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| May 15, 2005 7:11 pm |
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re: Search Engine Optimization and proper web design go hand in hand? |
Adrian Fusiarski
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My best advice is for you to go and read up at the search engines directly as they all have guidelines for SEO freely published online. Just remember that they are only guidelines too. If there was some magical hard and fast formula that we could all follow then we wouldn’t need ‘SEO experts’ would we and they would be out of work anyway.
Its only because there are no hard and fast rules that SEO services manage to stay in business!
Here’s a few quote from Google’s SEO guidelines page itself.
http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html
“SEO is an abbreviation for "search engine optimizer." Many SEO’s provide useful services for website owners, from writing copy to giving advice on site architecture and helping to find relevant directories to which a site can be submitted. However, there are a few unethical SEO’s who have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to unfairly manipulate search engine results.
While Google does not have relationships with any SEO’s and does not offer recommendations, we do have a few tips that may help you distinguish between an SEO that will improve your site and one that will only improve your chances of being dropped from search engine results altogether.
Be wary of SEO firms that send you email out of the blue. Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for "burn fat at night" diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.
No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.
Beware of SEO's that claim to guarantee rankings, or that claim a "special relationship" with Google, or that claim to have a "priority submit" to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is by using the page at http://www.google.com/addurl.html. You can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.
Be careful if a company is secretive or won't clearly explain what they intend to do.
Ask for explanations if something is unclear. If an SEO creates deceptive or misleading content on your behalf, such as doorway pages or "throwaway" domains, your site could be removed entirely from Google's index. Ultimately, you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire, so it's best to be sure you know exactly how they intend to "help" you. “
And the other major two search engines, Yahoo/Inktomi and MSN.
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/basics/basics-18.html
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/ranking/ranking-02.html
http://beta.search.msn.com/docs/siteowner.aspx?t=SEARCH_WEBMASTER_REF_GuidelinesforOptimizingSite.htm
Other Helpful Links….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_usability http://www.useit.com/alertbox/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/31/link_spamer_interview/print.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_farm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyword_stuffing
The two most authorative websites on search engines and related are these two. They were the first and they are rightly the most respected by industry pros.
http://www.webmasterworld.com/index.htm
http://searchenginewatch.com/
>>>>I mean, how hard can it be to send out some emails to other real estate websites and give a win-win proposition? You link to me and I link to you and we all win. If you don't have the time, then of course, it's so much easier to find a SEO expert to do it for you.>>>
If you think its that easy to get incoming links from rival companies Dean, I'm afraid you've got a very rude awakening coming! Some SEO'
s can guarantee incoming links because they own 1000's of networked domains and websites solely used to create link farms and a network of reciprocal linkers, which is exactly why reciprocal linking has lost some of its effectiveness of late, as new updated search algorithms spot the spammers.
I'd say there was two kinds of usability to consider too. One for the end user and one for the search bots.
CSS is purely for the end user and has nothing to do with what a search bot will see when its crawling your site. All it picks up is text.
http://www.unlv.edu/depts/web/searchengines.html
AdePrivate Reply to Adrian Fusiarski (new win) |
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