Search Engine Garage - Search Engine Tools

<BODY BGCOLOR="#000852" TEXT="#FFFFFF" LINK="#82bdee" VLINK="#8080ff" ALINK="#a4cff2"> <CENTER> <A HREF="http://www.searchenginegarage.com" TARGET="_top"><IMG SRC="images/seglogosm1.gif" width="262" height="88" BORDER="0"></A><BR><BR> <TABLE BORDER="0" WIDTH="425"> <TR><TD> <FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="-1"> <B>Things That Can Help Search Engine Rankings:</B><BR> <A NAME="linkrelevance"><FONT COLOR=#00ff00><B>Link Relevance</B></FONT></A> - More sites that link to yours can help in some major spidering search engines. Google for example looks at the number of links pointing to your site and the quality of the sites linking to you. A link from the home page of Yahoo would weigh much higher than a link from someone's personal page.<BR><BR> Boost your <b><i>PageRank</i></b> with the Net's #1 PageRank tool, try the <a href="http://cbprotect.com/x.cgi?adminid=28&id=1376&pid=526" target="new"><FONT COLOR=#00ff00><B>PR Prowler!</B></FONT><br><br> <A NAME="industryspecific"><FONT COLOR=#00ff00><B>Industry Specific listings</B></FONT></A> - These will bring in much smaller, but more targeted traffic to your site. It will also help play a part in categorizing your site by the keywords found on the site linking to yours. Look for links on relevant subject matter.<BR><BR> <A NAME="emergingsearchengines"><FONT COLOR=#00ff00><B>Emerging Search Engines</B></FONT></A> - Every once in a new engine comes along. If you get in them while they are just beginning, you'll be ready for when they break out.<BR><BR> <A NAME="url"><FONT COLOR=#00ff00><B>URL</B></FONT></A> - This is your web address. Our URL is http://www.searchenginegarage.com. When looking for a good URL, you should consider the keyword benefits vs. name recognition and branding. Search engines give more weight to a URL with keywords in it but a visitor may not give much credibility or remember a URL such as Search-Engine-Marketing-Internet-Wizards.com. <BR><BR> <A NAME="title"><FONT COLOR=#00ff00><B>Title</B></FONT></A> - Refers to the browser title. If you are using Netscape or Internet Explorer, look for the blue bar at the top left. Keep it short, use a couple keywords if they're stronger than your company name, start with the lowest alphabetical letter and make sense.<BR><BR> <A NAME="description"><FONT COLOR=#00ff00><B>META Description tag</B></FONT></A> - Only found in the source code and in search engine listings. This tag should be no more than 200 characters long with keywords that enticingly describe your web site.<BR><BR> <A NAME="keywords"><FONT COLOR=#00ff00><B>META Keywords tag</B></FONT></A> - This is only found on the underneath HTML code. It should be a series of lower case keywords specific to your industry separated by commas. try to keep it less than 800 characters in total length. Remember this section is only to assist relevancy. The real focus should be on the page. Less can sometimes be more.<BR><BR> <A NAME="alttags"><FONT COLOR=#00ff00><B>ALT tags</B></FONT></A> - Used in the IMG SRC tag to replace missing graphics. Some engines have been known to give minor weight to this area.<BR><BR> <A NAME="links"><FONT COLOR=#00ff00><B>Links</B></FONT></A> - Keyword text links scattered through your site or as navigation can also help boost your keyword relevancy. The text within the link is called "Anchor Text" and should have a keyword if possible. Text links also aid in search engine indexability as some search engines can not follow graphic links.<BR><BR> <A NAME="text"><FONT COLOR=#00ff00><B>TEXT</B></FONT></A> - Some engines read the text of your site, make sure the first 200 characters of you text mention your best keywords. Repeating your Meta Description is sometimes a good idea here. Be careful to determine the first text as it relates to the HTML. Tables can make this misleading. The first text should also reaffirm who you are and what you do. The first thing a visitor wants to know when they get to your site is do you provide the product or service that they are looking for. <BR><BR> <BR><BR> <B>Things That Can Hinder Search Engine Rankings:</B><BR> <A NAME="spam"><FONT COLOR=#00ff00><B>SPAM</B></FONT></A> - In regards to using our Bulk Submission service, we will not use your email address in submitting your site, because many engines are merely collect email addresses for the sole purpose of selling your email address. Many other Bulk Submission services will include it.<BR><BR> <A NAME="hiddentext"><FONT COLOR=#00ff00><B>Hidden Text</B></FONT></A> - This is done by using same colored text as the background and is an old trick that used to help trick the search engines to reading more keywords on a page without the visitor knowing else wise. These days steer clear of it and use targeted keyword text.<BR><BR> <A NAME="repetitive"><FONT COLOR=#00ff00><B>Repetitive Words</B></FONT></A> - Repeating keywords over and over is usually associated with hidden text. Keep to rational sentence structures. Over repeating words aggravates visitors.<BR><BR> <A NAME="java"><FONT COLOR=#00ff00><B>Java Scripting</B></FONT></A> - Anything that can confuse, slow down and cause a search engine spider to read through your site, is less advantageous then simple keyword text links. Java can provide some useful advantages to a page, but don't overdo it.<BR><BR> <A NAME="imagemaps"><FONT COLOR=#00ff00><B>Image Maps</B></FONT></A> - Graphics that allow sections to act as links. Usually used in navigation. Nothing beats simple text links when it comes to spidering search engines.<BR><BR> <A NAME="flash"><FONT COLOR=#00ff00><B>FLASH</B></FONT></A> - A great visual technology without text for the search engine robots to traverse for keywords. Static sites always out rank Flash Sites. If you want great search engine traffic, avoid Flash or at least keep it to a minimum.<BR><BR> <A NAME="splashpages"><FONT COLOR=#00ff00><B>Splash Pages</B></FONT></A> - If your site has nothing more than your logo telling the visitor to "enter" your site, you're using a splash page. These are located as the main default page of the site and reduce ranking because they are seldom linked back from the rest of the site and rarely have text to reinforce the keywords searched for.<BR><BR> <A NAME="frames"><FONT COLOR=#00ff00><B>Frames</B></FONT></A> - Some engines will not read through frames and rank them poorly because there is no text. A Frame site consists of 2 or more HTML pages that make 1 page. This 1 page will have no text other than the NO FRAMES section, which is seldom used to it's ability. Still the best online marketers advise against Frames.<BR><BR> <A NAME="poordesign"><FONT COLOR=#00ff00><B>Poor Design</B></FONT></A> - Editorially reviewed search engines and directories will visually inspect your web site for quality design and discard poor designed sites that have bouncing balls and kitty cats. If your web site is business related, keep it clean and professional looking. <BR><BR> <BR><BR> </FONT> <HR WIDTH="100%"> <FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="-1">All Rights Reserved Search Engine Garage</FONT> </TD></TR> </TABLE> </CENTER> </BODY>