Search Engine Optimisation

Yahoo's New Site Explorer Design

2008-10-19T08:14:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago Yahoo published Yahoo! Site Explorer. With the new tool you can identify which:

Sites and subpages are indexed by Yahoo!

Pages that link to that site or any page.

are the most popular pages from any site.
Submit and track feeds for your websites.

subdomains of the site known to Yahoo!.

Delete URLs that you don't want indexed

Google Chrome

2008-09-02T12:29:00.000-07:00

Google later today will launch a free Web browser called Chrome. The new browser will challenge Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Firefox browser. Today Google officially released a test version of its Internet browser. A few days ago Microsoft launched the new Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.
The application can be available to download later tonight for free in more than 100 countries.

Microsoft welcomed the new application and according to Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of the Internet Explorer team, “The browser landscape is highly competitive. But people will choose Internet Explorer for the way it puts the services they want right at their fingertips, respects their personal choices about how they want to browse and, more than any other browsing technology, puts them in control of their personal data online.”
Microsoft holds 80% of the browser market, Firefox 13% percent, and Apple’s Safari 6%.

Google Adwords New Feature – Keyword and Placement Targeting

2008-07-27T04:35:00.001-07:00

Last week Google announced that AdWords advertisers can now target both keywords and placements within the same campaign. This allows for the targeting of keywords on contextually relevant pages and at the same time the ability to use placements to set specific bids or restrict your targeting to specific sites.

Using this new facility, advertisers can place different bids on specific content network placements that they are targeting. They will also be able to make ads for specific groups of pages.

Advertisers will therefore be able to decide to show their ads only on contextually relevant pages, and set specific bids for the different sites. An advertiser can now set a higher bid for placement on a site that has driven traffic, and lower the bid on sites where the ad wasn’t bringing traffic to the business.

When creating new campaigns or modifying old campaigns, advertisers are given the option to start with placements or start by targeting keywords.

Google acquires Russian ad company ZAO Begun

2008-07-20T05:29:00.000-07:00

Last Firiday Russian Rambler Media company and Google agreed to acquire, ZAO Begun. The Russian Ad company will be able to use Google's technology for search and advertisements and Rambler will use Google's AdSense for Search and AdSense for Content programs.
According to CNET news ‘Rambler currently owns 50.1 percent of Begun, but will buy the remaining 49.9 percent from Bannatyne and then sell the entirety to Google for $140 million in cash, the company said Friday. Of that total, $69.9 million will go to Bannatyne, the company said. Rambler expects to end up with about $50 million from the deal, which it will use for investments and potential acquisitions’. "This agreement illustrates our commitment to investing in Russia, where online advertising is currently experiencing rapid growth," Mohammad Gawdat, Google's managing director for emerging markets, said in a statement. "We are very excited about the opportunity to deliver more relevant search and ads to users and provide advertisers and publishers with better advertising technology to help them succeed in their own businesses."

Google - Yahoo New Advertising Agreement for Yahoo search results

2008-06-14T11:50:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday Yahoo and Google announced an agreement under which Google ads would be displayed alongside Yahoo's search results and on some of its Web properties in the U.S. and Canada. According to the agreement Yahoo will be able to display paid search results from Google and its network. Yahoo keeps control and will be able to select the search term for which and the pages that will offer to Google paid search ads. According to Yahoo media press, “the first 12 months Yahoo expects the agreement to generate an estimated $250 million to $450 million in incremental operating cash flow”. The agreement allows both parties to terminate the agreement but it also requires Yahoo to pay a termination fee - if the agreement ends within 24 months - $250 million.

Even though both parties will like to start their non-exclusive agreement they will have to delay their plans for up to three for the U.S. Department of Justice to review and approve the arrangement

Search Engines

2008-05-26T07:07:00.000-07:00

Search Engines are designed to search for information through the web. We can identify two types of search engines: search engines and directories. With the difference on how result are searched. We can separate them in four main types, crawler-based search engines, directories, hybrid engines and paid search engines

Crawler-Based Search Engines known as spiders or web crawlers, they operate through software in order to automatically identify results to our search. Google is a crawler based search engine.

One of the most important factors you should remember is that a spider cannot ready flash, so even if you create impressive graphics using flash or JavaScript for your customer spiders cannot identify the content and it will skip this part of your page with result your page will rank low and it will not be visible for your human visitors. When you write your contents you should remember that even your human visitor will be attracted from a page full of contents a spider values the text closest to the beginning of your page and the end and further the links you have on your web page. On the other hand a spider can read you meta tags (meta tag description, meta tag keywords etc) your customer does read them.

When a spider will found you page will read it – known as crawling – and will leave a record on your server about its visit. The next stage is to compress the results and store the web pages in a search engine index. All the data are stored in the search engine index in a way that makes quickly to identify if a page is relevant to a particular search and to include in the search results with the most common words and phrases on the indexed page. The search results are according to how relevant your page is to these terms, according to a number of internal and external factors and your page rank.

Spider-Based Search Engines use directories as a source to identify new pages to crawl.

Human-Edited Directories on the other hand the list websites with a different structure. Human-edited directories require manual submission. After you submit your website it will be reviewed from an editor and it will prevent pages from being submitted automatically. An editor will evaluate your website according to the directory’s guidelines and the editor will decide if he/she will include your website in the list. Dmoz is one of the most important human-edited directories.

Hybrid Search Engines, they evaluate sites and scan them to identify for matches. Even Google and Yahoo a directory and crawler search engines, are also hybrid engine. A hybrid search engine like Yahoo usually will present human-edited search and Google will present crawled listings.

Meta Search Engines like MetaCrawler and DogPile will present a combination of results from search engines like Google, Yahoo, Msn and Ask.

Paid Search Engines. There are few paid search engines. There a few advertisement programs that offer pay-per-click and pay-per-performance search results. Google though Google Adwords and Yahoo and MSN they have programs for Paid search results.

SEO - Internal Ranking Factors

2008-05-21T12:59:00.000-07:00

PART II

Site structure – Create a friendly and easy website for your customers and search engines.

Home page - Optimize your home page with the most important word combinations. Your home page usually is the first page that engines will list.

Navigation menu – Use a human and search engine navigation menu. Add keywords in your menu links, it will provide search optimization value to your pages.

Pages - Increasing the number of pages increases the visibility of the site to search engines. Adding new information to your site, search engines will identify it as development of your website. Add news, press releases and articles. Present new text as often as you can.

Keyword phrases - Optimize each page for one keyword phrase or try to use two or three related phrases, but do not try to optimize your pages for 5-10 phrases.

SEO - Internal Ranking Factors

2008-05-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

PART I

There are a number of internal factors that could influence your site's position in the search engines. We will try to analyse internal ranking factors, which can be controlled for seo experts and web marketers.

Contents – Try to increase the text content to 500-3000 words. Search Engines prefer a page full of contents rather a page with 2-3 lines. Further you provide enough information to your potential customers.

Number of Keywords for each page – Use your keywords three to four times in the page text. Use variations, phrases but don’t repeat your keyword on every sentence. A useful tip is your keyword or keyword phrase to be at the beginning of your text, it becomes more important for the search engines.

Headings - Use keywords in your headings tags. Use bold for your targeted keywords, but don’t use bold for the entire text.

Title – Your page title will provide important information about your web site to the search engines and your customers. Within the 50-80 characters you can include a few keywords. You could use your company name and a sort description about your business and your services.

Page Description – Even though it does not influence Google it does provide valuable information about your business. Your description should be brief, but it should include relevant keywords to your page.

Keywords Meta tag - This Meta tag was initially used to specify keywords for pages but it is hardly ever used by search engines now. Use only keywords actually used in the page text must be added to it.

Links and Keywords – Use keywords for your internal or external links

Images and Descriptions – Use keywords for your alt tags, you can provide more information about your image.

SEO Basic Steps

2008-05-08T13:35:00.001-07:00

Find your keywords, search your competition and find the keywords you should use for your website. You can use Goolge 'keyword suggestions'.

Use Keywords variations to avoid keyword stuffing.

Title Tag is the top of your page and it is the description of your webpage and a description for the search engines. Your title tag should include the most important keywords for your page and it should be 63 characters or less.

Meta Description Tag is the description for your web page and it will show in all the search engines, so include your keywords, avoid stuffing your description with keywords and try to use variations.

Anchor Tag is used to form links within websites or from site to site. You should include your title and your main keywords.

Write quality contents using the right keywords for each page. And do not forget every page is unique

Use links through your text and bold to emphasize your keywords

Find backlinks from relevant sites and avoid link farms. It better to have 10 quality backlinks rather 100 from bad quality sites.

SEO Quick Check List

2008-05-04T11:40:00.000-07:00

•Use Keywords in your URL, your title, – relevant keywords to your website.
•Use headings (H1, H2, H3.. ) using keywords relevant to your page contents
•Keywords in anchor texts
•Use keywords in the beginning of you text
•Use a description using keywords in your tags, will help spiders since they cannot read images
•Use anchor text
•Get links from sites similar to your business and if there are .edu and .gov sites are the most reputable
•Use metatags even if there are not useful for Google there are though for other search engines
•Create unique content for your pages avoiding to duplicate your contents
•Check your links, check if you have any broken links or 404 errors, this is a reason for search engines and directories not to index your site
•Create a search engine and human friendly sitemap. Follow Google guidelines and create an easy to navigate sitemap for your customers

Seo Quick List with actions you should avoid!!

•Avoid keyword stuffing it is a factor to get banned from search engines.
•Do not use keywords unrelated to your website
•Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
•Don't use cloaking techniques
•Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, you will not gain higher PR or customers
•Avoid cross-linking strategy and link farms
•Do not use the same content for your pages; it is a risk for your site to get banned and a way to lose your customers!
•Try to avoid Flash or JavaScript for search engines and your customers if they do not have the technology they can view your site

Search Engine Optimisation: Seo Art

2008-05-04T11:08:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Optimisation: Seo Art

Seo Art

2008-04-27T11:55:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Optimisation is one of the top five jobs for the next years. But be careful, SEO is not rocket science but it is a mix of techniques and experience. My advice is study a lot, online books, seminars and hard copy books. Google is changing nearly every day so read read and read. There is nothing better than viewing your job on the first page on every search engine.