FAQ

Why does Google hate my site?

My site is showing up for my major keyword phrases in Yahoo and MSN but I'm nowhere to be found in Google. Why does Google hate me? (Or alternatively, my site was doing well on Google but its rankings have suddenly plummeted. Am I penalized?)

If you're going to be in the SEO biz, or even if you're just trying to get your own personal business site more exposure in the search engines, you need to realize that rankings (and the traffic they may bring) are not static. You may get comfortable seeing your site rank highly for your most coveted keyword phrases, but don't ever assume it will remain there forever.

Sites do not get penalized or banned unless something has been done which deceives the search engines. Deception generally comes in the form of hiding stuff or trying to artificially inflate link popularity. If you're not playing games with the engines, then you don't ever have to worry about penalties. If your site is suddenly gone, it's most likely because of a major algorithm shift. The search engines are constantly tweaking their algorithms, and new sites are always being created, so ranking fluctuations are part of the normal course of business.

Because of this, it is crucial to optimize your site for lots and lots of related phrases. This will ensure that when some phrases go AWOL, the others will perform well for you. I can't stress enough how important this strategy is to your SEO campaign, as well as your piece of mind. Never be married to any 1 or 2 specific phrases. Yes, it's cool to rank highly for the most coveted ones, but if they're that important to you, then you should purchase PPC ads that are triggered by them.

The best advice I can give you is to change your mindset from "rankings" to "targeted traffic and conversions." I know I sound like a broken record with this, and it may even seem like a convenient excuse; however, if you don't want to make yourself crazy, it's best to ignore rankings, and instead work hard at making your site better and better. While your various keyword phrases are on an emotional roller coaster at Google, you won't even notice a blip in your traffic or sales if you've got all your bases covered. It may be clich, but it really does work and it does pay off in the long run.

Should I bold and/or italicize my keyword phrases in my copy?

I heard from the dogcatcher that I need to place my keyword phrases in: [bold] [italics] [H1s] [alt tags] [Meta tags] [anchor text] [Title tags] [body text] [the first few words on my site] [the first paragraph of my site] [the last paragraph of my site] [my cousin Vinnie's site]. Is this true?

The most important places to utilize your researched keyword phrases (anywhere from 3-5 of these per page) are 1) your Title tags, 2) in the visible copy that people read, and 3) in onsite and offsite links (aka the "anchor text").

Whether they're in the first paragraph, first words, last words, or whatever really doesn't make all that much difference. I've long ago stopped worrying about specific places and coding and simply use them where they make sense from a reader's perspective. I would definitely avoid using them in "ALL the right places" such as listed in the question above, however. This is because if you pull all the tricks out of your SEO bag, your page will simply reek of SEO.

If it makes sense to have a headline that uses a keyword phrase, then go for it, but don't feel that you have to create headlines where none were needed. If it makes sense to describe a graphic with a keyword phrase, then you shouldn't hesitate to do it. The important thing is not to do anything just because you think you have to in order for the search engines to like you. There are very, very few "have to's" when it comes to SEO. This is because SEO is an art, not a science.

Why do many top-listed pages have no content?

If you're so smart and keep telling everyone that content is king, then how come the top pages for the keyword [insert any word here] don't have lots of visible content?

I do believe that content is king, because that's what the people who visit your site are looking for. However, content doesn't necessarily mean 250 words (or whatever) of text. Content means different things for different sites. Content can simply be your product offerings. For instance, sites from well-known brands very often have no visible copy on their home pages, but still rank highly for some very general keywords. This is often due to their strong brand, which brings in tons and tons of natural links to the site.

Natural links are those that people add to their own websites just because they found them relevant to whatever point they were trying to make. Bloggers do this often, and so do people on forum threads. Let's face it; well-known brands are talked about a lot, both in real life, and online. It makes perfect sense that if you're searching for something general like "pizza" that Pizza Hut and Domino's will show up at the top of the results. It's not necessary for them to say all over their site that they are all about pizza because that's a given.

For those of you who don't have a big brand, you can certainly create a home page that doesn't describe what you offer in clear words, but you'd better be prepared to put all your faith in a link-building campaign.

Always remember that there are tons of ways to obtain targeted search engine traffic, and the methods I espouse are just one way. They happen to work for my clients and me, and I like them because they focus on making the site better overall. However, every site is unique and you have to decide what the best overall strategy is for YOUR site. There's no sense in compromising your message for search engine rankings, as you'll be less apt to convert your visitors into taking your desired action. On the other hand, if you have no visitors, it really doesn't matter what your message is, now does it!

Can search engines index dynamic sites with ? and = (query strings) in the URL?

I have a dynamically generated site which places question marks and equal signs in the URL. My mother's hairdresser told me that I need to create static HTML pages in order to show up in the search engines. What do you think?

For the most part, the search engines no longer choke on query strings (those question marks and equal signs) in URLs. Just try to make sure that your content management system (CMS) doesn't put more than 3 parameters in, and you should most likely be okay. Whenever I'm asked this question, I check the person's site in Google and Yahoo -- and 99% of the time just about all of their pages are indexed already. In those cases, there are not any technical issues; they simply have to do a better job of optimizing their pages for their appropriate keyword phrases.

The most important thing to do with a dynamic site is to create links to the important, optimized pages of the site. Sometimes the only way to find certain information on one of these sites is to fill out a form which then conducts a search of the site. A page that has what you're looking for is then created for you and displayed in your browser. Unfortunately, that type of page will not be accessible by the search engines because it doesn't actually exist on the server. If there are specific pages that are created through specific search criteria that many people would be looking for on your site, those are the ones you should create links to in your site navigation and your site map.

You'll also want to make sure that your CMS is capable of generating unique Title tags for every page of the site. If not, you'll have to fix this in the system because this is actually one of those things that will be critical to your search engine success.

Please read my interview with Alan Perkins for more info on the ins and outs of creating a crawler-friendly dynamic site.

Can I change the font size of my header tags (H1, H2) without getting into trouble?

I want to put keywords in header tags such as H1 and H2 because my mail carrier told me that this would give me High Rankings in the search engines. Will I be penalized if I use style sheets to keep the font down to a reasonable size?

As mentioned in a previous answer (Where Do I Place Keywords?), it may not actually even be necessary for you to put keyword phrases into header tags. That said, we've definitely found that the use of headlines and subheadlines in your copy really helps people get the gist of your site very easily. Therefore, if you can work them into your content, also using H1 and H2 tags as specified by the W3C, is certainly a good idea. If it makes sense to also use keyword phrases within some of these headlines, then that's all the better! (If they don't make sense, then it's no big deal. Really!)

Adjusting the size of your headlines to fit with the overall look and feel of your site through cascading style sheets (CSS) is absolutely, positively fine. The search engines aren't out to force you to use a huge font size just because that's the H1 default size. Don't worry another second about that one.

If I submitted my site and it's not showing up, does this mean it's been banned?

I submitted my site [manually] [automatically] [last week] [last month] [3 days ago] and it's not showing up in any of the search engines. Have I been penalized/banned?

If the site you submitted doesn't have any deceptive qualities, then no, you're not banned or penalized. However, all the submissions in the world won't get your site listed or bring search engine traffic if there aren't links pointing to it from other sites -- and if it's not optimized for specific keyword phrases. As I've mentioned elsewhere submitting to search engines is not necessary nor even helpful. The search engines automatically find new pages on their own.

As with everything SEO related, the keys here are patience and time. If you don't have both of those, you might as well get out of the SEO game right now and simply buy your way into the search engines through PPC ads.

How can I automate the link building process?

Link building is hard and I don't like it. I send out tons of emails requesting reciprocal links, but barely get any responses. How can I automate the process?

You can create something so great and wonderfully unique that people naturally link to it. This won't happen overnight, and of course there will be lots of hard work to get to that point and to keep it up, but at least you won't have to worry about link building. (See my site for an example of this at work. I've never once asked for a link, nor do I ever plan to.)

I would highly suggest some means of constantly adding information to your site, such as through a weekly or monthly newsletter, a frequently updated blog, or articles that relate to the products/services you provide. Because even if you do have a completely unique and great site, you still need a means of letting others know this.

Should I buy numerous keyword rich domains?

The guy who fixed my roof told me to purchase a minimum of 10 keyword-rich domains for various aspects of my business. What's the best use of these for search engine optimization purposes?

Unfortunately, there's no good use for those when it comes to the search engines. If you try to gain an unfair advantage in the engines by blanketing them with lots of different sites, you will then be into that "deceptive" territory I'm always talking about.

In my opinion, your best bet is to simply park them all at one domain, and then forward the whole lot via a permanent 301-redirect to your main site, while telling your roofer to stick to roofing. ;-) (See "How To Redirect Multiple Parked Domains.")

The only other viable option for the domains would be to truly build completely different sites at some of the domains. There's nothing wrong with having a few sites, but they really should each provide different info in order for them to be effective. Just remember that keeping and maintaining many sites is a lot more work than just having one site that is the best it can be!

What should I do about competitors who spam the search engines?

My competitors are spamming the engines with multiple sites for the same company. [Can I have them killed? ;-) ] What can I do about this?

You can try reporting them to the search engines either via their spam report email address, or through the "dissatisfied with these results" link that most engines have on their results pages. If you decide to do this (and I generally don't bother) be sure not to complain that "it's not fair," and that your site is better or that you're losing money, etc. Simply mention that the search results for the particular search query you tried is bringing up multiple domains for essentially the same product, service or company, and that you thought that the engine might want to know about this.

The results may or may not change over time, but at least you can feel good that you tried to help them to improve the quality of their results. They really do want that info, but it's unclear as to whether they will agree with you and also act upon your report.

(For the record, I don't recommend having the competitor killed!)

Do I need to make sure my files are not buried deeply in multiple directories on my server?

I read an article from 1997 that said all my files should be in the "root" directory on my server so that they are not buried deep within the site. Is this still true?

It actually was never true, although I may have been one of those spreading that myth back then! This is one of those things that many people confuse because it's sort of half true.

It doesn't actually matter where a page physically resides on your server, but it does matter how difficult it is for a search engine to find it. So when we talk about not "burying" pages on your site, we don't mean that you shouldn't have it 10 directories/folders deep on the server; we simply mean that it shouldn't be 10 clicks away from the home page. The fewer clicks it takes to get to any given page, the more important a search engine (and your user) will deem it to be. And of course, the more important they deem it to be, the more apt they are to find and index it.

Beyond just having a link to it from the home page, pages that are in the main navigation will be naturally given more weight by the engines, as you are essentially telling them that those pages are the most important in the site.

Should I create a blog for SEO purposes?

This parrot that I talk to in the pet store told me that I should create a blog for search engine optimization purposes. Can you speak to this?

Blogs have no special powers of high rankings. What they do have (if done correctly) is fresh, unique content. Search engines do tend to like that, regardless of the format. If they know any given site is adding new articles on a frequent basis, they will come around often to index it. Blogs are certainly one way of easily adding new information to your site. Newsletters archived on your site can provide a similar benefit, as can archived press releases, or a popular forum.

The "pinging" done by most blog software these days also seems to help get blog posts spidered and indexed very quickly, which is a plus. In addition, blog posts will also show up in blog searches such as Google's Blog search, and Technorati Blog searches.

Can SEO companies really have special relationships with the search engines like some of them claim?

A company called me while I was cooking dinner and said they have a special relationship with the search engines, and they will place my site in the first position at all of them for X amount of money. I couldn't talk to them because my dinner was burning, but I'm curious as to how they can do this and whether it's something I should learn more about.

Most likely this company is simply buying the sponsored PPC ad spots and will then resell them to you with a high markup. Nobody has a "special relationship" with Google, and you can't buy your way to the top of the natural results. I would suggest politely hanging up on any telemarketer that tries to tell you otherwise.

How can I find out how much traffic my competitor's site receives?

Our minister told me that I can find out how much traffic my competitors get. Do you know how to do this?

It's impossible to find out exactly how much traffic your competitors get unless they somehow have their log file statistics out in the open. Sites such as Alexa.com can give you some comparative data, but they will never give you the exact amount of traffic that your competitors receive. The only sites you can get that info from are those to which you have log file access, or those on which you have installed some tracking code. Nobody can just install this sort of thing on their competitors' sites, as they'd need server access to do so.

That said, there are some tools that can provide you with some competitive analysis such as Comscore, KeywordDiscovery competitive Intelligence, and Hitwise.

Should I optimize for the plural or singular form of my keyword phrases?

Both the plural and singular form of my keyword phrase are searched upon often according to Wordtracker. Which one should I choose?

Both. Keyword phrases such as the singular and plural forms of your words, which are related, are extremely simple to use within the visible copy on your pages. When we naturally write or speak, we use both plural and singular forms of words, so why restrict yourself to one or the other?

Never optimize a page or a site for just one keyword phrase. That is the equivalent of SEO suicide in my opinion. Every site has hundreds if not thousands of phrases that someone might use to find it. Figure out what they are, and then use them to your advantage to bring highly targeted visitors to your site.

If I have an all graphical page, where can I place keyword phrases for the search engines?

My boss has a gigantic head and has spent $50,000 for an all-graphical home page. Will it help if we place keyword phrases in [alt tags] [comments tags] [a hidden layer] [text the same color as the background at the bottom of the page]?

I'm afraid that using keyword phrases in any of those places won't help get your home page found in the search engines. Alt attributes (alt tags) are ignored on images that are not clickable, so those won't help. Comment tags have nothing to do with search engine optimization, and are not indexed by the spiders, so don't bother with those either.

Hidden layers may actually help, but would most likely be considered spam by the search engines unless the content in them is exactly the same as on the graphical images on the site. If you simply hide keyword phrases in a hidden layer, be sure to look over your shoulder constantly, because your paranoia about one day getting penalized isn't all that paranoid; it could very well happen! If you like to sleep at night, this may not be the best route for you to take.

Your alternatives are to simply use the power of your Title tag and the power of the links pointing to your home page. You could also concentrate more on the inner pages (assuming they are not all graphical) and optimize them for the keyword phrases that are important to you.

Don't forget that you can always just use PPC ads and not worry about the organic/natural results. That is a very real option these days, and for those not willing to compromise a wee bit to gain natural rankings, it's probably the best one.

Will switching server hosts affect my search engine rankings?

I get no respect from my current Web host so I'm switching providers. Will this affect my search engine rankings?

No, it won't affect your rankings, but it wouldn't hurt to leave your site up on the old host for about a month to ensure that the DNS propagates across the Web and that the search spiders are indexing the pages at the new host. Once you see the spiders in your log files at the new host, it should be safe to take down the site at the old server.

How do I get my files indexed by the search engines after a redesign where file names have changed?

I've finally redesigned my circa-1997 Web site, and all the file names have changed. What should I do to ensure that the search engines index my new pages?

You should redirect all the old URLs to the new ones, via a 301-permanent redirect. If you're on an apache server, this can be done via the .htaccess file. There's more information in our 301-redirect forum.

You may also want to submit a sitemap to Google with the new URLs. Or, you could try Greg Boser's method of redirecting the old files to the new ones via a 301, and then actually submitting a sitemap to Google with the old URLs. This apparently causes Google to try to reindex them, and the 301 immediately tells them their new location.

Should I add a robots follow meta tag to my pages?

My chiropractor said that I should add a "robots follow" tag on all the pages of our site in order for it to be spidered deeply by the search engines. She also said that I should put the "revisit after" tag on as well, to let the bots know how often they should stop by. What do you think?

The default for all search engine spiders is to automatically follow the links that it finds on any given page, which makes any "robots follow" tag redundant. If you *don't* want the search engine spider to follow the links, you can try the "no follow" tag, but it may or may not be obeyed by all robots.

The "revisit after" tag is not necessary, nor is it helpful. The search engine spiders work on their own timetable, and couldn't care less what your revisit tag says. I've heard that the tag was actually created for one specific search engine a long time ago, but I've never bothered to confirm it. At any rate, there's no need to clutter up your code with it as today's engines ignore it.

How can we minimize traffic loss after a domain name change?

We are changing the name of our company and therefore must change our domain name to reflect our new brand. Our Website has been around for many years and has hundreds of links pointing to it. How can we minimize any loss of traffic or search engine rankings once we go live with the new domain?

Normally, this would not be a major problem with the search engines as you could simply park the new domain name at the same DNS and people could use either domain to get to your Website. However, there are some issues that you may want to try to avoid or minimize.

For instance, if you simply park your new domain, there's really no way to tell the search engines to start using that one instead of the old one. Most likely, the engines will simply keep indexing the old domain. That's not a problem in and of itself as people will still end up where you want them to be, but it can be a branding nightmare.

Eventually if you get more links pointing to the new domain than the old, your new one may start to be preferred by the engines, but this could take years, and it's not a given that it will actually work that way. You could also send emails to all your old linking partners requesting that they point their links to your new domain, but that could be a ton of work, and most likely only a certain percentage of them will bother to do it. Even trying to get a large directory such as Yahoo or DMOZ to change the URLs can be "iffy" at best.

Because of these minor headaches, I'd suggest that you set up a permanent 301-redirect at the server level from the old domain to the new. This is the preferred method of search engines, and it directly tells them (through the http headers) that the old domain has permanently moved to the new one. On Apache servers, these 301s can be easily set up through an .htaccess file. On Windows servers, it may be slightly more complicated, but your server/host should be able to help you do this correctly.

Be aware, however, that it most likely will take a good 2 or 3 months for the search engines to fully understand that all your files have moved. For a while you may find the old domain is still indexed, or some of both domains, or even neither of them. Don't panic when this happens. Just ride it out, and eventually all will be well. Google is especially good at understanding what to do with the 301s. Yahoo has traditionally been slower to come around, but may be doing a better job with it these days.

You might also want to read up on Google's Aging Delay as that can also put a crimp in thing.