FAQ: Search Engine Optimization

[stymiee]

'link' searches for the word 'link'. 'Link:' searches for links to your page.

[Dan Schulz]

I think he meant inside the page's text (or body copy), not the search bar, John.

[stymiee]

Actually, see here: http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=512134

[edongzkisiete]

Great. Thanks for this very informative information.

[axlarry]

Thanks a lot for this great post.
Just want to comment on this :

Originally Posted by stymiee

Should I submit my website to the Search Engines by hand or use software?

Do it by hand. It will not take long to do and will ensure that you are successful in submitting each form with the correct information. There is a constant debate about how search engines feel about automated submission software. Since there is a reasonable chance these are frowned upon by the search engines, and since you can do anything they can do on your own, you might as well avoid them.

But, if you're going to use software, these title seem to be the most common ones recommended: Addweb, Web Position Gold, Web CEO

From google webmaster guidelines :

Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.

The rest of the post absolutely awesome!
Thanks for the sharing!

[stymiee]

What Google hates about automated software is that it queries their servers and scrapes content from them which is a violation of Google's TOS. It's not the software that particularly bothers them so much as it is the abuse of their bandwidth and services that they don't like. They also don't hate one particular brand more then another and you can bet that they chose WPG to be singled out because of its popularity and name recognition.

So feel free to use software to give you tips and other useless info. But don't use it query Google's servers. If you do you may find your IP being blocked but your website will be completely unaffected.

[ecctao]

what's the problem of my web happen?

Befor a week nearlly all of my main keywordes are before 3 page in google search.(this circs continue about half an year)
But now all thing are no more.
all of my keywords are down to below 6 page.
And some of it had down to null.
I dont changer much of my web about this days!
And is there anybody can tell me what's the problem?
Is there google have big changer in recently ?

[D9r]

Question 1: Hidden Text/Hidden DIVs

Hidden text/DIVs are only bad if you are using them to manipulate the SERPs. There are many practical uses of hidden text/DIVs that enhance a web page without being malicious.

Good uses of hidden text/DIVs: Dynamic menus, dynamic page content

Bad uses of hidden text/DIVs: Text that is present on the page but cannot be viewed by human beings at any time

What about hidden 'Skip Navigation' menus that are used to help users of screen-readers, mobile devices, etc to more easily navigate the page? For example:

#navskip {display:none !important;}


<div id="navskip">
<h3>Skip To:</h3>
<ul>
  <li><a href="#top">Top of Page</a></li>
  <li><a href="#content">Content</a></li>
  <li><a href="#nav">Main Navigation</a></li>
  <li><a href="#footer">Footer</a></li>
</ul>
</div><!-- end navskip -->

Question 2: Content first in markup
Some say it's better for main content to be coded first in the markup, and that it's bad for main content to come after other stuff like navigation menus, ads, etc. Others (see quote below) say there's little or no benefit from having content first in the source code. Does putting content first in the source code help or not?

Thanks.

Originally Posted by Dan Schulz

If you have a large page with a lot of content, a search engine may not be able to index everything on that page. If the content comes first (before everything else), how will it find your menu (which links to every other page on the site)? Would you rather have 85% of one page indexed completely, or would you rather have your entire site indexed even if some of the pages on it had only the same 85% of their content indexed?

[Dan Schulz]

Hiding skip links is fine, but for accessibility reasons I'd use position: absolute; left: -999em; instead of display: none; (oh, and one other thing - that's a waste of a perfectly good heading).

And I already answered your second question (the answer is in the quotation you cited).

[Jaynet]

Good job,very nice article on SEO.

[D9r]

Originally Posted by Dan Schulz

I already answered your second question (the answer is in the quotation you cited).

Your comment in the other thread is the reason for my question -- I never heard of your theory before, and am looking for additional sources to validate it.

In that same thread you referred to this FAQs thread as a primary SEO resource. I read this entire thread -- all 207 posts of it -- and there's nothing here regarding my question. Can you provide any sources to support your opinion that content order doesn't matter?

[Dan Schulz]

Originally Posted by D9r

Your comment in the other thread is the reason for my question -- I never heard of your theory before, and am looking for additional sources to validate it.

In that same thread you referred to this FAQs thread as a primary SEO resource. I read this entire thread -- all 207 posts of it -- and there's nothing here regarding my question. Can you provide any sources to support your opinion that content order doesn't matter?

Do you mean "doesn't" or "does" matter? I'm in the camp that says it does matter since search engines read a page top-down in source-code order. Therefore having a lot of links at the end of the page (such as your menu) may mean those links never get crawled if there's a lot of content above it (say over 100K for instance - this is just an example figure though).

[stymiee]

Originally Posted by Dan Schulz

Do you mean "doesn't" or "does" matter? I'm in the camp that says it does matter since search engines read a page top-down in source-code order. Therefore having a lot of links at the end of the page (such as your menu) may mean those links never get crawled if there's a lot of content above it (say over 100K for instance - this is just an example figure though).

That's a great explanation of when it matters.

[D9r]

Originally Posted by Dan Schulz

Do you mean "doesn't" or "does" matter?

I meant it in the context of my earlier statement:
"some say there's little or no benefit from having content first in the source code."

Originally Posted by D9r

Question 2: Content first in markup
Some say it's better for main content to be coded first in the markup, and that it's bad for main content to come after other stuff like navigation menus, ads, etc. Others say there's little or no benefit from having content first in the source code. Does putting content first in the source code help or not?

Thanks.

Does putting content first in the source code help with SEO? I've always heard that it does. I've never heard that it does not until reading your opinion quoted earlier. I'm simply trying to verify the theory with additional sources based on fact and research.

[Dan Schulz]

Right here.

http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/show...&postcount=212

Originally Posted by Dan Schulz

[H]aving a lot of links at the end of the page (such as your menu) may mean those links never get crawled if there's a lot of content above it (say over 100K for instance - this is just an example figure though).

[D9r]

We seem to be experiencing a communications breakdown here. When I asked my original question I quoted you (Dan) as an example of a proponent for one side of the original debate; you replied re-quoting yourself for the answer; I rephrased my question; and you replied re-quoting yourself several more times. Re-Quoting my quote of your original post over and over again does not answer my question.

Your opinion is only one side of a 2-sided debate regarding 2 possible scenarios, and I quoted you in my original post as an example of one of the sides. Your answer focuses only on the "negative side" - a worse case scenario: you give an example of where it would hurt to have content first in source code order. My question focuses on the "positive side": many people have claimed that it does help to have content first in source code order. I would like to know if it does indeed help, regardless of whether or not your worse-case scenario hurts.

In the other thread when someone else asked my same question, you referred to this thread as a reference for him to get the answer to his question. I read all 200+ posts in this thread and have found no answer to this question; that's why I asked it here (yes, I STFW (search the fine web) before giving in to asking for help, per the guidelines outlined in "how to ask questions the smart way"). Then here in this thread you answered my question by referring back to your post in the other thread, which I'd quoted to begin with. Requoting your post in the other thread as a source to validate your claim, and continually referring back to the same post over and over again does not help in clarifying a question such as this; especially more so since I quoted the original source to begin with, which implies that I read it and am already familiar with it.

I'd be interested to hear an opinion from the SEO guru who started this thread, as well as any others who consider themselves SEO experts. That's why I posted my question here to begin with, back on Dec 14 two weeks ago. If not, I'd really apprediate pointers to other SEO resources that validate/verify your claim. So far I've not found any.

I read your post thoroughly but it does not answer my question. Can you point me to any sources that support your opinion?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Check_your_facts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Common_knowledge

Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.

Self-published sources raise reliability concerns.

Claims of consensus must be sourced. The claim that all or most scientists, scholars, or ministers hold a certain view requires a reliable source. Without it, opinions should be identified as those of particular, named sources.

a basic part of citing good sources...even if you think you know something, you have to cite references anyway to help the reader check facts and look for more information.

etc

[angilina]

Please tell me one thing

"Minimize outbound links"

if I use nofollow tags in out going links, then is it ok to put outbound links in pages?

[Dan Schulz]

Why would you want to do that? It's OK to have some outgoing links, as long as you don't go overboard. That's what stymiee means by "Minimize outbound links" here. And you don't need to use rel="nofollow" to do it either (and if everyone did use rel="nofollow" on all their outbound links, then what would be the point of trying to get backlinks in the first place?).

[angilina]

Originally Posted by Dan Schulz

Why would you want to do that? It's OK to have some outgoing links, as long as you don't go overboard. That's what stymiee means by "Minimize outbound links" here. And you don't need to use rel="nofollow" to do it either (and if everyone did use rel="nofollow" on all their outbound links, then what would be the point of trying to get backlinks in the first place?).

thank you for the reply.

the problem is that, I have thousands of outgoing links in my site.
its a newspaper sites directory, on one page, there are like 500+ links too.

so in above case, should I use nofollow tag?

[Dan Schulz]

Actually, I'd break that site directory page into multiple pages, based on a category structure. Not only will it be better for your site's SEO health, but it'll also be easier for the site's visitors to use (especially if a search feature and sitemap are provided).

[Vick!]

I have a little silly idea .. what if we request every SP member to give at least one link to this thread with anchor text "SEO" or "search engine optimization"?

IMHO, this is the best single page on the web someone can find about SEO. I wish every SEO wannabe could read and recite it by heart.

Thoughts?

[Swirl Media Solu]

Thank you stymiee for the useful links!

[mannu84]

hi stymiee,
Good Research about SEO, Experienced as well as Fresher can get the benefit from your research.... Most of the sites dont show SEO in a step by step manner.. but you have provided it..

Nice .....

Thanks

[kenneth.robert]

I read your article it is very useful for the search engine point of view.

[dyrws]

i wonder if any kind soul can help me here.

being lost in touch with website management and got to know that nowadays search engine no longer crawl url like - http://www.doshur.com/th/index.asp?page=2&sort=3

what i have done is changing the url to http://www.doshur.com/th/index/2/3
but this url will redirects to http://www.doshur.com/th/index.asp?page=2&sort=3

will the search engine still crawl my page?

is it still important that i put
<META NAME="keywords" content="touching heart, touching stories, meaningful stories, personal growth, short stories, love, friendship">
<META NAME="description" content="Collections of touching and meaningful stories.">

or can i remove these meta tags?

seems like other pages without these tags have better ranking than mine.


i have tried to replace "id" in my query string to "c" and wonder it helps?


any kind soul can advise me?

Thanks in advance.