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SEO FAQ and general Internet marketing answers
We have compiled a comprehensive list of questions and answers about SEO, and terms and questions associated with marketing your business on-line.
If a question is not available that you wish to be answered please use the ask an seo question function and we will answer your query, and add it to the growing FAQ resource.
Advertising Definitions
CPM, CPC, CPA and more it can be a minefield of terms in the marketing industry we make it all much easier to understand.
CTR is the abbreviation for 'Click Through Rate'
How many times your ad is displayed and how many times your ad is clicked on calculates to your click through rate.
When a user clicks on a link and visits a new web page, the term click through rate is used to describe the amount of times paid listings are clicked through, as a percentage of the total number of impressions.
Printer-friendly versionCTA is the abbreviation for 'Content Targeted Advertising'
It refers to the placement of targeted PPC advertisements on content pages of websites and 'web logs' 'blogs' that are non search engine websites.
CPC is the abbreviation for 'Cost Per Click'
It is the base unit of cost for a PPC campaign such as Google ad words.
Backlinks
About links to your site
Anchor text is the test that is seen by a person clicking on a link
The visible text for a hyperlink is known as the anchor text.
For example: Here we have some anchor text
Descriptive anchor text should be used both on your website and from links pointing to your website. If you have written a page that is about 'cheap used cars' for example it is advantageous to have links from other sites pointing to that page with the term 'cheap used cars', it should also be noted that synonyms be used to vary the link text, it can also be a disadvantage to have to many links with the same link text.
No one said SEO was easy!
A backlink is any link from a website to another website
Backlinks are an important factor to the search engine algorithm to determine the link popularity of a given site. This goes into the final equation of the trust factor of the domain, the page rank of the domain and to the degree a given web page is going to rank for a given term.
Other factors influence this final factor including 'anchor text' used in the back link. The trust of the site that is providing the link back, other factors can also be the extension of the domain providing the link back, .gov and .edu sites providing a link back is worth more than a .com.au site as they have a higher trust level, thus the link is worth more to the receiving site.
Common SEO Questions
Common questions we are asked about SEO
universal search: Also known as blended, or federated search results, universal search pulls data from multiple databases to display on the same page. Results can include images, videos, and results from speciality databases like maps and local information, product information, or news stories.
When you perform a search in Google and you are presented with the list of results you will often see, books, youtube video content, Google map with business in the area you have searched, these are universal results.
Because universal search pulls such an array of information every business needs to address how they are going to be placed in universal search. We Seo have the knowledge to bring any company into the limelight of this new search resource known as universal search.
Organic SEO is when all aspects of general SEO requirements have been taken into consideration when building your website.
When a site is Organically optimised the site naturally ranks higher and receives more targeted traffic, a linking strategy should be implemented to further the pages ability to rank for the target keyword phrases.
Requirements for organic SEO
- Page title tag has been written using as many characters as possible for Google and Yahoo taking into consideration copy and market targeted keyword phrases.
- META description tag has been written to be enticing to give searcher reason to click through to the website. The description is unique to each page on the site.
- Page URL is descriptive to the page it is representing maybe using mod-rewrite to achieve this.
- Page copy has been written with valuable content to the market it is targeted at, and good use of synonyms have been used.
- Correct usage of heading tags has been used from H1 to H6.
- Internal linking has been addressed and is varied throughout the site.
- Tagging ability has been implemented and pages are tagged with logical tags in two or three word format.
- RSS (real simple syndication) is available for content throughout the site.
- Both a XML site map and human readable HTML site map is available on the site, and corresponding XML site map has been submitted to Google.
- Site is built with a flat structure to allow easy access for search engine bots & spiders.
- Navigation is user friendly and built with CSS or simple HTML navigation.
Pagerank sculpting is strategically using the nofollow tag to funnel pagerank to particular pages within your site.
Using the attribute rel="nofollow" strategically on your internal linking structure of your website website, allows you to funnel pagerank to certain pages within your site.
This can be particularly useful for building exposure to your most popular products or services, or pages you wish to rank the highest within your website.
Pagerank is playing a larger role in site relevance to keyword searches and overall ranking of the site, although sites with a low pagerank can still rank well. Over time it is going to become even more important to the sites ability to rank. Internal linking structure also plays a critical role in how your site is indexed and gives the search engines extra detail to find relevance to search phrases.
Site structure, navigation structure and internal linking are just some of the areas We Seo take into consideration when performing an seo audit. All these factors are adjusted to obtain the highest opportunity for the clients site to perform when we undertake a clients seo campaign.
Having your web site rank high in the search engines is a science and the rules for search engine optimisation (SEO) are always changing.
Here are just a few of the reasons why you may be having poor ranking:
- Incorrect usage of the TITLE tag or no TITLE tag content.
- Too many occurrences of the same word in a page (spamming).
- Missing H1 and H2 heading tag content.
- Missing ALT tag content in your graphic links.
- No meaningful content in the first 250 characters on each page.
- Less than 200 words per page.
- Very few pages on your website.
- No links from other websites to your website (link popularity).
Understanding the balance of factors and knowing just how to balance these compared to your competitions pages is part of the skill set a professional seo company such as We Seo possess.
Many factors effect your sites ranking ability, age of domain name, originality of content and traffic flow all can play a big role in how your rankings are calculated.
How often your site is updates, internal linking structure, value of external links and structure of the site all play their roll in indexing and overall ranking ability. Below are three major reasons that affect the time it takes to see a lift your site in the SERP's.
Search engine spiders can be slow to return: The greater percentage of sites are not on the Google 'must crawl' list, a select few sites are crawled very regularly but is the exception rather than the rule. For most sites out there it can be a wait of several weeks if not three or four months before an entire site index is updated.
It is not only about your site: If you have recently started a linking strategy with maybe a focus on viral content designed to real in those precious links, 'link baiting'. A considerable time period is going to elapse before you really feel the impact of the campaign. All those new links littered about also have to be crawled and indexed, and again this can take an incredible amount of time.
It is a question of trust and patience is a virtue grasshopper: Let us assume the search directories have picked up on those valuable new links. Due to manipulative linking practises the algorithm waits to see just how credible these links are. It goes into our saying one good link is worth more than many. A link from a reputable source will stand the test of time, like a fine wine it will only get better with age. This is even more relevant for new domains if you have just popped up on the landscape you may have to wait a while before you can be trusted.
How could i have the Google site links shown below the search result of my website?
I know Google site links are automated, but could I possibly improve site links for my website
This question has been asked by Gonerlee
Yes you are correct in that it is an automated system by Google but at the same time you can help your chances and time it takes to get site links to your website.
I have read many sites that come up with ideas for getting site links but most are not valid and contradict our own findings, we can only draw on our own experiences for this answer seeing as Google is more than vague in their explanation of site links.
What you can control, you are able to block links you do not wish to be used as site links and this is done in webmaster tools, go to links then site links. Once you have been selected for site links they will be displayed and you can then block them. The links will be blocked for 90 days and each time you block them this time frame is extended.
How can you improve your chances of obtaining site links?
- The number of links pointing to your website’s index page, using several main keywords of your website as anchor text.
- The number of searches and SERP clicks for the main keywords I described above. you have to have a certain number of clicks for that keyword, to be able to reach a minimum requirement for the appearance of site links. Traffic seems to be a major consideration for the Google algo to chose you for site links. Having ranking for your major high traffic keyword phrases and good CTR seems to be a major consideration for site links.
- The number of indexed pages for the keyword you are targeting is also important. Please keep in mind that I am not talking about the number of indexed pages of your website, but for the number of results shown in Google for that particular keyword.
- The age of the domain is definitely an aspect when deciding how and when site links are shown. So far it seems to be a site needs to be a minimum of 12 months old and more often 18 months to two years.
- Your site needs to rank No1 for the keyword term and it needs to be a stable rank as well, no fluctuation a solid No1 ranking for a extended point of time.
- Navigation structure, good clean CSS or HTML no Java write menus or flash.
I hope this help to answer your question, and as I said this is all from our own research and if anyone can contribute further we welcome any and all input.
Simply put yes you should have a site map for your website, in fact you should have two
Apart from a general HTML site map you should also have a XML site map, the latter is for Google and other search engines and spiders. An XML site map gives a short cut as it were to allow search bots & spiders to better index your site.
A XML site map should be place in the root of your site directory, once set up, you can go to Google web master central and add the site map to your website.
If you have not set up your site in Google web master central you should also do this, it provides useful statistics and tools designed to better rank and gain better targeted traffic to your website. It also can inform you on problems your site may suffer from. These problems could be, parts of your site that are unable to be indexed, duplicate content issues, not found errors and more. Check out Google web master central today and better understand your site.
This is one of the most common questions we are asked
It can be a gut wrenching seeing a ranking or worse multiple rankings drop, but is the nature of the beast.
There is no hard and fast answer to this question as it can be because of so many variables but below are the most common reasons.
- Fluctuation:
This is the most common explanation and happens on a daily basis. Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) are in a constant state of flux with Google leading the bunch.
Gone are the days of the "Google Dance". This has also meant, unfortunately, that you can be Top 10 one day and disappear the next. The only thing you can do in this case is be patient and give it a few days to see if your ranking reappear.
- Stop or Poison Words:
Have you added new content lately? It is possible you have added what Google calls "Stop" or "Poison" words.
These may include Adult words or commonly used words such as Links, Search Engine, Bookmarks, Resources, Directory, BBS, Paid-to-Surf and Forum which although won't knock you out of the SERPs, they can drop you a few spots
- Broken Links:
The major Search Engines view a site with dead end links as "broken". In some cases this can cause a major hit to your rankings. It is always advised to run a check using a tool like a Broken Link Checker and fixing them. I have seen a site rebound time after time within days of fixing this issue
- Links to Bad Neighbourhoods:
A single link to a banned site or a bad neighbourhood can torpedo your rankings.
A banned site can usually be shown by a site that had previously been indexed but is no longer in Google. A grey toolbar can indicate either a new site or one that has been banned.
A bad neighbourhood is one that employs black hat tactics. This may include a link farm. Link Farms are one of the most often asked about things and the general rule of thumb is "If it looks like one, it is one". Avoid linking to sites with hundreds of links on its pages with little to no content.
- Use of Black Hat Methods:
This will usually result in an all out ban and includes things like Hidden Text, Cloaking, etc.
To get back into the index usually requires you to remove the offending method and email Google (or whichever SE banned you) asking to be re-indexed. In most cases you will be successful although be prepared to wait several weeks if not months.
- Your competition:
Your competition have lifted their own SEO efforts, if the competition site is naturally stronger than yours, higher page rank, older domain, higher trust, greater value of content. These factors can allow them to drop your ranking terms soon as they concentrate on the same terms.
- Buying links: You have been busted for buying links and now have been penalised for it.
Link Development
More in depth than the back link category.
As the term suggests it is a link to a website that could not be followed.
Broken links or dead links, should always be avoided as can have a detrimental influence on your sites overall ranking.
Anchor text is the test that is seen by a person clicking on a link
The visible text for a hyperlink is known as the anchor text.
For example: Here we have some anchor text
Descriptive anchor text should be used both on your website and from links pointing to your website. If you have written a page that is about 'cheap used cars' for example it is advantageous to have links from other sites pointing to that page with the term 'cheap used cars', it should also be noted that synonyms be used to vary the link text, it can also be a disadvantage to have to many links with the same link text.
Cross linking refers to the practise of back linking several domains
Cross linking is sometimes used to inflate link popularity to a given domain. A practise discouraged as can lead to penalties from search directories, although this has yet to be proved (to my knowledge).
Any tactics that are designed or intended to artificially influence the SERP results should be strongly discouraged and can be considered 'black hat' techniques.
META Tags
All about META tags
Yahoo will index up to 120 characters but will cut off when it reaches the limit.
Unlike Google, Yahoo will cut off a word in the middle if it reaches the character limit. When writing titles for both search engines, make sure it makes sense in the shorter Google format and for the longer Yahoo format.
The maximum title length that Google will display and index in 66 characters including punctuation and spaces.
Google will read up to 66 characters, cutting off the title at the last full word. You should always try and use as many characters as possible.
SEO Definitions
What do all the abbreviations stand for? What is Canonical? All this and more are answered in the SEO definitions section of our SEO Faq.
Search Engine Optimisation is the process of choosing the most appropriate targeted keyword phrases related to your site and ensuring that this ranks your site highly in the search engine directories
So that when someone searches for specific phrases it returns your site on top of the search results page (SERP).
It basically involves fine tuning the content of your site along with the HTML and Meta tags and also involves appropriate link building process.
The most popular search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN Search, AOL and Ask Jeeves. Search engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms secret, to get credit for finding the most valuable search-results and to deter spam pages from clogging those results.
A search engine may use hundreds of factors while ranking the listings where the factors themselves and the weight each carries may change continually.
Algorithms can differ so widely that a web page that ranks #1 in a particular search engine could rank #200 in another search engine. New sites need not be "submitted" to search engines to be listed. A simple link from a well established site will get the search engines to visit the new site and begin to spider its contents.
It can take a few days to even weeks from the referring of a link from such an established site for all the main search engine spiders to commence visiting and indexing the new site.
Because search algorithms constantly change or in continual flux, it is advisable to seek the assistance of a professional SEO company, such as We Seo. As with typical adversing such as the Yellow Pages, the SEO campaign is a ongoing investment in your company.
Because search algorithms do change it is required to maintain the optimisation process, to enable high ranking key phrases to stay that way. The campaign can be lowered in to a maintenance mode as it were but continual maintenance is often required to keep a site at the top of it's market.
Cloaking is an unethical practice of using server side scripting to give a user one version of a web page, while a search engine spider or bot receives a different version
Why is it unethical? Because it is designed to manipulate the SERP results and is not a natural ranking factor. Apart from it being unethical it can also result in the offending domain being banned from the search engine directories.
Page rank is a rank Google use to assign a relevance to your page and the search term being searched for.
Factors that can increase your Google PageRank
If you are looking to increase your page rank, we have put together a list of factors which influence the algorithm. Each criteria has a score of relevance or an importance factor to better enable you to work on different factors that add up to the overall score.
You should also keep in mind that it is not a hard and fast rule to live and die by in obtaining relevance within your site. If you have good relevant content, in relation to what the user is searching for, and the site and copy is well optimised, your pages will rank in the corresponding search.
Page rank overall is in our opinion only one criteria Google looks at when finding relevant content to the searchers query. Above all is quality and relevance of content, if it is on subject, well put together and an attention to SEO has been taken into consideration, your pages will be found.
- Update Pages Frequently 2/10
- Add Pages Frequently 4/10
- No Broken Links 5/10
- Good Neighbourhoods Directories with high PageRank Levels 7/10
- Authority Websites 7/10
- Quality Inbound links 8/10
- Quality Relevant Links 9/10
- Article Submissions (this can increase your PageRank by getting more inbound links)
- All these put together 10/10
Factors that can be detrimental to your Google PageRank
- Bad inbound links such as Porn, Sex, Drugs, Some medication text, Gambling, amongst others.
- Link spamming
- Bad Content, this includes scraped content, irrelevant content and duplicated content
- Lots of broken links
- SEO Black Hat Techniques
How Google PageRank is Calculated
Moving on to the calculations that make up the Google page rank, now only the powers to be really know the entire inner workings to page rank, as far as we know no actual release of the internal working of the Google page rank have been released.
Below is the actual Google page rank algorithm that was released during the developmental stage of Google. This is as much as anyone has as far as we know, but is enough to serve our purposes.
PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + ... + PR(tn)/C(tn))
In the equation 't1 - tn' are pages linking to page A, 'C' is the number of outbound links that a page has and 'd' is a damping factor, usually set to 0.85.
A simplistic view of this can be seen as
a page's PageRank = 0.15 + 0.85 * (a "share" of the PageRank of every page that links to it)
Share = The linking page's PageRank is divided by the number of outbound links
A page "votes" an amount of PageRank onto each page that it links to. The amount of PageRank that it has to vote with is a little less than its own PageRank value (its own value * 0.85). This value will be shared equally between all pages.
This equates to it would be better to get a page linked to your website that has a PageRank of 5 with 2 outbound links then it would be to have a page linked to you with a PageRank of 8 with 500 outbound links. With all things considered it would be better to have both of these sites linking to yours, but if you can only have one, then it becomes clear.
Google PageRank algorithm is based between a PR of 1 to 10, but many people believe that these numbers are set to an algorithmic logarithmic scale. Furthermore there is a very good reason to think this, but no one knows for sure outside of Google. It is probable that people have already figured this out, but the only way to be certain would be to duplicate the algorithm yourself.
Who invented the Google PageRank Algorithm
Google PageRank was developed at Stanford University by Larry Page, and Sergery Brin. This was part of a research undertaking for these two people. The project was started in 1995 and then led to a functional prototype. In 1998 Google was born and the rest is history in the making.
SEM means 'Search Engine Marketing'
Search engine marketing covers any means that a site is listed within search results that is not organic.
For example
- Paid placement
- Paid inclusion
- Pay per click
In Internet forums, articles and general posts you may come across the abbreviation SE.
SE stands for 'Search Engine' some popular search engines include.
Your website can bee seen as a slightly different number of different URL's.
http://weseo.com.au
http://www.weseo.com.au
Having multiple locations of where a search engine can find your homepage, can lead to a penalty. Having a canonicalisation URL means that you have only one location where your web page is possibly found. By setting up your website properly you can redirect visitors and search engines, who view other versions of your web page. This is achieved in the .htaccess file located in your website root directory.
.htaccess example to avoid canonicalisation
< IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine on
# index.php to /
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^GET\ /.*/index\.(php|html)\ HTTP
RewriteRule (.*)index\.(php|html)$ /$1 [R=301,L]
# force www.
rewritecond %{HTTP_HOST} ^weseo.com.au/ [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.weseo.com.au//$1 [r=301,nc]
You could use the above example in for your own website just changing the reference of weseo.com.au to your own website url.
SERP stands for "Search Engine Results Page" When you type a query into the Google search engine and you are presented with a list of results this is a SERP.
These results are listed in order of relevance to your search query, as determined by the search algorithm. Some search engines (Google) also include news, video results, books on the search term query among other various information, this is also known as universal search.
Typically the higher your site shows on the SERP page directly corresponds to how much traffic your site will receive from the corresponding search term.
Below is an example of estimated traffic according to the placement of your website on the SERP page.
The first position in the SERP result can typically expect to receive around 42% of all visitors who searched for that particular query. Below is the breakdown of the other positions.
- 42.30%
- 11.92%
- 8.44%
- 6.03%
- 4.86%
- 3.99%
- 3.37%
- 2.98%
- 2.83%
- 2.97%
It is interesting to note that the 10th place position on average receives a higher percentage of visitors than the 9th position of the results.
Google sandbox in essence is a holding area for new domains or domains that are seen to change in ownership frequently.
Some people have claimed it could take up to a year for a domain to be released from the sandbox, we have not experienced such time lengths but have witnessed occurrences of three months or more.
It is said to help cut down new SPAM domains or understand the value of a new domain before it is ranked and allowed to rank for the desired search term phrases.
See FAQ getting out of the Google sandbox to minimise this happening to your new domain.
This is an often asked question, and it all relates to trust. To be lifted from the Google sanbox faster and establish your site in the SERPS requires some quality backlings. You could attain some of these back links from resources such as, www.DMOZ.org, Yahoo Business Listing, www.LocalBusinessGuide.com.au, www.HotFrog.com.au or to some extent social media sites such as www.Digg.com or Propeller.com.
Obtaining some high quality backlinks from one or two sources will get your site out of the sandbox far quicker than 30 links from poor quality websites. Remember when it comes to backlinks quality over quantity.
URL Rewriting
Rewriting URL's better for you and better for the search engines.
ModRewrite is specifically used to re-write dynamic URL,s made by .php sites and most CMS (content management systems)
Module re-write the name gives some insight into what it does, it re writes a URL into a human and search engine friendly URL.
For example a unwritten non search engine friendly URL could look like
xyz.com.au/index.php?/cat76=?ghy36 apart from the fact it tells the web user nothing about the page they are viewing the URL has almost no chance of being indexed without good external links pointing to that page.
Now lets look at a rewritten URL, xwz.com.au/digital-cameras-canon-canon-G9-compact-camera-review.html
Now you can see in this example for one the web user can easily see the web page is going to be a review about the Canon G9 Compact camera, this web page will also be easily indexed by the search engine directories with some simple internal linking.
ModReWrite is the combination of configuration to the .htaccess file located in your sites root directory and a module built into the Apache web server.
Update: As of Monday 22nd of September 2008 Google announced it can crawl dynamic URL's we still recommend rewriting URL's as for one there are many other search engines that still struggle to properly index dynamic URL's and there are far more reasons than just indexing to confider. We encourage you to read our post about the Google statement which also contain reasons to rewrite your URL's. Read why you should rewrite your URL's in response to Google's article.