Exclusive Google SEO Advice - Breaking News
SEO Help - Hot Tip -You may or may not be aware, but Google has released a list of SEO do’s and don’ts that you should follow if you want any hope of being indexed and ranked in the search engines. Most SEO information is disputed, but when it comes from the King’s mouth, you know it’s probably very true!
Ok, so maybe this isn’t breaking news - and although it’s been out for a while, Google has a small guide on what to do and what not to do when it comes to getting ranked in their glorious index. Again, while these are some common sense items, you’d be surprised at the amount of people that do not read it, and end up either suffering a drop in rankings, penalized, or banned from Google’s index all together.
I want to sum up the Do’s and Don’ts of Google’s guidelines to SEO best practices (not all of them, because some are extremely basic, so just the ones that you may have forgotten)
Do’s:
- Have other sites link to yours (quality, relevant sites).
- Submit a sitemap using your Google Webmaster Tools account.
- Submit your site to quality, high authority directories in the appropriate category.
- Make a site with text links and a clear hierarchy, and make sure every page is reachable by at least one static text link.
- Create useful, unique, and clearly written content. Relevancy is key.
- Make sure your TITLE tags and ALT tags are”descriptive and accurate” (see, even Google recommends this - told you I wasn’t BS’ing!)
- Maintain clean HTML code.
- Keep the outgoing links on a particular page under 100.
- Make it easy for search bots to crawl your site without error.
- Make use of the robots.txt file to limit crawling on pages that aren’t useful to visitors.
- Make pages for users, not search engines. (It’s fine to optimize your page, but don’t do nasty spammy things just to get the search engine’s to look for it)
Don’ts:
- Don’t have any broken links on your site.
- Don’t use hidden text or hidden links (people, doing that is soooo 2002, and will get you heavily penalized)
- Don’t cloak or use “sneaky” redirects.
- Don’t load pages with keywords or keyphrases. This is spam, and Google knows it.
- Don’t send automated queries to Google.
- Don’t create duplicate content. (This will kill your rankings most of the time)
- Don’t create pages that install bad things (trojan’s, viruses, malware, etc..) - kind of a no brainer anyway.
- If you participate in an affiliate program, don’t provide duplicate, run of the mill content. Provide useful, relevant content for the user.
- DON’T participate in linking schemes!!! Bloggers pay attention to that one. So many of those viral linking posts go around, and they are just not good for business. That’s why you rarely see the bigger A-list blogs take part, because they know it’s bad for rankings. Resist the temptation to gain 30 extra links overnight (do you really think Google doesn’t know what’s up with that, c’mon….).
So, what you just read comes from the horses mouth itself, and I personally agree that you can’t go wrong by following the above advice. I take it for granted sometimes that people know all of this stuff, but I see it every single day (I work in SEO), that people will still try to keyword stuff, white text on white background, cloak, and all sorts of nasty things. Rarely, there are a few that get away with this and achieve good rankings, however, those rankings don’t last long at all. Google is all knowing, and will catch you eventually. You can bet on that.
To read the entire paper from Google, check it out here.
Exploit the backlink power of blogs! Get your site onto the most popular content sites in your niche!
25 comments
Thanks for summarizing DOs and DONTs nicely. It should be bookmarked for reference…
Thanks SEO Meter!
I agree, it’s a lot easier to read it after someone else re-wrote it. As you said, it should be bookmarked for quick reference! Thanks!
Thanks for the summary of Google’s new rules. I just Stumbled on your site and I am going to dive into your archives.
Cheers,
Kim
Although these are simple SEO tips, most of us will be overlooked by the webmaster. Thanks for reminding them!!!
[...] good since it is right from the source.) There is a brief and easy to comprehend overview here and the full document can be found here. If you follow these guidelines you are more likely to [...]
Thanks Jack!
Thanks Kim, hope to see you back!
This really isn’t exclusive material. That list has been out and publicly available for several years now.
Hence the second paragraph………..
nice way to get traffic. regurgitating old stuff with a catchy (and false) post title. I fell for it
Thanks
Many thanks for the great article…kudos!!
This is a great post! It contains useful information for anyone trying to increase their page rank and their results in search engines.
I think people get caught up in trying to make their site #1 over night and that isn’t the best way to go about gaining traffic. It takes time and ultimately… content is king!
~Debby
Well in a nut shell these are the basics and nothing has changed, but do the obvious for relevant search rankings!
Hello Ryan,
…because some are extremely basic, so just the ones that you may have forgotten
Looks like I might be at the wrong site.
“Extremely basic”: isn’t that where noobs start?
“Stuff you may have forgotten”: hey, noobs haven’t even learned yet, so what’s been forgot?
Is this a place for noobs or not, Ryan?
I really love the first two articles I’ve read “Link Building Is Essential - Here’s 10 Ways How To Do It” and “6 Free SEO Tools You Can’t Live Without” Makes a noob feel like this is where it’s at. But then, suddenly and whoosh…the very next article and you’re off and talking as if your readers aren’t noobs at all.
Anyway, this is getting too long. I’ve decided I’m gonna stick around (just as long as I’m not made to feel that I should be at an Extremely-Basic-Noob site.)
Btw, here’s my hobby site. Still in progress but hope you like it - the domain name is a killer because they say that VC = virtual community: http://www.rocknroll.vc
Thanks for letting me post. (Hope you don’t mind my rant too much)
Regards
[...] Here’s a nice guide as to Google do’s and don’ts. It’s not rocket science. [...]
Thanks Jack. Neat Article
Wow.. This is a very great article! I definitely agree with your list.. And I’ll stick it in my mind for future practice in SEO…:) Thanks a lot!
Linking schemes are bad…Don`t forget: At Google work very clever guys
Thhose are good advice for seo, noob.
[...] came across a great article on the do’s and don’ts of Google search engine optimization (SEO). The beef of the article is [...]
How long can Google find out who are the bad boys and the good boys in the world wide web? I have seen many websites blatantly violating Google’s unilateral rule, yet these sites are still favored in search results.
Search for Best Webhost’s last blog post..Welcome to the Search Engine Land Newsletter
Thanks Ryan,
I am currently re-designing my whole site and am amazed at how little my programmers knew about SEO. This time round it is a whole lot more SE friendly and due to actually having a cool site that is going to benefit New Zealand’s art community - we hope to get some decent links…. especially edu and govt… sweeeet!
Im just an SEO noob but I am catching on fast - there is a wealth of good content out there.
Great blog - thanks
thank’s man.. i’m noob so it really help..
johnny’s last blog post..Hayden Leslie Panettiere
[...] 1, 2008 @ 4:10 pm } · { design } { Tags: search engine optimization, SEO } We came across a great article on the do’s and don’ts of Google search engine optimization (SEO). The beef of the article is [...]
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