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Understanding Search Engines Understanding the Google Search Engine - Googlebot
| Understanding the Google Search Engine - Googlebot |
| Technology |
|
Before you submit your website URL address to Google, invest the time it takes to read the information on Google’s website regarding their best practices. Make sure you haven’t inadvertently violated any of the rules that Google wants us to play by. As you know if you’ve been in business for any length of time, it really pays to have a completely ethical approach toward dealing with your customers. Business on the Internet is no exception – Google may blacklist your site from their search engine if you attempt what they consider underhanded tactics. Google may not notice immediately, but it’s likely that they eventually will, or one of your competitors will report you. In any case, being banned from Google will take you out of more than sixty percent of the search market; definitely not something you want to have happen! Here are some of the big no–no’s that, when discovered, will get you banned from Google according to their quality guidelines:Deceptive Search Engine PracticesLink schemes – this doesn’t mean that a link from one relevant legitimate business to another is frowned on, in fact it’s something you should strive to create – but do stay out of what Google refers to as “bad neighborhoods” run by spammers and their ilk. These pages are fairly easy to recognize. If your link makes sense from a legitimate business perspective, it’s not going to be a problem. In fact it should help boost your search ranking. Don't trade links with so called “link farms” that exist solely for the purpose of boosting search rankings. Use good common sense here and you shouldn’t have any issues. Seek out legitimate websites that have content that would be complimentary to the content on your site, and your ranking should improve as a result. If you find a quality website that you believe compliments yours, place a link to that site from one of your web pages, then contact the prospective site's owner (or webmaster). Explain that you feel their site compliments yours, and that you have placed a link to them on your website. Point out that your site also offers complimentary content and suggest that they link to your site as well. Of course there is no guarantee that they will comply, but chances are good if your site really does compliment theirs that they will. Designing your site strictly for the search engines – not your prospective customers or visitors. If a visitor to your website lands on your site using key words that match their interest, then they should expect to find useful content on your site that pertains to that interest. If the page is full of hidden text and multiple key words with no useful purpose, then it's likely that you are eventually going to have a problem. The internet is full of people trying to make a “quick buck”. Don’t be one of them and your business should be more likely to flourish in the long run.Creating multiple pages with essentially duplicate content. This is where someone loads their site with a lot of repetitious material just to increase page count - in the hopes of casting a larger net and thereby increase their page ranking in a search engine’s results. See the quality guidelines on Google's Webmaster page for a complete list and review your site for adherence to Google’s recommendations before you submit your site’s URL to Google for inclusion. Google wants to see real pages with real useful content that matches relevant key words. Sites that meet this criteria will likely end up scoring high on Google’s search results for those key words. Other Tips:Creating sites that are designed strictly as frames for advertisements, links, and referrals; and that otherwise offer no useful content should by all means be avoided. Include a sitemap on your website that links to the rest of the major pages of your site – this insures that Google’s search robot (Googlebot) indexes your entire site. An alternative is to create an XML sitemap and send it to Google. This will essentially accomplish the same thing. Play it safe and do both. Make your site as transparent as possible to Googlebot when it comes to crawl your website. Pay particular attention to the TITLE page and Meta tag description – make sure they accurately define the content of the page, and that the content of the page delivers what a visitor would expect given the title and description. |