50 FAQs
1.)Google/Yahoo/MSN Reported Links to My Site - Why so different?
Google, Yahoo and MSN all supply estimates on inbound links and then try to find as many as they can in response to the query. They do not guarantee or even try to return every link they have found back to a specific page. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________
2.)How come I get a different amount of links when I use www.example.com
and example.com?
In the search engines eyes, these are two different domains and therefore have different amounts of sites linking to them. So you should 301 redirect one version to the other. If your site is hosted on a linux server you may do the following:
Open your .htaccess file(in the root directory of your site), if you don't see one create a .htaccess file and add the following:
Code:
Options +FollowSymlinks RewriteEngine on rewritecond %{http_host} ^domain.com [nc] rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [r=301,nc]
Of course you will need to change domain.com in both instances to your domain name.
Make sure if you are creating the .htaccess file you save it as .htaccess or it will not work.
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3.)What's a Link Farm?
A set of web pages that have been built for the sole purpose of increasing the number of incoming links to a web site. This is done in order to increase link popularity and search engine rankings. Link farms usually require a reciprocal link from sites seeking listings. Link farms are a known spam tactic and sites that participate in them are likely to be penalized or banned from the major search engines.
Please keep in mind that links from these sites do not harm you, what harms your site is you linking OUT to these sites NOT them linking in. However these types of links will not benefit you either so don't waste your time with them.
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4.) What is "Anchor Text"?
Anchor text is the text that you use within a HTML link.
The anchor text that you use, should reflect the keywords of which you are trying to get a higher listing for. It should also accurately describe what information will be found on the next page if you click on the link.
Your anchor text should be varied, you should not use the same anchor text for all your links (that you control), if you use a variety of anchor text your overall link strength will be stronger and you
will rank for many more phrases than if you focused on only one keyword.
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5.) What is an "IBL"?
An "IBL" is an 'In Bound Link'. When a site links to yours, that link is called an IBL. The same thing as a BL (Backlink).
Backlinks play a major role in ranking a site in the search engines specifically Google and MSN. Google also puts a great deal of value on the quality of the links, where it is placed, is the site related to yours? A link on a content related page is going to be worth a whole lot more than a link on a links page.
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6.) What is Reciprocal linking or link exchange?
Link exchanging or reciprocal linking is where two sites exchange links. Usually this occurs when a webmaster sends an email to another webmaster requesting a link on their site. Because of how easy it is to get a link this way Google has greatly dis-valued these types of links. They are still
worth something but not as much as they have been in the past.
Some tips if you do exchange links...
-Only exchange links with related sites, don't reciprocate with sites who are irrelevant even if they have a high PageRank.
-Don't reciprocate with sites who link to anything, only exchange links with sites who are particular about who they link to.
-Don't reciprocate with sites which have categories for every industry or hobby ever invented. Again keep it relevant.
-Don't reciprocate with sites whos link pages contain hundreds of links.
-Before reciprocating view the source of the page (CTRL + U for FF | View > Source for IE)
and check that NONE of the links on the page contain a nofollow tag.
A quick way to check is to use the find tool and search for "nofollow"
-Also goto http://www.domainnameofsite.com/robots.txt
That way you can see if they have excluded the links pages. Also do a search in google for cache:domain.com/linkspage to see if the page your link will be placed on is indexed.
Those are tips you definitely should follow if you do decide to exchange links.
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7.) What is Linkbait?
Linkbait is when you create a tool, write a article or many articles or otherwise do something that works as a link magnet. Website owners start linking to your pages without even being asked, many times the sites linking to you are authorities in your industry so a good linkbait can have a an extremely large positive effect on your rankings.
How do I create a linkbait?
-Talk about a hot subject - preferably before anyone else has written extensively on it.
-Take a recent event in your niche and write an extensive article detailing what it is about, what is good and bad about it etc.
-Be controversial - Perhaps one of the best ways to create a link bait.
-Be contrary... take a point that most, almost all of the experts in your niche agree on and disagree with it. Preferably provide evidence that you are right. If you do it should create quite a buzz.
Some good tips can be found here:
http://www.seobook.com/archives/001936.shtml
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8.) What is cross linking?
When multiple sites link to each other for the purpose of increasing link popularity.
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9.) How long after I am listed in DMOZ should I start to gain the search engine benefit?
The days of DMOZ Search Engine Ranking are over. Submit and forget but don't expect any search engine value from the listing if you do get it? If you can get in thats great but if not don't sweat it..
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10.) Would I be penalized if a "Link Farm" or a "Bad Neighborhood" linked to my site?
No, you have no control over who links to you and this would be an easy way for a competitor to sink your site. What you SHOULD be careful of is if you are linking to them. This CAN hurt your site and should be avoided.
Don't be afraid to link out to sites that are related to yours but never link to a site because they guarantee search engine value if you do.
11.) How do I use a Robots file or do you have an example of one?
You mean robots.txt. It's a file in the main directory of a website which tells the search engine spiders where they are allowed to go.
A basic, spider can go anywhere file is:
User-agent: *
Disallow:
You can disallow folders or files by putting this into the file:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /foldername/
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12.) Should I use a Site Map? and does anyone have an example of one?
Every site should have a sitemap of some sort. It provides a way for visitors to navigate your site, as well as a shortcut for bots to crawl all your pages. Google for "sitemap" and you'll find nice examples, although it would be advisable to follow Google's official guidelines and keep the number of links per page under 100.
13.) How do I tell how many people are searching for my keywords?
The Search Term Suggestion Tool here will show you number of searches per month on Overture's network. You can also use Digital Points Keyword Suggestion Tool.
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14.) What are SERPs?
Search Engine Result Pages
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15.). I am number 5 in Yahoo, but not in the top 1,000 in Google. Why?
Yahoo and Google use two different algos to come up with their SERPs – Yahoo favors on- page optimization such as H1 tags, keyword density, etc while Google favors off page like in bound links. If you have done more on page then Yahoo will rank higher and vice versa. As part of this if you are now addressing your off page then you need more backlinks with anchor text and time for these links to age (Google lag).
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16.) Is there a way I can find out where I rank?
There are two sites you can use if you are just checking a few keywords - www.googlerankings.com for Google and www.yahoosearchrankings.com/ for Yahoo. If you are looking to track multiple keywords over time then the best (and free) tool is Digital Points Keyword Monitor at http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/keywords (Google Only)
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17.) What is an "ALGO" ?
An 'Algo' is an abbreviation of 'Algorithm'. (In short, the mathematical formula or calculation that Google use in order to rank websites.)
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18.) What is Hidden Text?
Text that is visible to the search engine spiders but not to site visitors. Hidden text is primarily used to add extra keywords in the page without actually adding content to a site which may mostly consist of images. Most search engines will penalize Web sites which use hidden text.
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19.) What is cloaking?
Determining which search engine spider is visiting a web page and then giving each spider a page optimized for it's particular algorithm. This method of search engine optimization can result in a website being removed from the major search engines.
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20.) What is a doorway page?
A method of search engine optimization considered to be SPAM. These are pages created for nothing but the purpose of ranking first for a particular keyword phrase. These pages usually lack any significant content and do not reflect the tone of the rest of the website. If a search engine determines a website has used this tactic then the website will be removed from the search engine permanently.
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21.) What is Geo Targeting?
The distribution of ads to a particular geographical area. For example, you can use a place name in your keyword, such as "Texas Web Design". Some search engines allow you to target specific countries – and languages – without using keyword relevance.
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22.) Do XHTML pages rank better than HTML-pages?
No. They have the same value. Google however puts more weight to well structured content, and thus XHMTL is in most cases more suitable option.
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23.) Does using CSS affect my rankings?
Not directly. Googlebot does not (at the moment) read CSS-files. Using CSS makes pages lighter, and page structure more organized. Thus using CSS could lead to better rankings. When adding CSS styles to page, it is recommend to put them to external file (using link-tag).
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24.)Should I use submission software to make sure all the search engines have
me included?
Most submission programs that promise to "Submit Your Site to 1000's of Search Engines" are used to harvest your email address for spammers. The truth is there are only a handful of Search Engines used by enough people to justify a submission and these can all be submitted by hand. Even better yet is to get other sites to link to you. Search Engine spiders follow these links and you will be indexed naturally. Submission programs are unnecessary and may actually hurt you.
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25.) I submitted to DMOZ but didn't hear anything. Should I resubmit?
You should only submit once as resubmitting only deletes your original request and lengthens your wait. Resubmitting too many times can have you classified as SPAM and blocked. You can also submit to a "normal" category and a "regional" one if it fits. You must be physically located somewhere to be able to also submit to regional and read their guidelines as certain sites like real estate are the exception. They have set up a forum as a way of letting you know your status and this is a much under posted and under used area of DMOZ - The address is http://www.resource-zone.com/forum/ . Just remember to take the time to follow the posted directions.
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26.) What is URL canonicalization?
For most websites, the www and non-www versions both resolve to the same content but can be browsed independent, especially if using internal links without the full domain name.
Similarly it's often possible to view both yoursite.com/ and yoursite.com/index.html
The following urls could contain different content, but in most cases it is the same:
www.yoursite.com/
yoursite.com/
www.yoursite.com/index.html
yoursite.com/index.html
yoursite.com/index.php
This gives rise to url canonicalization, whereby Google has to decide which url is the best represented from the possible options. Usually this would see the page with the most back links (internal and external) displayed in the search results, and so for most webmasters the problems remain hidden.
The most significant disadvantage of canonical URL problems is that any link juice is split between several possible options and therefore not maximizing the full ranking potential of the page.
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Google General
27.) What is the "Sandbox Theory"?
The sandbox theory proposes that Google has a unique ranking element in their algorithm that has been affecting sites whose major SEO efforts began after March of 2004 (this would include all sites registerd after this date). The criteria, elements and solution of the 'sandbox' have not yet been identified or publicized by the SEO community, but ongoing discussion and testing have determined that the two of the most likely issues creating the sandbox could be:
Age of backlinks - older backlinks now carry greater weight at Google
SEO specific filters - Google is actively attempting to filter sites out of their index that are actively optimizing (link-building, etc) or appear to have un-natural attributes (optimized pages, links, anchor text, etc.)
If your site is ranking well for specific keyword phrases at engines like Yahoo!, Teoma, MSN & for the allin sets of searches at Google (allinanchor:, allintitle:, allintext:, etc.) but not listed in the top 50-100 results at Google, the sandbox effect may be at work. However, it is important to keep in mind that this phenomenon is an 'unknown' algorithm piece at Google and standard optimization tactics, even by some of the best and most experienced SEOs have yet to consistently beat this effect.
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28.) When does Google update their SERPs (When is the "dance")?
There is no longer a Google "dance" per se as SERPs tend to be updated constantly.
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29.) I now use the link: command all the time, is there a list of the
other commands I can use in Google?
link:www.domain.com (returns a list of backlinks that google has indexed. Only a small selection is listed however.)
related:www.domain.com (returns a list of sites that google sees as related to the topic on your page. At present, not very accurate.)
allinurl:keyword (returns a list of pages and sites that contain the 'keyword' in their url.)
site:www.domain.com (returns all pages of the domain that google has crawled and indexed.)
allinanchor:keyword (returns a list of pages and sites that contain the keyword as anchor text in their backlinks.)
cache:www.domain.com (will show the current cache that google has for the page)
info:www.domain.com (will return information that google has for the page)
allintitle:keyword (returns webpages that have the specified keywords in the title)
intitle:keyword (returns listings of webpages that have only the specific keyword as the title.)
You can find all the Operators at Google Advanced Operators
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30.) Am I banned in Google?
You can tell if you are banned or not indexed in google, by using the http://www.selfseo.com/google_ban_tool.php site and also by 'site:' command in Google's search.
(ie. site:www.domain.com)
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31.) What is the first thing you would check for if you saw your site slip down the listings at Google? ( i.e. I'm not on top anymore, what happened? )
A drop in backlinks. Obviously when not aggressively acquiring new backlinks to your site from day to day, existing backlinks may even deteriorate in value. The referring site may disappear, be changed, lose relevance or lose PR itself, reducing the PR that is passed onto you.
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32.) When I look up my site in Google, I am #23, but when my friend in California looks it up I am #31. Which one is right?
They both are! Actually, a more accurate explanation is that Google using multiple data centers that deliver the results you see. The data center that is used depends on your geographical location. It is very common to see a small difference in results depending where you are. Sometimes, results can differ when you move just a few miles away!
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33.) Why does Google hate me/pick on me?
"Google" does not pick on individual sites but instead allows complex mathematical equations to decide the value of your site in any particular search. Although it may sometimes feel like they are picking on you, most times a ban or bad results can be traced to a small piece of bad or misguided SEO.
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34.) Should I submit my website to Google every month?
No, you only need to do it once. In most cases you will not even need to submit your website to Google. If you are active in building links to your website then Googlebot will frequent your site soon, and thus include it in the index.
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35.) My site is not cached in Google, I've submitted it to google numerous times but I'm not seeing the googlebot crawl my entire site. I'm also seeing an incomplete listing.
Sometimes the googlebot will visit, and leave, only to come back at a later time in order to crawl all of your pages. If a site has no cache, or an incomplete listing, it has not been crawled and indexed properly yet. The best thing you can do is get more in bound links to your site, so that the googlebot arrives to your site from more than 1 source.
Page Rank
36.) I am changing my domain but want to keep my PR, how do I do it?
A 301 redirect is the most efficient and spider/visitor friendly strategy around for web sites that are hosted on servers running Apache (check with your hosting service if you aren't sure). It's not that hard to implement and it should preserve your search engine rankings for that particular page. If you *have* to change file names or move pages around, it's the safest option. If you are unfamiliar with editing your .htaccess file, you should ask your hosting company for help.
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37.) I have a new site but it has no PR. I have backlinks, etc When does it update?
It updates internally every day or so, (every time google's spider follows a link through to your site) you may see a difference in the SERPs very soon, however you will not see the backlink appear in a link:www.domain.com command search in google, until google do an official backlink update.
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38.) I noticed my PR in the Google directory is different from my PR on the toolbar, Why?
This is because the google directory gets its listings from DMOZ. As with google's PR and backlink updates, it only updates its directory every so often, so your site may be showing an old PR.
There are also a host of "theories" such as "Googles Directory is on a scale of 0 to 8" and "The Directory PR is actually a comparison between you and other sites in the Directory". No matter what you may believe, it is most important to state that they rarely match and this is VERY common.
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39.) When does Google update backlinks and PR?
There isn't a set schedule as many times an update is skipped or late. Backlinks on average are updated around once a month while PR has seemed to move to quarterly. The best way to "guess" when the next update will be is to utilize the SEOChat Calendar.
40.) How to remove google penalty?
Here are few important points you have to remember about Google Penalty.
* Manual penalties are usually related to off-site over-optimization, i.e. forceful link building campaigns
* Algorithmic filtering usually takes place with on-site over-optimization.
* A manual penalty might only be removed in slow steps.
* An algorithmic penalty is often removed automatically; it can also be removed with no apparent reason
Remember this too. If your competitor complaints you on your bad things, you will undergo manual review.
41.) How to avoid Google penalty?
1. Make sure that your website is not linked to any spam websites, gambling & adult websites, banned websites and unrelated websites.
2. You check your server IP whether it has been blacklisted or not. If it is and cannot remove, change your server.
3. Don’t over stuff your keywords in content and Meta tags. Use only wherever it needs.
4. Don’t give excessive interlinks to the pages present in the same website. Extensive interlinking of all your websites, particularly if they are on the same C Class IP address will affect all your websites.
5. Avoid hidden text or links
6. You should not participate in any link farm. If you are interested in generating revenue through advertisement just go ahead by implementing no follow attribute for that link.
7. Excessive reciprocal link exchange will put you in trouble. It should be done only if they are relevant and useful.
8. Get one way links for your website slowly. Use different keywords for anchor text, don’t use the same for all back links
If you are sure that you haven’t done any violation of Google guidelines, request Google for reconsideration of your site – Check this link for more details.
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35843
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42.) What is Google base?
google has introduced new product named google base, It was live only for a short while, it was then taken down probably for a later launch, We predict it will be an other great product from google.
This is what google says about google base-
Google Base is Google's database into which you can add all types of content. We host your content and make it search able online for free. Examples of items you can find in Google Base: Description of your party planning services, Articles on current events from your website, Listing of your used car for sale, Database of protein structures.
This what Google says about their product in official Google blog-
You may have seen stories today reporting on a new product that we're testing, and speculating about our plans. Here's what's really going on. We are testing a new way for content owners to submit their content to Google, which we hope will complement existing methods such as our web crawl and Google Site maps.
43.) Does google and yahoo regional search engines use different algorithm than the primary .com search engines?
Answer to this is of course yes. All geotargeting search engines needs to operate on a different algorithm than the .com ones to identify potential regional links and regional domains. Various factors affect geotargeted rankings. Domains hosted, backlinks, domain name itself, visitor tracking, trust network in geotargeted domains, topical directories etc.
So if you want to rank for regional domains be prepared to do something different don't use same .com and .regional extension domains for 2 different rankings.
44.) What is viral marketing?
Viral marketing is a marketing trend that helps and gives confidence to people to pass along a marketing message willingly. There are viral promotions coming in the form of video clips, interactive flash games, ebooks, branded software, images or text messages. The basic form of viral marketing is not considerably sustainable.
SEO Advanced Topics
45.) What is Mod Rewrite and when should I use it?
Mod Rewrite is a set of functions built into .htaccess, an Apache module which allows for all sorts of nifty tricks with URL's, Error Pages, etc.
Dynamic links are changed mostly using Mod Rewrite. Such as -
http://www.sample.com/company.php?cat=4&id=131
into search engine friendly static URL's, such as -
http://www.sample.com/company/4/131.html
While the dynamic link won't get indexed easily, and likely not at all without external sites linking directly to that URL, the static link will get indexed with simple internal linking. Mod Rewrite is a very powerful tool for creating static links for content management systems, forums, and the like.
46.) What is the difference between IP delivery and cloaking?
IP delivery is Based on IP address the results are delivered. Cloaking is showing different pages to users than to search engines.
IP delivery includes things like "users from Britain get sent to the co.uk, users from France get sent to the .fr". This is fine-even Google does this. Cloaking is that when you do something special or out of the ordinary for Googlebot that you start to get in trouble. For example, cloaking would be "if a user is from Googlelandia, they get sent to our Google-only optimized text pages."
So IP delivery is fine, but don't do anything special for Googlebot. Just treat it like a typical user visiting the site.
47.) What are potential reasons for sites crawled but not indexed?
Many of us have noticed sometimes search engines keep visiting the site regularly but dont index the site nor show it in the site: command.
There are various reasons for this to happen-
1. The domain is an expired domain, if the domain expires and not registered for a certain period of time google imposes a expired domain penalty on that domain, That domain is left to suffer for certain number of months, in that period googlebot keeps visiting the site but they don't index it and they don't show the site in site: command too.
2. An other reason is the domain is a new domain and if the domain is a new domain sometimes the crawler regularly visits the site and it doesn't show up in the index for a long time, There is nothing wrong with this, probably google index is taking longer time to expand, you just have to wait till google updates its index.
3. An other possible reason is the site is banned from the search engines for any particular onpage factor, In that case search engines periodically checks to see whether the onpage spam tactics is removed and as soon as they see the spam being removed they might re include the site into the index, So for people who are complaining that their site was previously indexed and listed in google but suddenly it disappeared from the index and googlebot keeps visiting the site it is good to look at your onpage work and see if there is any spam tactics like hidden text, cloaking, keyword stuffing etc.
4. An other important reason could be that the site was permanently banned from the search engines, Even here search engine crawlers visit the site following existing links to the site but they don't index the site because the site is banned, This is common with Yahoo slurp yahoo's robot, yahoo slurp is known to visit the site and don't index the site if the site is banned.
48.) How can I remove content from Google?
If you have access to the site, then use this tool
http://services.google.com/urlconsole/controller
But this tool will not actually delete the URL from the index - it will separate from the results for 180 days. After that point, the URL may return to the index if it is still found and will be continuously crawled during this time. You will need to create a new account to use this tool. In order to remove the page or pages, you have to either make sure that the page returns code 404 or adjust the robots.txt file, the robots meta-tag of the page.
49.) Do search engines index flash?
Flash is not good for search engines. Most often search engines have difficulty in parsing code from the complex DHTML coding of flash, Google has been recently reported on following links from flash .SWF files, We have seen Google read text within a flash file and follow links from a flash file.
But yahoo don't read flash they are not sophisticated to do so, Similarly MSN, gigablast and lot of other search engines don't follow flash, Best bet is to avoid flash sites if you are planning to do search engine optimization.
Flash has always been a hindrance for search engines better avoid designing full sites with flash.
50.) Which is the joint venture by search engines for sitemap submission?
Google, Yahoo and msn together provide one sitemap protocol (http://www.sitemaps.org/) where you could submit your site pages to major search engines jointly in one submission.
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