What is SEO? Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the power behind any web site. SEO is categorized into three main branches: localization, personalization and universal.
Localization is established by means of carefully prepared text and directory submission. As the web becomes larger localization becomes more and more important. You want your customers to be able to find you in the ever expanding world wide web then you need to take localization seriously. Look at Google, the largest search engine in the world, they continually offer new localization techniques to help refine their search algorithms. If Google is thinking local you should too.
Personalization is all about relevance. The search engines continually ask, is this relevant to the search? Is this what the searcher is looking for? How do they know? In any given "community", if your site is well connected and well regarded then, theoretically, it will have many people linking to it. The more incoming links you have the higher your relevancy. The higher your relevancy the better your personalization rank will be. The better your rank the more profitable your business. After all, who actually looks at page 9 of a search in order to find a product?
Universal ranking involves multi media forms. The more types of data you have pointing to your product the better your universal ranking will be. Thus you should have a blog, images and, if practical, streaming video. In the near future the top sites will display all of these forms of media and each will come up during a search making high search engine rankings harder to achieve. Get a jump on the future and be sure to "universalize" your site.
Let Taosw3 custom web design maximize your sites potential.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
What is the Sandbox?
The term “sandbox” was coined by webmasters to represent the time that a new website must wait before it is listed for a competitive keyword in Google. Much like how children first play in the safety of a small sandbox, Google also forces new websites to do their time before joining the older kids on the rest of the playground. The sandbox process is difficult to explain, since Google claims it does not officially exist. But tests by webmasters have confirmed its existence and effect on newly created websites.
The first thing that happens to any new website in Google is what some call the “fresh boost”. This is when the website is allowed to rank freely among the other sites often on the first three pages of the search results. This fresh boost usually lasts for about a month or two and is monitored by Google to see how well the site performs and how much it grows in terms of content and backlinks.
If the site passes Google’s fresh boost test it is allowed to remain in the rankings. The problem is that 99% of sites fail this test and are sent into the sandbox for a period of time that can last for nine months or more. No one really knows what needs to be done in order to pass Google’s test, but there are many ideas as to what Google is looking for. These often include authority back links from established and trusted sites such as DMOZ or Wikipedia. Basically, the idea is that if the bigger kids allow you to play with them, you get to stay. If you can’t manage to gain the trust of Google and authority sites in the allotted time, you are sent into the sandbox as an un-trusted or spam site.
Once in the sandbox there is no proven way out. Many say they have gotten out by a mass flood of links, but building such a massive amount of links can get a site banned from Google altogether. Many webmasters would rather wait and do their time than get banned, since it is extremely hard to get a domain un-banned from Google. The best thing you can do is continue to go about building your site and ignore the fact that you’re even in there. Use the time to add content to your site and continue to build back links from other websites. Once your time is up, you will have proven to Google that your site can be trusted and will be allowed to rank for highly searched keywords once again.
While in the sandbox you will still be indexed and listed in Google for non-competitive keywords and low-search volume terms. The sandbox only affects certain keywords and certain pages within your site, so you will still receive traffic from Google just not as much as you will in a year’s time. If you’re trapped in the sandbox, don’t worry. You will get out some day, and while you’re waiting for Google to trust you remember there is always Yahoo! and MSN.
The first thing that happens to any new website in Google is what some call the “fresh boost”. This is when the website is allowed to rank freely among the other sites often on the first three pages of the search results. This fresh boost usually lasts for about a month or two and is monitored by Google to see how well the site performs and how much it grows in terms of content and backlinks.
If the site passes Google’s fresh boost test it is allowed to remain in the rankings. The problem is that 99% of sites fail this test and are sent into the sandbox for a period of time that can last for nine months or more. No one really knows what needs to be done in order to pass Google’s test, but there are many ideas as to what Google is looking for. These often include authority back links from established and trusted sites such as DMOZ or Wikipedia. Basically, the idea is that if the bigger kids allow you to play with them, you get to stay. If you can’t manage to gain the trust of Google and authority sites in the allotted time, you are sent into the sandbox as an un-trusted or spam site.
Once in the sandbox there is no proven way out. Many say they have gotten out by a mass flood of links, but building such a massive amount of links can get a site banned from Google altogether. Many webmasters would rather wait and do their time than get banned, since it is extremely hard to get a domain un-banned from Google. The best thing you can do is continue to go about building your site and ignore the fact that you’re even in there. Use the time to add content to your site and continue to build back links from other websites. Once your time is up, you will have proven to Google that your site can be trusted and will be allowed to rank for highly searched keywords once again.
While in the sandbox you will still be indexed and listed in Google for non-competitive keywords and low-search volume terms. The sandbox only affects certain keywords and certain pages within your site, so you will still receive traffic from Google just not as much as you will in a year’s time. If you’re trapped in the sandbox, don’t worry. You will get out some day, and while you’re waiting for Google to trust you remember there is always Yahoo! and MSN.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
There is a new bot in Town: msnbot/1.1
MSN Crawler Improvements for Live Search
Today, Microsoft announced changes to their Live Search crawler intended to reduce bandwidth resources during the crawl of a site. MSNbot (upgraded to version 1.1) now supports both HTTP compression and conditional get.
If you have not yet configured conditional get on your site, we would strongly encourage you to do so, as it can significantly help reduce server load as most browsers and crawlers already support this feature (e.g. IIS, Apache).
In addition to these two features there are many more improvements in performance that should help further optimize our crawling. As a result, we've also upgraded our user agent to reflect the changes, it is now "msnbot/1.1". If you think you are experiencing any issues with MSNbot, or have any questions about the updates, please use our Crawler Feedback & Discussion form.
Today, Microsoft announced changes to their Live Search crawler intended to reduce bandwidth resources during the crawl of a site. MSNbot (upgraded to version 1.1) now supports both HTTP compression and conditional get.
- HTTP Compression: HTTP compression allows faster transmission time by compressing static files and application responses, reducing network load between your servers and our crawler. Use this online tool to check your server for HTTP compression support.
- Conditional Get: We support conditional get as defined by RFC 2616 (Section 14.25), generally we will not download the page unless it has changed since the last time we crawled it. To check if your site already supports the "If-Modified-Since" HTTP header, you can use this online tool to check your server for HTTP Conditional Get support. Alternatively, you can check using Fiddler for Internet Explorer, or Live Headers for Firefox. Each of these tools allows you to create a custom GET request and send it to your server. You'll want to make sure that your request includes the "If-Modified-Since" header like the following simplified sample:
GET /sa/3_12_0_163076/webmaster/webmaster_layout.css HTTP/1.1
Host: webmaster.live.com
If-Modified-Since: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 01:28:49 GMT
You should receive a server response similar to the following simplified sample:
HTTP/1.x 304 Not Modified
Check out MSDN for more information on
If you have not yet configured conditional get on your site, we would strongly encourage you to do so, as it can significantly help reduce server load as most browsers and crawlers already support this feature (e.g. IIS, Apache).
In addition to these two features there are many more improvements in performance that should help further optimize our crawling. As a result, we've also upgraded our user agent to reflect the changes, it is now "msnbot/1.1". If you think you are experiencing any issues with MSNbot, or have any questions about the updates, please use our Crawler Feedback & Discussion form.
Friday, February 1, 2008
What are Link Farms and why to NOT use Them
What is a Link Farm?
Link farms profit by providing the same types of links that search engines want you to avoid. A link farm will sell you 100's of "high quality" links to your site, none of which have any relavance to what you do. The theory being that more links equates to higher search ranking.
This practice is one of many that fall under "Black Hat SEO" and, it is very dangerous if you want to maintain a web presence. If a search engines find a Link Farm that you are involved with your site can be "blacklisted" by, making it almost impossible to find your site.
How to recognize a Link Farm:
In some cases, there will be a page called “Link Partners” or “Links”.
If you should run across sites that have one or many of the characteristics, do not participate. Contact TaosW3 if you are still not sure.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Who cares if their site is Optimized?
Why Optimize?
Have you ever tried fishing in a fast stream without a fishing pole? Did you have much luck?
Well, if you do not spend the money to optimize your site you won't catch many "fish" either. Optimizing makes your site more "user friendly". When your customer is looking for the fishing pole that you so want to sell them and, they type "fishing pole" in their search bar you want to be there to greet them. Right on top. Just like a big fish should be!
Optimizing will be the best money you ever spend. Let us show you how.
Have you ever tried fishing in a fast stream without a fishing pole? Did you have much luck?
Well, if you do not spend the money to optimize your site you won't catch many "fish" either. Optimizing makes your site more "user friendly". When your customer is looking for the fishing pole that you so want to sell them and, they type "fishing pole" in their search bar you want to be there to greet them. Right on top. Just like a big fish should be!
Optimizing will be the best money you ever spend. Let us show you how.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
What's with all the talk about SEO?
What is SEO?
SEO = search engine optimization. Sounds a little scary at first but, if we brake it down it actually does make sense. A search engine is where you go to find information (Google, Firefox, Opera, Safari to name a few). When you type "green apples" in the search bar and click enter the engine tries to find all relavant information about "green apples". That can be alot of information and really hard to find exactly what you after. So you refine your search to "nutritional information on green apples". Ah, that's better! Now you have found exactly what you need.
This same principle applies to your website. The second search was "optimized" to find the information most relavant to your search. The sites that come up first are the ones that have told the search engines (via programming and other avenues) that they know the most about nutrition and green apples. These sites have been optimized and yours should be too.
If you are not sure if your site is properly optimized call www.taosw3.com and we can tell you.
SEO = search engine optimization. Sounds a little scary at first but, if we brake it down it actually does make sense. A search engine is where you go to find information (Google, Firefox, Opera, Safari to name a few). When you type "green apples" in the search bar and click enter the engine tries to find all relavant information about "green apples". That can be alot of information and really hard to find exactly what you after. So you refine your search to "nutritional information on green apples". Ah, that's better! Now you have found exactly what you need.
This same principle applies to your website. The second search was "optimized" to find the information most relavant to your search. The sites that come up first are the ones that have told the search engines (via programming and other avenues) that they know the most about nutrition and green apples. These sites have been optimized and yours should be too.
If you are not sure if your site is properly optimized call www.taosw3.com and we can tell you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)