Posts Tagged ‘web optimization’

Site optimization for AOL Search

Monday, December 7th, 2009

AOL searchAOL search is one of the few dominant search engines on the Internet. Founded in 1995 by the infamous America Online company, it is certainly one of the best search engines on the net. Currently, the search engine is being backed by Google. So, ranking well in Google will definitely make the site rank well in AOL Search as well.

As usual, content plays a large role in getting good ranking for any website. So be sure to use contents that are unique and not duplicates. A good way of finding out whether the contents are unique or not, users may use services provided by CopyScape. They offer services to protect contents as well as finding duplicates.

In addition to that, there are also on-site optimizations that need to be done so that a site would rank well in search engines. Some examples (but not limited to) are Meta-tags, proper usage of h1 tags as well as keyword densities. Be sure not to over use these features so that the search engine will be in favor of these sites.

An example of an off-site optimization is getting quality back links to the site. There are numerous ways of getting this done. This involves using anchor texts which includes the link of the website intended. Anchor links can be placed in comments whenever somebody wants to post a talkback in a blog or in signatures in forums. Lately, YouTube allows users to add links to their videos. So, webmasters may want to utilize this feature as well.

Search engine optimization involves a lot of work and most of the time, this does pay off. However, this may take a little longer for new sites as they are often given less priority as compared with aged websites. All in all, make sure that the site is optimized both on and off site so that it will give the maximum results.

AltaVista and SEO

Monday, December 7th, 2009

AltaVistaAltaVista was one of the most popular search engines on the Internet. Created in 1995, it was highly successful before it started losing its dominance in the search engine market to archival Google. Since its creation, it has been changing owners for quite a few times before being taken over by Overture in 2003. 4 months after the acquisition, Overture was taken over by Yahoo causing AltaVista to change owners once again.

In 2004, Yahoo released a statement saying that search results given by AltaVista will be from Yahoo search results itself. This gives web owners and site optimizers a bigger room to breathe as they when they optimize their sites for Yahoo, they will subconsciously optimize their sites for AltaVista as well.

As usual, on-site optimization is really important in order to get good rankings in any search engines and AltaVista is no different as well. Make sure that the Meta tags are in order and that there are no dead links on any pages as well. Optimize the site so that it would be easy for search engine crawlers to browse through the site.

Experts said that it is best for a website to comply with the W3C standards. For Google and some other search engine, this may not mean much but for AltaVista, this may make a significant increase in the ranking.

If there are on-site optimizations, there must be off-site optimizations as well. An example of one is back link creation. Back links are very important to rank well in any search engine. It is best to get links from relevant websites as it gives the highest weight.
Domain age plays some importance as well. Experts recommend getting a used domain rather than buying a new one as the aged domain is probably out of the ‘sandbox’ of most search engines.

Search engine optimization may take a lot of work. However, patience does pay off. Therefore, it is best to build these links over a long period of time.

How To Get Good Position in Bing.com

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

Bing.com-seoBing.com is the newest search engine in the market that is expected to change the phase of search engine optimization. It is Microsoft’s response to user-friendly search platforms. The advantage of this platform is that there is no need to submit your website to the search engine or obtain links from different sources just to get an index on the search engines.

Bing.com was previously known as MSN Live. However, it was not able to achieve the desired traffic from its developers. Since it came out of the market, the search engine has grained ground in terms of its popularity. This can be attributed to the fact that it has gained so much publicity during its launch. Now, it is being pitted as a serious contender to Google.

If you are involved in online marketing, the first thing to ask is how you can achieve a good position on the results page of Bing.com. Here is a simple guide on how you can get good rankings in the search engine.

First of all, to get your website to the top of the search results, utilize a title that is connected with your chosen niche. Likewise, you need to establish a link. Most marketers do not prefer linking out because they are worried that doing so would lower their ranking, particularly with Google.

Another key to getting good ranking in Bing is to place more text. In majority of the search engines, the length of the text on the page is immaterial and not a huge factor. In contrast, Bing prefers pages with a minimum of 350 words text.
The new search engine is seemingly concerned with the age of registration of a domain. Thus, the key to improved positioning in Bing is to consider buying older domain names. Aside from that, you need to utilize well-created HTML codes in your website. Make sure that you close all paired tags and ensure that the links will direct users to the right WebPage.

A website that contains a broken link may not be successfully crawled by MSNBot. To determine broken links on your WebPages, check out the Webmaster Center’s Crawl Issues Tool. A moved page should include a set-up of the original URL so visitors will be able to access the new site. Just make sure that you indicate whether the re-direct is permanent or temporary.

It is important that MSNBot should be able to crawl your pages. Aside from that, you need to make sure that it is not among those web crawlers that you prohibited from doing a site indexing. Check out the Control Tab to determine which sites are indexed.
In order to regular the manner MSNBot and other crawlers would index your pages, utilize Robots.txt file. This will help prevent crawling of specific files or folders. As much as possible, maintain static and simple URLs. Placing complicate or frequently changing URLs would be difficult to index as link destinations. Not only that, a static URL can be easily remembered and bookmarked. As a result, your WebPage will appear more like a link destination from other sites.

Do watch out for malicious software. Webpage links on your site that directs your visitors to Malware on third party websites or involves malicious content or harmful JavaScript or Active X control, will most likely be disabled and interpreted by Bing results pages as Malware.
The most important way to increase your position in Bing.com is to make more links to your site ensuring not only their quantity but also their quality. Finally, the contents of your website should match with your chosen keywords.