18 Apr 09 What do search engines want?

Well, From now on, I decided to write a shorter version of entry for a while to take a look at my audience reading behavior for maybe a month or so. It’s always important that I have to ensure and validate what I write, so that I do not digress.

So, what do search engines really want? They definitely want

1. text format
2. clear-cut writing
3. no frame
4. not many tables
5. not very graphical intensive
6. less java scripts
7. possibly non-shockwave files
8. no keyword stuffing/spamming
9. properly linked
10. good internal linkage
11. no html errors including any kind of programming language
12. appropriate headers and titles

This is not what people usually want but in order to persuade search engines cherish your sites by not over-accessorizing your site with bombarding these unfriendly search engine materials. Then, you are technically good with your SEO mission. Remember, you always write for your audience, not for search engines bots, but when you write, you can make use of these advantages, so that not only your audience will love it, but also search engine bots would.

Thanks for reading.

Tags: audience, content, invalid, keyword, search engine, SEO, XML

04 Apr 09 PR and Me – Does it really matter?

Many MMO and SEO guys talk about PR every now and then, Recently, new PR from Google has been updated. Does it do any good for you or bad? For me, I never care about PR much because it’s just a measurement of Google. I understand higher PR, we can sell links and etc, but I care more about unique and repeated traffic which will eventually bring success to you in the long run.

The funny thing is Google has been kind to me. I use do-follow enabled plugin which is actually a good one for WordPress bloggers, many actually said that once you have do-follow, you actually got hurt in PR, however, I believe that comment URLs are actually artificial link building and so that it doesn’t really matter about back links, maybe you generate some more traffic.

I allowed do-follow commenting on 25th Feb 2009 with this entry named “Advantages of do-follow Plugin for WordPress“. At the beginning of the April, I have my first PR update. This site went PR0 to PR1 and another music video site of mine got went PR0 to PR2, they are relatively very young sites, both not older than 6 months. However, I have done link building carefully and slowly. So, in a couple of months, I am sure I will have something else to write about this again. Bottom line, don’t worry about giving do-follow enabled comments, because many sites are now exclusively collecting do-follow sites just for link building purpose.

So, my conclusion, I am stoked about getting my PR raised, but does it really matter? Not really. But this is a good example of doing things accordingly. So, check out my Massive Traffic and AtoZ SEO categories for more techniques and tips about getting good clean organic and natural traffic. My link building system is slow, because I am personally experimenting it, you get to do it faster because I have documented it every time I experience new techniques.

Comments and suggestions welcome. If you like my posts, you can either subscribe via email or feed/RSS reader.

Tags: back links, link building, page rank, pagerank, plugin, SEO, success, traffic, unique

31 Mar 09 How to decide a Good Web Hosting in 7 ways

I was helping out a member on Digital Point forum and I got this idea, why not just blog it since it became a little bit too long. I am working in IT field with software/hardware integrations, so I know information has a huge value in IT world. This time, I will share how to decide whether you have a good web hosting or not.

I do not want to be stereo-type person to comment, but if it is a good web hosting, following things are generally good reliable hosting you can consider as;

1. They have live support, so before you sign up, you talk to live support and see how knowledgeable they are. Live support is not easy for the provider because you need constant availability and most of the live support people are of course good and knowledgeable. At least, they must answers your questions in a professional way.

2. Google for coupons, for example, if your webhosting name is “supercool”, google “supercool hosting coupons”, good hosting always have coupons for new sign ups.. small ones? very unlikely.

3. Always use 1 month money back guarantee opportunity, if u face unhappy performance or service, always get the money back within 3 weeks.. Never wait until 1 month. Make sure you sign up to the hosting that offer 1 month money back.

4. Check whether they give you minimum 1 free domain name when you sign up, reliable hosting usually have affiliation with domain registrar and they would give you ONE free when you sign up.

5. Always use the word once you decide to sign up, “I am currently a customer of xyz hosting and want to move“, and most hosting would even help you with data migration and maybe also give you further discount.

6. Always look for forums from hosting company, good ones usually install vbulletin (costs 150 bucks for license), if you don’t see vbulletin forum from hosting company, it isprobably, they might be gone in a while.. and remember, if you are member in forum, it’s very good that you can get lengthy questions answered, also, you can have your signature indexed at your hosting forum. Most importantly, hang out 1 week and ask any questions you want before you sign up and look at the response time, normally, if they help you in 12 hours, it is considered good.

7. check the PR of hosting company, sometimes, they do pretty good SEO work and partnership programs, that means they value their hosting address and they want to keep it that way, consequently meaning stability of the company.

Well, there you go..  life is a research, so use your research to get it all better in each and everyway of your life. One hour/One week research will save you one year of trouble.

Tags: coupon, digital point, domain, migration, SEO, support, web hosting, webhost, webhosting

18 Mar 09 Link Structures – Link Building Part 5

Many people got so anxious about their SEO works, that is no one to blame, we always wanted to see better and higher results. That’s the probably the only reason why you are actually reading this blog too. SEO is not a overnight work and if you rush it, you could crash it.

Speaking of link structures, you need to know two important things. They are

1. Natural Link &
2. Artificial Link Structure

Easily, Natural links must look naturally linked to each another whereas Artificial link structure will definitely look like we plan and create it. Natural links are actually valid and even when search engine variables and algorithms change, they might still be valid. Because once there is a new PR update, many people actually dropped their ranking as well as SERPs, and they will complaint rather than looking back what they have done in the past. It is generally because they did not build Natural Links in the past.

So, what are the differences between Natural Link and Artificial Link?

• Natural link tends not to be reciprocal whereas artificial links are.
• Natural link grows in number gradually whereas artificial link grows suddenly.
• Natural link anchor text varies whereas artificial link anchor text still the same.

Therefore, avoid your links to become artificial link structure, because they are easy to be discounted in search engine world. Also, do not exchange links in web ring and link farms.  In short, the link that are ranked high in PR or SERPs are the links that are not orchestrated to be seen, favors the links that are useful, great content and informative to be found. You may as well have known that buying links and selling links to earn votes is not allowed in most search engines.

In conclusion, the most important thing about link structure is when building your link, all the search engine cherish your natural link structure and they actually dislike/discount your artificial link structure.

Tags: link building, Reciprocal, search, search engine, SEO, SERP, SERPs

18 Mar 09 SERPs VS PR – Link Building Part 4

Understanding of SERPs VS PR is a common misconception about link building. That is not an issue anymore once you read this. Well, many people think having huge amount of backlinks will give you top results in SERPs (search engine result pages). It is a myth.

Google considers many factors for your website/blog ranking in search results, it is fair to say that PR players indirect role in SERPs, but higher PR doesn’t mean higher SERPs at all. Sometimes in search result pages in Google, you may probably see PR1 sites results showed up higher than PR4 sites. Try some keywords about it, You will definitely learn that PR is not as useful as you believe to be. Of course, higher PR will give you potential impression, but not complete monetization result for you. That’s why SEO experts work for SERPs whereas SEO beginners work for PR. The mystery of SERPs is nobody exactly knows every single detail search engine algorithms and their technologies since they are using million of terms and variables. Here are some of the facts you can actually learn about getting higher in SERPs.

• keywords optimizations and relevancy (avoid keyword spamming and get to the point, for example, if you are selling shoes and you put completely spammy words such as free download, even you have a brochure PDF file to give away free, the relevancy % is highly unlikely to match to your entire site, Remember, it’s called “KEYWORD”, the word that is key to you)
• anchor text of the links (what you explained and the URL)
• previous factors of your site history (To name a few… the age of the websites, the content of the websites, how frequently you update, how good your internal linking is, how quickly a particular page is linked or indexed..etc)
• quantity of links from other sites to certain searched keywords
• quality of links from other sites to certain searched keywords
• human ranking (just introduced a couple of months ago where people can rank their search results, let’s say if you found what your looking for in page 2 of SERP, you can actually move up to page 1 yourself).

Lately, I do not actually have any internal linking because I do not want my readers to click on each URL like a wild goose chase (clicking another URL before finishing this and that). However, below you can see the related posts, so that you can read more about what is relevant with this post (I deliberatelly assign certain keywords to relevant posts so that you can actually keep reading for more).

Thanks for reading

Tags: backlinks, google, keyword spamming, link building, monetization, search engine, SEO, SERP, SERPs