October 5, 2009
Why You Shouldn't Link to Other Websites from your Home Page
Google started dropping PR (Page Rank) on some link pages and all directories across the Internet over a year ago unless they put nofollow on outgoing links, and that defeats the purpose of gathering links for those trying to increase PR. So if you post links to other sites on your home page (especially if Google decides they look like paid links) Google may drop the rank of your home page and your home page affects the rank of your whole website so you need to consider this carefully.
Some claim that outgoing links from the home page drops your home page PR and others dispute this issue so until this is settled I wouldn't advise linking out to anything but trusted sites from the home page.
Also, having links to other sites can also cause your site to be penalized if the other websites are bought out by bad neighborhoods or if they link to bad neighborhoods or add content that is considered bad neighborhood topics. You can use this tool to check websites for bad neighborhoods and do it every month or so.
So you should never link out to another website from your home page unless you really trust the website you are linking to.
Lori Eldridge
Copyright © 10-5-09
All Rights Reserved
October 1, 2009
Beware of Free Web Pages
I just ran across a website offering to set up free web pages for people. It looks like a legit web site however they don't link to the sites they do this for (except on their link page). So what they are actually doing is using other people's data to fill up their own website and they are not helping those they are giving this free service to.
If you sign up for this "free" service people would have no where to go to contact you or buy your products unless they find the link to the link page at the bottom to "your" page. Also if you already have a website or set one up later you need to make sure you don't use the same content or it will cause your site a penalty for duplicate content.
That old adage applies to this scam: "You get what you pay for".
Lori Eldridge
Copyright © 10-1-09
All Rights Reserved
August 26, 2009
What is Too Fast for Gathering Links for a Website?
The "too fast" would be anything beyond normal for your website. If your site is new and isn't getting much traffic start out slow and then slowly increase it. If it's very poplular you can add a lot more links.
What you want to do is for it to appear this is normal linking to Google or it will know you are adding the links yourself and possibly filter your site out of results. So, don't over do any linking activity. Links from blogs and social networking sites don't count as much as they used to.
Also, a mixture of trades, one-way links and buying quality links is best, and by quality use only the most respected directories that charge a fee for review and don't let just everyone in, like Yahoo directory, BOTW.org, and similar ones. If they say the link is to help you gain PageRank run like the wind as Google has likely alaready penalized them or will soon.
The best way to gain links is to provide information that people will freely link to. Google ranks information pages above commercial pages which is another reason to build up your website. Also every page on your website pointing back to your home page counts as another link for your site.
It takes about a year for a new site to take off so don't expect to rank too fast.
Lori Eldridge
Copyright © 8-26-09
All Rights Reserved
August 21, 2009
PR Dropped in the Last Update
If your PR (Page Rank) dropped in a recent Google update and your black hat competitor's PR didn't drop that doesn't mean that Google is rewarding those that use underhanded tricks to gain PR.
Because there are so many more websites on the Internet now Google has been dropping PR on all websites for the last year so it's not just your website.
It is theorized that PR is calculated logarithmically, or in 10 point increments, i.e., a PR of 4 could be anywhere between 4.9 and 4.0. So, if Google drops PR by 1/2 PR across the board and your site was actually 4.4 it would have dropped to 3.9 and show up as 3 in the Google Toolbar. If your competitor's PR was 4.5 it would still be PR 4 but actually be 4.0.
PR doesn't have that much of an effect on keyword rank any more anyway. Check your keyword rank and you'll probably see it hasn't changed unless other factors were in play at the same time.
The main benefit of a higher PR at this time (besides bragging rights) is it provides a higher indexing rate than someone with a lower PR.
Another site explaining how PR works is Page Rank Explained
Lori Eldridge
Copyright © 8-21-09
All Rights Reserved
July 28, 2009
US Commerce Association - FRAUD
I received a notice by email that Lori's Web Design had been selected to receive the 2009 Best of Spokane Award for Computer Systems Analysis & Design.
I was immediately suspicious because:
1. I do not Analyze Computer Systems. I analyze websites for flaws in design that affect ranking.
2. US Commerce is not the same as the US Chamber of Commerce
Before I clicked on the link in the email I searched for the domain in Google to make sure this site didn't have malware that could harm my computer.
Then I searched for "US Commerce Association-fraud" in Google and found an article explaining this is a fraud on the BBB Better Business Bureau in Virginia (their business is located in Washington DC).
It turns out they sell plaques that you can hang on your wall ("only" costs you $179).
Any time you have to pay for an award it's likely a fraud.
Lori Eldridge
Copyright © 7-28-09
All Rights Reserved
June 13, 2009
How to Protect your Website from Scrapers.
There are many unscrupulous people in the Internet that are too lazy to write their own content so they just go search for a topic they want and copy and paste it into their web pages.
Following are a few tricks you can use to protect your content:
Pop out of Frames Tag. This allows your page to pop out of a frame is someone copies your page and puts it into a frame.
Full URLS. If someone copies your page and forgets to change the URLs to their own site then the links to your own page will still work.
Base HREF Tag. This tells the browser that all relative links (those without the domain included) originate from that domain. So if the scraper copies the base href tag then the search engines will also figure out that this article was copied from somewhere else.
Add links to your own website within the content. Scrapers are so lazy they often forget to take out URLs.
Increase your Page Rank (PR). Search engines sometimes consider websites with higher PR than yours to be the original author of an article so it's very important that you get your PR as high as possible if you intend to write a lot of content for your website. This is why scrapers often prey on new websites with no PR.
Save the article as a Web Archive. Search engines keep a copy of everything on the Internet so if you write original content they "usually" know who put it on the internet first, but not always. To protect yourself always save your new pages as "web archive" in the "save as" feature on your browser. This will save images and text and also the code of the webpage which you can use if you ever need to prove who saved the article first. Of course the best means of proving who owns the page is to pay for copyrights of the article.
Add your site name within the text. Scrapers are often too lazy to carefully edit the text. This enables you to search for your site name along with the article title and find the scraped article.
Add a totally unique phrase to the page. This enables you to find your article if it does get copied by searching for that phrase in the search engines.
Sign up with Google Alerts using that unique phrase. Google will notify you when that text shows up on another website.
Add a watermark of your domain to your photos. This helps you to prove that the photo was stolen.
Contact the scraper or scraper's host. See this article on the steps to get your stolen content removed.
Copyright the article with the US Copyright Office. This isn't always cost effective if you write a lot of articles and especially if you update them frequently so the other means mentioned here might work to prove authorship.
Rewrite your article: If you don't want to bother with trying to get your article removed from the scraper's website just rewrite the original.
Lori Eldridge
Copyright © 6-13-09
All Rights Reserved
Following are a few tricks you can use to protect your content:
Pop out of Frames Tag. This allows your page to pop out of a frame is someone copies your page and puts it into a frame.
Full URLS. If someone copies your page and forgets to change the URLs to their own site then the links to your own page will still work.
Base HREF Tag. This tells the browser that all relative links (those without the domain included) originate from that domain. So if the scraper copies the base href tag then the search engines will also figure out that this article was copied from somewhere else.
Add links to your own website within the content. Scrapers are so lazy they often forget to take out URLs.
Increase your Page Rank (PR). Search engines sometimes consider websites with higher PR than yours to be the original author of an article so it's very important that you get your PR as high as possible if you intend to write a lot of content for your website. This is why scrapers often prey on new websites with no PR.
Save the article as a Web Archive. Search engines keep a copy of everything on the Internet so if you write original content they "usually" know who put it on the internet first, but not always. To protect yourself always save your new pages as "web archive" in the "save as" feature on your browser. This will save images and text and also the code of the webpage which you can use if you ever need to prove who saved the article first. Of course the best means of proving who owns the page is to pay for copyrights of the article.
Add your site name within the text. Scrapers are often too lazy to carefully edit the text. This enables you to search for your site name along with the article title and find the scraped article.
Add a totally unique phrase to the page. This enables you to find your article if it does get copied by searching for that phrase in the search engines.
Sign up with Google Alerts using that unique phrase. Google will notify you when that text shows up on another website.
Add a watermark of your domain to your photos. This helps you to prove that the photo was stolen.
Contact the scraper or scraper's host. See this article on the steps to get your stolen content removed.
Copyright the article with the US Copyright Office. This isn't always cost effective if you write a lot of articles and especially if you update them frequently so the other means mentioned here might work to prove authorship.
Rewrite your article: If you don't want to bother with trying to get your article removed from the scraper's website just rewrite the original.
Lori Eldridge
Copyright © 6-13-09
All Rights Reserved
June 12, 2009
When NOT to trade links
I just checked 6 reciprocal link requests and deleted them all for one or more of the reasons mentioned below.
Having outgoing links on a page can drain Page Rank (PR) from your page, and the less PR your pages have that are linking back to the home page the less PR the home page has and this affects the keyword rank of the whole website. So, a lot of site owners or webmasters try different ways to hide outgoing links from search engines such as the following:
1. Putting the outgoing links within a framed page so search engines can't see it
2. Putting no/index or no/follow on the meta tag at top of the page
3. Putting rel="nofollow" on the link to the page with outgoing links
4. Setting up the link as "hidden" in CSS
5. Use Javascript so it shows in status bar but search engines can't see it
Even if none of the above are in evidence it also helps to look at the home page for a link to the page your link will appear on. If they don't provide a link to that page from the home page it will likely never be seen by visitors and possibly not search engines either as it may be an orphan page (i.e., you can get to it via the link they send you but you can't get there via their home page).
If they stick the link on the bottom of their page instead of in a menu at the top, then it can be easily removed at a later date.
Some sites will accept links for awhile until they get enough content for their link pages and then they prevent those pages from being followed at a later date.
These tricks make it hardly worth your time to ever trade links.
Lori Eldridge
copyright © 6-12-09
All Rights Reserved.
Having outgoing links on a page can drain Page Rank (PR) from your page, and the less PR your pages have that are linking back to the home page the less PR the home page has and this affects the keyword rank of the whole website. So, a lot of site owners or webmasters try different ways to hide outgoing links from search engines such as the following:
1. Putting the outgoing links within a framed page so search engines can't see it
2. Putting no/index or no/follow on the meta tag at top of the page
3. Putting rel="nofollow" on the link to the page with outgoing links
4. Setting up the link as "hidden" in CSS
5. Use Javascript so it shows in status bar but search engines can't see it
Even if none of the above are in evidence it also helps to look at the home page for a link to the page your link will appear on. If they don't provide a link to that page from the home page it will likely never be seen by visitors and possibly not search engines either as it may be an orphan page (i.e., you can get to it via the link they send you but you can't get there via their home page).
If they stick the link on the bottom of their page instead of in a menu at the top, then it can be easily removed at a later date.
Some sites will accept links for awhile until they get enough content for their link pages and then they prevent those pages from being followed at a later date.
These tricks make it hardly worth your time to ever trade links.
Lori Eldridge
copyright © 6-12-09
All Rights Reserved.
May 31, 2009
Manual Submission to Free Directories
How do you tell if a directory is still accepting submissions?
Some directories have been online for years but are no longer accepting submissions. The only way to tell is to submit a quality site to the directory and see if it's accepted and unless they state what their review times is, the submission can take months to get accepted.
Where to find quality directories?
There are thousands of websites listing free directories but often they are part of their own network and Google often penalizes sites that only link within their own network , so it's not always evident at first glance which listing of directories contain quality sites.
I have found that the lists on Directory Critic to have a good chance of being quality sites because they allow users of their directory to provide their input on those directories and bad ones are eventually removed. They also list their directories via, paid, free, niche, deep link and article directories and you can sort the lists by name, PR, points and date submitted. The later may provide a list of new or very old directories depending on how you sort the results.
How long does it take to submit a site?
I have found that it usually takes about 15 minutes, IF you already have a good list of proven directories to work from and already have the listing data for the website that needs the links (title, description, URL, meta keywords, meta description and sometimes contact info for the owner of the site).
Some directories have a giant list of rules and others have no rules at all so some submissions take longer than others.
The first thing to check is to search for their domain name. If it doesn't come up #1 in Google it is likely penalized and not worth your time to submit there.
Some directories provide a large list of sites to submit to in the confirmation email (often their own network) so if they all look the same don't submit more than a few as Google may demote their value and it may ruin your trust rank for being involved in that network.
Some directories require longer titles and descriptions than normal with a minimum number of characters and you also have to read their submission guidelines, which takes extra time. Some have such annoying rules, and don't explain the errors that come up, that it isn't worth your time to submit to them (businessseek.biz).
Every directory tries to be unique in how they list their categories, to avoid duplicate content and copyright infringement, so it sometimes takes a while to find a proper category also.
Usually directories only allow you to submit the home page. They don't always state this but if you look at submissions that have been accepted you can usually determine if they allow deep links or not. They often also require the use of the official business or site name instead of your preferred title.
Some directories send you an email if your submission is accepted, but for those that don't you will have to check the directory category or use their search a few weeks or months after the submission, which means you'll have to keep good records of the category you submitted to and the title you used.
Sometimes they require you to confirm your email to make sure you're not a spammer.
Some directories go offline for one reason or another or free directories start charging a fee when they get enough submissions, then you have to update your directory list.
You also have to check back a few weeks or months after the submission to see which directories accepted the submission.
Allllll of the above takes time but it usually results in more quality links being accepted than if you used a (spammy) automatic submission service and get spammy links in return.
I have also written an article on what types of directories to avoid showing you how to spot sites putting links in frames, using nofollow on their links, listings hidden or disallowed from search engines, etc.
Lori Eldridge
Copyright © 5-31-09
All Rights Reserved.
Some directories have been online for years but are no longer accepting submissions. The only way to tell is to submit a quality site to the directory and see if it's accepted and unless they state what their review times is, the submission can take months to get accepted.
Where to find quality directories?
There are thousands of websites listing free directories but often they are part of their own network and Google often penalizes sites that only link within their own network , so it's not always evident at first glance which listing of directories contain quality sites.
I have found that the lists on Directory Critic to have a good chance of being quality sites because they allow users of their directory to provide their input on those directories and bad ones are eventually removed. They also list their directories via, paid, free, niche, deep link and article directories and you can sort the lists by name, PR, points and date submitted. The later may provide a list of new or very old directories depending on how you sort the results.
How long does it take to submit a site?
I have found that it usually takes about 15 minutes, IF you already have a good list of proven directories to work from and already have the listing data for the website that needs the links (title, description, URL, meta keywords, meta description and sometimes contact info for the owner of the site).
Some directories have a giant list of rules and others have no rules at all so some submissions take longer than others.
The first thing to check is to search for their domain name. If it doesn't come up #1 in Google it is likely penalized and not worth your time to submit there.
Some directories provide a large list of sites to submit to in the confirmation email (often their own network) so if they all look the same don't submit more than a few as Google may demote their value and it may ruin your trust rank for being involved in that network.
Some directories require longer titles and descriptions than normal with a minimum number of characters and you also have to read their submission guidelines, which takes extra time. Some have such annoying rules, and don't explain the errors that come up, that it isn't worth your time to submit to them (businessseek.biz).
Every directory tries to be unique in how they list their categories, to avoid duplicate content and copyright infringement, so it sometimes takes a while to find a proper category also.
Usually directories only allow you to submit the home page. They don't always state this but if you look at submissions that have been accepted you can usually determine if they allow deep links or not. They often also require the use of the official business or site name instead of your preferred title.
Some directories send you an email if your submission is accepted, but for those that don't you will have to check the directory category or use their search a few weeks or months after the submission, which means you'll have to keep good records of the category you submitted to and the title you used.
Sometimes they require you to confirm your email to make sure you're not a spammer.
Some directories go offline for one reason or another or free directories start charging a fee when they get enough submissions, then you have to update your directory list.
You also have to check back a few weeks or months after the submission to see which directories accepted the submission.
Allllll of the above takes time but it usually results in more quality links being accepted than if you used a (spammy) automatic submission service and get spammy links in return.
I have also written an article on what types of directories to avoid showing you how to spot sites putting links in frames, using nofollow on their links, listings hidden or disallowed from search engines, etc.
Lori Eldridge
Copyright © 5-31-09
All Rights Reserved.
October 17, 2008
Keyword Ranking Problems with CMS (Content Management Systems)
CMS is a software program that allows the user to design web pages with little or no knowledge of HTML. While this makes it easy for a novice web designer, what the software dealers neglect to tell you is that these programs are usually not search engine friendly.
The reason CMS programs are not search engine friendly is because in order to design a web page by merely dragging text and images onto a page the program has to produce an enormous amount of code which results in code bloat.
CMS programs also don't effectively incorporate CSS (Cascading Style Sheets which control font colors, sizes, etc) and thus the code may be broken and the page may not load correctly in all browsers. The code may not validate either due to deprecated code being used by most CMS programs (code no longer in the code standard and which will be eliminated in browsers some day).
Also, CMS programs often utilize tables instead of CSS for formating pages which can cause a plethora of nested tables (tables inside of tables). The deeper content is within these nested tables the harder it is for the search engine to pick it up. Unless your code validates the search engine may get lost within your code and not properly index your content and trying to validate code on a CMS produced site is a job that even an expert web designer wouldn't want to tackle. The bottom line is, If search engines have a problem reading the code it will affect your keyword ranking.
One of the most serious problems with CMS programs is that most users don't realize they should not allow the program to set up titles but use unique titles on every page instead, using the keywords relevant to that page (not necessarily the business name).
They also need to set up unique description tags (which show up in search engines). If all descriptions are the same how is the user to decide which of your pages have the content they are looking for?
The default on some CMS programs is to set up file names with numbers which totally destroys keyword ranking because the keywords in file names help your rank. If the CMS program you are using doesn't allow unique titles and file names then you would be wise to find another program unless you want to pay for AdWords the rest of the life of your website.
Also some companies offer free CMS programs that are deliberately too complicated for a web design novice to figure out with the hope that you will hire them to finish your site (with an exhorbitant fee of course),
If you already have a website set up in a CMS program with duplicate titles and numbers for file names it can be fixed but your keyword rank can be delayed for months due to having to change them, even if redirects are set up to the new file names.
The drawback to not using CMS is you can't edit it yourself, however what good is a website if it doesn't rank in the search engines. It's better to get the website redesigned so ranking will improve.
Most of the websites I have redesigned were built with CMS programs that never went anywhere in the search engines.
Lori Eldridge
© 10-17-08
All rights reserved
The reason CMS programs are not search engine friendly is because in order to design a web page by merely dragging text and images onto a page the program has to produce an enormous amount of code which results in code bloat.
CMS programs also don't effectively incorporate CSS (Cascading Style Sheets which control font colors, sizes, etc) and thus the code may be broken and the page may not load correctly in all browsers. The code may not validate either due to deprecated code being used by most CMS programs (code no longer in the code standard and which will be eliminated in browsers some day).
Also, CMS programs often utilize tables instead of CSS for formating pages which can cause a plethora of nested tables (tables inside of tables). The deeper content is within these nested tables the harder it is for the search engine to pick it up. Unless your code validates the search engine may get lost within your code and not properly index your content and trying to validate code on a CMS produced site is a job that even an expert web designer wouldn't want to tackle. The bottom line is, If search engines have a problem reading the code it will affect your keyword ranking.
One of the most serious problems with CMS programs is that most users don't realize they should not allow the program to set up titles but use unique titles on every page instead, using the keywords relevant to that page (not necessarily the business name).
They also need to set up unique description tags (which show up in search engines). If all descriptions are the same how is the user to decide which of your pages have the content they are looking for?
The default on some CMS programs is to set up file names with numbers which totally destroys keyword ranking because the keywords in file names help your rank. If the CMS program you are using doesn't allow unique titles and file names then you would be wise to find another program unless you want to pay for AdWords the rest of the life of your website.
Also some companies offer free CMS programs that are deliberately too complicated for a web design novice to figure out with the hope that you will hire them to finish your site (with an exhorbitant fee of course),
If you already have a website set up in a CMS program with duplicate titles and numbers for file names it can be fixed but your keyword rank can be delayed for months due to having to change them, even if redirects are set up to the new file names.
The drawback to not using CMS is you can't edit it yourself, however what good is a website if it doesn't rank in the search engines. It's better to get the website redesigned so ranking will improve.
Most of the websites I have redesigned were built with CMS programs that never went anywhere in the search engines.
Lori Eldridge
© 10-17-08
All rights reserved
September 12, 2008
Why Isn't My New Website Getting More Traffic?
A lot of people think if they build a website and submit it to search engines the world will beat a path to their door, but this isn't how the Internet works. It used to be that way, but not any more due to so many websites on the web now.
Google will usually boost a new website for a few months but then let the rank drop, even if you have gathered plenty of links. One of the major ranking features is age so older websites will likely outrank newer ones. New websites usually don't start ranking well until they are a year old.
The best thing to do is build the website a year before you expect it to gain much traffic and to keep adding more pages and gathering backlinks during the first year.
However, if you build your website in Frames, with the whole home page in Flash, the menu or links in images, build it a CMS site (a program where someone who knows nothing about web design can build a site by cut and pasting text and images) or a site built in a WYSIWYG program like Front Page or Dreamweaver when the person is not experienced in cleaning the code in those programs your website may never gain any traffic due to all those features or programs causing indexing problems in search engines.
If your website is over a year old and still isn't geting much traffic, contact Lori to have your website evaluated to determine what else might be the reason for lack of search engine traffic.
Lori Eldridge
© 9-12-08
All rights reserved
Google will usually boost a new website for a few months but then let the rank drop, even if you have gathered plenty of links. One of the major ranking features is age so older websites will likely outrank newer ones. New websites usually don't start ranking well until they are a year old.
The best thing to do is build the website a year before you expect it to gain much traffic and to keep adding more pages and gathering backlinks during the first year.
However, if you build your website in Frames, with the whole home page in Flash, the menu or links in images, build it a CMS site (a program where someone who knows nothing about web design can build a site by cut and pasting text and images) or a site built in a WYSIWYG program like Front Page or Dreamweaver when the person is not experienced in cleaning the code in those programs your website may never gain any traffic due to all those features or programs causing indexing problems in search engines.
If your website is over a year old and still isn't geting much traffic, contact Lori to have your website evaluated to determine what else might be the reason for lack of search engine traffic.
Lori Eldridge
© 9-12-08
All rights reserved
July 22, 2008
Reasons to Not to Hire Offshore Web Designers
I've helped several clients that had hired offshore developers to design their website and inevitably they were ripped off and needed their website redesigned. The following are some problems to watch out for when considering hiring offshore web designers.
The old addage is true in this case:
You Get What You Paid For!
Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright 7-22-08
All Rights Reserved
1. Unless they speak and write good English you may experience language difficulties.
2. Time zone differences may mean you can't call each other during business hours.
3. The designer being located in another country means you cannot meet face to face.
4. Cheaper hourly wages don't necessrily translate into quality work. Language difficulties can result in longer hours and higher design costs.
5. They cannot possibly understand marketing in the USA when living in a foreign country.
6. By hiring design work offshore you are hampering the employment of designers in the USA.
7. Paying for services in other countries can be very difficult, requiring foreign currency exchange and may incure extra banking expenses.
8. Even if "they" provide an escrow account you have no protection if it's located in another country.
9. There is an increased risk of identity theft when transfering funds from your bank to a foreign bank account.
10. Designers from other countries do not always operate with the same morals as designers in the US, i.e., they may copy the content off other websites and you won't know it until your site goes online and is penalized by the search engines. Guess who will be sued if this happens???
11. You'll have to give the designer the password to your hosting account so it should be someone you trust.
12. If you allow them to purchase the domain name for you they may put the domain in their name as the registrant, in which case you will be paying the domain fee, the design costs and hosting for a domain you don't even own. If you fire them you can loose everything and have to pay an exorbitant fee to get the domain back.
13. If they don't perform as they promised you have no recourse because US courts have no jurisdiction in other countries.
14. You may have to hire someone else to fix the website.
The old addage is true in this case:
You Get What You Paid For!
Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright 7-22-08
All Rights Reserved
July 20, 2008
How to Outrank your Competitors in Local Search
There are several things you can do to outrank your competitors for local search. The following applies to the home page because it usually has higher PR (Page Rank) and likely to rank higher than your other pages.
It won't do any good to stuff comment tags because search engines don't use them. Over doing repetition of your city name in the title, description or the text on the page or image alt tags can cause an overoptimization penalty so take it easy.
Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright 7-20-08
All Rights Reserved
1. Chose your major keyword phrase and include the name of your city and use that in a few places in the text of your page, i.e., "Blue Widgets Spokane Wa"
2. If you only want to rank well in your own city and you don't care about international or worldwide ranking then put the name of your city first before your keywords in your title, description and keyword tags.
3. If you want to rank internationally and worldwide put the name of your city after your main keywords in the description and keyword tags and last in your title.
4. Include the name of your city in image alt tags where appropriate.
5. Put the name of your city in your copyright statement
6. List your address and other contact information with the name of your city,
7. Write a page focused specifically on your city, including the city name in the alt tags of related images on that page, and include the city name in the file name of that page also and link to it from the home page.
8. Submit your site to Google and Yahoo's local search for your city.
9. Submit your site to local directories featuring your city.
10. Submit your site to directories that require you to submit in a regional category listing your city.
11. Consider moving to a host in your city if you live in a large metropolitan area. Otherwise a local host may not be a good idea unless you check them out thoroughly.
It won't do any good to stuff comment tags because search engines don't use them. Over doing repetition of your city name in the title, description or the text on the page or image alt tags can cause an overoptimization penalty so take it easy.
Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright 7-20-08
All Rights Reserved
July 8, 2008
A Bad Host can Affect your Keyword Ranking
I've been working on a website for a client for over 2 years trying to get his 3 main keyword phrases to page one with generic ranking to no avail. Cleaning up the code helped a lot and slowly gathering links helped some but all 3 phrases were lagging around page 3 on Google, UNTIL he moved his site off the host.
One week after he moved the site, all 3 phrases started slowly climbing higher than ever, breaking all past records, one of which just jumped to the first page and is still climbing. This was not due to submitting to sites that allow anchor text either because I've never used one of the terms in anchor text. This is a rank increase affecting the whole site. Currently there are no competitors above this site now, only Wiki, CNN and another useless site featuring the same keywords.
There are no new links pointing at this site so that's not the reason for this jump either. It can only be because of extricating the site from that bad host. This major leap to the top of Google's results means 2 years of effort were put on hold due to a bad host.
I won't mention the name of the old host to protect the guilty, however it rhymes with High Tower.
If you want to see a host that I recommend see my article on hosting scams.
Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright 7-8-08
All Rights Reserved
.
One week after he moved the site, all 3 phrases started slowly climbing higher than ever, breaking all past records, one of which just jumped to the first page and is still climbing. This was not due to submitting to sites that allow anchor text either because I've never used one of the terms in anchor text. This is a rank increase affecting the whole site. Currently there are no competitors above this site now, only Wiki, CNN and another useless site featuring the same keywords.
There are no new links pointing at this site so that's not the reason for this jump either. It can only be because of extricating the site from that bad host. This major leap to the top of Google's results means 2 years of effort were put on hold due to a bad host.
I won't mention the name of the old host to protect the guilty, however it rhymes with High Tower.
If you want to see a host that I recommend see my article on hosting scams.
Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright 7-8-08
All Rights Reserved
.
June 24, 2008
Beware of Traffic Generating Schemes
I just analyzed a traffic generating site for a client and want to relay this information for others so they won't be taken in by these kinds of ploys. I'm not linking to the site or mentioning the name but you may be able to recognize it by the details below.
The problem with these kinds of services is that it's likely that related sites will be linking to each other and the links to other sites will have extra code in the link so they/you can track the traffic. This produces a pattern that Google can identify as a network which can incur a penalty in Google.
Also exchanging links with other sites is known as reciprocal linking and they cancel each other out as far as their ranking benefit is concerned. They may bring traffic but if Google penalizes this particular bunch of links for being involved in a "network" then none of them will rank high enough to gain any visitors/traffic.
Google is bound and determined to penalize sites that are manipulating their engine so I wouldn't get involved in such a scheme.
Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright 6-24-08
All Rights Reserved
This particular traffic generating scheme encourages you to post links to other sites and other sites will be asked to link to your site. They put code in the links so you can track your traffic and you pay according to how much traffic you can afford. The problem is YOU must tell them who you want to link to and also who you would like to link to your site too, and you also have to provide contact emails for each site, i.e., you're doing all the work to find those links and yet you're paying them for this "service". All they do is send out (automated) emails to all those people and try and get them to sign up for their service.
They don't have any other info on their website, no testimonies, no proof that their service has helped others, no list of subscribers, etc. Also their site has PR 0 (Page Rank Zero) and they aren't even indexed in Google.
If this is such a great service why are they doing so poorly? Surely they would use their own techniques to boost their own site. It's a new site that went up in Feb of this year but even 4 months is more than enough for their whole site to get indexed. They may have already been banned from Google because their plan is designed to manipulate Google.
The problem with these kinds of services is that it's likely that related sites will be linking to each other and the links to other sites will have extra code in the link so they/you can track the traffic. This produces a pattern that Google can identify as a network which can incur a penalty in Google.
Also exchanging links with other sites is known as reciprocal linking and they cancel each other out as far as their ranking benefit is concerned. They may bring traffic but if Google penalizes this particular bunch of links for being involved in a "network" then none of them will rank high enough to gain any visitors/traffic.
Google is bound and determined to penalize sites that are manipulating their engine so I wouldn't get involved in such a scheme.
Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright 6-24-08
All Rights Reserved
June 13, 2008
Mini Mac is the Best!
I picked up one of my laptops from my Mac repairman yesterday and he said, after I told him that my main computer is a Mac Mini, that he never sees those in his repair shop because they are so dependable.
I believe it's true because I've had my Mac Mini for at least 3 years now and have never had it in for repairs when I've had 3 laptops in for major problems. My Win XP won't even turn on any more, my Powerbook G4 lost it's monitor and my iBook G4 has narcolepsy. The laptops were all bought used but they were good computers while they lasted.
GO MINI MAC!!
Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright 6-13-08
All Rights Reserved
I believe it's true because I've had my Mac Mini for at least 3 years now and have never had it in for repairs when I've had 3 laptops in for major problems. My Win XP won't even turn on any more, my Powerbook G4 lost it's monitor and my iBook G4 has narcolepsy. The laptops were all bought used but they were good computers while they lasted.
GO MINI MAC!!
Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright 6-13-08
All Rights Reserved
June 6, 2008
Beware of Using Free Web Templates
I've checked out several sites that offer free web templates and most of them contain the following design flaws that will cripple your website.
They ALL require a link back to their web site as the designer, so the template isn't really free becaue you are providing them a free link. You can't ever remove it either, unless you do a complete redesign, because you never paid for it.
Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright 6-6-08
All Rights Reserved
* Navigation in Javascript (search engine's can't read text in Javascript so they won't see the links to your inner pages).
* No Doc Type (which tells the browser what kind of Code the site is designed in, HTML, XHTML, etc.).
* No Character set (tells the browser what kind of language to expect- english, etc.
* Images in menu buttons use numbers instead of keywords affecting keyword ranking.
* They put their own business name in image alt tags so YOUR site will rank for their business name.
* File names are all relative (index.html) which causes a duplicate content penalty in search engines.
* Code bloat due to deprecated code and not fully utilizing CSS.
* Nested tables causing indexing problems.
* Not tested in all browsers.
* Inadequate instruction.
They ALL require a link back to their web site as the designer, so the template isn't really free becaue you are providing them a free link. You can't ever remove it either, unless you do a complete redesign, because you never paid for it.
Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright 6-6-08
All Rights Reserved
March 9, 2008
Linking to Bad Neighborhoods Can Ruin your PageRank
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Did your website or one of your webpages drop in rank recently (both in page rank and keyword rank). It could be the result of linking to a bad neighborhood. A bad neighborhood is a site that the quality search engines won't link to. Google's Webmaster Guidelines states:
"In particular, avoid links to web spammers or 'bad neighborhoods' on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links."
WHAT IS A BAD NEIGHBORHOOD?
(following words are misspelled on purpose to prevent this page for being tagged as a bad neighborhood)
Link Farms (automated linking and uncategorized)
Triangular Linking Schemes (you link to my other site and I'll link to your site from this site).
FFA (Free For All Directory)
Gammbbling sites.
Pooorrnnnoo sites.
Sexxxxxxx and ADDUlt sites
Web spammers (keyword stuffing on the page or in the code)
Websites that have been banned by Google (gray page rank bar)
You may not receive a penalty or drop in keyword rank for just a few bad neighborhood links but it's not safe to take a chance. Delete anything that looks suspicious.
You can check the links visually but then you have to check the all the outgoing links of the site you are linking to also.
Here is a tool that checks sites for Bad Neighboorhoods. However it is not flawless. It will show bad links for sites that have links to innocent articles warning about Poooorrrnno and Sexxxxx and Gammbbling and even tags SafeSurf as a bad neighboorhood because they have an article doing the same. Christian sites discussing the same are really in trouble according to this tool. I used to have a FreeFind search tool on my site but they had bad neighborhood links so I removed them just to be safe. And I've seen the same problems with Stat Counter linking to questionable sites. The owner of this tool states that when warnings show up it's just an indication that you need to do further checking on that site yourself, not that you will be banned for those links. This tool will also show you where there are 404 errors (broken links) to sites you are linking to so it's useful in that respect.
If you know of a more discriminating tool please let me know.
Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright 3-9-08
All Rights Reserved
Did your website or one of your webpages drop in rank recently (both in page rank and keyword rank). It could be the result of linking to a bad neighborhood. A bad neighborhood is a site that the quality search engines won't link to. Google's Webmaster Guidelines states:
"In particular, avoid links to web spammers or 'bad neighborhoods' on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links."
WHAT IS A BAD NEIGHBORHOOD?
(following words are misspelled on purpose to prevent this page for being tagged as a bad neighborhood)
Link Farms (automated linking and uncategorized)
Triangular Linking Schemes (you link to my other site and I'll link to your site from this site).
FFA (Free For All Directory)
Gammbbling sites.
Pooorrnnnoo sites.
Sexxxxxxx and ADDUlt sites
Web spammers (keyword stuffing on the page or in the code)
Websites that have been banned by Google (gray page rank bar)
You may not receive a penalty or drop in keyword rank for just a few bad neighborhood links but it's not safe to take a chance. Delete anything that looks suspicious.
You can check the links visually but then you have to check the all the outgoing links of the site you are linking to also.
Here is a tool that checks sites for Bad Neighboorhoods. However it is not flawless. It will show bad links for sites that have links to innocent articles warning about Poooorrrnno and Sexxxxx and Gammbbling and even tags SafeSurf as a bad neighboorhood because they have an article doing the same. Christian sites discussing the same are really in trouble according to this tool. I used to have a FreeFind search tool on my site but they had bad neighborhood links so I removed them just to be safe. And I've seen the same problems with Stat Counter linking to questionable sites. The owner of this tool states that when warnings show up it's just an indication that you need to do further checking on that site yourself, not that you will be banned for those links. This tool will also show you where there are 404 errors (broken links) to sites you are linking to so it's useful in that respect.
If you know of a more discriminating tool please let me know.
Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright 3-9-08
All Rights Reserved
February 26, 2008
How to Increase Website Traffic During a Recession.
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Consider Main Holidays. Unless your website sells retail items your traffic may drop during the holidays. You can increase traffic for each holiday by promoting something that people will be searching for during those holidays. For instance I set up a turkey animation on my graphics pages and I get a 25% increase in traffic during Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. On my poetry site I have a bible study on what day of the week Christ died, which I believe was a Thursday, which doubles my traffic for that site around the Easter Holiday. What time of year does your website traffic slow down? Pick a holiday near that time and focus on things of interest to those people.
Your Favorite Hobby: If your website is commercial in nature you can increase traffic by providing free content. In what area do you have special talents? If you're a good photographer you can offer free photos to increase traffic. If you're a good cook provide free recipies. A good musician can profide free audios of music. If you have a consultant service offer free consulation once a month. If you are an inspector offer free advice in your area of expertise.
Set up a Blog: Keep your blog on the same focus as your website but write posts more like news briefs or items of interest to your website visitors that are too small to put into a web page. Link to your website often and utilize deep links whenever possible. If you allow comments it will require you to monitor posts as it will attract spammers.
Set up a Forum: If you believe your site visitors would like to post messages and communicate with others on the focus of your website then set up a bulletin board or forum. However, the main drawback to forums is you will need someone to act as administrator on a daily basis to monitor posts and software as this will attract a lot of spammers.
Write Articles: If you post articles on other websites with a link to your website in each article then it will bring more traffic. However, don't post the same articles on your own website or those pages could be penalized for duplicate content.
Participate in blogs and Forums: Find blogs or forums that have the same focus as your website and participate in disucssions. The links may or may not benefit your website due to most forums putting the rel="nofollow" tag on links but it will likely bring you traffic.
Hot Topics: Find a hot topic in the news that is of interest to your website visitors and write articles on those topics.
Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright 2-26-08
All Rights Reserved
.
Consider Main Holidays. Unless your website sells retail items your traffic may drop during the holidays. You can increase traffic for each holiday by promoting something that people will be searching for during those holidays. For instance I set up a turkey animation on my graphics pages and I get a 25% increase in traffic during Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. On my poetry site I have a bible study on what day of the week Christ died, which I believe was a Thursday, which doubles my traffic for that site around the Easter Holiday. What time of year does your website traffic slow down? Pick a holiday near that time and focus on things of interest to those people.
Your Favorite Hobby: If your website is commercial in nature you can increase traffic by providing free content. In what area do you have special talents? If you're a good photographer you can offer free photos to increase traffic. If you're a good cook provide free recipies. A good musician can profide free audios of music. If you have a consultant service offer free consulation once a month. If you are an inspector offer free advice in your area of expertise.
Set up a Blog: Keep your blog on the same focus as your website but write posts more like news briefs or items of interest to your website visitors that are too small to put into a web page. Link to your website often and utilize deep links whenever possible. If you allow comments it will require you to monitor posts as it will attract spammers.
Set up a Forum: If you believe your site visitors would like to post messages and communicate with others on the focus of your website then set up a bulletin board or forum. However, the main drawback to forums is you will need someone to act as administrator on a daily basis to monitor posts and software as this will attract a lot of spammers.
Write Articles: If you post articles on other websites with a link to your website in each article then it will bring more traffic. However, don't post the same articles on your own website or those pages could be penalized for duplicate content.
Participate in blogs and Forums: Find blogs or forums that have the same focus as your website and participate in disucssions. The links may or may not benefit your website due to most forums putting the rel="nofollow" tag on links but it will likely bring you traffic.
Hot Topics: Find a hot topic in the news that is of interest to your website visitors and write articles on those topics.
Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright 2-26-08
All Rights Reserved
.
February 15, 2008
Causes for a Drop in Keyword Rank in Search Engines
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I recently evaluated a website to determine why it had dropped in keyword rank suddenly when it was previously ranking in the top 5 for it's site name. After a couple hours of reasearch it was determined the cause was due to someone copying his home page on several other websites. The posts were dated 5 days before his keyword rank dropped which made it obvious this was the reason.
Other problems that can cause a website to drop in rank:
Gathering links too fast
Adding too many pages too fast
Linking to bad neighborhoods
Adding hidden text or links to your website
Setting up Doorway pages to fool search engines
Having your website hijacked by a 302, 301 or meta refresh redirect.
Using an automated rank checker
Installing malware, trojans, etc. that can harm visitor's computers.
Having only affiliate links and very little other content.
Requiring visitor to link to your site for a service.
A redesign that installs Javascript on links for puts content in frames.
Installing Flash that takes too long to download and deters search engine bots.
Another site on shared hosting being penalized for any of the above.
Disallowing your website from search engines in robots.txt
Click here to have your website evaluated for a drop in keyword rank.
Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright 2-15-08
All Rights Reserved
.
I recently evaluated a website to determine why it had dropped in keyword rank suddenly when it was previously ranking in the top 5 for it's site name. After a couple hours of reasearch it was determined the cause was due to someone copying his home page on several other websites. The posts were dated 5 days before his keyword rank dropped which made it obvious this was the reason.
Other problems that can cause a website to drop in rank:
Gathering links too fast
Adding too many pages too fast
Linking to bad neighborhoods
Adding hidden text or links to your website
Setting up Doorway pages to fool search engines
Having your website hijacked by a 302, 301 or meta refresh redirect.
Using an automated rank checker
Installing malware, trojans, etc. that can harm visitor's computers.
Having only affiliate links and very little other content.
Requiring visitor to link to your site for a service.
A redesign that installs Javascript on links for puts content in frames.
Installing Flash that takes too long to download and deters search engine bots.
Another site on shared hosting being penalized for any of the above.
Disallowing your website from search engines in robots.txt
Click here to have your website evaluated for a drop in keyword rank.
Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright 2-15-08
All Rights Reserved
.
February 7, 2008
How to Check for Keyword Ranking Drop in Google.
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If you have experienced your keyword ranking dropping suddenly in Google then the following may help expose the reason for the decline.
CHECKING GOOGLE'S INDEX:
Search for your business name. Unless you come up #1 then your site may be penalized or filtered out of Google results (unless other sites use the same name).
Use this command in Google site:yourdomain.com. It should list all the pages that Google has indexed for your website. If Google doesn't have your website listed, and it was previously, then your site has probably been banned from Google results.
BREAKING GOOGLE GUIDELINES:
Make sure you are not breaking any of the following Google quidelines:
Hidden test or links
Cloaking
Sneaky redirects (302 or 301 redirects pointing at other sites)
Using an automated keyword ranking tool
Spammy text
Duplicate content
Doorway pages
Thin Affiliate with AdSense ads (no original content)
Adding too many pages or backlinks too fast
Selling or buying links
Overoptimized content
Alt tag spam
Split doman
Duplicate home pages
Linking to banned websites
Multiple Domains with same content
Faulty Robots text or Htaccess file
HIJACKING OR COPIED CONTENT:
Hijacking a website doesn't happen too often any more because the culprits can loose their website or ranking. However if anyone sets up a 301 or 302 redirect pointing at your site it can cause your keyword rank to drop drastically and suddenly. The best way to find these is to watch your stats program for odd backlinks. See my article on Hijacking Web Pages and related articles on how to report hijackers.
If your important pages are copied, unless your site is several years old, it can also cause a seriious ranking problem for your website. Check your website frequently in copyscape.com for this problem.
OTHER PROBLEMS AFFECTING KEYWORD RANK:
These are not necessarily a penalty but affect ranking nevertheless:
Titles all the same
Descriptions all the same
Links in Framed pages, Image Maps or Javascript
Important text in Flash
Keywords in Images
When your titles are all the same (usually caused by not properly utilizing a WYSIWYG program) then search engines think you have the same content on every page. The same with description tags. If you don't use a description tag then search engines will pick up the first text on your page (usually the menu text) which usually does not tell the viewer what your page is about. Both of these can severely affect your keyword ranking.
Google is getting pretty good at indexing text and links in Javascript and image maps but other search engines are not, so best to use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to control mouseovers on links. Search engines also can't read text in images and the same can be said for Flash so make sure your important text is repeated on the page in plain text.
ASKING FOR REINCLUSION
If you believe your site was penalized by Google fix the problems and then ask for reinclusion through Google's Webmaster Tools. You'll have to set up a Google account for your website first. Tell Google everything you know about the problem.
TIME TO RECUPERATE
After you fix the problems it may take a while for Google to notice the changes if it hasn't been indexing your website very often. Check the cache date before you start fixing your website and frequently thereafter to get an idea of how long it takes for Google to come back. Then assume it may take a few weeks or months for the changes to show up in Google.
Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright February 7, 2008
All Rights Reserved
.
If you have experienced your keyword ranking dropping suddenly in Google then the following may help expose the reason for the decline.
CHECKING GOOGLE'S INDEX:
Search for your business name. Unless you come up #1 then your site may be penalized or filtered out of Google results (unless other sites use the same name).
Use this command in Google site:yourdomain.com. It should list all the pages that Google has indexed for your website. If Google doesn't have your website listed, and it was previously, then your site has probably been banned from Google results.
BREAKING GOOGLE GUIDELINES:
Make sure you are not breaking any of the following Google quidelines:
Hidden test or links
Cloaking
Sneaky redirects (302 or 301 redirects pointing at other sites)
Using an automated keyword ranking tool
Spammy text
Duplicate content
Doorway pages
Thin Affiliate with AdSense ads (no original content)
Adding too many pages or backlinks too fast
Selling or buying links
Overoptimized content
Alt tag spam
Split doman
Duplicate home pages
Linking to banned websites
Multiple Domains with same content
Faulty Robots text or Htaccess file
HIJACKING OR COPIED CONTENT:
Hijacking a website doesn't happen too often any more because the culprits can loose their website or ranking. However if anyone sets up a 301 or 302 redirect pointing at your site it can cause your keyword rank to drop drastically and suddenly. The best way to find these is to watch your stats program for odd backlinks. See my article on Hijacking Web Pages and related articles on how to report hijackers.
If your important pages are copied, unless your site is several years old, it can also cause a seriious ranking problem for your website. Check your website frequently in copyscape.com for this problem.
OTHER PROBLEMS AFFECTING KEYWORD RANK:
These are not necessarily a penalty but affect ranking nevertheless:
Titles all the same
Descriptions all the same
Links in Framed pages, Image Maps or Javascript
Important text in Flash
Keywords in Images
When your titles are all the same (usually caused by not properly utilizing a WYSIWYG program) then search engines think you have the same content on every page. The same with description tags. If you don't use a description tag then search engines will pick up the first text on your page (usually the menu text) which usually does not tell the viewer what your page is about. Both of these can severely affect your keyword ranking.
Google is getting pretty good at indexing text and links in Javascript and image maps but other search engines are not, so best to use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to control mouseovers on links. Search engines also can't read text in images and the same can be said for Flash so make sure your important text is repeated on the page in plain text.
ASKING FOR REINCLUSION
If you believe your site was penalized by Google fix the problems and then ask for reinclusion through Google's Webmaster Tools. You'll have to set up a Google account for your website first. Tell Google everything you know about the problem.
TIME TO RECUPERATE
After you fix the problems it may take a while for Google to notice the changes if it hasn't been indexing your website very often. Check the cache date before you start fixing your website and frequently thereafter to get an idea of how long it takes for Google to come back. Then assume it may take a few weeks or months for the changes to show up in Google.
Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright February 7, 2008
All Rights Reserved
.