Search Engine Optimization NEWS

You know what you sell and you know the topic of your website. Are you sure that Google puts your website in the right category? If your website is about shoes, Google still might think that it is about frogs and toads.

If Google puts your website in the wrong category, it will be very difficult to get high rankings for your keywords.

How to find out what Google thinks about your website

To find out what Google thinks about your website, perform a “similar” search for your domain. Enter the following in Google’s search box:

related:www.domain.com/ ~domain.com

Replace domain.com with your own domain name and make sure that there is no spacer after the colon. On the result page, Google will show you websites that it finds related to your site.

If the websites on the search result page are related to your website then everything is okay. If the websites are about totally different topics, then you have a problem and Google probably won’t display your website in the search results for the right keywords.

Why does Google put your website in the wrong category?

Suppose your website is about selling shoes. If your site is linked by other websites that link to your website and other websites that are about frogs and toads then Google might think that your website is related to frogs and toads.

It’s important that the other links on the web page that links to you are related to your site. If you’re listed in the “Shoes” category of an Internet directory then all web sites in the same category are usually also about shoes.

When search engines look at this page and check the links to other sites they will think that your web site is related to shoes. That means that it will be much easier to get high rankings for search terms that are about shoes.

Is your website in the right co-citation category?

The other websites to which your link partners link influence the ranking of your website on Google.

Here’s an example: web sites 1, 2, 3 and 4 all link to the web sites A, B, C and D. Although A, B, C and D don’t link to each other, Google thinks that A, B, C and D are related to each other because the same web sites link to them:

If A, B, C and D are all linked from 1, 2, 3 and 4 they might be related to one another, even though they don’t directly link to each other.

If A, B, C and D are all linked by many other web sites, they have a strong relationship. The more web sites they are linked by, the stronger the relationship.

If you are the owner of website A, you should make sure that web sites B, C and D are related to your site.

What does this mean for your website?

When you build links, make sure that the page that links to your site also contains other links that are related to your website topic. The more pages of the other site are about your topic, the better.

If the link to your website is in a good neighborhood then it will be much easier to get high rankings for your keywords.

Last week, Google officially announced that their new web indexing system “Caffeine” is live on all Google pages. What does this mean for your website and do you have to change anything on your pages?

What is Google Caffeine?

Google Caffeine is the name for the new method that Google uses to index web pages. In contrast to Google’s old method, Caffeine can index new web pages faster:

“Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index, and it’s the largest collection of web content we’ve offered. Whether it’s a news story, a blog or a forum post, you can now find links to relevant content much sooner after it is published than was possible ever before.”

Google changed they way in which they index the web because they want to show new pages more quickly in the search results.

What is the difference between the old system and Google Caffeine?

Google’s previous system updated the search index in batches.

“Our old index had several layers, some of which were refreshed at a faster rate than others; the main layer would update every couple of weeks.

To refresh a layer of the old index, we would analyze the entire web, which meant there was a significant delay between when we found a page and made it available to you.”

With Google Caffeine, Google’s search index is updated continually:

“With Caffeine, we analyze the web in small portions and update our search index on a continuous basis, globally. As we find new pages, or new information on existing pages, we can add these straight to the index.”

That means that new pages will be displayed in Google’s search results sooner if they are relevant to the search query.

What do you have to change on your web pages?

Caffeine is not a ranking algorithm update. It does not change the way Google ranks web pages. Caffeine just means that new pages will be shown much quicker on Google’s result pages.

To get your own website on Google’s first result page, analyze the web pages that currently have top 10 rankings on Google. The pages that now have a top 10 ranking on Google have done everything right to please Google’s latest ranking algorithm.

Analyze the top ranked pages and check how and where they use their keywords. Also check which web pages link to the top ranked pages and how they link to the top ranked pages.

Doing this is a lot of work if you do it manually. For that reason, we developed the Top 10 Optimizer. The Top 10 Optimizer automatically analyzes the web pages that currently have high rankings for your keywords and it compares them to your own website.

You will also get detailed instructions on how to change the content of your web pages and the links to your site so that your site will be listed in Google’s top 10 results.

This changed the game significantly for SEO Specialists like us here at MHS. We now have more information at our disposal to get better rankings without so much guessing. I’m sure though that Google is leaving out an intricate part of the equation, otherwise how could they keep charging us $10,000/yr to attend Google College.

“Google handles 71% of all search queries in the United States in May 2010, while Yahoo handles around 15% and Bing around 9%.

The changes to search engines from Google and Microsoft are causing some consternation among users, who typically don’t like changes to a service like search that they use so frequently. Some users complained that Google is looking more like Bing with the addition of a new navigation bar, while Bing is adding tabs to look more like Google.”

While it appears that the Internet search argument was won decisively by Google, rivals Yahoo and Microsoft haven’t given up yet. The two companies formed an alliance in 2009 that will result in Microsoft’s Bing search engine powering Yahoo’s portal by the end of 2010.

Google’s 10 toughest rivals for 2010

Google handles 71% of all search queries in the United States in May 2010, while Yahoo handles around 15% and Bing around 9%.

Despite its dominant position in search, Google continues to innovate.

In May 2010, Google introduced SSL-based searching to give more privacy to users. The encrypted search service, available as beta code, allows users to hide search terms – but not maps or images – from third parties such as ISPs. Google, however, continues to retain information about end user searches for its own usage.

Google also is enhancing its search capabilities for smartphones, which is likely to be the next battleground for search. Google is concentrating on Android and Apple iPhone platforms, but it has promised to offer its revised search capabilities on other smartphones.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is adding new features to Bing, including real-time mapping data from upstart Foursquare. Bing also added tabs and an answer box, which are designed to differentiate its results from Google’s.

The changes to search engines from Google and Microsoft are causing some consternation among users, who typically don’t like changes to a service like search that they use so frequently. Some users complained that Google is looking more like Bing with the addition of a new navigation bar, while Bing is adding tabs to look more like Google.

The argument about which search engine is best is going global, with an increasing focus on the fast-growing user base in China.

Google’s decision in March 2010 to stop censoring Internet search in China has helped boost the revenues and profitability of China’s domestic search engine, Baidu.

Google’s other main competitor in China is Alibaba, which has been aligned with Yahoo since 2005. Yahoo owns a 40% stake in Alibaba, and in return Alibaba operates Yahoo China.

Microsoft is muscling into the Chinese market, by pre-loading Bing as the search engine in Android mobile phones sold by Motorola in China.

Where will the next battleground appear? Perhaps Russia, where Google faces stiff competition from the local Yandex search engine.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/06/06/urnidgns852573C4006938800025773B001F4F6A.DTL#ixzz0qGbcC9lN