Search Engine Updating
Optimize Your Site To Improve Search
Engine Ranking
The ways in which people search for information
on the Web have changed. Web content (text, images and audio)
is being created and uploaded at a rate faster than the ability
of search engines to index this data. As a consequence, it
is getting more and more difficult to be "found" in an ever-larger
mass of unindexed and unconnected web pages.
Moreover, people are becoming discouraged when they receive
thousands of returns on the keywords they type into a search
engine. As a result, it is increasingly vital that a site's
listing appear in the first few pages of search results --
because most people will not take the time to scroll further
than that.
This article outlines 10 strategies that can help Web sites
not only get indexed, but also position themselves for success.
None of these points is more valuable than the others, but
in combination they can produce results. Focusing on improving
your site by addressing just one or two points might not lead
to measurable gains, but trying to address four or five points
in concert should help you improve your search engine ranking.
1. Proactively Submit the Site URL to a Search Engine The
business model of many search engines is assemble great content
to attract the viewer, then sell that demographic to advertisers.
Search engines obviously should allow content producers to
submit URLs, because doing so strengthens the value of the
search engine's collection of indexed pages, which in turn
attracts users, giving the search engine a stronger demographic
to sell to advertisers.
For a small company, proactively submitting the URL of several
of its Web pages is a relatively easy process that begins
with simply clicking on a "submit URL" link. Such links usually
can be found in one form or another on the sites of the more
popular search engines. However, submitting individual URLs
to multiple search engines can be time consuming, so, third-party
sites have evolved that let users enter information about
a particular Web page and click a button to submit that URL
to several search engines simultaneously. Some of these sites
provide multiple submission services for a fee, while others
do it for free and rely on advertising to reap revenue.
On a cautionary note, be suspicious of sites that claim to
mass-submit your URL to many dozens or hundreds of search
engines. There are less than 10 major search engines that
you should care about being listed in. The rest are highly
specific to particular industry sectors and probably are not
relevant to your business.
2. Consider Paid Submission While cost-conscious firms may
shy away from paid submission services, there are valid reasons
to make such an investment. Paid inclusion not only helps
provide consumers with more relevant results, but also helps
businesses ensure their presence in algorithmic search results.
For example, the service allows a client to receive reports
that contain information about specific keywords entered by
searchers who clicked on the client's site in a list of search
results. This information is valuable because it allows site
owners to make adjustments and refinements to improve their
ranking.
Having your site indexed and catalogued by a spider shortly
after any changes have been uploaded to the Web also can enhance
your competitive advantage over other companies. Paid inclusion
allows a company to have its page indexed and catalogued more
quickly, rather than waiting days or weeks for an updated
page to be found by a Web crawler. Some variations of paid
inclusion services guarantee "recrawling" of particular pages
so that changes will be noted and subsequently available in
the search engine's database.
3. Tailor Content for Spiders Search engine indexing software
programs, nicknamed "spiders" to reflect how they crawl through
the Web's pages, record several aspects of a page, including
its text. In the record that is created and indexed, spiders
identify the frequency of particular words on a page, and
this becomes part of a complicated algorithm that calculates
the page's value and, ultimately, its rank. A spider might
work like this: If one page contained the word "cancer" 4
times and another page contained the word "cancer" 12 times,
plus they both had the word "cancer" in their meta tags and
page titles, the second page would rank higher. Spidering
algorithms also calculate and rank how words are connected
to other words, such as "car parts," "car finance" or "car
warranty" on the Web page of an auto dealership.
Because word count traditionally has been part of the indexing
algorithm, webmasters often have tried to deceive spiders
by adding additional words to their pages to artificially
inflate the page rank calculation. Some conniving Web authors
even have been known to add dozens or hundreds of keywords
at the bottom of a page in white font on a white background.
A surfer looking at such a page would see only blank space,
while spiders are color blind and would record all of these
words as part of the word count. Although some search engines
have tried to create algorithms that cannot be tricked in
this way, the method still can be somewhat effective and is
far simpler than spending management time developing reciprocal
links. (A warning, though: Such behavior can get a site banned
entirely from a search engine if its underhanded tactics are
discovered.)
Of course, content that spiders evaluate for ranking is not
just limited to text, but also includes HTML code referencing
image files and audio files. This means that naming your image
files is much more useful than naming them image1.jpg and
image2.jpg. It is also helpful to make sure ALT text tags
for images include some words that can assist in supporting
the overall theme of the page.
4. Remember: Page Title Is Vital
A page's title is often confused with its name. To clear things
up, the page name is equivalent to the file name whereas the
page title is the word or words that show up in a browser's
title bar. The page title should be crafted carefully. Titles
are what search engine users see first when they scan a list
of query results, and that it is not enough to rank high in
a search engine. Indeed, enticement to click is based on both
an attractively worded title and the accompanying description,
which comes from the META description tags that we will discuss
in point 5.
Also, consider that many medium- and large-size corporate
pages are flush with images, Flash, frames and other features
that are not easily recognized by spiders. AltaVista suggests
page title is even more important when a particular page (such
as one with frames) has little text content.
5. Mind Your Metatags There are several kinds of metatags,
but from a managerial perspective, only two are critical:
the Meta Description tags and the Meta KeyWord tags.
Meta Description tags are the carefully crafted phrases and
short sentences that can appear under the page title in a
listing of search results. Because the attractiveness of these
words can determine whether or not a searcher decides to click
on a company's link, it is important to craft this text to
be compelling. Some webmasters creating pages for highly competitive
consumer product companies hire consultants to write Meta
Descriptions in hopes that viewers will be enticed to visit
the company Web site .
Meta Keyword tags contain the key words and phrases that webmasters
place in the background code at the top of the web page. In
the late 1990s, spiders often used these tags, found in the
HTML header at the top of each page, to pick up "clues" as
to the page content -- perhaps akin to reading song titles
on an album cover. However, because so many Web page authors
misrepresented their site content by including misleading
keywords, use of Meta KeyWord tags now plays a far smaller
role in determining page value and ranking. Inktomi's pays
little attention to Meta Keyword tags, which are considered
supplementary to other factors, such as title and number of
links. Likewise, Google no longer relies on Meta Keyword tags
either.
In addition to Google, other search engines such as AOL Search
also do not use software that responds to Meta Keyword tags;
rather, employees visit submitted URLs and determine whether
or not they should be included. While the use of people in
the screening process is more expensive than relying exclusively
on spidering algorithms, the subsequent indexed compilation
has greater value and consequently attracts a discriminating
demographic that can be sold back to deep-pocketed advertisers.
However, since it seems simple to "pack in" a lot of words
in the Meta Keyword section of a page, many Web authors still
rely on this technique even though its Golden Age was in 1999,
2000 and 2001. Many people incorrectly believe that good Meta
Keyword tags are all that is needed to achieve good listings
in the search engines. The tags still contribute somewhat
to site ranking, but by themselves they are not of significant
value, considering how the search engines of 2003 operate.
6. Cultivate Links In
The quality and number of Web sites that link to yours can
influence its standing with the search engines. He notes that
the process of garnering links is not as simple as convincing
a large number of sites to link to you. Those sites must be
of high quality so that the referring page is considered important
by search engines.
Convincing other high-quality sites to link to yours also
means people will be able to find your site without going
through a search engine. This can be advantageous because
the key objective is to get people to see your page -- and
high rank in a search engine is just one way of achieving
this goal.
The process of obtaining links from other sites may be difficult
for a new domain, but if you give other sites a valid, compelling
reason to link to your URL, you increase the chances that
they will do so. Other than simple reciprocity, you could
offer to identify other sites with a brief paragraph. This
willingness to go the extra mile might endear you to a site
that otherwise would turn you down.
Obtaining inbound links also can occur as a consequence of
good customer relations: Companies can request that customers
with Web sites link to them. Also, if you have membership
in an industry association or chamber of commerce, you can
request that the organization's site provide a link to your
firm's domain. Links in from customers and industry associations
are considered strongly in the site-ranking calculation.
To find out if you are already linked to by other sites, type
into a search engine "link: www.yourdomain.com." On the results
page, the search engine will list all of the sites that are
linked to the URL you entered. Many of these pages may be
internal links (from your own site), but you may be surprised
to find other sites showing up as well. This process of checking
who links to you is something you may want to do on a regular
basis. If the sites listed are of high quality, you may want
to contact them and offer to reciprocate, thereby setting
up two-way links and increasing your ranking the next time
a spider crawls through your pages.
7. Place Less Weight on Links Out
Sites that make their living by racking up hits and click-through,
such as domains with adult or gambling content, may link out
to many other sites, hoping this practice will increase their
"hub" value. In the late 1990s, it might have been useful
to take this hub approach, but by 2001 and 2002, the value
of links out had declined significantly.
8. Focus on Reciprocity
Two-way links are more valued by search engines than one-way
links that are not reciprocal. One thing managers need to
consider, however, is the time that will be required to make
contact with various organizations to set up such reciprocity.
For example, it might take days or weeks to forge one reciprocal
relationship, as a series of phones calls and e-mails likely
will need to be concluded. Because it is widely understood
that setting up reciprocal links is time consuming and involves
some degree of a relationship between two entities, search
engines value such links much more highly than simple one-way
links in or out.
If you do not know many online enterprises with which you
could dialogue, you might consider paying for the services
of link exchanges and link farms. Some people consider link
exchanges useful -- but a number of others are critical of
the value of these services.
AltaVista confirms that links that come from link farms are
considered by his company to be spam, and if any site uses
such links excessively, it might be dropped altogether from
AltaVista's listings.
9. Value Time's Passage
If you want a particular Web page to rank high in a search,
it helps if the page has been posted on the Web for long enough
to be indexed by the major search engines. Because the volume
and complexity of Web content is increasing faster than the
rate at which search-engine spiders can catalog and index
content, it helps to have your page online for several months.
Pages that have been online for a year or two are invariably
"found" by all of the top 10 search engines and have an advantage
over pages that have been uploaded in recent weeks.
10. Update Frequently
For search results that involve human interpretation of site
content, frequent updates likely will help because the people
evaluating pages will rank a regularly updated site higher
than a site on which content is static. However, search results
driven completely by an algorithm do not usually include any
information about a "last updated" date in the ranking score.
Therefore, updating your site frequently without attending
to any of the other nine points listed in this article would
be a waste of time, as the results likely would not be measured
in any algorithmic search ranking. On the other hand, updating
a page as a consequence of creating links in or adding additional
keywords will help the page accrue value in site rankings.
|
