> The problem is that "strategies" implies a process that can be followed on
> every site, and that from one week to another you can use the same
> strategy on that same site. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way these
> days. Search Engines are trying desperately to combat the spammers, and
> the folks who host those "top 10 or money back" entry pages. As a result,
> Search Engines are changing how they work on a regular basis to combat the
> folks out there who will try every trick in the book for higher rankings
> (including having a competitor's entire page as a giant comment tag within
> one of their pages -- happened to one of my clients so I know this is
> true).
Well, what I've learned since now is:
1) not too long meta (they could be partally ignored
2) not too many keywords they could be considered spam or
ignored
3) no refresh META (aka splash screens) they could be considered
spam
5) dont use same background/foreground to hide META it is
considered spam
6) there is a LOOOOOONG list of META in wich you can put
relevant keywords. (do search engine look at them??)
What I used to think was:
1) put keywords in <TITLE> tag
2) put keywords at top of page preferably in <H1> tag
3) be careful in using tables , after all an HTML file is a text file if
you use tables text that could seem to be at top is at bottom... but
this is clear when you see the source.
4) You NEED to have keywords also in the text cause if you have
just keywords in META it could be considered spam
5) keywords in text are much important than keywords in meta
6) repetition of keywords in visible text is not considered spam
7) dinamic generation of pages depending on the IP of the request
is considered spamming
8) excessive submission is considered spamming.
Anything else???
Not sure. This topic is becoming a little bit contraddictory and
remember condraddictory things is harder.
There are legends about proximity/density of keywords, strange
convolution to compute ranking and other strange myths.
> I call search engine site promotion "a gentle art" -- in fact, I have an
> article by that name at <http://www.hartcons.com/onlinepromotion.html>.
<rant>
OK. I can understand frequent changes on the ranking strategies of
search engine just if you use to rank your pages on smoke.
If search engine just rank visible text there would be a not
cheatable (is it english??) way to rank pages.
If you're looking for XXX pages, your sensitivity won't be hurted if
you'll find a page full of "sex sex sex teens virgins sex sex sex".
But I suppose that if you are looking for a turist agency you would
prefer to find FIRST informations and a good looking page and not
only "mountains, mountains, turusm, holidays etc..."
I've seen VERY strange result from search engine. EMPTY or
almost EMPTY pages ranked in the top 10 (no more than 5
words???), no META at all.
Such kind of pages can't be informative on any subject.
</rant>
Returning to a more helpful topic.
It seems search engines went mad.
Unfortunately I think there is some correlation to the fact they are
trying to be paid for ranking (Real Names and such other kind of
initiatives)
> In other words, instead of having a strategy, I have a couple of theories,
> a lot of different "tricks", and some tried and true methods and I apply
I'm mostly interested on the "tried and true methods".
> them one at a time, over and over, trading one for another, until
> something starts to work. I use tricks I learned from Danny Sullivan at
> www.searchenginewatch, from the Planet Ocean people, from the Search
Ok if you haven't find any SUPER SECRET we are consulting the
same sources. If you can add something to the list at the top of the
email I'll be pleased.
> But most of all I use my instincts, and my sense of fair play. I don't
I have REALLY informative pages on a very unusual argument,
FULL of text, articles, advices, articles on related topics that I find
really hard to promote.
Fortunately in the past I've reached remarkable results with those
pages and I'm just trying to resurrect them as a sort of test with no
committment from my previous client.
> spam, I make sure every page has legitimate and *useful* content, I work
> my title tags until they bleed (check out http://www.websonic.com/ for an
> example), and I put comments in if I don't feel that it'll penalize me.
Ok. But I'm saying there are EMPTY pages better ranked than
mine...
> Does it help? Marginally. I've spent a lot of time tweaking things for Rex
> Hill, my father-in-law's winery (http://www.rexhill.com/) with some
> success. But in the last two months their rankings in the search engines
> have nosedived. Not because of anything I did, or anything another winery
> site did, but because InfoSeek added their new ESP search protocol,
> AltaVista did something weird to their ranking system, and a bunch of the
I know they announced these changes.
Well when you'll succede to understand how this changes work let
me know.
I'll do the same if I'll be the first to understand it.
> other SEs changed things as well. So, one of my chores for this weekend is
> to tweak some titles on the Rex Hill site and to bug the winemaker for new
> text for the home page so I can resubmit it.
Unfortunately SEs don't display results of subbmission
immediately so you'll find hard to test if your new strategies are
right.
> (Aside: ya'll might enjoy the article on Rex Hill's new Vino El Nino wine
> at http://www.rexhill.com/pr1.htm -- the wine label was designed by the
> winemaker's six-year-old son.)
He has more artistic talent than me. Unfortunately the only means I
can use to express myself "graphically" is by means of a CAD and
a raytracer.
> I'm sure this isn't quite what you're looking for, Ivan, but I hope it's
> helped a little.
Well I'm frustrated as before!!! I'm used to scientific method.
You test, you guess, you test again, you find how things work (not
necessarely in the exact way, It'll be enough an approximation) and
then you apply what you have found.
Here testing require LOOOOONG time and when you have the
results the method is changed!!!
I think the best methosd is to have a secret agent in the staff of
evry search engine ;-)
--------------------------------------------------
Ivan Sergio Borgonovo [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Webmaster Gorilla Bookstore http://www.gorilla.it
Tel. +39 2 3311105/34530455 Fax. +39 2 34531591
Via Mac Mahon 9, Milano, Italy
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