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The Other Side of the Search Gods Abracadabra!

Thousands of servers ...billions of web pages.... the possibility of individually sifting through the WWW is null. The search engine gods cull the information you need from the Internet...from tracking down an elusive expert for communication to presenting the most unconventional views on the planet. Name it and click it. Beyond all the hype created about the web heavens they rule, let's attempt to keep the argument balanced. From Google to Voice of the Shuttle (for humanities research) these ubiquitous gods that enrich the net, can be unfair ...and do wear pitfalls. And considering the rate... Read More

Get Better Search Engine Rankings with RSS

RSS is the latest craze in online publishing. But what exactly is RSS?RSS or Rich Site Syndication is a file format similar to XML, and is used by publishers to make their content available to others in a format that can be universally understood.RSS allows publishers to "syndicate" their content through the distribution of lists of hyperlinks.It has actually been around for a while, but with the advent of spam filters and online blogging, it is fast becoming the choice of ezine publishers who want to get their message across to their subscribers.However, not much attention has been given to... Read More

If Content is King, then surely Relevance is Queen!

There has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in the searchengine world of late and there are lots of conspiracytheories as to why these things happen. It is easy as a webmaster to get caught up in these webs ofintrigue. You get email notes about them, you view so-called experts'thoughts on bulletin Boards - hey you probably even readthings in newsletter articles! Well I hope so anyway.... The big driver for webmasters currently appears to becontent and link building. While link building is important I don't believe it makesQueen. Maybe a Prince. Content and links DO go hand... Read More

The Budget Webmaster?s 6 Step Guide to Improving Existing Rankings in Google

The Budget Webmaster's 6 Step Guide to Improving Existing Rankings in GoogleYou know the scenario. You get an occasional click from Google for a certain keyword. You go to find out why you aren't getting more clicks, and you find out that you're ranked in the 30's, 50's, or heaven forbid, the 300's. "Great", you think, "I finally get ranked for a good keyword and it's a worthless ranking".Not necessarily.If you got ranked for a keyword you wanted At All, the game's not over yet. If your site's content is geared towards that subject, you can get your ranking in... Read More

Your Website Title Could Be Costing You Money

Nothing could be simpler than the title you give to your web pages right? Unfortunately, the vast majority of the websites I visit these days have absolutely terrible titles that hurt their online business. The title of your website is a very important part of getting good rankings on most of the major search engines. A good title also goes a long way towards getting your prospects to click on your listings.If you go to Google right now, and type any search phrase you want, you get back a listing of web sites that match the keywords you entered in.... Read More

Choosing a good domain name isnt always so simple.

So you need a domain name for your brand new internet business. You may even have some cool ideas for a new domain name combination that will really impress your friends. Question is, is your new domain name going to help your business or hurt it?What could be simpler than choosing a domain name right? Wrong. There are a number of things you need to consider and research before you register your favorite domain name.First off, what is a domain name and why would I want one?A domain name makes our lives much easier when surfing the internet. You see,... Read More

Search Engine Marketing 101 For Corporate Sites

When most people want to find something on the web, they use a search engine. Millions of searches are conducted every day on search engines such as: google.com, yahoo.com, msn.com and many others. Some people are looking for your website. So how do you capture people searching for what your site has to offer? Through techniques called search engine marketing (SEM). This tutorial is foundational information for anyone looking to implement search engine marketing. This tutorial will also help you understand how the search engines work, what SEM is, and how it can help you get traffic. What is... Read More

How To Design A Search Engine Friendly Website

There are many websites that fail to target their required traffic, even if they've had some search engine optimisation work done. One of the main causes for this is simply because the website isn't search engine friendly. This is a basic essential that needs to be incorporated into the design of all websites at the outset ? think of it as the foundation to establishing your search engine optimisation strategy.This article aims to highlight the areas a web designer should think about and incorporate into their design for maximum search engine effectiveness:1. Search Engine Friendly PagesIt is important that when... Read More

eMarketing Sabotage - Top 10 Steps To Kill Your Search Engine Marketing Practices

We at America Web Works find ourselves amazed at the amount of effort people spend trying to fool or manipulate their positioning in search engines. People seem to focus on the shortcuts to success and NOT on their Web site or the true value their content provides to their prospects.In the spirit of educating marketers about best practices, we present this list of ten things you can do to sabotage your search engine marketing project in a "New York" second.1. Invisible (Ghost) TextYou have kept a good secret! Your visitors might not have noticed, but all search engine crawlers have... Read More

Got Spiders?

Many internet marketers blow mountains of start-up cash on their websites just trying to break into search engine rankings. I was one of these internet marketers.I spent cash on get-rich-quick submission services that claimed they would submit my page to thousands of seach engines. . .for a small fee. I spent money to get registered with big name search engines. I even spent money on search engine optimization services.And then I waited. . .I waited to see SOME response--any response--from all of this work I had done. I waited for the spiders to reach my pages and rank my page... Read More

What is the Google Dance?

As with any good web developer, the ability to time the changes Google will update your website and refresh the content for better SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is in your favor. Welcome to the world of "Google Dance". The Google Dance is simply that the predetermination of when the actual update will commence. What really happens is Google sends out spiders to crawl the Internet, usually done to DNS (Domain Name Servers), upon spidering all of the available tables it begins to go through each individual site and updates the content on to Google.com. Thus if you watch your rank... Read More

What is PageRank?

Chances are you have been on the Internet and have been surfing in and out of websites looking for valuable information pertaining to a favorite topic or researching a subject for school or work. As you type in keyword(s) you match the information you are searching for on Google, you come up with 10,000 pages of information. It's virtually impossible to go through every one, so you refine your search by adding more exclusive keywords. Voila the number of pages reduces to around 1,000. Still this is a lot of pages, but you start looking through the information to find... Read More

What is The Google Sandbox Effect?

In the age of fair competition you may find it hard to believe that a search engine may hinder the appearance of a new website. This is what is currently believed to be happening on more web servers today. Some programmers have viewed Google as uncomfortable to rank newer websites until they have proven their viability to exist for more than a period of "x" months. Thus the term "Sandbox Effect" applies to the idea that all new websites have their ratings placed in a holding tank until such time is deemed appropriate before a ranking can commence. However the... Read More

Owning Your Category Online - Is Our Website Broken?

"Owning your business category online is more than just a few keywords... Is your website broken?"Let's face it, the Internet is a crowded place... and it's becoming even more crowded as you read this. Your business can't stand still online, and you can't afford to look backwards. Qualified, targeted traffic generation is what we all desire. Owning your category online goes a long way in providing just that.It's not about just looking forward, but moving forward and taking some ownership. Every business online today is worried about being found in the Top 10 Search Engines and Directories for their products... Read More

Are Search Engines Worth It Any More?

The "Number One" Question - the question that I (and probably every other Internet marketing expert on the planet) am most frequently asked: "How do I get to be Number One in the search engines for widgets? After all, my company is the world's leading provider of widgets - it's ridiculous that these other nobody companies are coming up in search engines ahead of us . . . " My response is almost always along the lines of: "Forget that right now, and get a life!" OK, so I am a little more tactful than that - and I do... Read More

Beyond Hits!

Your Website visitor reports are a goldmine of information. If you don't review these on a regular basis, you can't fully evaluate the return on your Web investment. And, you could miss critical clues as to how user-friendly your site is, how effectively your message reaches your visitors, and what unmet needs they may have. But the reports can be overwhelming - a confusing mass of graphs, numbers and URL's. How can you find the information that you really need, how do you know what to look for, and how do you make strategic decisions using the answers that you... Read More

Abandoned by Google! Googlebot, Wherefore Art Thou Googlebot?

As a search engine optimization specialist I often optimize existing web pages for small business clients, upload them to the site and see pages re-indexed by Google within a week. This only happens with existing business sites that have been online for a few years. Google seems to be updating their index as often as every other week at this point and older established sites that are already indexed seem to be re- crawled on that twice a month schedule on a fairly routine basis.Two clients that hired me for recent work saw their rankings shoot to the top for... Read More

Beyond Search Engines

Some webmasters report that search engines account for 75% or more of their total website traffic. However, it's important not to become too dependent on search engines for new business. Achieving a top listing from a major search engine is becoming more and more difficult over time. The competition for top spots is intense and it's getting harder every day to get listed at all. Also more and more search engines are moving to a pay-per-click model, and paying for top listings may not be in your budget. The major search engine companies tend to be secretive about the details... Read More

An SEO Checklist

Search engine optimization is on every webmaster's mind these days. Achieving a favorable ranking for the right keywords can mean a steady stream of targeted traffic to your site, and all for free - that's hard to beat. The key to high search engine rankings is structuring your website correctly, including plenty of content that is relevant to your keywords, and making sure your website is spider-friendly. You can use this checklist to make sure all of your Web pages can be found, indexed and ranked correctly: Your website is themed. Your site deals with an identifiable theme which is... Read More

Link Popularity Pitfalls

As we all know Google uses their PageRank technology to measure link popularity by counting the number of inbound links to your web pages, and it is one of the many factors influencing your ranking. Most website owners do not utilize properly what PageRank they already have. Their linking campaigns could be in vain if they let a large number of outbound links drain their existing PageRank. If their site were a bucket it would be full of holes, to illustrate this point, if you had a large number of outbound links, which are not reciprocated it would reduce your... Read More