Google And Other Search Engine Tips
Most search engine submission forms prefer 20 keywords or less.
Keywords are not case sensitive. Choosing your keywords should never
be a guessing game. The keywords in your meta tag should also be
represented in your html document. Remember the robot reads the meta
tags then searches for the keywords in the document. If the keywords
are not found then the robot may reject your submission. More on
that later,,, for now focus on the keywords. Would someone use the
keyword to find out more about the web site?
Keywords work best when:
They are used in the description of your document
They are used in the Title of your document
They are used in the Description of your document
They are used in the Body of your document.
They are used in the domain name address of your document.
Obviously you can't use all the keywords in all of these instances.
However each instance helps to retain the validity of your keywords.
Repeating keywords inside the meta tag is unwise. If the same
keywords are repeated too often in the META element, some search
engines will not index the document. Search engines typically only
process the first 1000 characters of the keywords list. However
Pluralities are allowable.
Imagine you are building a site for Bob's Flower Shop in Bangor
Maine. Bob has a domain name that's' flowers-by-bob.biz That's a
good start. There are plenty of florists named bob. quite a bit less
that operate in Bangor Maine. If I have a sweetie in Bangor and I
want to send flowers to her, don't know about bob's shop I could
just google my way to his site using two keywords bangor flowers he
may not come up on the top of the listing but he'll be there if the
keywords are in place. So lets look at some possible keywords.
Sure we could go on about related keywords however as I stated
earlier keywords should convey what the visitor is looking for.
Stick to your top 20 keywords, an oddball keyword Like "honey I
wreaked the car" most likely won't be entered into a search engine
form when seeking a florist. Your Keywords should be in your html
document. If the keyword is not in the document do not place it in
your keywords. If you use a keyword in another web page on the same
site then use robot follow and make sure that page has the proper
keyword usage.
About Descriptions:
Descriptions are exactly that a description of your product or
service. One of the worst things you can do is to use "the Best" or
"Number 1" in your description or keyword. Search engines reject
these as spam techniques. Some search engines will not list sites
which pander to this technique others will force such listings to
the bottom of page ranking. A site description should do just that.
Describe what the site is about To avoid being truncated by search
engines, the description should be brief--no more than 200
characters.
The description tells the visitor what they need to know before
clicking. You'll notice the content of the sentences has keywords in
play Such as the Name of the company (domain names being what they
are are often hard to attain using an actual company name.
About indexing content Tag
After the robot reads the keyword meta data it searches the content
of the document to find references to the document. Some older
reference material may say that the robot meta tag only works for a
limited amount of search engines. This is dated information and no
longer valid because All major search engines will spider/tunnel via
the inclusion of a robots meta tag. For further information on
robots check out http://www.robotstxt.org
About Bots and Body content
Much has been written about the usage of content and search engines.
Google bots (and a few others) Can index swf content. However, and
read this carefully It can only search the _root Movie It can only
search the first 10 frames It can only read dynamic text. If you
have dynamic text In your first few frames containing the keywords
that will be sufficient for Google to verify them. However it may
not be sufficient for other engines. Search engines have rules about
keywords and the body of text. Robots only follow the rules of the
search engine company such as a robot can figure out hiding text by
making it the same color as your html document points off you wont
get listed. There are other ways to fool the robot without having to
resort to displaying all the content you provide in your swf in your
html document as well. Deep linking simple linking to a .txt version
of the same content.
Search engine don'ts
Search engines like back buttons. Never auto foreword someone to a
url which they cannot back(history) button out of. If they can't
back button to the originating page from whence they came your site
won't be listed end of story.
Search engines ignore JavaScript functions. If you use your keyword
in a script it will be ignored.
Search engines read font color size and background color If your
font size is considered too small (8pt or smaller) or matches your
background color so the text is not visible to the visitor the
search engine discounts that word and may deny submission/listing.
Search engines have a hard time with frames they often cannot see
the frameset pages nor read them because of the structure of framed
pages. It's best to avoid framesets.
Search engine do's
Search engines like link ins and link outs. One way to insure a
higher page ranking is to link out to related materials even if it's
on a page that the search engine is the only visitor of. (make sure
that regular visitors have a link back to your main or index page if
you use this technique)
Search engines don't understand css, they do is read what's in the
div. A common trick to fool a search engine is to place your content
in a div with a background image that is the same color as your
text. The text will be hidden from the visitor however the robot
will see the text and ignore the background image. Another common
trick is to use a hidden div with the content expressed as html yet
not visible to the browser. If an editor inspects a site and the
content is displayed in swf he most likely won't search the css
coding.
Search Engines General
With robots oddly one does not have to submit to a search engine to
be listed on the search engine. If enough high profile sites already
link to your site the bots will follow the link to your door so to
speak. Then read the keywords the description and the content of
your text. If you aren't getting the his from these larger sites
then don't expect a bot to come out of the blue and list your site.
Search Engine submission forms are always the best way to have your
site submitted.
Meta Crawlers are search engines that use other search engines
gathering links. To a certain extent almost almost all search
engines will search other search engine databases for links. If your
listed on yahoo or Google you may find the site listed on a number
of other search engines eventually. Once again however it is still
wisest to submit to the major search engines directly. All search
engine companies have human editors. Who control what content can be
allowed and not be allowed for various reasons. DMOZ Oddly does not
use robots. They rely on submission and then editors visit the site
if the editor is sufficently pleased with the content representing
the keywords/description then it becomes listed. Because of this
although it may not be the most widely used search engine it is the
most respected.
Submission Costs
There are several ways to submit your website to a search engine.
There are companies who will handle this for a fee. Before you pay
money for a 3rd party agent to submit a search engine you should
check and recheck it's credentials. You should not have to pay a fee
to a 3rd party or a search engine for site submission however there
can be times when it is to your advantage that you do so.
Providers Tools
Many free and paid hosting providers have submission tools which can
speed the process of site submission to major search engines. With
paid providers it is usually accessible via the CPanel the
instructions are clear and easy to follow just have a source view of
your html documents available
Where to submit manually.
Google
Yahoo
DMOZ
MSN
Happy submissions and many happy indexings.
