Alphawolf - 9:40 pm on Apr 15, 2003 (gmt 0)

Thought I'd post a note about all I have learned since I joined this forum. Some points I may be unclear on and appreciate input from others.

I wanted to post this because of the impact of all the posts of read over the last few months has changed the way I look at websites.

Feel free to add/modify as you see things. :)

A solid SEO foundation for websites:

1) Plenty of good seperate pages of content.
2) a Site Map that links to all pages
3) A site map that is friendly to people as well as bots
4) Optimized Page Title + H1 text can go a long way in unoptimized SERP's. [my experience]
5) The more lean the page weight the more Google likes it. Therefore, use CSS instead of font tags and stick your JavaScript into external files.
6) The anchor text in backlinks is important though often hard to control.
7) Having the Google Toolbar is a helpful tool.
8) Page rank is important, but like all other aspects there is no 'magic bullet' where one thing will rocket you to the top.
9) Page Rank should be a SECONDARY consideration when requesting links or allowing links. e.g. A client's #3 referral is a PR0.
10) Backlinks with a PR4 and above will show in Googles Baclinks on toolbar or 'link:www.domain.com' but links from lower PR sites still count.
11) Use All the Web dot come to check back links to see all links regardless of PR. [personal choice]
12) useful queries "link:www.domain.com". "allinurl:www.domain.com" "allinanchor:word or phrase"
13) A bigger site with more pages that has proper site map MAY benefit from the internal linking, hence the bigger is better theory. More unique pages, more possibilities to optimize for individual phrases. Each page should be looked at as an opportunity.
14) Buying a text link or any sort of link just for PR is bad and Google is wacking those domains with PR0's.
15) While Page Rank in the Google Toolbar shows as round numbers, Google itself calculates it to fractional numbers. Meaning, even if you show as a PR5 the websites above you who are a PR5 may actually be a PR 5.9
16) Each SERP seems to have it's own unique parameters as far as what is more of a weighing factor in optimization. Perhaps, not due to Google, but to how people design pages.
17) Google doesn't always 'take' the page you optimize for, but instead will utilize the index page because that's usually the page with the highest PR.
18) PR is not the end all be all of SERP's and a lower PR page can beat a higher PR page. I would guess this goes for less competitve/unoptimized SERP's, but have not followed threads on this closely.
19) Google has two types of robots out spidering. One is Freshbot and the other is Deepbot. Fresh- IP 64... Deep IP 216....
Though, people have noticed what we consider Freshbot acting more like deepbot lately. Freshbot can grab new pages and update your SERP's. Deepbot will usually hammer a site over a period of a few days then leave. It is the results of those crawls that ends up in the monthly Google update. Though, I am speculating Google may use Freshbot results in a more agressive form to feed SERP's.
20) Google updates their index on a loose average of once per month. GoogleGuy will specifically not push the button until he has seen enough people wimper/moan/worry/cry/beg/plead/ and generally have a nervous breakdown.
21) The progress of the update can be seen before the database goes live on www2 dot google dot com and www3 dot google dot com. There are numerous Google Dance tools on the web.
22) The Google Dance is when all the SERP's mix around, PR is handed out...upgraded, downgraded, penalties are seen, reinclusions requests are seen and basically your life is on the line. ;)
23) For a while it took a couple days for the index to filter though the different data centers (collection of google servers) before it hit the main index, but this past update zipped though to the live server(s) quickly.
24) I'm sure one day GoogleGuy will change the IP's of the servers and serve up a 3 month old index on www2 and www3 just to play with us. Woulda been a cool April Fools Day joke. :)
25) Still, it takes 2-3 days or thereabouts for PR and SERP's to settle.
26) You can see what your new PR is buy adding an entry in your hosts file to point to a specific datacenter, but that is too GEEK for me. It is what it is... :)
27) Yahoo's Google index use to lag a bit behind Google itself, but on the SERP's I watch Yahoo seemed to update it's Google index VERY quickly this time around. AOL's Google took a bit longer to catch up.
28) You need a _HUGE_ amount of patience before you or your clients see results from SEO work. While one index may help, we analyze, learn and change...
29) Google doesn't care if your website ranks highly regardless of whether you feel you have the best offerings for that search phrase. As long as Google serves relevant results normal people have no idea that they are 'missing you'.
30) For immediate visibility check out Overture/AdWords
31) Utilize ROBOTS.TXT files and META TAGS to save bandwidth on your image directory or to 'noindex' a page that announces a weekly promotion exlusively.
32) Stuffing all the keywords you can in the META TAG won't help you.
33) It can take a few indexes for Google to catch up with all your backlinks.

That's about it. Naturally, it's presumed the page you want to optimize IS on topic for the phrase you want to rank highly in.

In terms on mindset it's best to think in terms of 1/4's of the year instead of "How did we do this month?"

Please add or modify as you see fit. Brett, saw your pet peeve so...

Hope this Helps. :) :) :)

Regards,

AW