SPIDERS, LINK POPULARITY, AND SPAM

 

Building Sites that Spider Well

The spider is the program that search engines send to look at your site. They normally record everything they see, and then follow any on-page links to record your other pages. There are a number of things you can do to make sure that spiders record your whole site and that they attach high importance to your pages.

The following tips can help more of your pages be spidered and ranked highly by search engines.

�.                       Build a comprehensive site map. A site map is simply a page with links to all of the sites other pages. When a spider sees a site map, it follows all of the links and automatically finds all of your pages! For easy finding, you should make sure that the homepage links to the sitemap. Some engines won't spider a page that only contains links, so it's a good idea to give each page a short description. The web design course site map can be seen here:

�.                       Keep your site structure shallow.
Pages that are closer to root level often rank higher on search engines. Instead of building neatly organized folders that go many levels deep, consider keeping important pages at or close to root level.

�.                       Create HTML links. Many search engines dont follow image maps or some JavaScript links. That means that youll need html links somewhere on the page for the spider to follow. People often create a text nav bar at the bottom of the page. Make sure you dont try to hide the links or they may not be followed.

�.                       Create static pages for Dynamic sites. Some sites, like Amazon.com, automatically create pages as you look at them. Automatic (dynamic) page creation is advantageous in a very large site because it cuts down on storage and allows for customization of individual pages based on user data. The problem with dynamic pages is that search engines never see them! So, if your site is going to use dynamically created pages, you should either manually submit an exact url cut and pasted from your browsers address window, (http://www.coolsite.com/forum/index.php?msgid=43994) or you can create some normal pages that search engines (and search engine users) can find.

 

Link Popularity

 

Link popularity is defined as the number of links pointing to a site. A link to your site is seen as a recommendation, and every major engine uses link popularity and link analysis to help determine rank. Link analysis is a little different than link popularity, in that all links are not created equal. Most engines use link analysis to determine how much credit is given for each link. Therefore, while it is important to have many links pointing to your site, it is more important to have "Quality Links".

It is usually best to pursue link popularity after youve finished in-page optimization.

1. What Makes up a Quality Link?
1. Links from sites with topics related to your site are best.
2. Links from more important sites are better. Highly ranked sites that link to your site give a bigger boost than links from lower ranked sites. Links from reviewed sites like Yahoo, The Open Directory Project, and some award sites are given very high weight.
3. You can determine a sites importance by downloading and using the Google Toolbar from http://toolbar.google.com/
4. Link Wording is important. If you can, you should try to make sure that your inbound links say something like web design course instead of http://www.AWDsf.com. (that's why you'll see it all over the site) If you can fit your main keyword in the link, all the better.
5. The paragraph surrounding the link also matters. A link incased in a paragraph about "web design course" is more likely to be seen as a stronger web design course recommendation. A link inside a paragraph holds more weight than a link on its own.
   
   
2. How Do I Get Quality Links?

1.      Find worthwhile sites to approach. Search for your subject matter and all related subject matter on the web. The sites with the highest ranking on the Google Toolbar http://toolbar.google.com/ are the best.

2.      Find the best place on their site for the link. Anything you can do to make it easy for them to link to you increases your chances. Write out the HTML for your link and send it to them with your request.
Keep in mind that the closer you get to the root page, the more likely spiders will find your link.

1.      Youll also get a higher link rating if the page has a small number of outside links. Getting a link on a "links" page is easier, but not always the most advantageous.

3.      Submit to the right person. Editorial staff and site owners are more likely to list you than the sales staff. Personalize your email and say something about their site proving youve been there. Call them personally if you can.

4.      Link to them first. People are more inclined to link to you if you link to them, especially if youre already linked to them. Guilt rules.

5.      Make sure all of your inbound links point to the same page. Youre not building link popularity for your site, but for individual pages. Obviously, the homepage is your best choice.

The following is a good example of a link offer/request.

 

Link spam will get you banned from search engines just as fast as any other kind!

�.                     Avoid Link Farms. A link farm is a site that exists solely for the purpose of trading links and boosting popularity. Engines are on to this trick, and will actually lower your rating.

�.                       Dont bother with link popularity programs. They mostly build pages that are seen as Spam

�.                       Invisible Links. Trying to hide links on your page will usually not help anyone.

Spamming

 

Spamming is trying to fool a search engine into giving you a better ranking than your page deserves. It is defined more by intent than action. The search engines all have super smart people working all day to try to figure out how to make their engine differentiate real pages from spammy ones. Spamming can get your ranking devaluated and in some cases, banned from search engines altogether.

 

The following methods can all be considered Spam.

�.                       Keyword Spam. "web design web design web design web design web design web design" is overdoing it, folks.

�.                       Invisible Text is usually considered spam. Dont match any text with the same color as your Body BGCOLOR tag, even if that text is visible because of the background of the TD its in.

�.                       A large amount of sub-default size text can keep you from a good listing. Size 2 text often looks better, but will sometimes hurt you

�.                       Meta-Refresh or JavaScript Redirect tags are often seen by search engines as a method to divert users to a different page than is listed for the search engines.

�.                       Duplicate pages or pages that are very similar are usually seen as spam. If duplicate pages are being used for legitimate reasons, use the <meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow"> tag to keep search engines from recording the duplicate page.

�.                       Page Cloaking detects what IP address is requesting your HTML, and then serves a search-engine specific page if it detects a spider. Normal users are served the regular HTML. While often effective, page cloaking is regarded as spam by many search engines.

 

If you think you might have been penalized for spamming, contact the search engine and let them know that your site is no longer showing up. They may help you correct the problem or give you a second chance.

 

Submitting to Engines and Paid Listings |