Webmaster Papers








SEO Deadly Sins - Mistakes That Hurt Web Page Ranking


The following are a list of mistakes can ensure that your site maintains a low ranking with the search engines. Avoid at all costs.

* Specifying no title for your page *

I cannot stress how important the title of a web page is. Failing to specify a descriptive, keyword optimized title will do untold damage to your ranking with the search engines. It is the equivalent to owning a shop and boarding up its windows. Ideally each page on your site should have a unique, content-specific title.

* Excessive use of images or Flash animation on a page *

If your web page has plenty of nice-looking graphics and eye-popping Flash animation and not a lot of textual content it may indeed look nice but have you ever considered what how the search engines might see it.

Search engines thrive on textual content, scavenging as much text as they can but unfortunately they cannot understand images or Flash animations like we can and so will find nothing of real value on your page. Try to balance your page so that the textual content is given priority and that any images or animations are used only when needed. Also it is a good idea to attach some text to an image by using its ALT tag as search engines use this text when determining rank.

* Complicated menu systems *

Search engines spiders that crawl through our pages are a relatively primitive bunch. They find in hard to navigate complicated menu systems implemented for example in JavaScript or as a Java applet. Just because it is easy for a human to navigate through the site never assume it will be as easy for a search engine spider. A menu system using simple textual links will be easier for a spider to understand and it will be able to successfully navigate your site. A lot of the time complicated menu systems can be replicated using textual links and CSS.

If you must use a complicated menu system be sure to provide a site map that is clearly accessible from the homepage of your site and contains only textual links to your pages. This ensures that even if the spider cannot understand your menu system that it will be able to find the pages on your site.

Frank Kilkelly is a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Expert and Webmaster at http://www.seo-ireland.com/, a complete search engine optimization resource. The highlight of the site is an SEO forum http://www.seo-ireland.com/forum/ for discussion of the latest techniques and tips to improve the ranking of your web site.

RELATED ARTICLES


Google, Adsense, SEO, and How It All Works
Google uses an algorithm to determine the search engine results (SERPS). The algorithm is based upon certain factors that include keyword density, Meta Tags, anchor tags, image tags, back links, etc etc etc.
Keywords, Ranking, & Search Engine Optimization Fun
I am a Search Engine Optimization newbie. I have read a little on various forums, browsed a few articles, and read through The Affiliate Masters Course (Ken Evoy) a couple of times.
The Best and Easiest Google-Friendly Change to Your Web Site
No matter who you are or how much you pay for web site advertising, free search engine traffic is probably responsible for a big part of your business. So why make your web site so hard for search engines to figure out?
Finding The Best Search Engine
With Billions of pages on the internet how do you find exactly what is that you are looking for? Chances are you have stumbled across different search engines, and maybe even used and tried out a few of them.
Google Contest - Nigritude Ultramarine
Search engine optimization experts are having fun with Google. Experts, with DarkBlue.com at the helm, are holding a contest to determine how Google really works. Experts are competing, with the goal of optimizing a webpage for a non-sensical phrase: 'nigritude ultramarine'.
Google Tests Expanded Search To Include Printed Works
Google Labs is currently testing Google Print, which returns results from within scanned printed books along with Google's standard web search results. The searcher doesn't have to do anything special - the printed work results are already included in the Google database. Searchers have the option of narrowing their search by including, for example, the word "book" in their search terms. For example, a search on "home repair" might return a variety of web sites, online merchants, etc., while changing the search to "home repair book" will help filter the results to include more material scanned directly from books.
How Web Design Can Affect Search Engine Rankings
Uniquely built web sites can create unique issues when being promoted on the search engines. From a basic 3 page brochure site to a corporate site with hundreds of dynamically generated pages, every web site needs to have certain design aspects in order to achieve the full effects of an SEO campaign. Below are a few points to take into consideration when building or updating your web site.
Your Top Search Rankings at Yahoo & MSN Search are Worthless
It seems I now do this rant every single year when traffic statistics are discussed in web industry news. Last week I posted to my Reality SEO blog that referred traffic numbers are the only statistic that webmasters should be concerned about when looking at their search engine rank. I wrote about this last year after ComScore Media Metrics statistics were relased discussing Search Engine Queries generated by each search property. http://searchengineoptimism.com/Google_refers_70_percent.html
Wordtracker Wisdom: Common Keyword Questions and Answers
One of my favorite subjects to teach on at our live SEO Mastery Workshops is that of keyword research and the behavior of a specific target audience using my all time favorite research tool, Wordtracker.
Search Engine Optimization - Free Tips and Help - Part One - The Title Tag
Search Engine Optimization is a widely misunderstood industry. Many webmasters, including myself, have been mislead by industry forums, and Internet "chatter". Having tried many different approaches, starting in 1996: It is ironic that the methods I used back then, still hold true today, to a great extent.
How To Boost Your Keyword Density On Your Web Site To Gain Top Positions At The Search Engines
Let's talk about what keyword density is and how to improve your keyword density on your web site. To improve your keyword density ratio there are three parts that we will need address.
Google Takes Care of Idiots Too
There's an old saying that goes, "God takes care of babies and idiots."
How To Get Number 1 Spot In Google, Every Time, Guaranteed
Woaah! Wait a minute. Before I exclusively reveal these insider secrets can I ask you question? Well, actually, I want to ask you a series of questions.
Future of SEO - Making Money Online from Your Home and Building Homes from Making Money Online
Everyone seems to want the benefits from working at home: more time, more money, and theoretically less work. But the later of the previous list seems to be the problem. No one wants to do work! When it comes to getting your site highly ranked on Google, Yahoo, MSN, or other search engines the only way to do it fast and effectively is to put a little time and effort into your cause. Links are the way to do this, and the theory is not complicated; the more links that you have to your site with keywords relating to your site, the better your ranking.
Search Term Suggestion Tool
Overture.com offers a cool function to assist you on your quest to find unique keywords. This tool can also tell you how many times a particular word has been searched within the last 30 days. If you were to enter the word "presentation," the tool would tell you that it has been searched 954 times in the past month. The tool will then display variations of the word that have been searched in the past 30 days. These numbers only reflect the searches done through Overture.com and its affiliates.
How to Get a Website Indexed Fast
Get Indexed Fast
Increase Page Rank with Search Engine Optimization
Utilizing effective search engine optimization techniques will improve the page rank of your website.
Can Invisible Text in CSSs Slip Under Search Engine Radar?
I'm literally inundated with questions on the subject of invisible text & hosting so in I thought I'd debunk some myths and give you the facts straight up.
Search Engine Rankings for Beginners
Search engine optimization is best left in the mystical land of the Intenet Marketing Guru right? Good Search engine rankings are tough to achieve. Understanding search engine marketing takes years of studying and only people with true insider knowledge and secret tools rank well in Google right? WRONG. Pure crap as a matter of fact.
Link Exchange Tips, No Tricks
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.