Search Engine Optimization

Link building is a waiting game. Many clients have asked me why they do not see changes in traffic or ranking before a month goes by. It takes time for the search engine robots to find those new links and index the pages they are linked to.

Hilltop is one of the major concepts underpinning Google's search algorithm, yet its workings and implications are often misunderstood.

The days of basing a successful link building strategy on link quantity and anchor text alone may be numbered. The link popularity theories behind PageRank and Hilltop remain important, but major search engines are continually adding new elements to their link algorithms to improve search relevance. One of these new elements is the concept of visual page segmentation which was recently proposed in a paper entitled "Block-level Link Analysis," by Deng Cai, Xaiofei He, Ji-Rong Wen and Wei-Ying, available online at http://research.microsoft.com/research/pubs/view.aspx?tr_id=690.

In today scenario when we talk about Search Engine Optimization, we also talk about one of the most important aspect of SEO, which is Link Building. But there are different types, aspects and limitations of Link Building, which would be discussed now under

Lately, there have been a lot of heated discussions regarding link building. Is it ethical to create a link building campaign? Does Google or any other search engine penalize for ?link farms? (a bunch of non-related links created for the SOLE purpose of increasing search engine ratings)? Is the ?link building era? over?

Use text links, avoid image links. Anyhow, if you have used image links, then always make sure to put your keywords in the alt tags. Put your prime keywords in text links and always insure to put a short descriptions of your website/page in minimum of 20-30 words or more if allowed. In text links if you are not allowed to add descriptions then always try to put a short descriptions in title tag. E.g.: title =" Link Exchange Tips, No Tricks ">Link Exchange Avoid repetition of keywords, repetition will lead to low rankings. Always try to exchange links from related websites (e.g. if you have a football league website, then a link from other sports websites will be known as related website links) Never, exchange links with unrelated websites/pages. Always ensure that the website that you are exchanging links with, is well optimized and has a good content. Never try to exchange links in quick sessions. Since search engines ignores or does not index those sites who gets bundles of links in quick time. Give your link exchange works few hours every day, to ensure that you get limited but quality links. Mainly for new websites, avoid exchanging bundles of links in quick sessions. Avoid creating a link/links.html file, since search-engines do not index link/links.html files, often. Always make a 'resources' (any appropriate name) folder and create an index.html file for that named folder and create appropriate html files for appropriate links going into them. (a sort of web-directory) Never, never exchange links with pages bearing more than 50 back-links. Generally 25 is appropriate and should not be more than two clicks away from the index/main page. Always ensure yourself that the page/website you are exchanging link is being indexed by the search engines or not. Also ensure on your own that the page/website you are exchanging link with, is not being blocked by any scripts, or disallowed by robots.txt, or disallowed by using noindex, nofollow on html page. Avoid linking to those tricky and false websites, and if possible inform already linked websites about the matter and ask them for link-exchange, if related to your websites. Links from the main/index page of the related website is the most quality link that a website can get. But, never try to place more than 20 back-links in index/main page. Exchanging links with your competitor's back linking website/pages are also the quality links that a website can get. Never post your website links to FFA, Guestbook, or other unrelated areas. Since search-engines completely ignores such links and may penalize your website. Site bearing good Google page rank are appropriate for link-exchange. Generally 4+ Google page rank is great for link-exchange. Exchanging links with old website is excellent. Link exchanging with new websites, with decent Google ranking at first, but bears quality contents and is well optimized, is also an excellent option for exchanging-links, since new websites bears less outgoing links than the old websites. While exchanging links for homepage of your website, also try to exchange links for sub-pages of it, for better ranking for that particular sub-page. Personal verification of the linking partner's website is recommended. Check for total incoming and outgoing links for whole website or for particular sub-pages of your linking partner's website and off course of your own before getting link exchanged.

After 105 days Google finally updated PR. And it?s about time. There for awhile you couldn?t swing a dead cat and not hit an anxious post on a seo forum wondering where the update was.

In today scenario when we talk about Search Engine Optimization, we also talk about one of the most important aspect of SEO, which is Link Building. But there are different types, aspects and limitations of Link Building, which would be discussed now under

There are many techniques that SEM/SEO experts use to optimize Web sites. One of the more important techniques is ?Link Popularity.?

Introduction

Link popularity is the single most influential factor for determining how well a web site will perform in search engine rankings. A web site's link popularity is computed from the number and more importantly, the quality of links pointing to a web site.

As we all know Google uses their PageRank technology to measure link popularity by counting the number of inbound links to your web pages, and it is one of the many factors influencing your ranking. Most website owners do not utilize properly what PageRank they already have. Their linking campaigns could be in vain if they let a large number of outbound links drain their existing PageRank. If their site were a bucket it would be full of holes, to illustrate this point, if you had a large number of outbound links, which are not reciprocated it would reduce your overall PageRank. Be diligent in identifying sites that are no longer linking back to you anymore. Also keep in mind putting more than 50 outbound links on any page is not advisable. Also be wary of sites that link to you from pages with more than 50 outbound links. Google's PagerRank is based on incoming links, but not only on the number of them. Instead PageRank is also based on the PageRank of the page on which your link is placed. For example a link to your site could be more valuable from a PR4 page with no other links than a link from a page with PR5 and 60 other links.

You've spent many hours trying to increase your online traffic with your linking campaign. You've sent out 200 e-mails pleading with other web sites to trade links with your site. Many of your e-mails bounce back.

What is link popularity?

More and more search engines rank your web pages based on the number of links that point to your web site (link popularity). Google uses link popularity as its most important factor in ranking sites. HotBot, AltaVista, MSN, Inktomi, and others also use link popularity in their formulas.

One of the most overlooked strategies to improve search engine rankings is building your link reputation. This link popularity strategy is just as important or equal to creating keyword rich content pages.

If you are a webmaster, chances are one of your main concerns is the ranking of your website with the major search engines. Since you are concerned with this, you are probably involved in acquiring links to your websites on the Internet to further increase the link popularity or your site. The reason gaining links to your website is important is because many of the large and popular search engines focus on the amount of links there are to your site when they begin ranking your site. The more links you have, the higher your website will rank. So, if you are not familiar with how to increase your marketing by acquiring links then you need to learn. Fortunately, it is not difficult and will not take a lot of effort, but you will need to be open minded, patient, and always play fair. Consider the following suggestions when you are beginning your link swapping or reciprocal linking campaign.

Well actually, linking isn't fun at all. In fact, it's quite tedious. Seeking, responding to requests and adding links takes time and effort. But, if you're not actively building links the RIGHT way you are going to be left behind. In other words, your site will be "Lost in Cyberspace". The plain fact is Google, and to a lesser extent, other important search engines, reward sites with links from relevant and important pages.

With more and more experts and search engine enthusiastsclaiming the right way and the wrong way to handle linkswapping, link exchanging or reciprocal linking!

If you don?t know already, one of the key success factors to getting loads of free Google traffic to your website is increasing page rank. So just how do you increase your page rank? Well, it?s all in the linking.

It seems the excitement about search engine optimization fades in and out from time to time. The more people talk about search engine optimization (SEO) the more it seems to be the logical choice for bringing customers to your site. However, there are some points that I haven?t seen anyone else make as of yet about the effectiveness of SEO versus the effectiveness of building a responsive list. I think you?ll be surprised to see which one comes out on top.

Through search engines and directories, the Internet provides a quick and easy place to choose a local merchant or business.

While searching the web these days, it's hard not to notice all those little Local tabs sprouting up in the vicinity of the search field on virtually every major search engine. Within the past year, the race has been to integrate a plethora of advanced features into local search capabilities.

Firstly, let me say that I am sure all our thoughts went out to the victims, their families and friends of these bombings, and other incidents where innocent people lose their lives. Secondly, an SEO ezine is not the place to debate the rights and wrongs of such events.

It is official, the search engine wars are in full swing. On Tuesday, February 01, 2005 MSN officially rolled out its new search solution to all of its websites, including MSN.com. This comes on the heels of growing speculation that Google plans to launch its own browser, possibly in an attempt to attack Microsoft?s greatest strength in Internet Explorer. Is it possible that MSN actually rolled out their search engine to prevent Google from doing the same thing they did to Yahoo! with the release of Gmail?