Although search engines might not directly punish a site if the same exact content is published on multiple URLs, the value of the original content could be diluted. Google states that they do not have a duplicate content penalty; however, if the website with the copied content has a higher page ranking than the originating page, then that original site might not appear in a search because Google doesn’t want to have multiple search results with the exact same content.

Google says when it comes across duplicate content they group all the URLs together. They then select what they think is the “best URL” to represent the content in search queries. In our case it is unlikely that the translated blog post ranks above ours for this particular topic, but it is possible for search engines to choose a site with copied material.

Other factors that help search engines determine the originator of the content is by backlinks, post date and respect of the site. A more powerful, respected site is more likely get credit for the content because they are unlikely to copy others.

Here are some ways that you can protect and help prevent your content from getting duplicated.

1. Add a copyright notice at the bottom of all your content and warn that you check for duplicated content
2. Perform internal audits has many Web sites have duplicate content across various pages throughout the site
3. URL canonicalization- have clean URLs

Copyscape is a great tool to use in order find out if any of your content has been copied. It lets you identify sites that have duplicated your content without permission and even shows you who is quoting your site. All you have to do is type your domain into the search box and Copyscape will tell you how many pages have your content on their sites. It will tell you how many exact words are used and the percent of similarity throughout the entire page.

If you discover that your content has been copied you can do a couple of things to resolve the problem. You can contact the person who copied your content and ask them to take it down. If you do not get a response or the person refuses to take it down, you can file a complaint with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). They will assess the situation and send the duplicate site owner a takedown notice.

Has anyone else had issues with their content being duplicated before?

Local search allows businesses to leverage their customers’ decisions. When an internet user needs to find an accountant in Des Moines, Iowa they go to their search engine to return results. They type in “Des Moines accountant” and up pops a 7-pack of results which includes businesses’: website, phone number, address, reviews, directions, coupons, tags (for less than a dollar a day, businesses can tag their location to stand out), maps, and pictures. Place Pages have an individual dashboard that allows business owners to view information about how many times people have found their business on Google, what keywords are used to find their business, and what areas people traveled from to get to their location.

Google Places, Yahoo! Local, and Bing Local are the 3 main search engines people use. To create a local listing on each of these sites you will need to have an account log in (ex. Windows Live ID, Google Accounts.) The links below will help you set up your local listing on these 3 main sites.

Google Places: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtFuarYnWqU

Yahoo! Local: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfgidVap-mM

Bing Local: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826Xy11H6uw&feature=related

As a business owner there are many advantages of utilizing the local component of search engines, but it’s important that necessary steps are taken to provide a good ranking. Information is drawn from David Mihn’s 2010 Local Search Ranking Factors.

TOP FACTORS TO INCREASING RANKING IN LOCAL SEARCH

1. Claiming your Place Page

Claiming your page is essential for good rankings, however on average only 1 out of 5 businesses have claimed their page. If your page isn’t claimed search engines, like Google, will get information from third party sites, where the information could be incorrect. An unclaimed page also allows anyone to make edits on the page.

A claimed page lets search engines knows they have the most up to date information for the location. It is also vital that information about your business is accurate and consistent among the Major Data Providers (MDP) and search engines.

For example: To see if you have claimed your Place Page, start off by searching your location in Google. If the top right corner of the Place Page says edit this page or business owner, it means you have not claimed your page. If it says owner verified listing, you are good to go. If the page need claiming, then click business owner and it will direct you to log into your Google account and click edit business information. Google will then send letter with a pin and activation instructions.

2. Associating Place Page with Proper Categories

Categories are like keywords, just less specific. It’s important to know what the most commonly searched categories are for your industry. Businesses can now customize categories. This will allow them to differentiate themselves from competitors. Businesses should make sure to use one of Google, Yahoo!, or Bing’s default categories also. This will allow you to pop up with multiple keyword searches.

For example: A pizza joint would want to use the categories of pizza, Italian, restaurant, food, and deep dish.

3. Keyword in Place Page Title and Description

When a customer wants to find information about local upholstery businesses near their home they would type “upholstery” and their zip code. A business with the word “upholstery” in their name is most likely to be one of the first businesses returned because the keyword is in Place Page title.  It is customary that your Place Page title is the actual business name. Some businesses go around this rule and they find themselves booted off local pages for breaking standards. So future business owners, when naming your business incorporate your brand with a keyword.

When writing your 200 character description, it’s important to include keywords that you think your customers are searching. If the Place Page doesn’t have a keyword in it, having keywords in the description will help you rank in a broad range of searches. However, do not over pack the description with keywords cause this can also lead to a search engine dumping your listing.

4. Citations

Citations are listings of your business on third party sites that search engines and MDPs trust. Citations are as important to local search as inbound links are to SEO results. Having many citations is a good thing, but having high quality citations from respected sites is a better way to get indexed faster. What make a strong citation are the trust, age and authority of the website containing your information.

Good places for a business to get citations are from their vendors, clients, local charities where they volunteer or donate, partnering companies, and professional organizations. The Web version of the Yellow Pages is also an example of a trusted site that can be used for citations because it is a reputable source for business data.

5. Reviews

Search engines want to know what others are saying about the business. When a business gets reviews, it shows more information in the initial search. A star rating system will also be shown if the business has 5 or more reviews. Reviews are eye candy to customers because customers want know what others experienced with the business, not just what the business has to say about itself. Google and Bing help their listings out by pulling reviews from other sites and posting them to a listing on their respective sites.

1. URL Structure: URLs are an excellent way to leverage keywords for SEO. URLs should be structured properly with targeted key phrases. It would make sense to ensure that these URLs are in alignment with your keyword strategy to make sure the right words are being optimized. There should also be no more than 2 parameters, and no more than 3 folders (or directories) in the URL. Another thing we take into consideration is the use of dashes (or hyphens) as word separators instead of grouping words or using underscores. Google prefers “keyword1-keyword2” and treats them as separate words, which can improve your visibility.

-          Bad Examples:

• http://www.mysite.com/brands.php?object=1&type=2&kind=3&node=5&arg=6
• http://www.mysite.com/people/places/things/noun/car/dannyboy

-          Good Examples:

• http://www.mysite.com/brands.php?nike
• http://www.mysite.com/people/danny-boy/

2. Site Map: Ideally, the website should include a site map that is also in alignment with one or two key phrases per page chosen for the keyword strategy based on relevance, current rank, probability of success and traffic. The links on the site map should be current, and regularly updated. To ensure that the crawlers reach all of your pages you want each page no more than two clicks away from the home page. Making sure all of your pages are on the sitemap makes this possible.
3. Title Tags: Title tags are the words written in the upper left corner of the frame at the top of the browser. This is a critical area for SEO, in that keywords can be used to optimize each page and greater optimize presence in searches. Like URLs, these would be derived from your keyword strategy and would follow a consistent approach site-wide. Title Tags should be written to include one or two key phrases as well as the site brand. It should also be noted that staying within 70 characters ensures that the full title appears in Google searches. A useful tool to quickly check the amount of characters you have is: http://www.wordcountertool.com/

-          Bad Example: Yoursite.com – keyword1, keyword2, keyword3, keyword4

-          Good Example: Key phrase1 | YourSite.com

4. Site Code: If your site contains excessive code then the search engine crawlers could timeout before they read through everything on the page.  This can be avoided by using a style sheet file for CSS and java script include files to reduce the code. The reduction in code would allow the search engines to read and index the site quicker and ensure that they do not timeout before crawling it in its entirety.

Flash is useful and appealing from a visual design perspective, but it is much tougher for the search engines to index. Using optimized text descriptors on the flash code is necessary so that the search engines can index the message being presented. It is also recommended that text copy is included on the site with Flash to allow for the message being communicated to be indexed.

If a customer clicks a broken link or misspells the URL to a page on your site they will be redirected to a 404 page indicating that the page does not exist. Your site should have a custom 404 page that drives the user back to your sitemap so they can find what they were originally looking for. Otherwise they will see a default page that has no useful information, and because they have left your site your bounce rate will increase too. You can check what your error page looks like by typing in random text after your main URL (www.yoursite.com/xyz123). Bruce Clay’s blog also has more useful tips on improving your 404 page.

URL canonicalization is the process of choosing the best URL when there are several options. To a search engine, “www.yoursite.com” and “yoursite.com” are different URLs. This means your traffic can be divided between both sites, and this can hurt your rankings. To find out if this is going to cause problems for you, type in your URL with and without the “www” in the address bar. If the “www” does not appear automatically before “yoursite.com” that means multiple versions of your site are accessible by potential customers and search engines. You should code the site to always redirect to either www.yoursite.com or “yoursite.com,” whichever you prefer.  You can read more about canonicalization in one of our earlier posts if you want to learn more about this topic.

5. Content: The content of a page should have copy that can be optimized for specific keywords that naturally blends in. Typically 1 to 2 keywords per page is ideal, and those words should be consistent with the page title and URL (when appropriate). When we’re conducting an audit, we’re going to look to see if your keywords appear in the body of copy multiple times. For a more tips on writing good copy for SEO you can see: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/how-to-write-an-seo-article-part-1/

6. Back Links: These are links that are directed to your page from anywhere else on the Web. Having more links is almost always a good thing, but it is not the only thing that matters. Search engines also look at the quality of the website that is linking back to yours. If Microsoft or Apple has a link to your site it will matter a lot more than if your neighbor’s personal website links to you. You can find out how many back links you have by doing the following:

1. Go to www.yahoo.com

2.    In the search field type in: “linkdomain:yoursite.com –sitedomain:yoursite.com”

3.    Under the Yahoo! logo on the left side you will see “### results for….” This is the number of back links you have.

4.    Next you can check your competitors’ back links the same way and compare. Even though quantity isn’t the only thing that is important, it will give you a good idea of where you stand.

Keyword research is the first step to identifying the most relevant, high traffic keywords with low competition. This process (further explained in a previous keyword research blog) will help to focus and optimize your overall content strategy.

Once the research is done you should have a “bucket” of relevant keywords that have passed the traffic & competition litmus test and are now ready to be mapped to specific pages on your site.  To do so, match one or two of your bucket keywords to each page on your site. Be sure the keywords assigned to pages discuss subject matter that is consistent with the results one should see after running the query.  It is important not to target more than two words to any one page as doing so will dilute the targeted keywords’ value in the search engine’s eyes.  Essentially, targeting too many keywords per page can confuse the search engine as to what the page is relevant to.

Now that each page has one or two keywords assigned to it, you are ready to strategically place the content.  The title tag, seen in the upper left corner of your browser when on any Web page, is one of the most valuable pieces of real estate from an SEO perspective.  When writing your title tag, place the targeted keywords first – followed by your brand name.  Please see an example from the Rise website below:

Note that the title tag is “Chicago Internet Marketing Company/Firm | Rise Interactive, Inc.”  We do not need to prove to the search engines that we should be number one for “Rise Interactive,” however, proving our relevancy to “Chicago Internet Marketing Company” is a much more uphill battle.  For that reason, targeted keywords should always go before a brand name when optimizing title tags.  Good title tags are short, limited to 65 characters or less in length, as they often appear on the search engine results page (SERP) as the blue hyperlinked text as seen below.

If you exceed the title tag character limit, you risk it not being fully published on the SERP.  In the above example, you’ll notice that the “Interactive” was cut off of the Rise brand name for this reason.  Please note that the search engines tend to pull the black text seen below the title tag on the SERP directly from the page’s Meta description tag.

Unlike the title tag, which impacts search engine rankings, the Meta description tag’s value lies in providing you a voice to communicate with a potential visitor.  The search engines generally do not use Meta description data as a ranking factor.  Instead, it is used to entice Web browsers to click the link to your site.  Any words in the search query that appear in your Meta description will be bolded to catch the searchers eye and hopefully draw them into your message. Best practice for writing your Meta description tag is to keep it to 155 characters or less and include features, benefits, differentiators and a strong call-to-action.

Optimized title and Meta description tags should be complemented with body (on-page) content that completes the argument to the search engines that you should be ranked for the targeted keywords.  Body content is a valuable factor that will be considered by the search engines in regards to rankings.  The one or two targeted words or phrases should appear in the body text two or three times each.  Do not write them into the copy more than three times though as this could be perceived as keyword stuffing, overflowing your copy with keywords, which the search engines consider spammy. This is a common mistake, so watch out!

Creating content for your website using these best practice tactics is the first task in establishing an effective SEO strategy. Writing and correctly positioning high-quality content, title and Meta description tags should lead to an increase in rankings (assuming the site was not previously optimized).  If you complete this step and complement it with an effective link building strategy you will be well on your way to reaching your SEO goals.

To begin with, be sure that all tags are properly closed and source code that may be confusing to the search engine spiders isn’t used. Spiders will typically be thrown off by old or outdated code or code that is proprietary to a single browser as well as code that is too new to be recognized by most spiders.

Remember, spiders are computer programs that abide by all the limitations of a predefined and pre-programmed set of rules. Most abide by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an organization that strives to set specifications and guidelines to help the Web run to its fullest potential. If your Web pages do not also work within those rules, they run the risk of being improperly indexed by the search engines—or not being indexed at all—causing serious damage to your site’s rankings and SEO results. No SEO efforts will matter if your site is not indexed. It is also helpful to visit Google Webmaster Guidelines which will give insight on how to help Google correctly find, index and rank your site.

As you can see, taking the time to ensure search engine spiders can easily process your site’s code is well worth the effort. It allows the indexing process to work as smoothly as possible, thus allowing you to spend your optimization efforts where they are most needed instead of worrying about technical, programming issues. For those who may not be wizards at writing code, you can test your Web pages with the HTML validator at http://validator.w3.org.

Note:  in order for your pages to validate, use a valid DOCTYPE which allows spiders to easily parse and browsers to easily process your site.  As such, it both helps your optimization efforts as well as making your site compatible with a larger number of browsers, resulting in a slight performance boost for your site and reassurance that your pages are compatible across a greater number of browsers.

Now that you are familiar with the various aspects of a URL, you should determine the best way to optimize a URL for the search engines.  First, we need to discuss three crucial points:

1. Placing keywords in your URLs can help improve your rankings, however, existing URLs that have been changed need to be redirected to a new one. If URLs are not redirected, links and bookmarks directing to that URL will be broken, causing the page to drop out of the search engines. Be sure to use a 301 redirect to ensure that user traffic, links, and search engines are properly sent to the new URL.

2. If you already have a high-ranking website and/or page, more times then not, it is a bad idea to change your URL. .In other words, it is most always a bad decision to change your URL if you already have an existing high-ranking page.

3. Utilizing a keyword in your URL won’t impact your SEO results if that is your only strategy.  Alongside a robust SEO campaign, however, it is proven that the webpage with the keyword in the URL will receive a higher click-through rate and will outrank other sites that have not optimized their URLs.

Subdomains
Placing your keywords in the subdomain of your URLs can increase your rank in search engines. Though this can vary from time to time, the search engines will often assume that there is a strong relationship between keywords found in the subdomain and the content of the page, therefore providing a probable boost in the search engine ranking for that keyword.  Because of past abuses of this system, search engines no longer place as high as an emphasis on keywords in subdomains alone. However, in conjunction with a robust SEO campaign, including keywords in your subdomain will assist in driving the most qualified leads to your site.

While optimizing your subdomains please be sure not to go overboard. Search engines love content whose relevance is easily identifiable, but absolutely hate spam, so steer clear of any actions that the engines may red-flag. For example, many sites have a one word or phrase subdomain, and very often do not have multiple phrased sub domains (such as keyword1.keyword2.keyword3.yoursite.com).  These actions, which are not typical, cause the search engines to question and potentially penalize your site.  Additionally, keywords should only be used in subdomains for sites that have a large number of pages with distinctive content. CNN, for example, only assigns subdomains for pages with distinctive content (i.e. sportsilustrated.cnn.com). An overarching lesson to avoid calling your site into question is to keep all keywords relevant, necessary and concise.

Domains
As discussed in our Introduction to URLs tutorial, your domain is your registered domain name (such as www.riseinteractive.com).  Unlike subdomains, you don’t have the flexibility to alter your domain name. This is the reason why placing keywords in subdomains can result in ranking advantages.  Many extremely successful sites whose domain names don’t have anything to do with their products and/or services (i.e. Google, Yahoo, Ebay, etc) attach keywords in their subdomains to increase qualified traffic. If possible, include main keywords in your domain name.  If that is not possible, try to place your keywords in other, useful sections of your URL, such as your subdomain or subdirectories.

Subdirectories and file names.
If you’re unable to place your keyword in the domain name, and it isn’t optimal to put it into the subdomain, the next best alternative is to place it in the subdirectory or file name.  Typically, it does not matter which you use to contain the keyword, just be sure to use either one or the other. Also, be aware of repetitions in the URL, which are typically associated with spam and are thus ranked lower.  For example, http://www.riseinteractive.com/seo.html is okay whereas http://www.seo.com/seo.html would most likely be red flagged. Remember to continually analyze your search results so you are able to quickly determine what is and is not working optimally.

File Extensions
File extensions usually do not influence search rankings so long as the extension is one that is not normally connected with a web page. While, .html or .htm is the most often used file extension, we are seeing more file extensions in the top 10 search results that include .cfm, .php, .asp, and .aspx. So in terms of ranking, all of these file extensions are the same in the engines eyes.

Fine tune your URL structure
The following lists some additional facts worth taking into account when optimizing your URLs for the search engines:

1. Place the most generic keywords earlier in your URL structure.
For example, keywords such as “sports” should be placed in either your domain or subdomain name and more specific keywords, such as a particular team, should be a subdirectory or file name.

2. Use static, not dynamic URLs.
An example of a static and dynamic URL is http://www.shopping.aol.com/clothing/shirt/blue/large vs, http://shopping.aol.com/?ncid=AOLCOMMshopSRCHelnk0006&refCode=aolpartner_aolsearchtab.  When there are more than three variables in dynamic URL, a website rarely gets fully indexed.  Therefore, avoid using more than two if possible.  Ideally, static URLs are best.

3. Try not to use Session IDs.
Specific variable names, like ID, are also aspects that indexing-bots often stay away from.  This is because of what is called a session variable, which is a variable (i.e., number) that is different to each visitor to the site.  For example, a new number is generated inside the URL of that page for that specific visitor, so the URL changes with each person who visits the site. This happens each time someone visits a particular page. Thinking that the URL represents a new page, the search engine spiders can get “trapped” downloading the exact same page over and over again.  Because this wastes the search engines time and resources they have been programmed to do their best to avoid URLs that seem to have a session variable.

When all is said and done, taking these steps to optimize your URL’s is a worthwhile endeavor.  While it isn’t the foundation of a good SEO campaign, SEO friendly URLs definitely help you make your campaign as optimized as possible.

1. HTTP (Hyper Text Transport Protocol)

Definition:  An application-level protocol for collaborative information systems in which resources from the site can be viewed.

Key HTTP facts:

- Ensures that webpages can be indexed by search engines and allows us to see if a webpage can be reached in a web-browser.

- Determines which Communication Port to use. This is important because different protocols typically use different ports.

2. WWW (World Wide Web)

Definition: A system of internet servers that carry documents formatted in HTML (see below) that provides links to audio, video and graphic files and is accessed through the internet. WWW is a part of the domain name which is commonly known as the subdomain.

Key subdomain facts:

- Typically, websites contain either “www” or have no subdomain at all.

- Web sites with many pages, typically from larger companies, often use atypical subdomain names to differentiate between different major sections, topics within their sites or services. For example:  msnbc.msn.com.

- There can be multiple levels within subdomains. For example, assets.espn.go.com. There are often few restrictions to their length, but some scheme links may often be much longer.

- Typically, subdomains can, convert to a separate IP address than the primary domain name.

-A different subdomain is often a distinct webserver for non-SEO applications. Nevertheless, it continues to be under the control of the same primary domain owner. For example, CNN is the only site that can make use of uniquename.cnn.com because the Domain Name Server (DNS) addressing is tied to their primary domain, cnn.com, which is solely under CNN’s control.

- Subdomain names are not case-sensitive. For example, Msnbc.Msn.com is the same as msnbc.msn.com.

3. DOMAIN

Definition: Commonly referred to as Domain name, this is used to identify the host the host, or owner, of a specific website.

Key Domain Name facts

- The Domain Name System (DNS) translates the domain name section, along with the .com, into a numeric IP address. This is used to attach to the actual webserver that hosts the resource.

- The hostname is what the domain name is often referred to as. This is simply the name of the computer where it is hosted.

- A domain name may only be compiled of hyphens, digits or letters.

- Domain names can only be 63 characters in length, with few exceptions for extensions such as “.weather”, in order to accommodate the length of the extension.

- Like subdomains, domain names are not case-sensitive.

- “.com” is the last element of the domain name, referring to the Top Level Domain, or TLD, which is also not case sensitive.

- There are three different ways in which TLD’s can be classified:

- Generic: .com, .org, .gov, .edu, .biz, etc.

- Country Codes: .ca, .ru, .jp

- Infrastructure: .arpa (for SEO purposes we can ignore this TLD)

4. SUBDIRECTORY

Definition: A “file” in an organizational unit called a directory. For example, www.espn.com/basketball, in which “basketball” would be the subdirectory.

5. FILENAME

Definition: The name a computer attaches to a document to identify it

6. .HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)

Definition: An extension of the filename that tells us the programming language used to code the page. Simply put, .html tells us that it’s a normal webpage.

Note: While we have pointed out which URL aspects are not case-sensitive, everything that was covered beyond the TLD, such as subdirectory, filename, and extension, are all case-sensitive. This means that content.html is not the same as Content.Html.

What is URL canonicalization?

Though this concept can be a bit tricky to understand (and pronounce! “ca-non-ick-cull-eye-zay-shun”), it solves a fundamental problem that prevents Web sites from working at the optimum level. Typically, buckets of relevant content on a site will appear on multiple pages within that site, or sometimes even on multiple Web sites altogether. For example:

example.com

www.example.com

http://www.example.com

www.example.com/index.html

http://www.example.com/index.html

This is particularly relevant to SEO with regard to which information is returned for a particular search. In order to provide the best experience for the searcher, search engines attempt to limit the number of returns by means of eliminating redundancies within the returned results. If a search engine is not clear on which page to use, or sees the information as separate pages, it splits up the link juice among all of the pages, versus returning one, more powerful page/result.

So what?

What is exciting here is that we are now able to present a singular version of content, ensuring it receives the highest possible rankings based on domain strength, trust, relevance, etc. This prevents multiple pages from having to compete with each other and creates one strong source.

As discussed in our most recent post, SEO is one of the best ways to drive qualified traffic to your site. SEO is a low-cost, highly measurable means of lead-generation, and, to maximize campaign results, it is critical that it is as optimized as possible.  URL canonicalization presents yet another opportunity to leverage your website to its fullest potential.

How to resolve canonicalization issues

It is important to address various ways to avoid canonicalization issues. SEOBook.com provides a list of various tactics and we’ve highlighted a few of those to help you quickly identify areas you can improve:

Consistent link planning – Choose a linking norm, and stick to it. Maintaining consistent linking conventions (i.e. always link to www.example.com instead of also linking to www.example.com/index) will keep search results strong. This also applies to using either relative or absolute linkage, instead of using both. Remember, consistency is key!

Employ a 301 Redirect – Keep searchers informed of domain changes and maintain user-friendly search results. This tool automatically redirects pages that have been moved to a new location.

Beware of https:// vs. http:// versions of a site – Searches will sometimes return both pages, thereby diluting the search results.

Keep it original – When duplicating or cross-promoting content on a site, be sure to link to the original files on the site.

Make Google work for you – Google Webmaster Tools allows you to declare which version of a URL it should use (www.example.com vs. example.com/index).

website check tool – Helps identify a number of possible architecture problems, including canonicalization issues, on your site. Download tool at http://training.seobook.com/website-health-check.

Please note that some of the material covered in this section is rather technical, however, we will try our best to keep this tutorial as non-technical as possible.

Using Well Formed, W3C Validated HTML Code
The first step towards creating your search engine friendly website is to make sure that your HTML code is correct and well-formed.  To do this, make sure that you have closed all tags which need to be closed and that you haven’t used a source code which could confuse the search engine spider. Examples of this would be old and outdated codes or codes that are so new they have not yet been recognized by most search engine spiders.

Use of Flash Technology, JavaScript & Frames
Flash, JavaScript and/or Frames pages are possible to optimize, however, it is significantly more difficult to do so.  Therefore, if you want to design a search engine friendly website it is simply best to avoid using these technologies if possible.  In the event that you feel you have to use them, or you are optimizing a site which is already built around these technologies, then it is important to know what to do.  We will address the workarounds for these technologies in a future tutorial.

Proper use of URLs
As mentioned in the first step, it is important not to utilize codes that will confuse the search engine spiders. With that said, when designing a search engine friendly site, you also want to make sure that you use URLs that the search engine spiders can easily follow. The spiders find and process web pages by following links from one site to another. This means that if your website’s URLs make it difficult for the search engine spider to download and/or process the pages found on your website it is possible that your web pages may never get crawled.  A page that is not crawled is also a page that has zero chance of appearing in the search engine results.  Simply put, if you don’t use a search engine friendly URL all of your optimization efforts may be worthless given that the search engines won’t even know the pages exist.  Despite this, it is also important to note that the right URL may actually help your rankings in the search engine.  Developing SEO friendly URLs will be discussed in a future tutorial.

Website and Directory Structure
In this step, it is important to know that the search engines may have a more difficult time indexing your website the deeper a page may be on it (e.g. the more links that a visitor has to click to get to a particular page, the harder it is for search engines to find). Therefore, unless your site happens to be exceptionally popular with a lot of incoming links, you can assume that the search engines are not going to crawl that deep into your site. Due to this problem, many sites employ a sitemap which lists all of the pages on one’s website. When done properly, this allows you to coherently organize the material on your website while simultaneously ensuring that the search engines are able to reach (and thus crawl or process) all of the pages on your site.

Limiting the size of your web pages
There is a general rule of how large a page each of the major search engines will index.  This amount varies from search engine to search engine, and even from site to site (more popular sites have a larger limit than less popular sites).  Therefore, in general, it is best to limit the size of your pages to 100k or less (this does not include picture size, which does not effect how much text gets indexed).  This limit (i.e., 100k) is based upon the fact that this may still be Google’s limit.  Even if there have been some indications that Google may have raised that limit, it is best to be safe rather than sorry.  In addition, it is easier to optimize pages with less content and when you split up your larger pages into more detailed pages you provide the search engines with more opportunities to find and fully index your web pages for relevant keywords.

Proper use of Robots.txt file
A Robots.txt file is used to tell search engine spiders which pages not to index. Upfront this may not seem like something you may want to use, but the advantage of using a Robots.txt is that it focuses the search engines on indexing your “important” customer-development, product, and/or sales pages. Remember that the search engine spiders function with limited time and resources when indexing sites, so therefore it would be best to use that time wisely. For example, there is no need for the search engines to index your privacy policy page.  Additional pages that should not be indexed by the search engines include image directories or otherwise sensitive company data, such as company passwords.

There are your six important steps to help you create a search engine friendly website.  While some of this content may be too technical, just concentrate on comprehending the basics and make sure that your programmer understands what it is that he or she is suppose to do.  It is not crucial that you know all of the details mentioned in this blog, however, it is extremely important that your programmer/developer (or whoever it is that is building your site) does understand the information described above, as it can help fully optimize your site if done properly, or hurt it if done wrong.

Stay tuned for more detailed explanations of how to address the issues mentioned above to be posted in the near future.

There are, in general, two factors which the search engines take into consideration when determining their search results.  The first is the content of the actual website itself (in particular, the content of each and every page).  The second is the number and quality of links coming into the site in general, and each page on that site in particular.  These two elements are generally known as on-page factors (i.e., the content of the site) and off-page factors.  Let’s start with the on-page factors.

On-page Factors

It is worth noting that for the most part, your website never competes for a position in the search results.  Only your individual pages compete for those coveted slots.  This doesn’t mean that the overall design and structure of your site doesn’t have a role to play when it comes to optimizing your site.  It has a very important role to play.  Nonetheless, it is individual pages that the search engines results display and as such it is individual pages that compete to show up in those results.  And, for the most part, each and every page on your site gets evaluated in-and-of itself (at least, it is helpful to look at it that way).  As such, the search engines analyze the content on your page to try and determine what it is about.

In particular, it looks at the text on your page and various elements in the code on your page to try and determine what that page is about.  For instance, if a page has a great deal of content about fishing rods, and the phrase fishing rods appears in certain places in your HTML code then the search engine will label that page a fishing rod page.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that that page will rank well for the term fishing rods; after all there may be many other pages which discuss fishing rods and have that term in the relevant places in the HTML code.  What it does mean, though, is that the search engines will not consider this page for unrelated search terms such as balloon rides.  So, in essence, on-page factors tell the search engines what your page is about.  It doesn’t, however, tell the search engines whether your page is the best source for that topic.

What this means is that, ultimately speaking, relevancy is not enough.  There may be thousands, if not millions, of relevant pages for any given search insomuch as they relate in some way or another to the term being searched.  What the search engines really want are the most relevant pages for any given search.  The question is, then, what makes a site more relevant than another.  The answer, for the most part, is links.

Off-page factors

The search engines look at links as a kind of vote.  In theory, people link to sites that they are interested in, and any link that a page receives is an indication that some other site online finds that page worthwhile.  In reality, links are much more complicated than this as we will explain in future blog posts.  For now, though, let it suffice to say that there are quality links, “bad” links and links which are somewhere in-between.  The search engines goal (and they are getting increasingly good at this) is to determine how many quality, relevant links you have coming to your site in general, and each page in particular.  A page which has a large number of high quality links from sites which relate to the topic of that page is considered to be a highly relevant page.

Of course, there are a number of factors that need to be clarified.  For instance, what makes one link a quality link and not another?  How do the search engines determine whether or not two sites are related so that a link from one site to another is considered more valuable?  For now, though, we have enough information to continue with our tutorials.  We know that the search engines determine relevancy based upon the content of our web pages and the number, quality, and relevancy of links coming to those pages.  Our task now is to understand how we use that information to properly optimize our sites for the search engines.  And that is the topic of our next blog post.