Abhishek Bakshi

Author: Abhishek Bakshi

  • Google Cache ñ Why You May Want To Avoid It

    Summary:
    Sites will take extraordinary steps to get every possible page into Google to enhance their page rank. In the case of the Google cache, this tactic can sometimes come back to haunt sites, particularly sites selling products.

    Sites will take extraordinary steps to get every possible page into Google to enhance their page rank. In the case of the Google cache, this tactic can sometimes come back to haunt sites, particularly sites selling products.

    Google Cache

    Google copies everything it can get its dirty little spider robot on. Google stores these copies in a cache. The cache is simply a copy of all previous web pages for the link in question. If you search for something on Google, each result returned for the search has a ìcachedî button at the end of the link. Click the ìcachedî link and you will see previous copy of the page. Often, what you see is an older version of the page.

    If you sell products on your site, do you really want Google copying old pages and making them available? Put another way, do you really want customers to see the old prices of the products you are selling? Many sites change prices or information during the year as a reflection of selling cycles, etc. If your prices are at their high point in September, do you want customers clicking the cache link and seeing lower prices listed from July? Probably not.

    Donít Get Cached!

    Keeping Google and other search engines from copying your pages is fairly simple. It requires a bit of meta tagging, but nothing difficult. The robots for all search engines relying on meta tags should stop copying your site. Lately, YahooSlurp has been acting odd, so make sure you keep an eye on it after it crawls your site.

    To get rid of pages that have already been copied, you should just contact the search engine in question. They will usually delete the copies, but they arenít particularly quick.

    Adding pages to Google, Yahoo, MSN and any other search engine should be a definite goal for every site. Before storming down that road, just make sure you understand the consequences of old pages appearing in the cache.

  • Getting to the Top of the Search Engines

    Summary:
    The best way to get free traffic to your website is by getting to the top of the search engines. Getting to the top of the search engines can be difficult and takes a lot of time, but it will pay off in lots of free traffic. Here are some ideas for getting to the top of the search engines.

    The best way to get free traffic to your website is by getting to the top of the search engines. Getting to the top of the search engines can be difficult and takes a lot of time, but it will pay off in lots of free traffic. Here are some ideas for getting to the top of the search engines.

    Use a descriptive title for each page of your website. The first words in the title should be the ones you expect customers to search for the most. The title will be highlighted in the search engines, and you want people to see what interests them.

    Placing keywords in the right places helps in getting to the top of the search engines. Search engines look for important keywords in the headlines, subheads, and first paragraph. While you should make the first paragraph as keyword rich as you can, don’t sacrifice content to do this.

    Search engines view hyperlinks as important, so use important keywords in hyperlinks. This works especially well when the name of the page you hyperlink to has the same keywords as in your hyperlink.

    Write a website consisting of several pages. Each page should concentrate on one keyword or keyword phrase relating to your site.

    Submit your site to the major search engines. You can do this by using the “add your URL” link found on the search engine site.

    Links from good quality sites will help you rank well with some search engines. In addition, they are another way for people to find you. Find sites that complement yours and ask if they will consider reciprocal linking.

  • Google Best Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Practices – Part 5

    Summary:
    The fifth and last part of this article will concentrate on the internal and analysis areas of the optimization for Google. I will review 3 essential areas. Letís start:

    The fifth and last part of this article will concentrate on the internal and analysis areas of the optimization for Google. I will review 3 essential areas. Letís start:

    Why do you need to use Google Sitemaps.
    If your site has hundreds of pages, then a compressed version of the file can be created. You are required to create an account with Google in order to take advantage of this feature. Two things to consider before uploading the sitemap file are to verify that your robots.txt allows Google to craw the site for this to work in the first place, and that you check for 404 error pages in your site. Now to why you need this: Google will crawl your site more frequently to verify changes in the sitemap file, and index files that normally it wouldnít. So keep it up to date with your weekly changes. It saves Google time, since it will only concentrate on updated content, and getting new or updated pages indexed as a benefit.

    The importance of Web Analytics.
    Keep track of your optimization and log results by understanding your analytics. It is essential that you monitor your visitor paths and exit pages. Make all necessary changes through your pages to make sure you are improving those pages that are top exit ones. One way to achieve this is by creating stronger offerings, guarantees, and calls to action among other things. SiteCatalyst is a very robust solution with a lot of features. SiteCatalyst provides data related to navigation, ecommerce, content, and other detailed visitor information. It also has a pretty flexible dashboard and it is very data intensive. One of the great features that it provides is comparison, which allows you to compare different campaigns and groups to see how they are doing so against each other, so that campaigns can be optimized. If you are looking robust features such as customizable dashboards, then Omniture SiteCatalyst might be right for you.

    Staying out of the Supplemental Index.
    Sites of any age, size, and rank can end up in the supplemental index. For the first 2 factors, it is related to the update ratio or duplicate content. For the last one, because of missing elements. The number one reason to be listed in this index is the update ratio. So how do you fix this? Update the content of the page. Change the body content mostly. Title changes and Heading tags also helps. Number two reason is that the page is no longer internally linked from home or main category pages. So, the fix? Self explanatory. Last reason, your site is online but less than six months old. If this is your case, please read my 2 part article on ìSearch Engine Optimization (SEO) Basicsî were you will be able to find out what to do to get out much quicker.

    Closing Statement about Google Optimization.
    To recapÖ Make sure that your site is compliant, stays true, stays natural, and stays organic. Focus on content, and bringing quality traffic to your site. If people are attracted to your site and buy, Google will be attracted to the site too and the site will naturally rank well. Make it easy on Google, and they will make it easy on you.

  • Getting To The Top Of The Search Engines.

    Summary:
    Climbing to the Top.

    Have you ever had a friend call you and say, ìHey, I googled myself today and actually found me!î Cool, you think. You go to your computer and try to google your friend as well. Nothing comes up. You tell her. ìOh, well, you have to click ìnextî at the bottom of the page. Keep clicking that until youíre on like, the forty-seventh pageódo you see me yet?!î Of course, just keep clicking ìnext,î why didnít you think of that?

    You didnít think of it for …

    Climbing to the Top.

    Have you ever had a friend call you and say, ìHey, I googled myself today and actually found me!î Cool, you think. You go to your computer and try to google your friend as well. Nothing comes up. You tell her. ìOh, well, you have to click ìnextî at the bottom of the page. Keep clicking that until youíre on like, the forty-seventh pageódo you see me yet?!î Of course, just keep clicking ìnext,î why didnít you think of that?

    You didnít think of it for the same reasons millions of other people searching the Internet donít think of it. Theyíre either in too much of a hurry to pay attention to anything after the first results page, or theyíve come to believe that anything after the first results page isnít as interesting or helpful.

    Getting your website and business on search engines is a good way to help promote yourself, but getting to the top of the search engines is where you want to be. After all, people arenít going to keep clicking until they find your site on the forty-seventh page. People donít even know theyíre looking for your site. Itís your job to put it out there so itís easy for them to find, and one way you can do this is by getting to the top of the search engines.

    Before you submit your website to a search engine you want to first make sure your site is rich in content and that you are avoiding all spam and html tricks. Then, once youíre listed, keep these keep points in mind:

    -the higher your number of inbound links, the better
    -pay loving attention to each page of your site
    -keeping keywords at the top of your page is the best place; matching search phrases is more effective than matching single words
    -elaborate graphics are not helpful

    Once youíve been successful in getting to the top of the search engines, you must keep working to keep yourself there. It is crucial to monitor your status on a regular basis, and pick up the step if you position on search engine result pages starts to slip.