This is the first of a series of articles about a subject so many people want to learn; the un-sizzled truth of search engines. What do you really know about how a web site is placed? Are you being told the truth? Not only will these articles enlighten you, but along the way, I will create a new web site and in the next 2 months we will watch where it lands!
You will learn about the tricks, and tools I use. If I have an affiliation with any of the companies I recommend, I will let you know. I’m going to start at the very beginning. Therefore, I will assume you have little or no knowledge of how web pages get to the top of the search engines.
There is a reason that large web site companies have names like eBay, Google, and Yahoo! These names are unique, limited in characters, easy to spell, easy to say and the biggest reason ? they are easy to REMEMBER! I also noticed that they are sounds my toddler makes! I’m not a psychologist, so I won’t go there, but you get my point. I’m not saying that your web site name should be googoogaga.com, but the more unique the name, the less chance of duplication by others. Before you consider purchasing a web name, first check it out! Oh by the way, the name googoogaga.com is already taken.
You think you have a great name for a web site? Go to the following search engine addresses and type in the name. Remember people use spaces if they type in more than one word. This is why your site name should be short! Think of compound words or terms used together, like “cash stash.”
http://www.google.com
http://www.yahoo.com
http://www.altavista.com
http://www.msn.com
http://www.aol.com (search is at the very bottom of their page)
Many people purchase a web name that matches their birth name, as in www.stanleygeorge.com. Just look in your local phone book and see how many others have your name. Why would you think your name would be unique in an entire world of people? Okay, Okay, don’t fret just yet, even if you did use your name as a web name. You will learn how to remedy that situation in this article.
When picking a name for your web site, you want to think of the following items.
Describes what you do
Is easy to spell
Is easy to remember
Has a word or words that people will use in a search
Or is Unique enough to create curiosity
That’s the problem with the web names today. Most items people type in a search engine is already used. So I take a different approach to web names. If unable to get a “search term” for a name, then I go for unique names. My new web site for this article is http://www.popcornfart.com. Okay, does that strike a curiosity? Where did I get the name? Actually, it was a saying from my grandfather. Yes, I did check the web, and very few items came up with that verbiage. Now for the lesson in the name game!
You can purchase a name without a web site. Read that again. You can buy just a name! Oh, no one told you that? Here’s the best part! You can redirect that name to an existing web site, to a free web site, or even to a page on a web site. That’s right! You can pick any name and have it redirected. Think of it, as call forwarding! If your current name is not the most advantageous to the search engines, or is too long, you can buy a better name, and have it automatically pull up your web site. Just like call forwarding your phone, only your new web site address is seen online.
I’m not affiliated with this company, but I’ve been working with them for over 5 years. They only sell names, and ways to redirect them. When you purchase a name from them, you also get redirection e-mail for free. I’ll explain more about redirection e-mail in the part II of this article. For now, check out, http://www.namesecure.com.
Using their home page, you will be able to type in a web name you want to purchase. You will be surprised that so many of the names are already taken. Get creative and think of something unique. Take your time!
You must open an account with Namesecure which includes a user name and password. I found it easier to first setup the account, then purchase the name. Their web site can be confusing to new users, so go slow. Don’t go crazy and purchase names you will not use. I know it is tempting, because names on this site are reasonably priced. Don’t purchase extra stuff! With the name, you automatically get e-mail forwarding. Buy the name for only 2 years, as the web changes quickly.
The order is usually processed in about two days, sometimes in 15 minutes. The name will then appear in your account. Sign back into your account, then click on the word “modify/update” next to your name. A new page appears and on the third tab below your new name you will see “Web Settings.” That is where you tell the new name to redirect to your existing web site. The amount of time to redirect also varies. I’ve had some names redirect in 10 minutes, others took 8 hours.
So now you know, multiple names that redirect appear as multiple web sites. Don’t miss Part II of this article ? online soon!
Copyright by Gina Novelle at http://www.thirdpocket.com
About The Author
Gina Novelle is a published free lance writer! She writes “How-To” articles, press releases, and other informational articles. She works with clients that want to obtain a web presence, and is available to write for you. Her Background can be found at http://www.thirdpocket.com/wall.htm, and mailto:gina@exclusivemarkets.net.
Written by SEO Tipster on March 29th, 2007 with no comments.
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Webmasters can spend most of their waking hours doing everything they can to raise their Google PageRank. It is common knowledge that PageRank, which is largely based upon the number and quality of backlinks a webpage has, is an important factor in how well a particular webpage ranks within the Google search results. Since webmasters spend so much of their time worrying about PageRank, an important question is: how important is PageRank, really?Many webmasters will tell you from experience that other factors besides PageRank, such as keyword density and placement, have recently taken a larger role in website ranking. No one will argue that PageRank has become irrelevant, but there is significant evidence to suggest that PageRank is not quite as important of a factor in website ranking as it once was.
To illustrate this point, I utilized a very useful tool you can find at prlookup.com. The tool returns regular Google query results with one interesting addition ? they also give the pagerank for every webpage. Thus, you can type in any word or phrase and see the pagerank of those webpages that rank well (or not so well) for that keyword. Looking at the results, you probably notice something almost immediately. Some sites with low PRs do surprisingly well in the results, while some higher PR sites do quite poorly. Some of this difference can be contributed to sheer content ? that is, how many times, and in what manner, the keywords you entered actually show up on the webpage. Google takes a close look at keyword usage and density in determining ranking. However, some pages clearly have very close keyword densities, yet in some cases the page with the lower pagerank will somehow still receive a better ranking.
Let us take a more quantitative look at this. Taking 20 of the most popular keywords from rankpulse.com (for this particular day), and entering them in prlookup.com, it is possible to get a better feel for the importance of pagerank. Looking at the first five results only, I wanted to see how many followed in order of highest PR to lowest PR. Surely, out of the results for 20 keywords, a good portion of them will display such an order, right? I have listed the number of webpage results that appeared in correct PageRank order for each keyword (i.e. 5 would indicate that 5 out of 5 results were in order of highest to lowest pagerank). You can see the table with results at Google Advisor.
Although limited by sample size, the results indicated that PageRank is not an overwhelmingly dominant component of website ranking on Google. If it were, the average of correct PageRank order for these keywords really should be somewhere around 4 to 5 (the real average was about 2.15). Thus, other factors including keyword density in webpage content, title, and even the URL, play a significant role in webpage ranking. I want to mention that, while looking over these results, I noticed that about 4-5 of these keywords came up with at least one webpage within the first 10 results (first page on Google) that had absolutely no PageRank at all (PR 0). In addition, a couple keywords came up with results with exactly reverse-order PageRanks ? that is, the first result at the lowest PR and the fifth result had the highest (for example, PR8, 7, 6, 6, 5 or something similar).
So what does this all mean for the average webmaster concerned with SEO? The first lesson is that keywords and other non-PageRank factors can be absolutely crucial. They can put a PR6 site above a PR8 site (if you don’t believe me just use the tool I mentioned above). Does this mean that website owners should not worry about links? Not at all. It’s just that all the time people spend on exchanging and acquiring links for the sole purpose of increasing PageRank may be better spent developing website content and keyword strategies instead.
As far as keywords are concerned, we discovered that having keywords in the website title and URL can help a site rank much more competitively. Good content tends to have the fortunate effect of both increasing your one-way in-bound links (people like to link to sites they find interesting, thoughtful, informative, or helpful), thereby improving your PageRank, while at the same time producing keyword rich webpages good for both human viewers and search engine spiders.
The take home message here is that PageRank is important, but it certainly is not worth obsessing over; there are many other factors involved in website ranking that should be given nearly equal consideration. In addition, simply building a good website is the best thing you can do to attract visitors, even without a great PageRank. PageRank, however, will likely follow ? consider it a welcomed byproduct of your hard work.
Bradley James is Webmaster of GoogleAdvisor.org, an informational site providing free information to casual searchers and Webmasters about the Google search engine.
Written by SEO Tipster on March 25th, 2007 with no comments.
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We all, meaning us webmasters want to have the best and top-rated website. But how do we get there? We start linking and submitting. If you are like me though, you don’t want to pay someone to do this. So, you so it yourself. This article shows a few tips and tricks on how to do that, mostly on how to get indexed by search engines.
The best way to get indexed is probably not through the fast submission services. For me the best results have been achieved by going directly to the “add URL” site. This may be more tedious but it works. Go to sites such as http://google.com/addurl/ and Google will crawl your site.
Also, trying to get one-way links will help. If you have no links to your site, chances are your site could be skipped or not seen. Many and I mean a ton of sites will offer to exchange link with you (you display their link and they diplay yours.) These links don’t hold much weight with search engines.
You see, the crawler can detect reciprocal links and they dont’t mean as much as one-way links. Sadly, it is very hard to get the prized one-way links. The best way is to have good content and diplay a “link to me” button. If a person likes your site they might just link to you.
Besides that try submitting to Dmoz.org and the Yahoo! Directory. Google says your site will be hard to miss if it is in these two directories. I hope these tips and helpful hints really are helpful.
Jason Lutterloh is a web designer, webmaster, and computer enthusiast. To visit the authors’ site please go to http://www.compjason.com
Written by SEO Tipster on March 25th, 2007 with no comments.
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