response to your search, otherwise it would respond with a 'no result found'.

The robots.txt file

robots.txt is an exclusion file that contains specific instructions for search engine robots regarding the content they are not allowed to index. Links placed on a page that the search engines robots are not allowed to index, would not benefit your site. Considering the importance of robots.txt file, it is a good idea to study a site's robots.txt file to identify the excluded pages before approaching a site for establishing links with your site. Read our article on Working with robots.txt file.

Dynamic Link Pages

You should also watch out for any link pages that are generated dynamically. Chances are that such pages would not get indexed soon enough, which means that a link from such a page would not benefit you. Some dynamic link pages are intentionally generated in such a way so as to prevent them from getting indexed. Some unscrupulous webmasters do this to trick you to prevent any PageRank leaking from their site to yours. Links from such pages therefore do not give you any benefit.

Java Script Link Pages

It is also important to identify pages that are generated through Flash or a Java Script, as Search Engines cannot read flash pages or the links embedded within flash. These are some of the tricks unethical webmasters use. While a site can claim to have placed a link to your web page, in effect they are not giving you any benefit.

Re-Directed Links

A link that is first re-directed to another page within your partner site before pointing to your site is a re-directed link. You should watch out for such links, as search engines do not give weight to re-directed links. It is very unlikely that your site would draw any benefit from a re-directed link.

Frame Sites

Avoid getting links from framed sites as search engines cannot read texts within frames. A link placed on a frame site would not get your site any benefit, as search engines would not be able to recognize such a link.

Directory Depth

It is important to evaluate the depth of the directory of the linking page. Avoid getting links from pages that are embedded in a very deep directory or pages that are more than two directories deep (e.g. www.domain.com/dir1/dir2/dir3/linkpage.php is not a good link page). Deep directories seldom earn high PR. They are also slow in getting indexed, if at all.

Building Link Popularity is a great way to help your site gain competitive PR. Links from other sites also sends direct human traffic to your site. Observing a little care in developing links will go a long way in getting your site rank high in search engines.


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About This Author
You can reach me at webseohelp@yahoo.com folr any quesry related to search engines.

Other Articles That May Interest You...
Much Ado About PageRank
There are those in our industry who will tell you that PageRank is dead. I've been reading a lot lately about how we are supposed to ignore the green bar in our browser but you know what? I disagree and I'm going to tell you why.

Five FAQ About Google PageRank
1. What is PageRank and why should I care about it? PageRank is a formula that assigns a value to every page in the Google index. Google displays search results based on an algorithm which includes the value of PageRank. So the higher your site's PageRank, the more likely it is that you will receive a top listing on the search result page when someone types in the keywords for your site.

The Panamazation of Paid Search

First announced in April 2006, Yahoo's "Project Panama" promised a revamped paid search engine marketing platform that would eliminate its "open auction" structure in favor of the invisible bidding format already in use by Google, MSN, and Ask. Yahoo began Panama's launch in December and plans to have all of its clients utilizing the new platform by the end of February.

We understand why Yahoo had to remodel its search platform. And it sounds like they've made some nice improvements. The comprehensive dashboard, practically instant ad activation, testing capabilities, ad grouping, and scheduling features are just a few of the many new additions Yahoo has made to its platform. However the jury is still out, as many of Panama's new features have generated mixed reviews thus far. Here are the major changes Yahoo's PPC clients will face:

Account Dashboard - Although shocking at first, Yahoo's new account dashboard promises easier management and better visibility and control over your campaigns. Your new dashboard will feature a performance overview complete with graphs and a customized "watch" list of your top campaigns.

Ad Activation - In what might be the most attractive new feature for Yahoo's PPC clients, ads will go live within three to five minutes instead of three to five business days as was standard on Yahoo's old platform.

Ad Testing - Advertisers on Yahoo will now have the ability to test drive their advertising messages in order to improve the quality of their ads. This means you can easily determine which messages perform best with your target audience.

Geo-Targeting - Yahoo now allows advertisers to target by location, narrowing ad distribution to cities and surrounding areas. When done correctly, this can help improve your ROI.

Campaign Scheduling - With the promise that you'll more efficiently manage your ad spending, Yahoo now offers users the ability to control the timing of their campaigns with optional date scheduling.

Ranking - In the same way that Google's AdWords works, Yahoo will now factor in the ad's quality as well as the bid amount. The old system awarded the highest position to whomever paid the most for it. Now they will consider how well the ad actually performs along with actual bid amount for each ad.

Ad Groups - Keywords can now be grouped according to a common subject, so that keywords in groups can now be served with multiple ads. Hopefully Yahoo is right and this will save advertisers time setting up and monitoring their campaigns.

Reporting - Instead of pre-defined reports, Yahoo now offers reports that are customizable in order to deliver marketers more information that really matters to them.

After a rough go in 2006, obviously Yahoo's intent is to make their pay per click advertising program more attractive and easier to use for advertisers, thereby retaining its current client base and attracting new ones. Panama's initial announcement pleased investors, but is it enough to pull Yahoo out of the woods? We'll just have to see what the outcome of 2007's transition period brings.

This article was written by David Montalvo.

David Montalvo is the CEO of UnReal Web Marketing LLC. He has achieved over 15,000 top 10 positions for Fortune 500 companies since 1997.

The Latest Trends in Web Design

Let's face it, we've all come across websites on the Internet that are less than appealing. With large, intrusive text, multitudes of bright colors competing with one another, and crammed information, it's a wonder these sites accomplish anything at all. Today's web surfers are quickly scared off by such websites, clicking away from them as fast as they arrived.

The good news is that there are just as many, if not more, sites that get it right. The graphic designers of these sites understand that websites aren't about overloading the visitor with information in the form of text, images, and colors. They know that the eye naturally appeals to a more Zen-like appearance. They aren't afraid of white, or blank space. In fact, they do their best to incorporate it into their designs. While they still integrate bright colors, the backgrounds are generally neutral and soothing, and the brighter colors are reserved for a limited number of attention-grabbing images and headlines.

A recent BBC article reported on new research that shows that the brain makes decisions in just a 20th of a second of viewing a webpage. It further stated that if people believe a website looks good, then this positive quality will spread to other areas, such as the website's content. It concluded that since people like to be right, they will continue to use the website that made a good first impression, as this further confirms that their initial decision was a good one.

Site Layout
The most modern websites are leaning toward simple 1- and 2- column layouts around a central axis. Simplicity seems to be key here. The arrangement of these sites is very straightforward, and discourages the eye from wandering around. This more streamlined approach successfully keeps the visitor focused on the matter at hand, instead of bombarding them with several different messages scattered throughout different areas of the page.

The central orientation is a stray from the left-justified layouts common in recent years, and we're learning that people don't mind scrolling below the fold if there's valuable information to be found there. Thus liquid layouts are slowly becoming a thing of the past.

Less Design for the Sake of It
We're seeing that site visitors appreciate intricate design as long as there's a good reason for it being there. For instance, how often have you chosen to "Skip Intro" when visiting a site with a Flash intro? While intricate Flash designs can be entertaining at times, most of us don't have the time to waste while a Flash movie loads and then plays through. And we won't even get into the fact that not all browsers support such technology inherently. There's nothing more annoying than visiting a site only to be told that you don't have the proper software to display it.

The trend is leaning toward designing around content, not the other way around. Web designers are talented individuals who possess skills and creativity that others don't have.but they don't have to show off all of their talents on your home page. The design should be centered around communicating your message. A web designer can best display his or her skills by accomplishing that goal.

Subtle yet Impactful Images
Today's web designers are incorporating smart icons and images that hint at the message they're trying to deliver. They use subtle gradients to create a 3-D effect and utilize reflections and fades whenever necessary. Icons are often used to embellish a page, but a good web designer knows when enough is enough. The last thing they want to do is clutter the page and confuse the website visitor.

Icons are useful in separating and organizing content so that it's easier to read. It helps direct the visitor's eye when they are skimming through pages with a lot of copy. Do not mix icon sets, or if you're creating your own icons, keep them consistent. Do not make one icon with a 2-D graphic when the rest of the set consists of 3-D graphics, even if they're pseudo 3-D. Another don't is making the icon too small that you can't tell what it is.

Text Color and Size
Web designers should choose font size depending on the site's audience. Oversize fonts, when used correctly, can be used to draw attention to a particular area of the website. Bolding and highlighting are also used to emphasize the most important points, but try not to use more than one or two fonts throughout a website. It is important to remember that overuse of any of these elements can ruin a website's overall look and feel.

The Google Sandbox – A Frustrating Inevitability or a Golden Opportunity?The Google Sandbox is a term applied to the phenomenon experienced by many new websites that delays the sites inclusion within the main Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) of Google. Often new websites can find themselves confined to the ‘Sandbox’ for 6-9 months, during which time traffic to the site is severely compromised. The Google Sandbox is therefore usually seen as a frustrating inevitability by webmasters and one for which there is no quick easy solution.
My recent observations however have led me to believe that the time your website spends in the Google Sandbox should be seen as a golden opportunity rather than a frustrating inevitability.
Into the Sandbox
Many webmasters respond to their websites confinement to the Sandbox by spending endless hours forever checking the listings in Googles results pages for any sign of their website. Not only is this a waste of precious time but also serves only to increase the frustration caused by the Sandbox. Other webmasters more sensibly focus their time and effort improving the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) of their website in order to improve its rankings within other search engines such as MSN, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves and others. Although these may not be as widely used as the Google search engine, they don’t have the same aging delay of the Sandbox that Google does. Therefore, achieving good listings in these search engines early in a websites life can at least generate some traffic and hopefully some sales whilst confined to the Sandbox.
Earlier this year the Tsunami disaster in Asia forced me to change the name of my web development business from Tsunami-Site-Design to Pixelwave Design. I had to register a new domain name, build a new website and start from scratch with my web promotion. The new site was an ideal candidate for confinement to the Google Sandbox, and sure enough after an initial day or two of good rankings the new site couldn’t be found in a Google search for any of my keywords. A search for the business name did bring the new site up in first place though so I was safe in the knowledge that my site was contained within the Google database but the lack of inclusion for my keywords suggested that my site had been confined to the Sandbox. The inclusion of my own personal site within the Google Sandbox gave me a great opportunity to monitor and track its progress.
The first thing I noticed was the high frequency with which a Googlebot spidered the pages of my site. The Googlebots were visiting a few times everyday and visiting all the pages of the site. It struck me that if Google had gone to the trouble of writing and implementing the ‘Sandbox’ filter as part of their algorithm and regularly spidering the sites within the Sandbox then the Sandbox wasn’t simply an area into which new sites get put in order to delay their inclusion in the SERPS. Instead it can be considered as a probationary period for new websites during which Google pays close attention to the sites development.
This means that as far as Google is concerned, your websites time in the Sandbox may well be one of the most important times in its development. Rather than seeing this time as a frustrating inevitability you should see it as an opportunity to really show Google how your website can shine. The Google Sandbox should be a time to make the most of all the attention your site is getting from Google and show the search engine what it wants to see.
The Steps to Success
Now that we have decided that Google is actually paying your site a good deal of attention whilst it is in the Sandbox it is time to see how we can make the most of this Golden Opportunity.
The first thing to do is plan ahead and get your site into the Sandbox as soon as possible, so attracting this attention from Google. Don’t wait until your website is built in all its glory before registering a domain name and uploading your site. Instead make sure the first thing you do is register your domain name, set up a hosting account and go live with one or two pages explaining what your site is about and what can be expected from it as it develops.
Next get the Googlebot to visit these embryonic pages so that Google is aware of the new site as soon as possible. There is no need to submit your site manually or repeatedly to search engines, a couple of inbound links (IBL’s) from other sites that are regularly spidered will be sufficient to get the Googlebot calling. Once the robots have paid an initial visit they will return.
You may be lucky and find that your site gets straight into the main SERPS, but if it is a new domain name and new site then it is likely that before long you will find your new creation in the Sandbox where it will receive a great deal of attention from the Googlebot. Now is the time to be proactive with your website development, don’t sit back patiently waiting to be released from the Sandbox, instead make the most of your time in there and show Google the potential of your website.
Content is King
The first thing you need to do is continue the development of your website. Regularly add new pages packed full of relevant content to your site. As far as search engines are concerned, ‘content is king’. Search Engines exist to provide their users with links to content relevant to their search criteria, therefore they are always on the lookout for websites that contain plenty of good quality, regularly updated relevant content. Of course, good quality, relevant content will also be beneficial to your websites human visitors, which at the end of the day is your number one priority. Add plenty of new, relevant content of interest to real visitors and the Googlebot will thank you for it.
Linking Strategy
Next you need to develop and implement a strategy for obtaining a network of inbound links. Googles algorithm relies heavily on link popularity so it is likely that it pays attention to the number of IBL’s your site gains whilst in the Sandbox. Don’t sit back waiting for people to link to your site, get out there and be proactive. As always relevance is the key, and a sensible linking strategy whilst in the Sandbox will be noticed by the Googlebot.
There are numerous ways to generate inbound links and I have covered these in previous articles. However, things rarely stand still for long in the world of Search Engine Optimisation and latest research seems to suggest that simply getting huge amounts of IBL’s whilst in the Sandbox may no longer be sufficient. It now seems that the rate of accumulation of IBL’s may be important. Google is now thought to pay attention to the rate of accumulation of IBL’s and expects to see them develop in what it considers a natural, organic manner. This means that suddenly gaining a huge number of inbound links may be frowned upon by Google. Instead your linking strategy should be a sustained effort aimed at gaining new IBL’s from relevant websites over a long period of time.
Summary
Although the Google Sandbox is still a frustrating inevitability and there is no quick fix way limit the amount of time a website spends confined to it, patiently sitting by waiting for this confinement to end is a waste of what could be a golden opportunity. Google pays a lot of attention to sites in the Sandbox making confinement to the Sandbox an ideal time to really let your website shine. During this time give Google what it wants to see; regularly updated relevant content, lots of new pages and a sustained increase in the number of inbound links. Not only could this improve your sites ranking within the SERPS once its confinement to the Sandbox is over, but it will pay dividends for your site in general by providing its visitors with the information they require.
Alan Cole runs http://www.pixelwave.co.uk, a one-person web design studio. His aim is to provide cost effective website design production and maintenance by offering professional web solutions that stand out from the crowd. Increasingly his work involves website promotion and Search Engine Optimisation as well as training courses on all aspects of web design and promotion.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

What is Google Pagerank?

PageRank is one of the factors that Google uses to evaluate your web site and determine its position in the Google search engine results. PageRank is a number from 0 to 10.
Generally, if your web site has a higher PageRank, it will appear earlier in Google search results pages, all other factors being equal. In fact, you can see a significant improvement in where your pages appear in search engine results when your PageRank increases.
How do you find your PageRank? Install the Google Toolbar. You can get it for free at this link:
http://toolbar.google.com
After you install the toolbar, you will see the PageRank in the middle of the toolbar. It may have a small green bar. Hold your mouse over the green bar to see the Google PageRank for the site you are viewing.
So how does Google determine your PageRank?
Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes a page receives, however. Google also looks at the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important.
How can you improve your PageRank?
By getting votes from important pages (or, links to your web page from other web site pages that themselves have a high PageRank).
You can also be sure to include plenty of relevant, useful, fresh text in your pages. This is useful for Google, since you are providing information for the search engine to index, and it is useful for the people who visit your web site too.
Herb and Monica Leibacher operate Web Builder Express. Create a professional web site for your business or non-profit organization with Web Builder Express. At http://www.WebBuilderExpress.com, you can request your free Quick Start Guide that tells you how to create a great web site.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Search Engine Optimization: Who Do You Trust?

Internet search engines exist to organize the seemingly immeasurable amount of information available on the web. They direct people to pages that are relevant to their searches, pages that discuss the exact keywords they are looking for. For a business that receives the majority of its clientele from search engines, search engine rankings can make or break an e-commerce company.
Search Engines
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the marketing technique of enhancing a website and its content in order to increase the chances of achieving a high rank on search engine result pages (SERP) under relevant keyword searches.
Search engines are very secretive about their criteria and ranking systems, they continuously update and revise their algorithms (a mathematical formula used to determine which web pages are displayed in search results), and therefore, there is less likelihood of webmasters and search engine optimizers being able to achieve higher rankings by manipulation and spamming.
Each search engine has its own formula and criteria for indexing and ranking pages. One can analyze SERPs and backward links (all the links pointing at a particular web page) and attempt to determine a search engine’s indexing criteria, however, there is a lot of risk involved in relying on a limited number of optimization techniques.
Because of the unpredictable nature of search engines, a website can easily move from a top ranking position on a SERP down to the third or fourth SERP or even banned from the search engine altogether.
To Trust or Not to Trust
There are so many unethical SEO companies that claim to be able to achieve your website #1 rankings, they use overwhelmingly aggressive marketing techniques, and attempt to manipulate search engine results, that they give the industry a bad name.
The main problem with SEO companies is that they base their methods and techniques on research, trial and error, and speculation. As a result of the secretive indexing criteria of search engines, webmasters and SEO companies can only make an educated guess about the ranking systems and possible algorithm revisions.
SEO companies may be able to achieve high rankings in search engines for your website, they are good at what they do, however it is the way they do it that is precarious and dangerous.
Some SEO companies may use ‘black hat’, techniques to manipulate search engine results to their advantage. These techniques are high risk or illegal and can get a site banned from search engines. Black hat techniques can cuase seevere damage to the business of an e-commerce company.
A few examples of ‘black hat’ techniques:
• Hidden text/hidden links: stuffing your pages with keywords or links too small to read or the same color as the background, so viewers are unable to see any difference in the aesthetics of the page.
• Cloaking: using browser/bot sniffers to serve the search engine spiders a different page than the page visitors see. It is used to show an optimized page to the search engines and a different page to viewers.
• Mutiple submissions: submitting your domain and pages to search engines, for example submitting http://www.logobee.com and http://www.logobee.com/samples as two seperate urls.
• Link farms: sites created soley for the purpose of search engine ranking. These sites are nothing more than random links which have no relevance to one another.
• Selling PR: sites that sell their high PR links for a fee through direct advertisement and for the sole purpose of increasing link popularity.
• Doorways: having one page stuffed with keywords that re-direct to another more user friendly page.
• Meta tag abuse: having too many keywords in the meta tag description, title and keywords.
I am not implying that all SEO companies use ‘black hat’ techniques, there are some that use safe techniques, however I am only pointing out that relying on an SEO company to achieve top rankings for your website is a gamble.
As Easy As ABC
You don't have to be a computer genius to achieve higher search engine rankings for your website. Effective search engine optimization can be done by anyone who has the time and determination. There exists hordes of information, suggestions, ideas, methods and tehnicques about successfully optimizing your website for search engines. SEO companies do not use any ‘special’ tactics that we don’t already know or that we can’t easily research on the internet.
Safe SEO techniques:
• Content: Add valuable and relevant content to your site. The more content the better. Keep your paragraphs brief and to the point.
• Continuously update your website: Add new information and new pages to your site. Create a section on your home page containing up-to-date news items relevent to your business.
• Link popularity: Participate in link exchanges that are relevant to your business or that compliment your business. The more inbound links, the more important your website is perceived to be by the search engine spiders. Progressively build your links. Do not add 500 links to your site at one time.
• Site maps: Include a site map on your site. Site maps can help your visitors easily surf your site.
• Meta tags and Alt tags: Meta tags contain information about the website, placed in the HTML header of a web page, that is not visible to browsers. The most common meta tags relevant to search engines are title, keyword and description tags. Title tags are the most important tags because they contain the information that a viewer sees concerning your website on a search engine results page. Choose a title that clearly represents your business. Make sure that your all your tags contain relevant keywords. Alt tags describe the graphical elements in a web page.
• Header tags: Header tags (H1, H2, H3….) are tags used to represent headers and important titles. Use H1 tags for the most important headers, H2 for the next, etc…As well, use bold, italics, underlines, and different font sizes. Spiders and bots give high value to sites that contain a variety of text and font sizes.
• Keep it simple: Make your site simple and viewer friendly. Make you site easy to surf, eye-catching, informative and interesting. Keep in mind that surfers have a short attention span.
• Stay away from large images and Flash images. Spiders have a preference for html text sites.
• Keyword density: Keywords should exist in your title tag, headline tag, description tag and throughout the content of your home page as well as other internal pages. Be careful not to over do it though.
• Informative and authoritative: Include authorative articles pertaining to the topic of your business, FAQ, tips, how-to’s, etc..
• Participate in SEO and webmaster forums to keep up to date on SEO techniques and search engine criteria revisions. Read websites and articles on various SEO suggestions.
• For other safe optimization techniques see Google’s guidelines for webmasters (http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html).
SEO companies are by the dozen, attempting to lure you in, convincing you to believe that they, and they alone, can help you attain top position results on search engines. While you consider whether to go with an SEO company or not, you may want to do some research on the SEO industry. You can find some helpful information at http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html. Instead of spending big bucks on achieving big results, take initiative, do it yourself. Don’t spend endless hours worrying about search engine results and crawling spiders. While keeping in mind basic SEO techniques, customize your web site for your human users and not for spiders and bots.
Bio: Colleen Ryan is the Art Director of Logobee Inc., a logo design firm that designs high quality logos and corporate identity design for businesses worldwide. Logobee Inc. was founded in 2000 and since then the company has grown at an exponential rate. http://www.logobee.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Google's Changes

Google now seems to favor simplified anchor text. Hence, sites whose rankings are being affected by inbound anchor text have a tendency to collate simpler, more specific inbound anchor text.

This observation seems to fly in the face of recent concerns over the proliferation of "site-wide links", which rely upon standardized anchor text. It may well be that Google will accept standardized anchor text with variety. That is, 3 phrases scattered randomly across anchor texts rather than 1 phrase used in all inbound anchor texts may be more beneficial.

A consequence of varying anchor text is that inbound link thresholds are shown to be lower than previously believed. That is, to achieve top rankings, you need fewer, but simpler, more focused inbound links using the specific phrase you are targeting for their anchor text.

And now Google's URL information report either does not accurately report results about URLs in the index, and it seems to be identifying duplicate content domains and treating them differently. To get a URL information report from Google, you type the URL into the search box.
Google now reports how many pages they are indexing from a domain if you ask for a report on a domain. On two of my own domains, whose pages all contain links to the main indexes and/or site maps, Google reports substantially fewer references to the domains than actual pages. In one case, the discrepancy is by more than 10,000 pages (and there is no duplicate content involved, unless Google has been indexing content under variant URLs of its own devising).

When searching for the site map URLs on both of my own domains, I find fewer references to the URLs than actual links to them. The reported number of links to the site map URLs are substantially higher than the number of references. Searching for the expression "site map" (which appears on every page of the domains) reports substantially higher results than the number of inbound links. Hence, the pattern is:

Most hits: site:www.domain.name +"site map"Mid Hits: link:...site_map.htmlLeast Hits: "...site_map.html"
One large domain (separate from my own), with nearly three hundred thousand pages of content, has within the last year been promoting itself under a second domain name. Both domains carry identical content, since it is being served from a single database. The domains respectively rank first for two popular search terms. Searching on the older domain name, Google reports a lot of information. Searching on the new domain name, Google says it has no information about the domain, but it does offer up a search for pages that contain references to it (and the references in some cases don't actually exist on the pages).
It appears to me that Google has implemented a substantially revised duplicate content filter which does not take into account variations in inbound links. That is, if you have two domains with duplicate content, and sites link to both domains, then both domains can rank well in search results, but Google may nonetheless only report results for one of the domains when you ask for a URL report. And the URL report itself will no longer provide any useful information, except in the most general sense of indicating that Google is willing to share more information about on-page text than inbound links, and more information about inbound links than about references to URLs.

My conclusion is that it is now easier for large content sites to promote themselves on Google through multiple domain names for different keyword phrases than ever before.
This appears to be a major step backward for Google.

Adam Rivard and Michael Martinez founders of the online business Website Marketing Forums Inc. have been sharing their knowledge of search engine optimization online for years but only recently decided to create their own site. Their goal is to help people achieve success online through many forms of internet marketing. The recent launch of their site was a huge success and people have been contacting the two constantly to help them market their websites online.
Adam Rivard is a student from Laurentian University enrolled in an Honours Bachelor of Commerce and Computer Science while Michael Martinez is known for an array of talents from working in various interent marketing companies, teaching marketing tactics to his worldwide recognition of his work on J.R.R. Tolkien. He was also praised for his books and articles. Micheal had to say that,"I am who I today because I have learned from others and now I have the chance to share my knowledge."

Adam Rivard/Michael Martinez CEO, Website Marketing Forums
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/