Grouping engines together for optimisation purposes

Optimising for this will also be good for that

[Philiboy]

Does anyone have any opinion on the following technique? I read somewhere that grouping search engines together for optimisation purposes was a cost effective approach. E.g. suppose that the ranking algorithm for google is somewhat similar to MSN's, then I would be tempted to use optimisation techniques to create search engine friendly (good quality, relevant, non-spammy, well integrated, not doorway) pages for google, but submit them to google and MSN.

By constructing these groups, I save myself time as I reduce the number of different search engine friendly pages I would need to develop.

So my questions are : Is this a good technique? If yes, how do I determine these groups? How do I keep track of algorithms changing?

[agerhart]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld Philiboy! Good questions.

Is this a good technique?

Yes.

If yes, how do I determine these groups?

All search engines can be arranged into one group.

How do I keep track of algorithms changing?

Research, research, research, research, and WebmasterWorld. The search engines' algorithms do not change drastically often, but are tweaked from time to time, or rotated.

[TWhalen]

For ALL search engines:

1. Write plenty of good, keyword-rich text content for your entire site.

2. Write a good unique title for each individual page, including keywords targeted toward each individual page.

3. Create a good keyword-rich meta description for each individual page, and include a meta keywords tag on each page as well (just for good measure).

4. Seek out links from other websites (and directories) related to your site's topic.

Done.
These basic steps will get you 95% of the way to your desired rankings for your keywords. The rest is just a matter of fine-tuning and tweaking your site as the months go by as you monitor your results.

[Philiboy]

So far, it has been suggested that I just optimise for Google and then submit to all the major search engines. My plan was actually to use WebPosition Gold Pro (a product I have invested in) for my clients to assist me in developing doorway pages (but quality doorway pages which are well integrated with the rest of the site). So I can, in theory, optimise for each of the search engines that it supports. However, I thought some kind of compromise would be a good idea i.e. just optimise for groups of 'simiilar' search engines (with similar ranking algorithms) otherwise the matrix of (keywords against search engines) can get quite big and is probably overkill. I appreciate the replies I have got so far, but I can't help but feel that just optimising for one search engine is too restricted, especially when I have the means at my disposal to optimise for each of several major search engines.

Can someone also remind me how you optimise for inktomi (since it is not a search engine)? Which of the inktomi partners is it best to optimise for (MSN, ...)?

Thanks in anticipation.

[DaveN]

I would use WPG to train yourself but would never let wpg speak to the search engines (never upload any pages you create with wpg)

use the site search at the top of the screen on WebmasterWorld and checkout what members have said about this kind of software.

DaveN

[Philiboy]

Thanks. I've read quite a bit about the pros and cons of WebPosition Gold. I use just the page critic as a guide to optimising pages for the search engines. I do not use it for automatic submission. Any suggestions on search engine groupings for optimisation purposes? Does everyone share agerhart's opinion that just optimising for 1 (presume Google) is enough?

[pageoneresults]

Does everyone share agerhart's opinion that just optimising for 1 (presume Google) is enough?

I do, I do! Actually, there isn't much difference between the core algos of each SE. There are a basic set of guidelines that you follow for optimization. There are specific areas that each of the SE's utilize when determining the quality and content of a page.

I've found out over the past 18 months that most of the SE's really like clean html without errors. They also eat up absolute positioning. When I switched to utilizing css and absolute positioning, my core optimization skills took a leap upward on the chart. Now I'm able to present the spider with the core content first.

If we were to look at the really basic stuff you have this to consider...

1. Page Titles
2. META Descriptions (some SE's)
3. Headlines (h1 thru h6)
4. Content (how it is written)
5. Link Structure (navigation)
6. Inbound and Outbound Links
7. Site Structure (important!)

There are quite a few other things that fall inbetween that you'll soon learn while reading and participating here at WebmasterWorld. Once you understanding the basics of a core optimization, then you can start tweaking for individual SE's if required.

[coloryan]

So how would you go about increasing a dymanic site that's built in ColdFusion? There's only a few pages of content (displayed in layers) that are static.....

[Philiboy]

Thanks for the comments. Sounds like I should throw out any attempt to optimise for different search engines out the window & just optimise for Google, freeing up my time to tackle absolute positioning (aka content positioning) via CSS. Re optimising for dynamic sites, coloryan, I've heard of XQASP, a product/component filter which is designed to overcome the problems associated with dynamic pages otherwise known as invisible web and deep web. The company behind XQASP is Exceptional Digital Enterprise Solutions. Not sure if this has anything to do with my original question though. How about starting a new topic? There is some stuff on XQASP if you use the site search. I have no experience of it myself.