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Introduction to Search

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Title: Introduction to Search


1
Introduction to Search
  • Bill Cullifer. Exec Director World Organization
    of Webmasters (WOW)
  • Webmasters Guild Meeting Albany NY

2
Introduction to Search
  • Why should you care about search marketing
  • Common search marketing myths
  • Challenges and benefits of search marketing
  • Search engine basics
  • Hiding your web pages from search engines
  • Future search workshops
  • Open discussion
  • WOW update

3
Why Search Marketing?
  • It's estimated that more than 350 million English
    language Web searches are conducted every day!
    Search engines are the market makers of the
    Internet.
  • They connect consumers/constituents with
    providers at the very moment of consumer interest
    and enable all of us to find exactly what we
    want, when we want it.

4
Common Search Myths
  • Myth 1 Web Professionals are Search Experts
  • Clearly, its a challenge to be all things to all
    people.
  • As professionals we need to stop beating
    ourselves up for our limitations

5
Common Search Myths
  • Myth 2 Software Can do it All
  • The myth that a piece of software can do it all
    is quite pervasive and is fueled in part by ads
    that promise web site submissions to over a 1000
    search engines.
  • Many of these programs are actually worthless and
    could get you labeled as a spammer. Some create
    junk doorway pages, while others submit your site
    to link farms which may actually hurt your search
    engine ranking.

6
Common Search Myths
  • Myth 2 Software Can do it All. Continued
  • More importantly however, because the 10 leading
    search engines and directories generate 98
    percent of search engine traffic, it's a waste of
    time to focus on the bit players.

7
Common Search Myths
  • Myth 2 Software Can do it All. Continued
  • The fact of the matter is that it takes a lot of
    time and effort to identify key phrases and
    optimize web site content. Analyzing rankings and
    pouring over web logs is also labor intensive.
    Software can certainly help to automate some
    aspects of the process, but you can't expect any
    application to make the job of search engine
    optimization easy.
  • Many search engines now have measures in place to
    prevent automated submissions. Some dynamically
    generate submission codes, while others
    continually change the location, method, and
    variables of their "Add URL" pages, to stay a
    step ahead of the latest submission software.

8
Common Search Myths
  • Myth 2 Software Can do it All. Continued
  • When it comes to search engine submissions, it's
    good idea to follow the old adage "If you want
    something done right, do it yourself."

9
Common Search Myths
  • Myth 3 Optimizing Meta Tags Alone Will
    Guarantee a Top Ranking
  • If your idea of search engine optimization is
    tweaking a few meta tags, than you're in for a
    disappointment. The notion that optimizing meta
    tags alone can guarantee your web site top
    placement is a myth. The truth of the matter is
    that meta tags are becoming less and less
    important.
  • In fact, many search engines now ignore them
    completely because they invariably contain
    keywords that have nothing to do with the content
    that is actually on a page. In the past, some
    webmasters achieved a high ranking by repeating
    the same keywords over and over in the meta tags,
    but today these tactics just won't wash.
  • Sites are actually penalized for this kind of
    spamming.

10
Common Search Myths
  • Myth 3 Optimizing Meta Tags Alone Will
    Guarantee a Top Ranking. Continued
  • While meta tags may still be useful, they are no
    longer the be all and end all of search engine
    optimization. It doesn't hurt to include them
    however. Keep in mind that in some search
    engines, the meta description shows up in the
    search results page.
  • A brief, well-written meta description will give
    web surfers a good idea of what your page is
    about and may even encourage them to click on
    your link.
  • In directories such as Yahoo, ODP and LookSmart,
    human editors sometimes use meta descriptions as
    a basis for the directory's description of your
    site.

11
Common Search Myths
  • Myth 4 Traffic From Search Engines Isn't All
    It's Cracked Up To Be. Continued
  • Many companies/organizations believe that search
    engine optimization is a waste of time and money
    because it doesn't generate sales leads/traffic
    the way traditional marketing does.
  • Many government agencies dont see/understand the
    need

12
Common Search Myths
  • Myth 4 Traffic From Search Engines Isn't All
    It's Cracked Up To Be. Continued
  • Unfortunately, many companies/organizations are
    all too ready to believe it.
  • They spend thousands on direct mail, e-mail and
    online advertising campaigns to drive targeted
    traffic to their web sites, but according to a
    study by CyberAtlas Research, 46 of them spend
    less than 1 of their marketing budget on search
    engine optimization this despite the fact that
    sales leads and direct sales from search engine
    traffic is often equal to or better than those of
    more expensive marketing campaigns.

13
Common Search Myths
  • Myth 4 Traffic From Search Engines Isn't All
    It's Cracked Up To Be. Continued
  • The vast majority of Internet users -- some 85
    -- use search engines to find company and
    government sites.
  • These are people actively looking for information
    on products and services, not just those whose
    curiosity has been piqued by an eye-catching
    magazine ad, press release or word of mouth.

14
Common Search Myths
  • Myth 5 Search Optimization is Pure Science
  • Truth is that its just as much as an art form
    and requires a a well rounded approach.
  • Simply put, with an improved understanding of the
    process, a methodical plan, cleanly written code,
    quality links and relevant content you can
    improve the traffic to your clients and agencies
    websites and at the same time improve upon the
    quality of services that you provide to website
    visitors

15
Common Search Myths
  • Myth 6 Tricking the Search Engine to gain
    ranking
  • There are many methods tried over the years to
    try to get around the loss of the META Tags, or
    to just trick the Search Engine's into raising
    the ranking of your site.
  • Examples include Hidden Text There are various
    methods to hide text. Make the text the same
    color as the background, hide it under an image,
    make the size so small its invisible, etc.
    However, Search Engine's are onto most of this,
    and will penalize a website for using it.

16
Common Search Myths
  • Myth 6 Tricking the Search Engine to gain
    ranking. Continued
  • Keyword flooding This involves using a set of
    keywords on your pages as much as possible.
    However, overuse is seen as spamming by Search
    Engine's, and again, your site will be penalized
    for this technique.
  • Submitting to Search Engine's will result in your
    website being listed in a few days.
  • This is of course not true. Search Engine spiders
    are quite busy, and have a lot of sites to index,
    not just new sites, but they must occasionally go
    over old sites to make sure they still exist, and
    that their information is up to date. In
    addition, some Search Engine's are
    human-operated, and each link must be checked by
    hand before it is added. It can take several
    weeks for your site to show up on Search
    Engine's. It may not even be listed at all.

17
Common Search Myths
  • Myth 7 You don't need to update your site to
    keep your rankings.
  • By routine maintenance (removing outdated
    material, fixing broken links, queries, etc.) and
    updating your pages regularly, you are signaling
    the bots and crawlers to come back and re-crawl
    your site for changes to their listings.
  • To maintain high standings, you need to keep at
    it and tweak the pages for better results if
    necessary. If neglected, your standings could
    easily slip out of the top rankings as new
    competing sites get indexed and optimized.

18
Common Search Myths
  • Myth 8 Organic search is much more powerful
    than paid search.
  • Google, the organic results are the more popular
    and often the more powerful set of listings in
    terms of conversion according to some of the
    experts.
  • But on other engines fewer people realize the
    difference between whats advertising and whats
    organic.
  • On Yahoo!, for example, some of the perceived
    organic results as paid for through their paid
    inclusion program. Research shows that consumers
    increasingly care less whether the listings are
    influence by advertising dollars. What they are
    looking for are relevant and appealing results
    its often easier to make a paid listing look
    more appealing and targeted than a natural
    result. Search is still a non-intrusive media
    paid-search works.

19
Challenges of Implementing Search Marketing
Strategies
  • Its confusing and requires constant monitoring
  • Its time consuming
  • We lack of resources
  • Lack of buy in due to the value proposition
    issues

20
Benefits of Search
  • Although a few people have given up on obtaining
    top rankings, saying it is just too hard and
    takes too much time, I disagree.
  • Search engines are the market makers of the
    Internet. They connect consumers/constituents
    with providers at the very moment of consumer
    interest and enable all of us to find exactly
    what we want, when we want it. They bring great
    efficiency to the Internet and our lives and
    shall exist as long as the network of servers and
    computers we call the Web is around.
  • Whether your working for a client that wants to
    be promoted or a government agency that serves
    the public understanding search can improve upon
    the services that you provide.

21
Benefits of Search-Making a Case
  • Average Cost Per Lead
  • Search 0.45
  • E-mail 0.55
  • Yellow Pages 1.18
  • Banner Ads 2.00
  • Direct Mail 9.94

22
Benefits of Search

23
Benefits of Search
  • To make a search engine positioning campaign
    worthwhile, however, you must have the right
    information and must execute your plan properly.
  • The dynamic nature of the Internet means that
    search engine technology, spidering capabilities,
    ranking criteria, and strategic alliances are all
    changing rapidly.

24
Search Engine Basics
  • Where do people search
  • Google.com 37.6
  • Yahoo.com 30.4
  • MSN.com 15.6
  • AOL.com 9.2
  • Lots of other smaller search companies
  • Yahoo and Google collaboration in 2004
  • 2004 OneStat

25
Search Engine Basics
  • Changing Landscape
  • MSN is planning to dump Yahoo! And Dont mess
    with Bill (dontmesswithbill.com)
  • Other companies want to compete?!?

26
Search Engine Basics
  • Major Players
  • Google
  • Yahoo!
  • The Open Directory Project
  • Teoma/Ask Jeeves
  • Zeal

27
Search Engines Basics
  • The term "search engine" is often used
    generically to describe both crawler-based search
    engines and human-powered directories.
  • These two types of search engines gather their
    listings in radically different ways.

28
Search Engine Basics
  • The Parts Of A Crawler-Based Search Engine
  • Crawler-based search engines have three major
    elements. First is the spider, also called the
    crawler. The spider visits a web page, reads it,
    and then follows links to other pages within the
    site.
  • This is what it means when someone refers to a
    site being "spidered" or "crawled." The spider
    returns to the site on a regular basis, such as
    every month or two, to look for changes.

29
Search Engine Basics
  • Everything the spider finds goes into the second
    part of the search engine, the index.
  • The index, sometimes called the catalog, is like
    a giant book containing a copy of every web page
    that the spider finds.
  • If a web page changes, then this book is updated
    with new information.

30
Search Engine Basics
  • Sometimes it can take a while for new pages or
    changes that the spider finds to be added to the
    index. Thus, a web page may have been "spidered"
    but not yet "indexed."
  • Until it is indexed -- added to the index -- it
    is not available to those searching with the
    search engine.

31
Search Engine Basics
  • Search engine software is the third part of a
    search engine.
  • This is the program that sifts through the
    millions of pages recorded in the index to find
    matches to a search and rank them in order of
    what it believes is most relevant.

32
Search Engine Basics
  • Major Search Engines The Same, But Different
  • All crawler-based search engines have the basic
    parts described above, but there are differences
    in how these parts are tuned.
  • That is why the same search on different search
    engines often produces different results. (Google
    vs Yahoo example)

33
Search Engine Basics
  • Search Indexes or Search Engines
  • Predominate type of Search Tools consisting of
    thousands of computers that use software known as
    spiders or bots to grab information on websites.
    Google for example.
  • Search Directories
  • A categorized collection of information about
    websites. Rather than containing information
    about web pages. The most significant search
    directories are Yahoo! (dir.yahoo.com) and the
    Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org)

34
Search Engine Basics
  • Search site vs. Search system
  • Search site is a Web site at which you can search
    through some kind of index or directory of
    websites, or perhaps both an index and directory.
    Google and AOL for example are search sites.
  • Search Systems possesses a combination of
    software, hardware, and the people that is used
    to index or categorize websites. Google is a
    search system but AOL is not. AOL for example
    uses Google search

35
Future Workshops
  • This two-day workshop will provide attendees with
    the knowledge and skill to effectively search
    and be searched on the Web.
  • Searchers will learn the key elements of
    formulating and optimizing their search requests.
    Web service and content providers will learn what
    they must do in order to achieve high search
    rankings and increase the probability of being
    found by the searchers.

36
Hiding your web pages from search engines
(Courtesy of The University of Melbourne)
  • Background
  • Search engines and some other organizations use
    'robot' or 'web crawler' software to find and
    index web pages and their contents. Sometimes you
    may want to hide a web page from a search engine,
    for example if you are testing a new site before
    launching it. There are several ways to achieve
    this.
  • Hiding your web pages
  • To achieve the highest level of secrecy for a
    digital file, simply do not put it on a web
    server or Internet-connected machine. This is
    clearly impractical for documents that you want
    to share with others.
  • Several tools can restrict access to shared
    documents
  • server settings for search engine access (the
    robots.txt file)
  • the 'robots' meta tag
  • server settings based on the user's IP address
  • login and authentication

37
Hiding your web pages from search engines
  • robots.txt file
  • If you have your own web server, you can create a
    robots.txt file that tells search engines which
    pages on the server they should ignore. See the
    Web Server Administrator's Robots Exclusion
    Protocol Guide for information about how to do
    this.
  • The robots exclusion protocol is supported by
    many of the bigger search engines, but not all of
    them. For information about a particular search
    engine's attitude to the protocol, look in the
    company's privacy policy.
  • robots meta tag
  • The tag can help hide your
    web page from web crawlers, spiders and robots.
  • For complete protection, use this tag  name"robots" content"none"

38
Hiding your web pages from search engines
  • For more information visit Using this metadata
    tag...  ..
    .will tell search engines not to index this
    particular page, but some may still follow links
    from this page to other pages and index those
    secondary pages.
  • Using this tag...  content"nofollow"...tells the search engines
    not to follow links from this particular page,
    but they may still index the current page.
  • http//www.unimelb.edu.au/webcentre/topics/hide.ht
    ml

39
Hiding your web pages from search engines
  • EXTRA TIP Make sure there are no links from
    other web pages to the page you want to hide.
    Search engine spiders/robots can (and will)
    follow those links to your page. Remember also
    that messages sent to discussion lists (for
    example, web-forum_at_unimelb) should not include
    the secret URL, because these discussion lists
    are often archived on a web site.

40
Hiding your web pages from search engines
  • Related Resources
  • All these articles were current on 11 September
    2002
  • Web Server Administrator's Robots Exclusion
    Protocol Guide
  • Web Developers' Virtual Library entry on robots
    exclusion
  • SearchTools.com's article on Search indexing
    robots and robots.txt
  • Holovaty.com's weblog item on user agents and
    robots
  • WannaBrowser.com tells you what user agent
    information your browser etc is providing to web
    servers

41
Future workshops
  • Specific topics will include
  • Searching
  • How to select terms and search (more)
    effectively
  • How different search engines interpret queries
  • How to meaningfully interpret search results
  • How to invoke search operators (aka advanced
    operators), even undocumented ones
  • How to evaluate search engines and search
    aggregators
  • How to recognize the differences between
    local/internal searches and global/Internet
    searches.

42
Future workshops
  • Specific topics will include
  • Being Searched
  • How to appeal to and influence search engine
    indexers
  • How to avoid search engine indexer "turn-offs"
  • How to focus and control Web site indexing
  • How to circumvent search engine indexing through
    site submission services
  • How search engine paid and unpaid
    placement/relevance works
  • How to implement "search-ability" as a content
    management issue.

43
WOW Update
  • National Articulation Initiative
  • Participation at the WWW Conference
  • Department of Labor Survey

44
Google Search Myths
  • Myth 1 The Higher Your Google PageRank (PR),
    the Higher You'll be in the Search Results
    Listing
  • This myth is frequent, and is the source of many
    complaints. People often notice that a site with
    a lower PageRank than theirs is listed above
    them, and get upset. While pages with a higher
    PageRank do tend to rank better, it is perfectly
    normal for a site to appear higher in the results
    listings even though it has a lower PageRank than
    competing pages.
  • To explain this concept without going into too
    much technical detail, it is best to think of
    PageRank as being comprised of two different
    values. One value, which we'll call "General
    PageRank" is nothing more than the weighting
    given to the links on your page. This is also the
    value shown in the Google Toolbar. This value is
    used to calculate the weighting of the links
    leaving your page, not your search position.
  • The other value we'll call "Specific PageRank."
    You see, if PageRank equated to search engine
    results rank then Yahoo, the site with the
    highest PR, would be listed 1 for every search
    result. Obviously, that wouldn't be useful, so
    what Google does is examine the context of your
    incoming links, and only those links that relate
    to the specific keyword being searched on will
    help you achieve a higher ranking for that
    keyword. It's very possible for a site with a
    lower PageRank to in fact have more on-topic
    incoming links than a site with a higher
    PageRank, in which case the site with a lower
    PageRank will be listed above its competitor in
    the search results for that term.
  • PageRank aside, there are also other factors that
    contribute Google search results -- though
    PageRank remains the dominant one.

45
Google Search Myths
  • Myth 2 The Google Toolbar will List Your Actual
    PageRank
  • When Google created their toolbar it was a boon
    for many Webmasters as this was the first time we
    got to see any value related to our PageRank.
    However, the toolbar has also caused some
    confusion.
  • The toolbar does not show your actual PageRank,
    only an approximation of it. It gives you an
    integer rank on a scale from 1-10. We do not know
    exactly what the various integers correspond to,
    but we're sure that their curve is similar to an
    exponential curve with each new "plateau" being
    harder to reach than the last. I have personally
    done some research into this, and so far the
    results point to an exponential base of 4. So a
    PR of 6 is 4 times as difficult to attain as a PR
    of 5.
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  • The exponential base is important because it
    illustrates how broad a range of pages can be
    assigned a particular PR value. The difference
    between a high PR of 6, and a low PR of 6, could
    be hundreds or thousands of links. So if your PR
    as reported by the toolbar increases or drops,
    it's important to remember that it could be the
    result of a small change, or a large change.
    Additionally, it's possible to lose or gain links
    and see no change in your reported PageRank.
  • The other issue with the toolbar has to do with
    the fact that sometimes the PageRank it displays
    is only a guess. People will often notice pages
    on Geocities or another free hosting provider
    having a high PageRank. This is because when
    Google hasn't spidered a page, but has spidered
    the root domain, the toolbar will guess a
    PageRank based on the value of the root domain.
    Therefor it's common to see pages on Geocities
    with a PR of 6 or 7. The PageRank does not equate
    in any way to a high Google listing, in fact in
    this case it indicates the opposite that the
    page isn't even in Google. Once Google spiders
    the page, it will be assigned a more appropriate
    (and usually lower) PageRank.

46
Google Search Myths
  • Myth 3 PageRank is a Value Based on the Number
    of Incoming Links to Your Site
  • This myth is a frequent source of incorrect
    assumptions about Google. People will often see
    that a site with fewer incoming links than their
    own site has a higher PageRank, and assume that
    PageRank is not based on incoming links.
  • The fact is that PageRank is based on incoming
    links, but not just on the number of them.
    Instead PageRank is based on the value of your
    incoming links. To find the value of an incoming
    link look at the PR of the source page, and
    divide it by the number of links on that page.
    It's very possible to get a PR of 6 or 7 from
    only a handful of incoming links if your links
    are "weighty" enough.
  • Also remember that for PageRank calculations
    every page is an island. Google does not
    calculate PageRank on a site-wide basis -- so
    internal links between your pages do count. This
    is very important, as instituting a proper
    structure for your internal links can drastically
    improve your rankings.

47
Google Search Myths
  • Myth 4 Searching for Incoming Links on Google
    Using "link" will Show you all Your Backwards
    Links
  • Similar to Myth 3, people will sometimes look
    for backwards links to a site on Google and fine
    none, but if the site does have a PR listed and
    it is in Google's cache, they know that the
    toolbar isn't just guessing.
  • The reason for this is that Google does not list
    all the links that it knows about, only those
    that contribute above a certain amount of
    PageRank. This is especially evident in a brand
    new site. By default, all pages in Google have a
    minimum PR. So even a page without any incoming
    links has a PR value, albeit a small one. If you
    have a brand new site with 20 or 30 pages, all of
    which Google has spidered, but you have no
    incoming links from other sites, then your pages
    will still have a PageRank resulting from these
    internal links. As your home page is likely
    linked to from every page on your site, it might
    even get a PageRank of up to 1 or 2 from all
    these little boosts. However, in this situation
    searching for incoming links will likely yield 0
    results.
  • You can also see this happening on pages that
    have been around for awhile. For instance, this
    page has 0 incoming links listed in Google, yet
    it has a PageRank of 3. We can see that Google
    has spidered it by checking its cache, so the
    PageRank is not a guess. We also know that Google
    has spidered this page, again by checking its
    cache. Therefore, we can be sure that Google
    knows of at least 1 link to the page in question,
    both by its listed PR, and the fact that Google
    has spidered a page that links to it.
  • However, if you look at the DMOZ.org page with
    the Google Toolbar installed, you'll notice the
    page has a PR of 0, which is very low.
    Furthermore, if you count the number of links on
    the page, you'll notice it has over 20. So you're
    dividing a very low PR among over 20 links. Thus
    each link carries very little weight, so Google
    doesn't list these links when you search for
    them. However, Google does count the links, which
    is why the page in question has a PR listed.
  • It's very important to remember how Google lists
    incoming links. Often, people see their number of
    incoming links drop, and they think they have
    lost those links. In reality, the linking page
    could have lost some weight and consequentially,
    the links might have dropped below the value
    threshold that's required in order for links to
    be listed. Or the linking page could have added
    more links, causing each link's share of the
    weight to be lower, and again causing the link to
    drop below the value threshold. In either case
    the link is still counted, it just isn't listed.
  • Why does Google do this? Perhaps the answer has
    to do with technical limitations. If the average
    number of links per page is 20 then Google would
    have to deal with over 60 billion links, which
    might create an index that was too large to be
    publicly searchable.

48
Google Search Myths
  • Myth 5 Being Listed in the Open Directory
    Project Gives you a Special PageRank Bonus
  • Google uses Open Directory Project (DMOZ.org), to
    power its directory. Coupling that fact with the
    observation that sites listed in DMOZ often get
    decent and inexplicable PageRank boosts, has lead
    many to conclude that Google gives a special
    bonus to sites listed in DMOZ. This is simply not
    true.
  • The only bonus gained from being in DMOZ is the
    same bonus a site would achieve from being linked
    to by any other site. However, DMOZ data is used
    by hundreds of sites. The biggest user of DMOZ
    data is Google, but it is also used by thousands
    of other sites. The links from these sites are
    often too weak to be listed in a link search, but
    Google does crawl them, and the links do count.
    So if you're listed in DMOZ, you're actually
    gaining the benefits of hundreds of
    lightly-weighted incoming links, and when you add
    all those up, the total can amount to a decent
    PageRank boost.
  • There are two other benefits you can gain by
    being listed in DMOZ. For one, your directory
    description will appear with Google search result
    listings, which may increase the likelihood of
    someone clicking on your link. The other benefit
    is that, as Google does crawl DMOZ, being listed
    there will ensure that you're also listed in
    Google. However, as it's so easy to be listed in
    Google, this benefit is slight at best.

49
Google Search Myths
  • Myth 6 Being Listed in Yahoo! Gives you a
    Special PageRank Bonus
  • This myth evolved much in the same was as Myth
    5. Google has been partnered with Yahoo! for a
    number of years by providing secondary search
    results, and just recently (Fall, 2002), Yahoo!
    started using Google to provide primary search
    results.
  • Because Yahoo! uses Google, many have assumed
    that Google also uses Yahoo!, which is not the
    case. The only PageRank you will gain from being
    listed in Yahoo! is the same as the PR you'd gain
    from any other site of equivalent weight.
    However, some people achieve a larger-than-normal
    boost from their listing in Yahoo!, which again
    leads to this incorrect conclusion.
  • The fact is that being listed in Yahoo!'s main
    directory will often get you into regional
    directories, so, much like DMOZ, one Yahoo!
    listing can result in multiple links. These links
    are often weak in nature so they may not show up
    in a link search, but they are there -- and
    Google knows about them.
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  • Additionally, once you're listed in any search
    engine or directory you have an increased chance
    of someone finding your site, liking it, and
    adding a link to it from their own site. As such,
    being listed in Yahoo! could result in you
    receiving links from elsewhere -- links whose
    weight is too low to list, but which do
    contribute to your PageRank.

50
Google Search Myths
  • Myth 7 Google Uses Meta Tags to Rank Your Site
  • This myth is left over from the days when most
    search engines used meta tags. However, Google
    has never used them. This fact may be contested
    by some people, so I wouldn't post it without
    proof.
  • To prove to yourself that Google doesn't use meta
    tags, put words into your meta tags that do not
    appear elsewhere on your page. Then, using an
    advanced search, search for those words while
    limiting the results to your domain only. You can
    try this on any search engine -- and if results
    appear, you'll know that engine uses meta tags.
    If no results are displayed, then you know meta
    tags are not used. It is important, though, that
    the words only appear in your meta tags and no
    where else on your page.
  • Google can sometimes use the meta description tag
    to create an abstract for your site, so it may be
    useful to you if your home page is primarily
    composed of graphics. However, do not expect it
    to increase your rank.

51
Google Search Myths
  • Myth 8 Google Will Not Index Dynamic Pages
  • Some search engines have, in the past, had
    problems with dynamic pages, that is, pages that
    use a query string. This was not due to any
    technical limitation, but rather, because search
    engines knew that it was possible to create a set
    of an infinite amount of dynamic pages, or they
    could create an endless loop. In either case, the
    search engines did not want their crawlers to be
    caught spidering endless numbers of dynamically
    generated pages.
  • Google is a newer search engine, and has never
    had a problem with query strings. However, some
    dynamic pages can still throw Google for a loop.
  • Some shopping carts or forums store session
    information in the URL when cookies are unable to
    be written. This effectively kills search engines
    like Google because search engines key their
    indexes with URLs, and when you put session
    information in the URL, that URL will change
    constantly. This is especially true as Google
    uses multiple IP addresses to crawl the Web, so
    each crawler will see a different URL on your
    site, which basically results in those pages not
    being listed. It is important that if you use
    such software, you amend it so that if cookies
    are unable to be written, the software simply
    does not track session information.
  • So, you don't need to use search engine-friendly
    URLs to be listed in Google. However, these URLs
    do have other benefits, such as hiding what
    server side technology you use (so that you may
    change it seamlessly later), and they are more
    people-friendly. Additionally, while Google can
    spider dynamic pages, it may limit the amount of
    dynamic pages it spiders from one particular
    site. Your best bet for a good ranking is to use
    search-engine friendly URLs.

52
Google Search Myths
  • Myth 9 Google Will Not List Your Site, or
    Penalize it, if you use Popups
  • This is a relatively minor myth but it still pops
    up (pun intended) every once in a while. Google
    has an advertising program called Adwords, and
    one of their policies is that they do not allow
    sites that use popup windows to participate in
    this program.
  • This policy only exists for the Google Adwords
    program, but either through hearsay, or people
    hearing that Google has a policy against popups
    and incorrectly assuming that this includes
    Google's main index, this myth has flourished.
    The suggestion that you won't be listed in Google
    if you use popups is simply not true many sites
    that use popups, including SitePoint, are well
    ranked on Google. In fact, it is doubtful that
    Google even understands all the Javascript that
    can create a popup.

53
Google Search Myths
  • Myth 10 Google will Penalize you if You're
    Linked to by a Link Farm
  • Google has policies against the use of artificial
    means to increase your PageRank, which
    specifically include things like joining a link
    farm. There are sites or services out there that
    set up automatic link exchanges to increase your
    PageRank. The links are usually hidden from
    people through the use of CSS, and either making
    the text the same color as the background, or by
    putting the links in an invisible layer. As
    search engines don't render CSS, they will see
    the hidden links and thus count them when
    calculating your link popularity.
  • However, despite all this, Google will not
    penalize you for being linked to by a link farm.
    After all, you have no control over which sites
    links to you, so it wouldn't be fair to penalize
    site owners on this basis. Additionally, link
    farms often have low PageRanks and a high number
    of outgoing links, so each link will contribute
    only a very small amount to your total PageRank
    -- and thus this method of abuse is not very
    effective.
  • Even so, Google can punish you if you link to a
    linkfarm from your site, or otherwise put hidden
    links in your pages. So the simple truth is that
    you can be punished for what you do to your own
    site, but not for getting linked by another site.
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