Link Popularity
1.)Why don't all my links show up when I use the link: command?
A. At this moment Google is only showing a sampling of the total links to you. As far as numbers, it is only important to remember
it is a sampling and to just continue your link building strategy.
To see a much more accurate figure please login to your google webmasters account and use the link tool there.
2.)How come I get a different amount of links when I use www.example.com
and example.com?
A. 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: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.
3.) What's a Link Farm?
A. 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.
4.) What is "Anchor Text"?
A:Anchor text is the text that you use within a html link.
For example ( This is Anchor Text
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.
5.) What is an "IBL"?
A: 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.
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.
7.) What is Linkbait?
Linkbait is when you create a tool, write a articles 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 a 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
8.) What is cross linking?
A: When multiple sites link to each other for the purpose of increasing link popularity.
9.) How long after I am listed in DMOZ should I start to gain the search engine benefit?
A: 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.
10.) Would I be penalized if a "Link Farm" or a "Bad Neighborhood" linked to my site?
A: 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.
Search Engine Optimization
1.) How do I use a Robots file or do you have an example of one?
A. 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/
2.) Should I use a Site Map? and does anyone have an example of one?
A: 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.
A: Search Engine Result Pages
5.). I am number 5 in Yahoo, but not in the top 1,000 in Google. Why?
A. 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)
6.) Is there a way I can find out where I rank?
A: 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)
7.) What is an "ALGO" ?
A: An 'Algo' is an abbreviation of 'Algorithm'. (In short, the mathematical
formula or calculation that Google use in order to rank websites.)
8.) What is Hidden Text?
A: 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.
9.) What is cloaking?
A: 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.
10.) What is a doorway page?
A: 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.
11.) What is Geo Targeting?
A: 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.
12.) Do XHTML pages rank better than HTML-pages?
A: 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.
13.) Does using CSS affect my rankings?
A: 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).
14.)Should I use submission software to make sure all the search engines have
me included?
A: 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.
15.) I submitted to DMOZ but didn't hear anything. Should I resubmit?
A: 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.
16.) What is URL canonicalization?
For most websites, the www and non-www versions both resolve to the same content but can be browsed independantly, 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 therfore not maximising the full ranking potential of the page.
To prevent the problem on an Apache server with rewrite enabled, place the following code in your .htaccess file:
To redirect from the non-www version to the www version
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
To redirect from the www version to the non-www version
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^example\.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]
To redirect from yoursite.com/index.html to yoursite.com/
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /.*index\.html\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^(.*)index\.html$ /$1 [R=301,L]
To do the same for index.php simply replace .html with .php in the code.
To do this on a Windows server, assuming you have access to the administrative tools:
For the main page files, redirect as follows
-In Administrative Tools open Internet services manager
-Select the file to redirect, right click and open properties
-In the menu click the Home directory tab
-Select redirect to a url
-Select directory on this PC, but type in your Domain url
-Check exact url as entered above
-Check permanent redirection
All done..Click apply
For the domain url
-Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Internet Information Services.
-Double-click "Web Sites" and then find the web site where the domain is.
-Right-click on the site and choose "Properties". Choose the "Directory" tab.
-Click the "A redirection to a URL" option.
Enter http://yourdomain.com/ to the right of "Redirect to: add $S$Q to the end to redirect paths, files and querystrings (eg http://yourdomain.com/$S$Q).
Select "The exact URL entered above" and "A permanent redirection for this resource".
Use "OK" to save the changes.
To do this in pure php:
To redirect from the non-www to the www version
if (substr($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'],0,3) != 'www')
{
header('HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently');
header('Location: http://www.' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);
}
To redirect from domain.com/index.php to domain.com/
if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] == '/index.php')
{
header( 'HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently' );
header( 'Location: http://www.domain.com/' );
}
And in ASP:
To redirect from the non-www to the www version
If InStr(Request.ServerVariables("SERVER_NAME"),"www") = 0 Then
Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location","http://www."
& Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_HOST")
& Request.ServerVariables("REQUEST_URI")
Response.End
End if NB, there is no SEO advantage to using either the www or the non-www version of the site, so it's down to personal preference which one you use.
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