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To many websites,
webmasters discover that major sources of website
traffic come from search engines. Therefore, they
are all keen on gaining top search engine
placements through search engine optimization.
Based on our several years of SEO experience, we
point out some common mistakes and shed some
lights to correct it. |
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1. Cannot Get
Indexed by Search Engines, Really? |
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A garment ERP
software solution provider came to me and
asked a question: "I have established a new
website for 1 year, and found a SEO company to
submit my website. However, my website can be
found in search engines only when I type my
domain name http://www.indigo8-solutions.com
in search query box. The SEO company told me:
"My domain got banned. What can I do?"
Ah, I told them they have been fooled by that
SEO company. If you type your domain name in
search box and your website can be found,
which means your website has not been banned.
Interestingly, your SEO company's domain name
is no longer found in Google. Their domain got
banned only.
To help them find out their real problems, I
found the following in search engines: |
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A. |
When
typing their domain name in search
query box, their site will be
displayed in search result.
Instead of displaying
Title Tag in the search result,
search engine displays their
domain name only.
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B. |
Only 1 page is being indexed.
What's the problem then?
With a closer look to their
coding, I found that at the top of
their webpage, they heavily use _Javascript
to present their heading, company
name, visible content, and website
menu. Actually, many search
engines have difficulties in
reading _Javascript codes.
Solution?
Put those _Javascript in external
js files and leave the webpages
with plain HTML codes. Search
engines usually have problems in
crawling _Javascript. Since their
whole site navigation menu is
written in _Javascript, they
should build a sitemap using plain
HTML so that search engines can
read all of their pages.
One more tips: When you cannot get
indexed by search engines, do not
blindly believe someone saying
that your website get banned. You
should firstly look at your
website structure and see if your
coding are clumsy and make search
engines hard to "read" your
website.
The problem created by _Javascript
is not uncommon nowadays. Even a
very big Asia Market Research Firm
also commits this error. They are
now starting to rectify it. |
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2. Link
Building |
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In many
forums, some people are strongly opposed to
link exchange and claim that it is a devil and
it hurts your search engine ranking and even
get you banned.
I personally do not agree. Evidence shows that
many top sites are doing link exchange and
getting top rankings across all major search
engines. In addition, link exchange has been a
long used way for traffic building by smaller
websites. I do not see why search engines will
block people to promote websites using this
simple and long used method.
Indeed, link exchange becomes a problem only
when you manipulate link text with a pure
purpose of tricking search engines, exchange
links with link farms, or buy hundreds of
domain names and cross-link with your site.
A solution to avoid link exchange hurting you
includes: |
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1. |
Use a wide variety of link text |
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2. |
Seek link exchange with sites of
similar theme |
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3. |
Emphasize on how many traffic you
can get from your link partners
instead of search engine ranking |
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Some webmasters know the
importance of link exchange.
However, they think that it
consumes most of their time and
finally give up doing it. A
solution is that you can consider
using Linkautomate.com to manage
your links. This kind of software
saves you time in link checking
and link page update.
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3. Use of
Flash Intro |
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Web design
companies try hard to persuade you to use a
Flash introduction as your homepage. You think
that "Wow! The flash animation is very
appealing and it makes your site looks more
attractive". However, do you know that it can
hurt your website in search engine ranking?
Let me explain..
Search engines analyze website based on text.
Flash, unluckily, is not text. According to
"How to Design Website Guideline" of Siuchu
Suga, search engines are not able to read
content presented by Flash. They just treat
Flash as an embedded object or graphics only.
If you use a Flash Intro as your homepage, you
will never get good rankings.
In addition, many Flash intro do not offer
additional and meaningful content to visitors.
Ask your visitors, how many of them are really
interested in reading your Flash Intro before
going straight to your website content?
A solution to use Flash or not, please ask
yourself whether the Flash intro is really
useful and can offer additional information to
your visitors? Secondly, instead of a Flash
homepage, you may consider making a Flash
header together with content at your homepage. |
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4. Hidden
Text and Meta Tags |
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Webmasters
understand that keyword density is a way to
improve search engine ranking, and some
webmasters use a technique called "keyword
stuffing". They will stuff keywords into their
webpages repeatedly, e.g. "keyword 1, keyword
2, .... keyword 1, keyword 2...." Well,
everyone knows it does not make sense to
visitors. Therefore, those "clever" webmasters
will make those text invisible. For example,
make the text color identical to background
color.
Unluckily, this trick no longer works. Search
engines are able to detect it, and penalize
websites using this nonsense technique. If you
do not want your site being penalized, remove
those text immediately in case you have
adopted this method.
Okay, some webmasters only stuff keywords in
Meta Keyword Tags, an area for putting
keywords. I am sorry to say that stuffing
keywords in Meta keyword tags is also no good.
You can only repeat a keyword for 3 times at
most. Nowadays, search engines place less
emphasis or even no emphasis on Meta keyword
tags. So, what is the point of risking
yourself by stuffing keywords there? |
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5. Use of
Dynamic Pages |
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Many websites
use content managment system (CMS) to generate
their webpages. As generation of dynamic pages
are easier for website development, CMS
generally use dynamic pages. However, search
engines have difficulties to spider and
understand them.
To solve the problem, you can consider using
Mod Rewrite in case you use Apache server or
finding a CMS that can generate static HTML
pages. |
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6. Be a
Pagerank Monster |
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Many search
engine marketers are too focused on their
website's pagerank. Everyday, they are talking
and checking pagerank.
They perform link building based on pagerank
only. In fact, pagerank is only one factor for
Google to determine search engine ranking. It
also cannot affect your rankings in other
search engines like Yahoo and MSN. If you are
too concerned about pagerank, you finally will
ignore other important optimization criteria.
Therefore, you should repeatedly remind
yourself that pagerank is only one of the many
factors and you cannot only work on it. |
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7. Too
Believe in Sandbox |
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Some
webmasters propose that a new website will be
put into sandbox by Google so that you cannot
get any high rankings for highly competitive
keywords. Even though their website cannot get
any rankings after 1 year, they still believe
that it is sandbox effect. Some even says
Yahoo has Sandbox, MSN has Sandbox, etc...
From Google's patent information, there is no
clue that such sandbox occurs. From my
experience, if your site is new and cannot
rank high in highly competitive keywords, it
is solely because other websites are more
established in search engine world. For
example, they have more inbound links, more
content, etc. Therefore, webmasters should not
focus on finding how to get out from sandbox.
Instead, you should put more effort in link
building and content optimization. Eventually,
you will see your website's rankings rise. |
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