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Lets do some refreshing work, what exactly helps in google positoning (#1 dream). I request all others to share experiences.
Tips 1 Url choosing
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kw1-kw2.com is better than kw1kw2.com
Lets share other factors
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1)what is optimum keyword density?
2)short title is better or longer?
3)which one is better "kw1 kw2" or just "kw1" as anchor text for kw1?
4)having h1, h2,h3, h4 for kw1 will help or just h1 and h2 is more effective?
5)what is the penalty for duplicate contents?
6)what is the weigtage given to links?
many more......... ask questions and give answers. lets learn as much as possible from others experience.share whatever you seems will help others. give an increment to tips number.
Hope to see a very useful thread here. All geeks lets help each other.
Thanks
Aji
Kirby is right - you are looking for absolutes (dividing the whole algo into percentages). It really is a waste of time to do that. Google is much more fluid now.
Very true TJ, It was more of curiosity than anything else. Title is a fixed attribute while anchor text you can get more. So basically in order to get your site to #1, you need to get more and more reciprocal links.
Thats the story and the song so far.
Aji
I'm with Googleguy - Content matters.
Links are garnish.
Sadly, you can have the greatest content in the world, but Google doesn't know great content from a page of randomly generated words.
Without PageRank, anchor text, the right title, etc., your page won't be found.
you need to get more and more reciprocal links.
No. You just need more and more links. With the keywords you're hunting for in the anchor text (no need to be reciprocal though).
TJ
A point missed in this conversation is intelligent INTERNAL linking - distributing the PR you are attracting to your home page correctly.
After the above, I focus on the title AND content of the internal pages (with the anchor text to this internal page from the homepage link)
Then an H1 tag focusing the keyword on the internal page.
Is everyone just focused on the ONE keyword for their homepage or are people looking at internal pages to generate traffic on other related phrases?
Seems like getting on top might be easier but staying there is a real issue.
BTW I have read sad stories to tell ;-) , you are on top of world and pooof... you gone!
Here goes the life with Google! You are and you are not.
I have read sad stories to tell ;-) , you are on top of world and pooof... you gone!
Any micro-analysis of which factors are likely to lead to a top spot in the SERPS is only ever going to be temporarily relevant.
We could have had this same discussion two years ago, we might be having the same discussion two years hence. The general consensus of what's important (content and backlinks) will remain the same, but the specifics (keyword1keyword2 in backlinks or keyword occurence of not less than 6.2% but not greater than 8.7%... yawn...) will undoubtedly change.
Google gains credibility by giving searchers (more or less) exactly what they want... this usually amounts to the best web-resources on the topic that they're searching on.
But in order for Google to sustain that kind of credibility, _it_ needs to be able to determine what the best web-resources are... not the webmasters (whose votes will inevitably go to their own sites - unless they're outstandingly honest).
Once webmasters figure out how Google is determining the best web-resources and start optimising for these factors, Google will just find a different way to determine which sites are best for users - they can't let their quality of results be hijacked by people who prioritize visitor numbers above providing the best resource for the searching public. (I'm not saying these two objectives never coincide >;-> )
Eventually webmasters will catch up with the micro-details of the algo and Google will change again. And webmasters will set about deconstructing the algo again. How tedious.
The bottom line is: having good content gives you a good relevancy rating and having lots of links (and I mean real links, not scrappy "I'll link to yours if you link to mine / everybody have a links page, like a kind of dustbin where you can link to everyone who links to you" links) gives you a good popularity rating.
And relevancy and popularity is where it's at.
Eventually webmasters will catch up with the micro-details of the algo and Google will change again. And webmasters will set about deconstructing the algo again. How tedious.
That's the whole point, but certain elements are common to good SEO and good website practice anyway and are always likely to feature in any algo. These are the macro-details:-
1. Inbound links/anchor text
2. Good page titles
3. Fresh content and an expanding site.
4. Correct use of W3C protocols for tags
These elements tend to remain constant, the rest is in a permanent state of flux, hence the irrelevance in trying to ascertain the order of their importance (as you coined it, the micro-details).
Inbound links and anchor text have been a predominant feature of google's algo since the beginnning, and are not likely to change. They are the basis of google's very existence.
I still believe that Brett's twelve month guide to a succesful site in google holds as true now as it did when he first wrote it.
It summarises SEO for google and it's all you need to know. The rest is fluff (although I accept in very competitive areas if you want to keep a slight edge the fluff can work, but only where two competing sites are equal on all other fronts - and that's something I've never actually seen).
TJ
I'm getting great results from mere internal linking with anchor text.
2. Good page titles
>>> I have noticed the pages appearing on top in SERP , without any clue of that particular KW in title or even h1
Thats probably it was there in Anchor Text of few incoming Links.
3. Fresh content and an expanding site.
>>> skeptic about this one. I am tracking a website which is ages old and hasnt changed (free pages on .edu site), it still tops the chart for certain KWS, Again that is because it has that KW in few incoming Links
4. Correct use of W3C protocols for tags
>>> I studied few of websites which appear on top for an aspired KW... all of them returns serious error while checking with W3C Validator
I must add one thing
people say "You can be penalised for mirrored content,doorwaypages blah blah". BUT again loads of examples where by these tricks/dirt doing good all the time
(I can tell specific example if somebody sticky me).
I am still fiddeling with the Google nitty-gritty.
Aji
I should know. My SPAMMING competition has spammed me right out the Google SERPS.
Spammers are dominating Google!
I can continue to add more fresh content to my sites while I watch my rankings decline in favor of spammers.
Do I sound a little frustrated?
What I mean is if a vistor visits your page and if he leaves the page sooner, then there is negative point for that. The stay on the page does affect the SERPS.Also the number of clicks the page gets.
I know these are all fundas of past but still plays some role.
AJi
point is how effective is google in fighting that spam?
You might have a big hit from the spammers in your industry site... but there are ways to report spam to Google.
you must try them.
I have been a believer, but I hope it's not changing.
I have had a drop (last week) in SERPs for my favorite phrase without doing anything unusual, and I still am #1 for the allinanchor query.
This is for the domain I have had since 1998.
Only one of the sites that currently is doing better than me is unknown to me (might be new).
Hyphenated URLs rule. If you have a wordstogether website you are at a very clear disadvantage to a words-not-together site. For competitive searches, it seems now to be extremely hard to get to be #1 without the word in the url -- and "included" includes directories like wordstogether.com/words-not-together/
Links. It's all about the incoming links and incoming link text. That other stuff is garnish.
I'd suggest that all that "other stuff" is much more than garnish. Great incoming links without the "garnish" are not going to help nearly as much as you think they might. All too often a PR0 page will beat out a higher PR, so it's not just links. I'd say content and freshness is king along with relevance. There is no magic bullet out there, and for that Google is wise to keep tweaking its' algo.
But, I bet if you got a few more anchor text inbounds you'd be back to #1 in the SERPS.
It's the one factor of the algo that trounces all others. It's the brute force way to the top *and of staying there* and it works without exception. Sometimes it just takes more than other times.
TJ
Not agree? see any of the 1000s of SEO professional's website...all talk about Link campaign very loudly.... why?
Seen crap topping the charts just by the boost of backlinks and desired anchor text!
Currently, for one particular (non porn) search with a few hundred thousand odd results, there's a site at #1 which has no content, no H tags - *not a single word on the page* other than one single solitary link (straight URL without anchor text) to a porn site. A doorway page to another site totally off topic.
That site has inbound links with the search in anchor text and in the page title. It's been there for several months now. There is no other factor, either on page or off page which could possibly put that page at #1 for this search term.
We have one (new) site we've been working up the SERPS for a particular single word search for the last 8 months. We stayed floating around #3 and #4 after a few months and a lot of emailing other webmasters. At that time, we had more anchor text backlinks than anyone else, but the sites above us had this single word in the URL's (we went branded).
We carried on plugging it and getting anchor text inbounds, and, as of a month ago, we're now at #1. No on-page factors were changed, either on our sites or our competitors.
We had to get more anchor text inbounds than everyone else due to the boost given (I believe from this experience) to the search term being in the domain name of our competitors, and possibly on page factors.
But, in the end, it was the leverage of anchor text that did the job, and we preferred to do that rather than mess with on page factors (I prefer to make things read and navigate well).
For what it's worth, this site was a textbook example of Brett's 12 month guide to a succesful site and now has ~10,000 page views a day
The basics, like H tags, page titles etc - are all part and parcel of good web design anyway (W3C compliance) and should be adhered to. Having good content is critical for your users, and is part and parcel of building a good website. I do not view those as SEO issues, but as elements of good website development and design.
Macro-SEO in google is about anchor text. The rest is not fluff, just good design. The fact it also represents micro-SEO is a by product. These are things you should be doing right in the first place, not retrospectively trying to improve a sites ranking with.
TJ
I would say google is hip to al of those linkfarms on the bottoms of pages.
I'm not so sure. Just yesterday, I was searching for information on a certain travel topic, and the #1 site for the keyphrase was a textbook example of "Old School SEO" with links to 100 or so of the owner's other sites on the bottom of the page. (The page also was also stuffed with keywords in a very obvious way.)
Eventually webmasters will catch up with the micro-details of the algo and Google will change again. And webmasters will set about deconstructing the algo again. How tedious.
And in the time they spent scrambling to keep up with the latest algo changes, they could have been building useful content that would have served them well over the long haul.
BTW, for those who can't figure out why their sites fluctuate so much in Google's rankings, the answer should be obvious: They focus too much on stye (i.e., packaging for Google) and not enough on substance. If they'd stick to the basics by creating solid content and using common-sense SEO techniques (such as providing digestible "spider food" for Googlebot), they wouldn't see their rankings slide whenever Google cranks up Algo Factor A and turns down Algo Factor B. (My own hypothesis, by the way, is that Google looks for artificial patterns within a page and adjusts weighting accordingly. That shouldn't be too hard for Google to do with "natural language" experts from academia on the corporate payroll.)
I got a query regarding the queen of this realm. If I am optimizing my site(home page) for two phrases.Here a,b,c are three keywords which forms the key phrases.
Key phrases are :-
1) a-b (first priority)
2) b-c (almost first priority, I mean both are imp)
What will be the best anchor text for it
1)a-b through b-c
2)b-c : a-b now
3) should I go for a-b as anchor text at half time and b-c the next 50%.
I know I am going to get some cool answers. I will re-design my achor text after that.
Thanks
Aji
Key phrases are :-
1) blue-widgets (first priority)
2) widgets-cost (almost first priority, I mean both are imp)
What will be the best anchor text for it
1)blue-widgets and widgets-cost
2)widgets-cost : blue-widgets available
3) should I go for blue-widgets as anchor text at half time and widgets-cost the next 50%.
Any suggestions?
Aji
I can literally cover the "content" of both sites with my two hands. In fact, one site is just framing a page on another domain (its an affiliate).
Oh, and the rest of the "site" contents... dozens of those evil linksmanager trash links pages.
Hey Google, how about a rule of requiring a site to have more than *one* page of content for every 126 pages of links!
Keyword in domain, and links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links. Off-topic, no problem. Self-generated, no problem. Zero pagerank, no problem. Just links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links links.
CompWorld
Maarten
Snark
I have yet to have a reply to anyone asking for a link but people seem to link to us without asking so I just concentarte on trying to get good content wi.th the hope people will link.
We are doing moderately well in traffic, our biggest jump came when we started using CSS (again good advice from this forum)
Ok off topic a bit but I'm a bit disallusioned with the web to be honest as can anyone say hand on heart thar they will have the same search engine positions or amount of traffic in 2, 3 or 5 years? Its such an unstable thing and theres always something new about to come and tear it all apart. I wonder if its really wise to base a business on it at all.
