|
Search Engine Info
For my new subscribers, I am not a professional
search engine optimizer (SEO in industry parlance). I AM a student
and practitioner. Fortunately, a close colleague IS a professional,
full time SEO.
However, he doesn’t give me a lot of
free advice, but he does give me tips, resources and suggestions
from time to time.
So, here’s the latest from the SEO front.
First, if you are using the Google Toolbar
with the PageRank feature turned on, realize every single web
site URL and IP address you visit is recorded by Google.
So, every move you make online is being watched,
tracked and reported by Google.
That bugs me. So, following the advice of
Chris Ridings, who authored one of my Bonus giveaways if you
buy certain Instant tools, and a person whom I’ve come
to highly respect, I’ve turned off my Advanced Features
in the Google Toolbar.
I’m not getting that much in value by
seeing a little green bar tell me a sites’ PageRank in
exchange for having my every move monitored. Sorry Google.
BTW, if you follow the online forums, this
trend is sweeping the SEO industry.
Seems SEO’s are getting paranoid of
Google’s growing power. Inquiring minds wonder who and
what they are tracking and if and how Google may or may not
penalize their websites.
You see, recently it has been publicly disclosed
that Google is manually adjusting PageRank of individual sites.
That’s not good and undermines the concept of using a
strict mathematical formula to determine rankings of search
results.
Nobody outside Google can even hazard a guess
as to what criteria, motive or how they are, but Google themselves
have admitted to manually adjusting site rankings in a lawsuit
in which they are a defendant.
Bad stuff.
If you are a student of this topic area, you
at least lurk in the online forums shadows and read the posts.
Lots of good stuff out there to learn from.
The general consensus among professional SEO’s
right now is that Google’s relevancy is slipping as well.
In other words, the relation of your search phrase and the results
Google displays is losing relevancy.
Not good.
Google has captured a huge market share with
their Yahoo and AOL distribution deals in the last two years.
Some estimate put Google’s market share over 60% of all
world wide searches.
Google has become the Internet version of
Microsoft, some laud.
Perhaps.
So how does one go forward as a Webmaster?
Here is one thing I’ve learned and one thing I’ve
discovered.
I’ve learned there is noting like good
quality page titles. They need to be succinct and as short as
possible. Secondly, relevant content to the keywords is a must.
Third, an internal page linking structure
is key. You may remember a few issues ago about my ramblings
and whining of the fine balance of building a site that sells
versus one that ranks high.
Lastly, realize that the anchor text of links
to your site from others is VERY significant and can contribute
considerably to getting your site highly ranked for your chosen
keywords.
The discovery is due to a recent redesign
of the now “meta” search site, Hotbot.
Hotbot is now very cool once again. I’ve
cut off Google as my default homepage. Why? Because I can search
Google THRU Hotbot. Not
only that, but you can check Inktomi, FAST and Teoma search
engines via one interface: HOTBOT.
The very cool thing is I can still use Google
from Hotbot, but Google cannot see my IP address. May not be
a big issue, but it certainly is not one now.
Also, by simply clicking a radio button, and
with NO retyping of my search phrase, I can see listings of
results in the other 3 engines.
As a result, Hotbot is now my new default
homepage.
Very cool. You might want to check the
Favorite Web Site of the Week for yet another set of great sites
to visit on the SEO topic.
|