Search Engine Optimization

[anniesdomains]

I think this makes sense. But what about a thread to help people develop their websites better? Search Engine Optimization? Hmmm. Maybe too off topic for this thread.

I've noticed that SEO is a pretty hot topic. Why not make a thread where Mac people help other Mac people with SEO issues? I think design is great but after a while does it really matter if the major search engines cannot read the stuff? Just a few thoughts. Thx

 

[rendezvouscp]

I think this makes sense. But what about a thread to help people develop their websites better? Search Engine Optimization? Hmmm. Maybe too off topic for this thread.

I've noticed that SEO is a pretty hot topic. Why not make a thread where Mac people help other Mac people with SEO issues? I think design is great but after a while does it really matter if the major search engines cannot read the stuff? Just a few thoughts. Thx

What do you mean by your second paragraph? I'm a bit confused.

I've always really enjoyed looking at where my users are coming from, if from a search engine then which one and what they searched for (it's some weird joy I get out of having a website). Basically, while this isn't a foolproof guide (I don't think any are), this is what I've found to be handy to get a good rating in the search engines. In no particular order:

1) Links. Having links from various places is a huge deal, as long as those places are actually genuine (ie, not spam farms or whatever you call them). For me, it was having links in my sig and in all of my online appearances (Xanga, Myspace, friend links).

2) Clean xhtml and css. Instead of having everything ruled by font-sizes, using actual <h> tags seems to improve the ratings.

I'll use a pretty good example to demonstrate what I mean. For my current blog, I have somewhat of an unusual rating for some lyrics out of the song Dragostea Din Tei by O-Zone. Mind you, I only quoted them once in an archive, but once was enough. I probably get high rankings because of relatively clean markup and the use of <h> tags (<h3> in this case).

3) Use of the meta tags, specifically description and keywords. The description is handy because Google (perhaps others though) use it for the text under the link to your website. Keywords is handy because you can get a relative amount of SEO out of those keywords if they're used sparingly.

4) Use what you want to be searched for multiple times. When a search engine sees that a term is used multiple times at different places on the webpage, then you'll get a higher ranking.

5) Google xml site map. I don't know how much of a difference this will make since it was just introduced, but Google is allowing you to make your own xml sitemaps that allow it to know when to come back to your site. Pretty handy if you ask me.

I'm sure I'm missing a few things, but I think that those are good to start off with.
-Chase

 

[eva01]

i could have sworn SEO will get you kicked off the search engines :/ not sure about it, but i know something with search engines that kick you off if they only show information from a specific page and thats it, not whats actually on the website.

i think i saw something about that on vbulletin.org

 

[anniesdomains]

Hmmm sounds interesting...

i could have sworn SEO will get you kicked off the search engines :/ not sure about it, but i know something with search engines that kick you off if they only show information from a specific page and thats it, not whats actually on the website.

i think i saw something about that on vbulletin.org

I have been reading up on SEO recently but never heard anything about SEO getting you kicked off of a search engine. I have heard complaints from web designers that so many people are trying to "optimize" their sites so as to be more readable to the spiders that they tend to find that their design becomes heavily influences by algorithmic logic set by the popular search engines.

However, I've also found that page ranks are often determined not by the content of the site as much as the popularity of the sites linking to you. But I do believe there's a way to optimize a website to help make it more readable.

The site map idea is pretty popular. A lot of people do not do this. But I think it's absolutely necessary to help your site provide more tags for search engines to eat up.

I'm not sold on metatags really being that big of an issue anymore. I think they once were about four years ago but now not so much anymore. The whole package is far more important. Well those are my thoughts...

 

[dornoforpyros]

SEO has a REALLY bad name because of ppl basically link spamming to get hits. I mean when you add 9-11 or Trench coat mafia to your meta tags or your content than clearly your a shaddy individual. Unfortunatly because of this I'd say SEO has been completly ruined by idiots trying to make a quick buck.

 

[eva01]

ah here is the thread that i remembered something about being kicked off of search engines

not SEO my mistake

 

[jaseone]

I have been reading up on SEO recently but never heard anything about SEO getting you kicked off of a search engine.

It can and will eventually happen if you break Google's rules and once you do get banned even if it is unfairly & you can demonstrate it then it can be hard to get back on, I've been following one such case lately.

Basically SEO is fine as long as you stay within the guidelines, do NOT go anywhere near a company that specialises in SEO, also don't participate in any link exchange program solely for the purposes of SEO especially if the links are hidden on your page and only readable by robots/spiders.

However, I've also found that page ranks are often determined not by the content of the site as much as the popularity of the sites linking to you. But I do believe there's a way to optimize a website to help make it more readable.

The site map idea is pretty popular. A lot of people do not do this. But I think it's absolutely necessary to help your site provide more tags for search engines to eat up.

I'm not sold on metatags really being that big of an issue anymore. I think they once were about four years ago but now not so much anymore. The whole package is far more important. Well those are my thoughts...

Meta tags aren't as important as they used to be and I don't think Google pays too much attention to them in it's algorithms but adding the meta description is handy as you get that displayed as your blurb in Google, which is useful especially if you have a lot of dynamic content.

 

[rendezvouscp]

'Tis true that meta tags aren't as useful now, but they're still relatively handy.

Site maps on your website are good too, but I was talking about the new Google sitemaps that might just help you on your Google rating.

It's too bad that SEO has gotten a pretty bad rap from the bad guys out there, but there are still natural ways that you can do to improve your rating. Anyone got anymore?
-Chase