Newsletter - Web Site Design and Search Engine Optimization

More Affiliates!

To help you with your search optimization, we have set up an affiliate relationship with each of the tools we use to make it easier for you to get these and support from us on these tools. Most of the tools have a free trial version. The affiliate page has menu access options from most of our other main pages, but you can always reach this page at:

http://www.netadventures.biz/
affiliate.htm

Purchase WebPosition or OptiLink here and get a free copy of our new e-Book!

New Book Version, New Site!

Our SEO e-Book is now available in a new Version 4 with 172 pages through a separate site. That site is integrated into this site so that you don't have to remember the domain name; but if you wish to go there directly it is:

http://web-site-search-engine-positioning.net.

Table of Contents:

• MSN Search Engine Emerging as New Contender

• Google Adwords Policy Change

• Google Downranking Blog Links

• Case of the Missing Links

MSN Search Engine Emerging as New Contender

As many of our readers are aware, MSN is building their own search engine. You've been able to try out the beta version at: http://beta.search.msn.com.

Now (late January) MSN has switched the beta search engine in as their main engine at:

http://search.msn.com

We are starting to get information on how it ranks sites. The information is more "general" now, but it is important if you are trying to optimize your site for this new search engine. Although it ranks sites much as the other engines, there are important differences.

1. As with other engines, your keyword phrases and your content built on those is very important. Also, as with other engines, the quality and number of your incoming links is important. Variations of your keyword phrase should be used in the text links of the pages linking to your site.
   
   
2. MSN Search has a strong aversion to keyword stuffing.
   
   
3. The MSN Search engine appears (and we are still testing this) want a slightly higher keyword density on the page than other engines.
   
   
4. MSN Search considers it important that the site be developed around a single theme with categories and topics under that.
   
   
5. MSN Search will find more links for ranking your system than Google will. (See #11 for one reason.)
   
   
6. Clean coding is very important in optimizing for the MSN Search engine. It is important also for other engines, but is particularly important for MSN Search. Make sure all tags are closed; that is, each <p> has a </p>.
   
   
7. MSN Search places a high emphasis on content in determining your ranking. The search engine has high value for people who wish to drive their ranking from content. Your site should have a lot of both onsite and offsite (using links) content.
   
   
8. Avoid the dynamic URLs and stay with static URLs for where you wish spidering or ranking. The early version doesn't support dynamic URLs too well (this could change later). Use a site map with text links to help the search engine spider down your site.
   
   
9. Pages with no outgoing links (orphans) are less likely to be indexed. Make sure pages have at least one outgoing link.
   
   
10. Internal links are important to MSN Search, more so than with others. Use a site map to be sure MSN Search can find everything that has content. Use good anchor text with correct keyword phrases for your text links.
    
    
11. An external site with multiple links to your site is seen as a single incoming link by Google, but is seen by MSN Search as multiple incoming links.
    
    
12. External links are also important and should have the keyword phrase in the anchor text coming in, as with Google.
    
    
13. Keep directories shallow, as MSN Search probably can't go more than three levels deep in spidering.

We will have more info later. Let us know what you learn on this!

Google Adwords Policy Change

Google Adwords has made some major changes in the ranking method for its Adwords this January. Previously, people could set up sales through shared domain and collect without having to set up their own web site. With the new policy (and in laypeople language), Google will post only one ad for a given domain at a time. To set up sales on the Internet, then, you really need your own domain and web site. If you have been working affiliate sales through your site, you need a strong landing page that doesn't duplicate others, and the Adwords advertiement should be targeted to your landing page - not a shared page on an affiliate site. Coming next issue: How to Create a Landing Page that Sizzles.

Google Downranking Blog Links

If you've been keeping up with the latest on linking, you are probably aware that linking to your site from blogs is big. It is often a fast way to get a link that puts you in the search engines at no charge. Just find a popular blog or guestbook you can write to or either contact a friendly blogmaster. Get the link there and wait for that ranking. No more. Google has started to downgrade links from blogs, and the new standards mean blogmasters will add a "nofollow" parameter on the links to make their links to your site worthless.

You can use this to your advantage to turn off text links on your pages that you don't want followed. For example, here is a text link that won't be spidered and has no reputation:

<a href="http://www.mydomain.com/engineoptimization" rel="nofollow">Free search engine optimization</a>

For a landing page on a sales site, you really don't want output links that can pull down your PageRank. If you don't want to use Flash or JavaScript, this is one way to do it.

Case of the Missing Links

When checking a recent site we developed recently, we found it #1 on the first page of a Yahoo results page, but we couldn't find it at all in Google. Using our tools, we found many links into it in MSN and Yahoo, but no links into the site in Google. What happened?

Yahoo, MSN, and Google all do their ranking differently. Yahoo puts lots of emphasis on page design. Google puts a lot of emphasis on the link reputation, particularly those external links coming into your site. Even though I had an Adwords going, I hadn't really taken the time yet to build those external links. There were, however, already some external links to my site. I knew where they were and could see if I checked.

Also, Google crippled its link query system and shows fewer links than actually exist. Most tools use the Google link system, so they are crippled as well. Also, Google doesn't look at pages of low PageRank very often. A link from those may take some time for Google to find. And the toolbar PageRank Google shows you is dated by months. Google DOES know the true PageRank to determine your ranking, For more information and tips for resolving it, see our book.