 | May 8, 2013What online tools do you use almost every day in your work? Read More >> |
 | April 24, 2013If you weren't an SEO/SEM, Website Marketer, etc., what would you be? Read More >> |
 | April 24, 2013Open Website Marketing Q&A Webinar with Jill and Karon Read More >> |
 | April 10, 2013If an established business adds a new and somewhat different product line to their website, do you have any advice for the best way to get noticed by the search engines on the new pages for the new content as quickly as possible?
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 | April 10, 2013Is it OK to do basically the same content on multiple pages but change up maybe heading titles for those pages? Read More >> |
 | April 10, 2013Is it okay to have the same few sentences on every page of your website? Read More >> |
 | April 10, 2013What do you do when you accidentally provide the search engines with a bad URL? Read More >> |
 | April 10, 2013Do I need to work on optimising "and" and "&" and "amp"? Read More >> |
 | April 10, 2013I am wondering if numbers in URLs negatively affect SEO. Read More >> |
 | April 10, 2013Are you happy, sad or indifferent when Google puts out a new Panda / Penguin update? Read More >> |
 | March 27, 2013Do you often see an unlevel playing field these days in either the Google organic search results or paid search? Explain either way below! Read More >> |
 | February 27, 2013Do you believe that female speakers are under-represented at SEO conferences? And if so, why do you think that is? Read More >> |
 | February 13, 2013JobShadow Interview with Jill Read More >> |
 | January 30, 2013Our site has been affected by Google's Penguin update. Our website traffic and search queries are down almost 80%.
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 | January 30, 2013Is using hidden text within class tags ideal for SEO, or should it be avoided? Read More >> |
 | January 30, 2013It seems that after switching to a 3-party shopping cart I no longer have individual keyword conversion rates and costs in my Google Analytics.
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 | January 30, 2013Everywhere I have read that title tags should be no longer than 65 to 70 characters. Is this true?
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 | January 16, 2013What's your #1 SEO tip for 2013? Read More >> |
 | December 19, 2012What do you think of the fact that soon many SEO tool providers will no longer be showing keyword rankings? Read More >> |
 | December 5, 2012What sorts of duplicate content do you see frequently on websites which cause SEO issues? Read More >> |
 | November 14, 2012What are the top 3 website / SEO issues you've seen that were likely to have caused traffic losses from any of the Google Panda / Penguin updates? Read More >> |
 | October 31, 2012What's the biggest copywriting / content writing mistake you see websites make? Read More >> |
 | October 17, 2012Where are some places online to promote artwork? Read More >> |
 | October 3, 2012When I searched a phrase on my computer, I did not come up at all but I get traffic for that phrase. How does that happen? Read More >> |
 | October 3, 2012Do You Run Ranking Reports? Read More >> |
 | September 19, 2012Have you had good success moving old static HTML sites to WordPress (not losing traffic, getting more, etc.)? Read More >> |
 | September 19, 2012Does moving from an HTML site to a WordPress site have any big SEO issues? Read More >> |
 | August 22, 2012Karon's been noticing for quite some time that the top sites in Google didn't always have the exact keyphrase used multiple times within their copy. So she went to Matt Cutts from Google to confirm her suspicions--that we no longer need to use keyword phrases as a whole, but should use the individual words contained within the phrases. Read More >> |
 | August 22, 2012How (if at all) have you changed your SEO copy/content writing strategy in light of Panda/Penguin? Read More >> |
 | August 8, 2012Over-Optimization Penalties Read More >> |
 | July 25, 2012What Constitues Being an Authority Website? Read More >> |
 | July 11, 2012Name some web spam you still see being offered by shady SEO companies. Read More >> |
 | July 11, 2012SEO Chat With Jill and Karon Read More >> |
 | June 27, 2012Got any tips for finding long-tail keywords that can be used when marketing your content? Read More >> |
 | June 13, 2012How do you get ahead in Google when selling the same products as a zillion other sites? Read More >> |
 | May 30, 2012What's a common SEO rookie mistake that you often see? Read More >> |
 | May 16, 2012Is a "List Internal Links" in My Website Footer Bad After Google's Penguin Update? Read More >> |
 | May 2, 2012Today I browsed through the 3,500 or so SEO questions people asked at Google and chose the most common ones to answer. Read More >> |
 | May 2, 2012Do you love or hate (or something in the middle) Google's Penguin Update? Read More >> |
 | April 18, 2012What's your best tip for promoting a new website online? Read More >> |
 | April 18, 2012Have You Received a GWMT Notice: Artificial or Unnatural Links? Read More >> |
 | April 4, 2012What does Google expect honest search marketers to do when we can no longer accurately report the natural keyword segmentation of traffic? Read More >> |
 | April 4, 2012What (if anything) are you doing to mitigate the loss of KW data due to the dreaded "Not Provided"? Read More >> |
 | March 21, 2012Google Is Heavily Weighting Words in the URL Read More >> |
 | March 7, 2012Have you done any good deeds for others that ended up helping your business? Read More >> |
 | March 7, 2012Google Changing Title Tags Read More >> |
 | February 22, 2012Do you have a content marketing funnel or plan? Read More >> |
 | February 22, 2012Facebook, Twitter, Google+ Or Blog? Read More >> |
 | January 25, 2012What does a good online marketer do when stuck for topic ideas these days? Go to Twitter, what else! I asked my followers to hit me with their burning SEO questions and they didn't disappoint. Read More >> |
 | January 11, 2012To go along with this week's article on Rel=Author, I asked my social media followers if they've implemented Rel=Author on their content yet, and if so, was it showing in Google's search results? Read More >> |
 | December 14, 2011I know that incoming links are important in search engine rankings, but do the search engines consider anchors the same way as an incoming link? Read More >> |
 | December 14, 2011I am hoping you can help me navigate the confusing ODP site where I submitted my website to let me know how I can find the editor of the topic I submitted to so I can contact him or her.
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 | December 14, 2011Is there any way to block irrelevant backlinks pointing to my site? Read More >> |
 | December 14, 2011From an SEO standpoint, can I use Network Solution's "forwarding service" to redirect my extra domain name without negative impact? Read More >> |
 | December 14, 2011Most of the keywords I've found that are most applicable to the services my company provides are highly competitive. Is there a way our website can still rank for those highly competitive keywords?
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 | December 14, 2011Is it true that, in general, .edu domains get ranked higher than .com? Read More >> |
 | December 14, 2011Does link popularity take into account blog postings with your link and product information? What kind of weight does that hold?
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 | December 14, 2011If I am looking at Google Analytics and it says we received, say, 15 unique visitors on a particular day, does that mean real live people or does that also include Google bots? Read More >> |
 | December 14, 2011We were wondering which types Title tags would potentially rank higher in the search engines.
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 | December 14, 2011What's your recommended Title tag length? Read More >> |
 | November 30, 2011If you could only ask 10 general (non-industry-specific) questions of your new SEO customers, what would they be and why would their answers help you help them? Read More >> |
 | November 30, 2011What questions do you ask a new SEO client, and why? Read More >> |
 | November 30, 2011Is a 301 From an Old Domain to a Brand-New Domain Bad for SEO? Read More >> |
 | November 16, 2011What's your formula for writing Meta description tags? Read More >> |
 | November 2, 2011What cool website content have you created or recommended that goes above & beyond product & service offerings?
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 | November 2, 2011Should Blog Reviews Use NoFollow Links? Read More >> |
 | October 19, 2011How do you measure the success of your SEO work? Read More >> |
 | October 19, 2011Which Keyword Am I Indexed For? Read More >> |
 | October 5, 2011How has SEO changed for you over the years? Read More >> |
 | October 5, 2011Rich Snippets: Building a Case for Extra Programming Resource Read More >> |
 | September 21, 2011Once my site is ready, I'll be approaching owners within the niche. So I really don't want people to find me for the first few months. My thought was that I would not add my new keyword-rich titles, headings, links, etc., until after a month or so, to keep people from finding me too soon... Read More >> |
 | September 21, 2011I was wondering if you had any advice about which option is better SEO wise…buying a domain for a microsite or adding the information to your website as additional content?
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 | September 21, 2011I ran my website through a website grader type of tool and it provided me with some recommendations which I'm wondering about... Read More >> |
 | September 21, 2011Is there any harm in going in adding a Google Analytics account ID and getting rid of the Omniture info in the code?
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 | September 21, 2011Can I use a splash page to direct two different target markets to the appropriate sections of my website? Read More >> |
 | September 21, 2011Recently I had a conversation with an SEO expert who claimed that the most important thing we need to do for SEO on our website is URL rewriting. Our old CMS system still uses parameters in the URL ("?pageid="). Read More >> |
 | September 21, 2011Do you change URLs for SEO purposes if they're not currently using keywords but are being indexed fine? Read More >> |
 | September 21, 2011Can I Safely Show Content Based on Search Query Referrer? Read More >> |
 | September 7, 2011Are dishonesty, stretching the truth, or white lies necessary to be a good marketer? Read More >> |
 | September 7, 2011Does Faster Spidering = More Indexing? Read More >> |
 | August 24, 2011What's your 1 tip for naturally working keywords into content? Read More >> |
 | August 24, 2011Blogger/Blogspot vs. Own Domain Read More >> |
 | August 10, 2011How many different conversions do you measure on a typical website? Read More >> |
 | August 10, 2011Does Having More Pages Mean More Traffic? Read More >> |
 | July 27, 2011I have many questions about SEO. Any help you can give me will be greatly appreciated! Read More >> |
 | July 27, 2011What are your quick words of wisdom for a business owner just starting out with SEO for their site? Read More >> |
 | July 27, 2011Canonical Tag for DNS Redirect Read More >> |
 | June 15, 2011What Bad SEO Advice Have You Heard Lately? Read More >> |
 | June 15, 2011Optimization For Small Websites Read More >> |
 | June 1, 2011Do you think the hashtag in a URL affects the site's SEO or link building in any way? Read More >> |
 | June 1, 2011One of our connections came across a horrible website that copied our homepage and used it for their "About Us" page. What can we do about it?
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 | June 1, 2011Do you "optimize" for search engines regardless of whether it's from a computer or a mobile device? Read More >> |
 | June 1, 2011I have noticed for a long time that we have many keywords that we will rank fine for, but then one week they are not ranked at all and the following week they will be back to around the original ranking. Read More >> |
 | May 18, 2011What creative, interesting, unique or crazy thing have you used Twitter for recently? Read More >> |
 | May 4, 2011Have you noticed much change in Google's results since Farmer / Panda? That is, less spam? Read More >> |
 | May 4, 2011Parameters vs. Anchors Read More >> |
 | April 20, 2011Is there a way to tell Google which states the site is relevant for? Read More >> |
 | April 20, 2011I have a client who was called by [one of those online Yellow Pages–type companies] that would build him a website for $39 a month, which he wants to look into. What could I tell him that would convince him to go with me? Read More >> |
 | April 20, 2011Got any local SEO tips? Read More >> |
 | April 6, 2011Name a common SEO tactic that doesn't actually move the needle in terms of rankings or traffic. Read More >> |
 | April 6, 2011How Much Info Do You Give Up Front To A Client? Read More >> |
 | March 23, 2011How Powerful Is Link Rel="canonical"? Read More >>
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 | March 2, 2011What're 1 or 2 main factors you feel caused massive drops in traffic to some sites w/Farmer update? Read More >> |
 | March 2, 2011Do Search Engines Consider a Blog in a SubDirectory as Part of the Main Site? Read More >> |
 | February 16, 2011Is it too late to save SEO and its reputation from those who have made SEO = spam? Read More >> |
 | February 2, 2011What type of web spam concerns/bothers you the most? Read More >>
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 | February 2, 2011Question About Mobile Site and Duplicate Content Read More >>
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 | January 19, 2011Is there a viable alternative to Google? Read More >>
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 | January 19, 2011Non-nefarious Cloaking Read More >>
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 | January 5, 2011What reasons have you seen for a loss of traffic after a redesign? Read More >>
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 | December 15, 2010Which SEO recommendations also make a website more usable to people? Read More >>
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 | December 1, 2010What's the most difficult/frustrating part of keyword research in your opinion? Read More >>
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 | December 1, 2010Google Is Reindexing Old Redirected URLs Read More >>
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 | November 17, 2010What's the most creative content you've added to a website that enhanced its value? Read More >> |
 | November 17, 2010Google Choosing Its Own Titles Read More >>
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 | November 3, 2010We are moving our site to a new CMS and have a few questions regarding URLs and our sitemap. Read More >> |
 | November 3, 2010If I add to a page of my website a widget that enables my blog to show on that page, do search engines recognize the blog content delivered via this widget? Read More >> |
 | November 3, 2010I have a couple of questions regarding Title tags and Meta descriptoin tags. Read More >> |
 | November 3, 2010Have you seen the new Google Place Page results right in their regular listings yet? Read More >> |
 | November 3, 2010What do you think of the new SERP display for local listings in Google? Read More >>
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 | October 20, 2010Do You Have a Long-Tail Keyword Strategy? Read More >> |
 | October 6, 2010Our CEO is looking for a specific goal in site traffic generated by organic search, based on our implementing SEO recommendations.
Read More >> |
 | October 6, 2010What's your measure of a successful SEO implementation? Read More >> |
 | October 6, 2010Can Backlinks Have a Negative Effect? Read More >> |
 | September 22, 2010What type of search engine spam do you see still working well in Google? Read More >> |
 | September 22, 2010Getting Better Rankings for Category Pages Read More >> |
 | September 8, 2010What's the biggest reason you've seen for SEO failure with clients? Read More >>
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 | September 8, 2010Keyword Phrases in Product Listings Read More >>
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 | August 25, 2010What's a catchy word or phrase for when a company uses their own internal language, forgetting that the rest of the world doesn't? Read More >> |
 | August 11, 2010What's your best use of social media? Read More >> |
 | August 11, 2010Is Switching Domains a No-no?
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 | July 28, 2010I'm considering starting my own SEO company and working with local businesses and I was wondering if you could offer any advice.
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 | July 28, 2010What would be the best way for me to transition old pages off our website, while keeping up our SEO? They have a lot of links to other pages, some not related to our business.
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 | July 28, 2010Are articles a smart and strategic way to invest our money? Is this person being completely honest in saying we "will rank on page 1" with their articles? Read More >> |
 | July 28, 2010I noticed you do not use meta descriptions or meta keywords on many of your pages. Why not? Read More >> |
 | July 28, 2010Do you use "article marketing" as a form of SEO? Read More >> |
 | July 28, 2010Using Divs and JavaScript for SEO Purposes Read More >> |
 | July 14, 2010If you're a website designer, do you work with SEOs? If you're an SEO, do you work with developers? Read More >> |
 | July 14, 2010ASP to WordPress Read More >> |
 | June 30, 2010Have you seen sites obviously penalized by Google and, if so, what was the cause? Read More >>
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 | June 30, 2010Forum member "KemoSabe" wanted to mask a keyword-rich domain with a more memorable one for humans. Read More >> |
 | June 16, 2010True or false? Today's SEO could be tomorrow's search engine spam with the turn of an algo crank. Read More >> |
 | June 16, 2010Forum member "flarbas" posted that they were frustrated because their boss suggested crazy changes to the company website.
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 | June 2, 2010In last week's newsletter you mentioned appending email signature links with campaign tracking codes. Can you please detail how to do this?
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 | June 2, 2010I have a question about the duplicate content issue when you append tracking codes. But, as a safety measure to avoid duplicate content, I've included a 301-redirect in the htaccess file...
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 | June 2, 2010Why does one of our websites come up #5 on Google under the keywords "our keyword phrase Los Angeles" when the keywords "Los Angeles" are nowhere to be found on our pages? Read More >> |
 | June 2, 2010My client has a local shop. Should every keyword phrase contain the locale, such as Denver, Arvada, Westminster, etc., and then just change up the item?
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 | June 2, 2010If websites have links pointing externally, is there a difference when pointing to high- or low-authority sites?
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 | June 2, 2010Do you ever use nofollow links, and if so, for what purpose? Read More >> |
 | June 2, 2010Did any of you experience that faster load speed of pages got you better rankings at Google SERP? Read More >> |
 | May 19, 2010How often do you view your web analytics? Read More >> |
 | May 19, 2010Title Tags and H1 Tags: Same or different for best SEO? Read More >> |
 | May 5, 2010What's Your Favorite SEO Myth? Read More >> |
| April 21, 2010Coding from Scratch or a CMS? Read More >> |
| April 21, 2010Do you like it when local map listings show up in the regular Google results? Read More >> |
 | April 7, 2010As a long-term subscriber I would like to ask for your advice concerning optimisation of an e-commerce site for multiple countries. Read More >> |
 | April 7, 2010Due to my very low link popularity, is that enough to send my pages to Google's Supplemental Index?
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 | April 7, 2010Do we need to have .html at the end of the URL? Read More >> |
 | April 7, 2010Should one manually submit a site to a search engine? Read More >> |
 | April 7, 2010I have one main website and own about 10 other domain name versions that are similar. Read More >> |
 | April 7, 2010On my web page I have H2 tags that include the HTML ampersand (&) character code. I've been told that this confuses crawlers. Read More >> |
 | April 7, 2010What do you feel is THE most important SEO tactic for any website? Read More >>
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| March 24, 2010This week, I asked my Twitter followers: How often should one blog? Read More >> |
| March 10, 2010Which Parts of SEO Do You Outsource? Read More >> |
| March 10, 2010Forum member "Becs" is concerned because some automated SEO software told her she had too many URLs on her home page. Read More >> |
| February 24, 2010If you had an extra 20 hours a week, what would you do with them? Read More >> |
| February 10, 2010Do you build links for the traffic or for rankings? Read More >> |
| February 10, 2010Have Big Companies Taken Over the Internet? Read More >> |
| January 20, 2010Do you have any info on the issue of spamdexing – specifically the practice of adding keywords into text unnaturally and then emphasizing just the keywords (for example, boldfacing and/or italicizing them)? Read More >> |
| January 20, 2010Is it OK to have the same articles on your site as you do on your blog? And, if not, is it better to have a blog with a link back to your site, or to put the article directly on your site? Read More >> |
| January 20, 2010When you begin optimizing a website, does it have to go down while creating meta tags – title, description, keyword? OR do we need to back up the website first? Read More >> |
| January 20, 2010Is an XML sitemap mandatory if you have a CMS? Read More >> |
| January 20, 2010I own many domain names related to my business. Would I have a problem with Google if I made one-page websites with good related copy on these domain names and linked the one-page websites back to my main website? Read More >> |
| January 20, 2010I was wondering what the differences are between SEM and SEO. Read More >> |
| January 20, 2010Inbound, good-quality links are a struggle for me. I can sort though all sorts of tech stuff resulting in a good-looking, professional website, but link building is a real challenge. Read More >> |
| January 20, 2010What (if anything) will you be doing differently with your SEO strategy this year? Read More >> |
| January 20, 2010Forum member "krisflex" wants to know how to increase his or her PageRank. Read More >> |
| January 6, 2010What has changed most in Search Marketing since 2000? Read More >> |
| December 16, 2009How often do you think most websites should be redesigned? Read More >> |
| December 2, 2009The easiest part of SEO is... Read More >> |
| December 2, 2009Rankings Are Dead? Read More >> |
| November 11, 2009This morning I woke up to someone having submitted a pile of SEO questions using our newsletter question form. At first I thought, "Yikes, that's kind of pushy to think I have time to answer all those questions!" But then I remembered that this was a newsletter week and I still had no idea what I was going to write about. Read More >> |
| November 11, 2009What are your Twitter pet peeves? Read More >> |
| November 11, 2009Meta Description – Beyond 155 – Still Alive? Read More >> |
| October 28, 2009Will you care if Google turns off toolbar PR? Read More >> |
| October 28, 2009SEO Best Principles for Local Service Read More >> |
| October 14, 2009Do you think SEO is undervalued by most companies? Why or why not? Read More >> |
| September 30, 2009Read the responses to the Twitter Question of the week. Read More >> |
| September 16, 2009Advanced Forum Thread of the Week: New forum member "wsajay" was wondering if and how the traffic to a given website affects its search engine rankings. Read More >> |
| September 2, 2009I've been asked to provide some info on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) description of my site, and how to manage it. Read More >> |
| September 2, 2009My plan is to move all the home decor products from the old site to the new one AND change the products of the old one back to selling the jewelry, perfume, wallets, etc. – that is, the "gifty" stuff.
What is the best way to make this change? Read More >> |
| September 2, 2009I have a corporate client that is planning to purchase a company in Switzerland and they are wondering if I can do the SEO. But then it dawned on me, checking their rankings with a U.S.-based IP address might deliver different search results…do you think? Read More >> |
| September 2, 2009I am new to SEO. I am writing my first website and would like to get a better understanding of building a great website that will attract my target market to my site. Can you suggest any good books that can help me achieve this goal? Read More >> |
| September 2, 2009The Twitter Question of the Week is: "Do you give 'ballpark' SEO quotes to companies if/when they won't tell you what the website is? It's kinda necessary, no?" Read More >> |
| September 2, 2009What's your take on competitors who run paid search campaigns using your brand name as trigger words? Read More >> |
| August 19, 2009The Twitter question for this week was:
"Is there such a thing as white hat or black hat social media? Why or why not?" Read More >> |
| August 5, 2009I'm a Keyword Discovery subscriber, and I use the tool for organic SEO keyword research purposes. I've recently discovered that the keyword analysis information (competition and thus KEI info) is based on exact match search instead of partial match. Read More >> |
| August 5, 2009My Twitter question for this week was: "The hardest part of SEO is...?" Read More >> |
| August 5, 2009In response to my "Most of SEO Is a Boondoggle" article, my buddy Andrew Goodman from Traffick.com had some very interesting follow-up questions for me. Read More >> |
| August 5, 2009Forum member "jsp1983" wondered which might be better, "Essentially, a very localised domain, but with less content vs. a less specific domain, but with lots of content." Read More >> |
| July 22, 2009Do you research keywords before writing a blog post or article? Read More >> |
| July 8, 2009I asked my Twitter peeps, "What are you not doing on your own website that you often
recommend your clients should do?" Read More >> |
| July 8, 2009The other day I stumbled across Google's 1-click for free program, which is a way of indexing content that can normally be viewed only by registered users. Read More >> |
| June 24, 2009Recently, an individual asked us to solve a problem for him. A member of his family had dealt with a certain company and, he said, was harmed as a result. This individual wanted to know how he could get high rankings for his blog when someone typed in the company's brand name. Read More >> |
| June 24, 2009Forum member "taterchips" (great name!) is interested in tackling a specific niche within their profession and was looking at the most effective way to play to that niche. Their question has to do with whether they should add a new page or section to their existing website or start a new website for this particular niche. Read More >> |
| June 10, 2009We are being contacted more and more by companies asking if we will add to our websites and/or clients' websites a short paragraph of text that includes a link to one of their clients' sites – i.e., a text advertisement.
Read More >> |
| May 27, 2009Do you think a positioning video has value on a website, or does it interfere with the structure and architecture of the website?
Read More >> |
| May 27, 2009I have a few Twitter questions in terms of right or wrong ways to tweet, if there even is such a thing. Read More >> |
| May 27, 2009Are the Title, Description and Keywords (the metadata) always the same for each blog post? Read More >> |
| May 27, 2009We want to put a calendar of events on our website. Google Calendar appears to be a great product but since it is not hosted on our website the long-tail SEO value (which is one of the main reasons we want to do the calendar) is lost. Read More >> |
| May 27, 2009We have a website of which the home page has 5 PageRank. This website has 5,000 pages that are indexed in Google.com and many of the pages have good PageRank. Read More >> |
| May 27, 2009I have a series (15) of keyword domains (3 to 5 years old) that are related to my site. Currently most of them are mirrors with just a slight content differential. Read More >> |
| May 27, 2009Forum member "vanzist" asks what the best Title tag for a page would be. While my first response was the usual "it depends," additional comments make for a very interesting forum thread. Read More >> |
| May 13, 2009What's your opinion on the purchase of links for SEO? Read More >> |
| April 15, 2009My question is: How does Google know that the blog is part of my website if the address isn't under my website address or hosted by my server? Read More >> |
| April 15, 2009I realize that Google picks up Alt text data (aka Alt tags), especially if the graphic acts as a link; however, I am a bit puzzled on how Google ranked a particular site. Read More >> |
| April 15, 2009Forum member "cswilliams" wonders if hosting your videos on your own server rather than on YouTube would provide any SEO benefits.
Read More >> |
| March 4, 2009I run an apartment search website. The sites search results pages are dynamic and pulled from the database. If these dynamic pages also have dynamic page titles, will they be search engine relevant? Read More >> |
| March 4, 2009I disseminate news releases for clients using online wire services. Additionally, the releases are posted on my clients' websites, usually as PDFs, and on my firm's website, the same PDF. My programmer just told me that unless I make these releases different I am causing search engine apoplexy. Please let me know the facts and, more important, what I should be doing. Read More >> |
| March 4, 2009My question is, how should SEO services be evaluated? In other words, what measurable objectives beyond landing above the fold are appropriate? Read More >> |
| March 4, 2009We have a travel website where people can enquire about beautiful small hotels we offer. Even though each hotel has a unique URL with unique content, the categories pages have a duplication problem. Read More >> |
| March 4, 2009I would like to ask a question too, please. Our website is geared to sell GPS equipment. Many of the products have a life of about 6 months to a year. Google indexes these very well, and we rank highly. However, some searches display discontinued products (I guess because they have been around the longest). Read More >> |
| February 28, 2009Every website is different in terms of how competitive they can realistically shoot for with their SEO efforts. I typically use a combination of factors to decide on this... Read More >> |
| February 4, 2009I have a new website selling children's eco friendly toys. The site was designed to enable customers to search for toys by age, by type of toy, by brand, and by country of manufacture. A given toy description would be in each of these categories as well as in multiple age categories and multiple toy types (i.e., in puzzles and wooden puzzles). Read More >> |
| February 4, 2009I'm writing now because a colleague and I have some questions on search engine/directory submission and we are hoping to get your expertise on the subject. We currently submit new sites to major SEs once they go live, but are wondering if some of the services are worth pursuing or if you advise against these? Read More >> |
| February 4, 2009What do you think about a potential SEO client who asks you to agree not to work with any related company for 2 years after the conclusion of the business relationship? Read More >> |
| February 4, 2009If I hire people through something like crowdsourcing just to Google some keywords from various areas of the globe to click through to my site and stay there for 5 minutes, will it improve my rankings? Read More >> |
| February 4, 2009I've been researching absolute vs. relative links and there seem to be two camps -- one that advocates absolute as better for SEO purposes and the other that says that absolute links won't improve your rank. My site is set up with relative links, so is it worth the effort to change them to absolute? Read More >> |
| February 4, 2009I'm redesigning my website using CSS for the layout. In the HTML code the navigation information comes before the actual page content. What worries me is how I have my navigation set up. I use CSS and span tags to make neat little information boxes appear when my navigation links are hovered over. These boxes will tell the visitor more about what to expect from that particular link. Read More >> |
| February 4, 2009Forum member "anne999" was wondering how many keywords she could target on her website. Read More >> |
| December 3, 2008"I'm just about to launch a new site. It should really be 3 sites but the client talked me into making it one or the deal was off. It's for private sales of cars, property and boats. It also has a business directory for each section. The sections are in subdirectories rather than domains for easy maintenance." Read More >> |
| November 19, 2008If organic SEO is so important, why are we being sold on PPC as most important by PPC trainers? Why is there less about organic SEO? Read More >> |
| November 19, 2008In Google's Webmaster Tools there is a section where you can submit someone you think is buying links. Here is what I don't understand – can Google really penalize you for purchasing links? Read More >> |
| November 19, 2008I work for a nonprofit that since 2000 has been operating an e-commerce website to provide emerging artists with a web presence. It has earned a toolbar PageRank of 5, thanks to some decent inbound links. Due to a variety of things, the parent company of the website has decided it's time to shut the site down. Read More >> |
| November 19, 2008"Our client has affiliates that want to bid on many of the same keywords that we are bidding on. How can we manage this so that the affiliates don't drive up our cost on PPC?" Read More >> |
| October 22, 2008How important is it to have a large number of indexed sites through Google? If so, how do we increase the number, and how do we edit what text appears under the link? Read More >> |
| October 22, 2008I performed a keyword analysis for one of my projects, picked several powerful "traffic juicy" keywords and optimized the landing pages for those keywords. My site went to the first page in the search engines, and yet we've got no more than 100 unique visitors per month. Have you any idea why?
Read More >> |
| October 22, 2008Forum member "bobmeetin" explains how a business he's evaluating has a main website plus 4 subdomains and seems like one big organizational mess. Read More >> |
| August 27, 2008For purposes of discussion, let's say my main URL is www.example.com. I have a plethora of links in my site for indexing purposes between pages. The page links all go to their respective pages properly, but are linked to example.com (without the www part).
Read More >> |
| August 27, 2008I'm wondering if there is more link value provided by a new blog if it is hosted on an IP with a different C block than the IP address of the web site itself. The owner of the business would be writing the blog and sharing business expertise with the idea of building the brand of the business. Read More >> |
| August 27, 2008I recently set up a new site, which isn't something I often do, and forgot to set up the meta title and description. Now what is called up on Google for my site is HOME and a sentence from mid-page. Now that I have fixed the Web problem, how do I get the search engines to do another crawl of the site? Read More >> |
| August 27, 2008I'm about to renew our contract with our search engine ranking optimization software, but thought I'd check out other options before committing. What do you folks use? Read More >> |
| August 27, 2008I had the pleasure of being interviewed recently by a number of online marketing folks and thought you might enjoy learning more about me and my thoughts on a plethora of search marketing issues. Read More >> |
| July 16, 2008I recently signed up as an advertiser with [a blog review website] so I could purchase blog review postings for one of my clients. After enrolling, I purchased a PR5 blog review posting at the standard PR5 price of $40. Eventually my offer was picked up by a blogger, but the review posting only stayed on their PR5 home page for one day as the next day it was shifted from the front page of the blog to an archived page that had a PR0. Read More >> |
| June 11, 2008In preparation for next week's SES Toronto, I was interviewed by Manoj Jasra at Web Analytics World. Read More >> |
| May 14, 2008The front page of my website has a [toolbar] PageRank of 4 and most of my inner pages had a PageRank of 3. After this quarter's Google [toolbar] update, my homepage remained a 4, but most of my inner pages went down to a 2. Read More >> |
| May 14, 2008I have a client who has 2 domain names: namehere.com and differentnamehere.us pointing at the same IP address. Is it bad SEO to have multiple domain names for the same site? And will this negatively impact search engine results for each? Read More >> |
| May 14, 2008While this question may not be directly SEO-related, I'm wondering if there might be any negative SEO implications to including a social bookmarking and sharing button to the more popular pages on our website to leverage some of the popularity of social networking? Read More >> |
| April 30, 2008Regarding long-tail keywords, I often find it difficult optimizing them in an article, mainly because it can look unnatural if you include them too often. How do you recommend I deal with this problem? Apart from in the headline, at what density do they need to be mentioned in an article in order to maximize our chances of getting good listings? Read More >> |
| April 23, 2008If I have the same title tags and keywords as the company listed first in Google, Yahoo, etc., why don't I get a high ranking? Read More >> |
| April 9, 2008Here is the scenario: I had a Virtual Private Server (VPS) with 9 websites on it that were all interlinked. It worked great for awhile. Then in Nov. 2004, Google did a big adjustment, and all 9 of my sites dropped out of sight. Read More >> |
| April 9, 2008Search engine results seem to vary for US states. For instance, one of my clients gets top results while one of my clients from another state doesn't get the same results. Read More >> |
| January 31, 2008Is someone more likely to click on my organic or paid search result if they appear side by side? Read More >> |
| January 23, 2008You briefly hit on ROI and basically described perfectly a dilemma I have. We are a B2B manufacturer of machinery that costs anywhere from the 10's of thousands to the 100's of thousands each. We sell a handful of these machines each year. Consequently, the buying cycle can take up to a year or more. How would you suggest we figure ROI and conversions for this kind of business? Read More >> |
| January 16, 2008I have a customer who is convinced that for maximum SEO, the page length must be between 450 and 625 words. He has a software program that tells him this. Is there any truth to it?
Read More >> |
| January 16, 2008I have plain html pages that describe the various health-related products that I recommend. If one of my readers wishes to purchase a product, they click on an "order now" button, which takes them to the desired product at my shopping cart.
Read More >> |
| January 16, 2008I really would like to go to a SEO conference someday, but which? I'm not an SEO novice and PPC is not my strategy. Plus being #1 what could anybody teach me, anyway? Now, I know that is a very stupid and dangerous statement. ;-) Future trends or expert hints very specific to my site are what I think I need. What do you think?
Read More >> |
| January 2, 2008A lot of my clients pull data/products from semi-public databases to populate their websites, similar to how real estate agents show listings of homes on their sites. I've been ensuring that each client has unique valuable and professionally edited content whenever possible on the rest of the site, but I’m afraid that if I make the portions of the site that use the semi-public data accessible to the search engines, they will find duplicate information on other sites and my client site(s) would not be indexed. Read More >> |
| December 19, 2007I am coming across a lot of offers for software for SEO. A lot of them are
offering different sorts of analyzers, etc. — which I’m not sure are
helpful. Is there any sort of software that is real SEO software and
actually does some actual SEO work to your site? Read More >> |
| December 19, 2007Forum member "NeilPertRocks" tells the other members that the VP in his company completely removed their paid-search program, and is wondering how this will affect their business. Read More >> |
| November 28, 2007I am in the process of changing all my URLs from things like news123.html to
OurCompany_Announces_New_CEO.html Read More >> |
| November 14, 2007Two weeks ago, my Google PR was still at 0/10. We have a 6-month-old site, for which I've been doing many of the "slow growth" SEO tactics as my time allows.
This week, I find that my Google PR is now 5/10. Read More >> |
| October 31, 2007One of my biggest headaches is working out how to charge and how much to
charge my clients for my services. Read More >> |
| October 3, 2007I have a question: I created a site (read a book on HTML, a book on SEO, and
a book on globalization of websites). After about 10 months, the site is
doing very well and I am pleased with its rankings.
Read More >> |
| October 3, 2007I am currently looking at doing SEO work for a [generic type of alcohol for
drinking] industry-related website. I have come across one problem though.
Read More >> |
| October 3, 2007I have a plastic surgeon client who specializes in many procedures and has
spent a fortune on developing a very nice site that has been done in Flash.
In efforts to get him some traffic, we are doing a double campaign, one with
pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and one using SEO tactics.
Read More >> |
| October 3, 2007We have an information site which sells nothing. Our site consists of about
140 articles. I have authored several, and I'm wondering about submitting a
couple of my articles to certain type of sites which claim to boost links to
your site.
Read More >> |
| October 3, 2007To gain credibility, I
often send my clients to sign up for your newsletter to show that I am not
the only one telling them whatever it is I am telling them at the time.
With that, the answer to a question from your last newsletter could severely
hurt my (our) business.
Read More >> |
| October 2, 2007I wonder if you can help me. We have a website in New Zealand and it is
hosted here too. We are expanding our business to Australia and building a
new website for this. My web company has said that the new site should be
hosted in Australia as we would get a good start with Google.com.au. Do
you agree with this? Does Google take into account where your site is hosted
for rankings?
Read More >> |
| September 26, 2007I am a small business owner with a circa 2003 website that needs an overhaul
both in terms of SEO optimization and visual appeal. I have no time or
talent to do this and want to hire a company.
I have received a reply from one company that said the problem with my
website is that it was written in FrontPage. They implied that that was a
problem both from a design perspective and for SEO. Do you agree? And if
so, does my website need to be recreated in HTML? Read More >> |
| September 25, 2007I submitted our website sitemap to Google a while back, but I was reading a
forum this morning where somebody was saying you have to submit every page
to Google. What is the real procedure and are sitemaps important? Read More >> |
| September 25, 2007I have a really quick question I hope you can help with. There is a small
business in town that is paying $200 a month to have another company make
sure it stays at the top of the ranking lists in search engines. Now if
there is no new competition, except maybe a new office every few years, is
it necessary to pay them, or could they do it themselves with the guidance
you offer on your website? Read More >> |
| September 19, 2007I came across your site on Google while trying to find some information and
found it very helpful. However, I did have a question that was not covered.
Will the search engines be able to find text in a PDF document, or am I
better where possible to include the information in a web page? Read More >> |
| July 11, 2007Last night was our third SEMNE event (Search Engine Marketing New England), and we were humbled to have Dan Crow, director of crawl systems at Google, spilling the beans about how to get your site into Google. He talked for a half hour or so, and then proceeded to answer audience questions for at least another hour. As I sat there listening to him (yes, I actually listened to this one!), I was struck by what an awesome opportunity it was for everyone in that room to be provided with such important information — straight from Google. It was clear that the 100 or so people in the room agreed. In fact, at 7:30 on the dot, everyone spontaneously stopped their networking activities and simply took their seats without being asked to. These folks definitely came to hear Google! Read More >> |
| June 14, 2007Pauline caught up with Jennifer Laycock, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Guide, in order to find out her thoughts on viral marketing and social media. Read More >> |
| June 5, 2007In Part 1 of my article,
I said that we need to have an entirely different mindset when
researching keywords for PPC vs. SEO. When compiling keywords for SEO,
you’re looking for phrases that get a good bit of traffic. But for PPC,
you can use all those longer queries that are impossible to work into
your page copy. Plus, you’re trying to get a feel for all the different
ways people have of phrasing their queries. Read More >> |
| May 23, 2007Does what you name a page (not the “Title” but the file name) matter to
search engines when they crawl a site? Read More >> |
| May 23, 2007Our site has a blog which is www.blog.domain.com — should it really be
www.domain.com/blog ? Read More >> |
| May 23, 2007When I am searching on terms that apply to our website or our specific
products I’m finding that the perfect phrases or keywords have tons of
competition. And the more obscure phrases that don’t have a lot of
competition are not searched on much. Read More >> |
| May 23, 2007I have to create some pages for a client. They are full of images and little
to no content and have no title tags…however, they still want SEO
services…*groan* Read More >> |
| April 18, 2007I started answering this question with the usual answer, but
as I looked at the site in question, I realized there was more going on than
meets the eye. Please read through the entire question and my response to
see what I mean! Read More >> |
| April 4, 2007Someone emailed me with a list of quick questions about some SEO terminology
they didn’t understand. I figured if one person was looking for these
answers, many of you would be, too. Read More >> |
| March 21, 2007I recently had an inquiry from someone who was looking for some possible SEO consulting with me. He was in the process of a redesign and wanted to be
sure not to make any mistakes along the way, which is super-smart! The time
to be looking at SEO is definitely in the beginning stage of any design or
redesign project. Read More >> |
| February 28, 2007Your email newsletter is one of my favorites, and I get a bunch of them from
SEO “experts” and others. Read More >> |
| February 28, 2007Great newsletter. My business partner is developing our site and wants to
put a list of keywords at the bottom of some of our shop pages (i.e. below
the text) in the hopes that this will get the search engines to notice us
slightly more. Read More >> |
| February 21, 2007Recently I had the pleasure of speaking with John Jantsch of Duct Tape
Marketing about search marketing for small businesses. Read More >> |
| January 31, 2007I work for a nonprofit retreat center for which our main offerings are (you guessed it) retreat programs. Until recently, whenever we sent out email flyers about our programs, we had the link go directly to the program’s unique page on our website. Our marketing director has been trying to make a case for sending the clicker to the landing page that would then direct the clicker to a list of programs, including the one on which he or she clicked. Read More >> |
| January 31, 2007I am surprised to see that your own website still has both the www and non-www version in place — no redirect to get the “link juice” from the non-www version. Do you consider this a not so important issue? Both versions have good PR. Read More >> |
| January 31, 2007I have a question relating to Meta tags and the head document. Read More >> |
| January 17, 2007Keywords. I have been designing web sites for 5 +/- yrs, so I am aware of
what they are and how they are being used / can be used. I’m not saying I am
an expert, just that I’m not a novice. Read More >> |
| January 3, 2007Our web site has been around for many years and we are switching over to a content management system coded in JSP, but with extensions ending in .do as opposed to what we currently have, .asp. Read More >> |
| January 3, 2007I notice you also hold a lot of seminars which would be incredibly beneficial to someone in my position. I also notice that all your seminars are held in America. Read More >> |
| January 3, 2007I am working for a Flash site that is brand-new. How can that be indexed and come up in the SERPs? Read More >> |
| January 3, 2007I notice you always promote both KeywordDiscovery and WordTracker. I am trying to decide which one to subscribe to. Read More >> |
| January 3, 2007I don’t understand how search engines list dynamic sites. For example, this site has a whole bunch of products. Every single product page calls up the same url: www.example.com/products.php. Read More >> |
| January 3, 2007I recently met with a company that provides SEO as one of their services and I was told point-blank that our site is written with the “wrong code,” and therefore the search engines can’t read it. I use FrontPage and have nothing more fancy than text, tables, pictures, and some links to other industry sites. Should I be suspicious? Read More >> |
| January 3, 2007I recently SEO-ed my site. Yahoo started re-indexing my website: they already showed 37 of the new links (internal URLs) within my site. This morning I had another look at these links within Yahoo and got an unpleasant surprise: they showed the links from the previous version of my site. I’m wondering if you have an explanation of why this happened. Read More >> |
| January 3, 2007I am continually frustrated with web sites that provide a link, but when I click on it, it takes me OFF their site and onto another. Read More >> |
| December 13, 2006I have better backlinks than my competitor and my site is also optimized,
but why is my competitor’s ranking better than mine? Our backlinks are
around 90 and the competitor’s backlinks are around 55. What can I do for
better rankings than the competitor? Read More >> |
| December 13, 2006In the scheme of things, do you think it is important to add outbound links
from a web site? Read More >> |
| December 13, 2006I’ve been told that adding a site map to our website increases the chance of
search engines linking to other pages in our site. Any truth to this? Read More >> |
| December 13, 2006I have a client who has a website in
England for his English branch. He also has a branch in Turkey that doesn’t
have a website yet. He would like to use the template for his existing
English website for his new Turkish website. Read More >> |
| December 13, 2006I recalled some advice you gave on redirecting multiple domain names
from a while back and to my surprise I was actually able to locate it on
your site... Read More >> |
| December 13, 2006I have been using Overture’s “Keyword Selection Tool” for a long time.
Lately I have experienced problems with it. Read More >> |
| December 13, 2006I have a client whose web site has been created in Cold Fusion. I am not all
that familiar with these types of pages but right now most of their page
text and metas are being pulled from another document and are not actually
part of the “live site code.” Read More >> |
| December 13, 2006At the beginning of October we regenerated our entire site and
ran into a very strange problem. All of a sudden all our search results were
showing up under one of our old domain names. Read More >> |
| December 13, 2006If my pages are in a table, and if I add a header to
that table for a caption, put my main keyword for that page in it, and make
it a bold and big h1 tag, will it help? Read More >> |
| November 29, 2006As you know there are a lot of so-called SEO/SEM experts/gurus claiming all sorts of things. The analogy to me is like "quack" doctors compared to the genuine article. Are there 6 or a dozen questions that would expose those purporting to be experts? Read More >> |
| November 8, 2006My CEO has been forwarding me your newsletters for some time now. I am in
need of advice, and I am hoping you might be able to help me out. We offer
online services and have been online since 1997 with our websites. I know a
little about SEO because I was once a junior SEO rep for my former SEO
manager but my primary skill set is not doing SEO but more managing those
who do it. Read More >> |
| October 25, 2006Sixty-year-old newbie here with his first e-book! My site is unlinked -- just "up there." I teach project management for a living -- but ill health is forcing early retirement, and I have an urgent need to keep paying the mortgage! Read More >> |
| September 27, 2006In cases where a client is smarter than you are about SEO, insists on
saturating his keyword pages (10 per 200-word page) at 5% (which includes
the keyword phrase in two header lines), and currently (without keyword
saturation) consistently hits in the top 20 on his Google searches. Read More >> |
| September 20, 2006Here's a question for you to answer in your newsletter. I was recently
quoted a job by an SEO consultant, and he kept using the term "organic" to
describe the methodology. What does this mean? And do I want it? Read More >> |
| September 20, 2006I have been receiving your excellent newsletter for more than 3 years and
find it an invaluable help to understand the ins and outs of SEO.
Indeed I am sure that your advice has been instrumental in achieving a top 5
listing for the last 3 years in Google for my London site. Read More >> |
| September 20, 2006How many characters are allowed in the keyword Meta tag? How will the
crawler treat a page that goes over this limit of characters? Read More >> |
| September 20, 2006I wonder if you can give me a steer on a particular SEO problem.
I have a client who specializes in acupuncture and other alternative
remedies in London We would like to optimise for the conditions she treats such as back pain,
insomnia, headaches, etc - about 40 different in all. Read More >> |
| September 20, 2006I have been a regular reader of your newsletter for some time. I hope you
have time to give me your thoughts on the following comment that I received
from a website designer. Read More >> |
| September 13, 2006I represent a golf accessory manufacturer considering doing some serious
SEO/SEM. We are interested in determining the real efficacy of SEO/SEM as it
translates into online unit sales growth or online revenue growth. I have
searched through many, many sites and haven't been able to come up with any
good stats that demonstrate B2C improvements in eCommerce sales after
applying SEO/SEM. Read More >> |
| September 6, 2006I have an interesting case of a client who is wanting to do a “soft launch”
of his site. The client wants to make the landing page or homepage a login
section with little to no information about his product on it except for the
name of the product and login details, as he wants to keep […] Read More >> |
| September 6, 2006I’d like to thank you for the great information that you make available. I
read it and implement it — and it works. Thanks! Read More >> |
| August 30, 2006The following is an email exchange I had with someone who was wondering
whether he would benefit from attending our High Rankings® Search Marketing
Seminar in Dallas on Oct. 19-20, 2006. Read More >> |
| August 16, 2006Push the button of every SEO expert and he/she will start talking about the
importance of links for high rankings.
Read More >> |
| August 2, 2006I'm looking for some advice on the impact of natural search on two companies
that have merged so I can advise on how best to proceed. They currently have
two sites that perform well in the SERPS and have different content but are
obviously competing on the same keyphrases and are now one company. Read More >> |
| August 2, 2006I have a question for you. Do extensions have any bearing on search engine
return? For example, are sites with .com extensions returned at a higher
ranking than a site with .net or .org? Read More >> |
| August 2, 2006I have found some great
information on 301 redirects, but nothing which exactly answers my two
questions. Read More >> |
| August 2, 2006Do you know if repeating keywords in the URL will help increase rankings
within search engine results? If so does it have a big impact? Read More >> |
| August 2, 2006Thanks for the tip on using Basecamp. I've tried it and love it! I've
uploaded all of my projects into it now.
Read More >> |
| August 2, 2006You were talking
about robots.txt files and how you want to use them to prevent the search
engines from indexing duplicating information. I use a Miva cart and custom
Miva pages. Read More >> |
| August 2, 2006Do the search engines see the addition of this character: | in the title tag
as words/characters, thus reducing the amount of words you should put in the
title tag? Read More >> |
