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Could anyone please point me to page that is been properly optimized for google.
ie keyword density, links, alts, titles etc etc.
I dont quite understand keyword density yet and am unclear on numerous areas....
For instance is it worth creating static html pages and putting your keyword in the file name.
ie brandname_guitars.html?
I have seen a successful site do that.
Many Thanks
James
[edited by: Marcia at 11:41 am (utc) on Oct. 7, 2003]
[edit reason] Specifics edited. [/edit]
Your question is impossible to answer, there are over 100 fqactors involved in Google's algorithm.
Let me suggest that you start with Brett's Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone [webmasterworld.com] post, together with reading Google's Information for Webmasters [google.com]. The surf through the library [webmasterworld.com] where some of the most important posts have been archived.
It is useful to look at the competition, specially those who rank above you. But be very careful in reaching conclusions as to why they rank above you, as Google uses over 100 factors to rank a page.
Many of us believe that having keywords in the file name has either a small effect or none, few would believe that it has a major effect.
Please remember, optimizing depends largely on understanding how Google works (you will find a huge amount of information here), not on a few "tricks".
I would concentrate on inbound links with good anchor text, lots of them. Spend your time on the things that make the most difference.
There are things that Google likes on a page, such as the title, the visible text in the page and the proximity of words (i.e. being next to each other and in the right order).
alt text is the replacement text for images when used in a non-visual context. This includes search engines as well as visually impaired users, but Google change their treatment of alt text from time to time, to make it less easy to for people to trick them. Sometimes alt text counts, sometimes only if in a link, sometimes not at all.
Keyword density is the number of occurrences of a word in a page, divided by the length of the page. In my opinion it is highly overrated by people in relation to Google.
Even more overrated is the occurrence of words in URLs. brandname_guitars.html doesn't help at all, as the "_" character is not treated as whitespace in Google. brandname-guitars.html does count for brandname and guitars, but the weight given to each of those words is very small. www.brandname-guitars.com might encourage other people to use your words when they link to you, but again people mane more of that affect than it deserves.
Static looking URLs are useful; Google can fetch URLs with the "?" character, but you'll have more chance of a low PR page being fetched and its links being crawled if you leave out the "?".
Links are important in Google, but some people focus too much on PageRank alone.
The references given in this thread are all useful. Brett's Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone [webmasterworld.com] thread is probably gives the best chance of understanding a long term Google strategy, without getting too stuck in Google SEO minutiae.
Regarding static pages...
If you search for keyword1 keyword2
comes up top and has a rank of 3
It was this url that threw the question of keywords in the file url.
This page looks like it would have a far too high density of the word keyword1.
Is there any particularly good content that page for example?
Thanks
James
[edited by: ciml at 4:41 pm (utc) on Oct. 7, 2003]
[edit reason] No specifics please! [/edit]
It's very important to consider cause and effect.
