Algorithm

Each search engine is different. How do you know?

[Travoli]

Hi all,

So I keep seeing that each search engine has its own algorithm for listing results, and good SEO's know what each specific search engine is looking for. I also know it changes on almost a monthly basis, or certainly on each crawl of the web. So my question is this: Is there a good resource for finding quantities and placement of keywords in the search engines to please the algorithms? Just wondering if anyone has compiled this info. Thanks!
-Travoli

[agerhart]

Travoli,
If I have understood your question correctly, and understood what I have learned here, I think that the answer to your question is no.......and yes.

---I say no because the algo's change frquently to optimize results, so one quantity or placement that ranks well one day may not rank in the top 30 in a month or two.

---I also say yes because there are places like this where there are a lot of very intelligent people willing to help you with any question you may have. When I first started doing this, I looked around for quick and easy anwers, but I found that the best thing to do is talk to the people in here, see their successes and analyze results.

---Besides this, I think this may help. This is something that Brett provided in a 'themes' thread:

Getting your keywords noticed above the rest of the noise on the page is critical. It is going to look for words in places of prominence to help decide what the page is about. Those places usually breakdown in varying degrees by the page elements one can analyze:

Title
Headings (h1...h6)
bolded words
italicized words
table captions and table <th> headings
font size
links
first sentence of paragraph
url and filename of the page
cross bound inner site link text
text outbound links
filenames/urls of links
any form elements (drop down text)
alt tags
image filenames
font color in relation to background
location of text on page
word/phrase density
meta tags

----I hope I was somewhat of a help
-A Gerhart

[agerhart]

I am not sure if when he posted this that he intended for these to be in order or not, but nevertheless I use it as a reference to make sure I have used them all

[Travoli]

Thanks A Gerhart! I understand what you mean about reading more and looking at other people's success. I guess since I am such a newbie I was looking for a starting point, something with a list of how many of each keyword to put in a site for a specific engine this month, and how many times is too much/spam. Any good starting points? I certainly do not want to overdo it! I guess I could try to bite the bullet and get Web Position Gold to see if the "site comparison" feature would help me determine the number of keywords used. But then again, it cannot read cloaked pages content correct? So it might not be of value :(

-Travoli

[agerhart]

Sorry it took me a while to respond to you, I have been caught up at work.

I hate to tell you to read more and more, but I think that is the best thing you can do.

Even if you don't, there are a few things that I suggest you check out, that I believe will answer your question.

1) Check out this thread, it should answer part of your question: http://webmasterworld.com/forum8/148.htm [webmasterworld.com]

2) Also, check this one out, it may be something you will want to get interested in: http://webmasterworld.com/forum34/68.htm [webmasterworld.com]

-If these threads don't help you, I think the answer to your questions could be found in the Keyword Forum.

Sorry that I am only directing you and not anwering your questions directly, but I don't have a whole lot of time right now.
-A Gerhart

[Travoli]

Shoot man, I just appreciate ANY help. Thanks again

[agerhart]

glad I can be the one who helps, and the not the one being helped.......it's a nice change