SEO basics?

Hi everyone,

Recently I've gone live with a new client's site. I've coded the site using Web Standards, and chosen solid meta keywords/descriptions.

I managed to get the site showcased on www.cssmania.com, which helped a lot.

I was just curious, what else are some free, effective ways of improving search engine rank? Obviously I could search Google for this, but I'm actually more curious about what do my fellow DreamHosters do for their clients as far as SEO goes?

By the way, here's the address to the site if you're interested...

<a href="http://advantagesportswear.com/">http://advantagesportswear.com/</a>

In reply to:
I was just curious, what else are some free, effective ways of improving search engine rank? Obviously I could search Google for this,

For starters, bookmark this link: Google Info for Webmasters

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but I'm actually more curious about what do my fellow DreamHosters do for their clients as far as SEO goes?

There are a few simple things I make sure of:
1..Compliance to W3C Standards; see CSS validation on the same site. Spider bots do not like sloppy/crappy (X)HTML. And avoid using frames at all costs.
2..Keywords for each page should be relevant to the content of that page. Note: the homepage link you posted would be out-of-spec in that regard
3..No cutesy tricks like keyword bombing, invisible text, etc. because most spiders are wary of that nonsense now, and may in fact reject the site altogether (..at least I know the googlebot does that).
4..Linkbacks from *reputable* websites; again, spiders are becoming more wary of link farms and other shady tricks and won't be long before they get filtered out altogether.
5..Patience. Took almost 6 months to get up to third page of Google for products from most of my client sites.
6..As always: Spamming=BAD.

Howzat for starters?

As with most things, the way to rise to the top is to be the best. Build one of the best sites for a given topic, and it will rank well. And by "best" I don't mean "pretty" or "professionally designed", I mean how well users think it meets their needs.

Beyond writing good <title> tags for each page and favoring real text over images of words, my SEO pretty much consists of trying to build great sites. And my sites rank highly all over the engines for a multitude of money terms.

I got that by focusing on quality, and NOT by using invisible text, keyword stuffing, keyword density, stupid reciprocal link exchanges, search engine "submission", META tags, or any of the other popular things that many people think they need to worry about.

Here's my article on the subject: http://WebsiteHelpers.com/seo

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And by "best" I don't mean "pretty" or "professionally designed", I mean how well users think it meets their needs.

Very good advice.

I think too many people concentrate on what they think the search engines want and forget about what their users want.

In my experience, if you concentrate on keep your users happy, the search engines will follow :)

Mark

look, you should NOT pay attention to search engines, they WILL find you, even if your site has no content at all!

if you look at http://www.google.be/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:nl:official_s&hl=nl&q=schietschijf&meta=&btnG=Google+zoeken you will see that my site is ranked at the top of the page (that is first, second, third, fourth,...) and hasn't even have content except the soon message.

So pay attention to your content instead of to search engines, because if you have a good article, you get linked and searched in search engines and there you are!

While I agree with the sentiment that content is king, "schietschijf" isn't exactly the most common word. In fact I can't even find a translation in quick searches. That's a unique one you got there.

schietschijf is dutch for bullseye in the meaning of a target, the thing you aim at

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schietschijf is dutch for bullseye in the meaning of a target, the thing you aim at

Do the Dutch *really* hunt bulls...and do they really aim at the bull's *eye*? wink

--rlparker

ok ok ok ;) for this time my english wasn't that correct but i don't care, you understood me, that's the most important on a discussion board.

And actually I'm a belgian who speaks dutch and i live in Flanders (not Ned Flanders)
some info

Oops! Your English is *very good*, and your posts have been very helpful to many on these forums.

I was just making a joke, and was not meaning to make fun of you at all. I'm sorry if it seemed I was making fun of your English. Please forgive me, and I'll be more careful with my jokes next time, ok? wink

--rlparker

What is your thought about pretty urls? I developed a PHP shopping cart that does pass some variables via GET. It seems in today's modern world that the search engines would index those pages, but my experience is that pages passing variables (even descriptive ones) consistently have lower page ranks than plain html.

I would also think the page extension (like PHP vs HTML) would not matter today, but I'm not convinced. Google does post their info about what constitutes a "friendly" page, but it is by far complete.

================================
Angela Gann
CrimsonDryad Web Design Services
Web Design, Custom Software Development
http://www.crimsondryad.com

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What is your thought about pretty urls?

I prefer them. Nicer to look at & easier to remember.

It also makes links more self-explanatory in an all-text environment. I'm sure many of us recognize this one:

http://wiki.dreamhost.com/index.php/DNS_-_Viewing_site_before_DNS_change

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I developed a PHP shopping cart that does pass some variables via GET. It seems in today's modern world that the search engines would index those pages,

They do. You'll see plenty of dynamic URLs in the search results.

Not a bad idea to (at least try to) keep session IDs out of the URL, or atleast not use names like "id=" -- I believe at least that one, and maybe a few others are dropped by Google (not sure about others), since they often refer to sessions.

You can also give the search engines a shove in the right direction with a site map.

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but my experience is that pages passing variables (even descriptive ones) consistently have lower page ranks than plain html.

But are you comparing two otherwise close-to-identical sites, with similar on & offsite SEO?
Example: /cart.php?cat=dishes&subcat=plates&productnumber=102398 with 5,000 incoming links will do better in Google than /cart/dishes/plates/9832094324.html will with only 5. ;)

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I would also think the page extension (like PHP vs HTML) would not matter today, but I'm not convinced. Google does post their info about what constitutes a "friendly" page, but it is by far complete.

File extension, like TLD, doesn't matter.

I just googled asus motherboard to sample some search results. The first page contains multiple TLDs, static HTML links, different file extensions, dynamic links and even a link pulling from the PATH_INFO variable (Ex: cart.php/var/value/var2/value2)... so you should be fine with any of those.

Same info and much much more straight from the google-horse's mouth.

Backlinks, meta tags, domain.tld/index.php domain.tld/about.php (name your pages correctly), title tags, major submissions to search engines, keep the revisit to how often you update the page (static pages can be crawled on a weekly basis, if you update the page every couple of days, put it to like 2), make sure images have alt tags, use <p> tags, use h1 tags...

You get the picture.

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Backlinks, meta tags, domain.tld/index.php domain.tld/about.php (name your pages correctly), title tags, major submissions to search engines, keep the revisit to how often you update the page (static pages can be crawled on a weekly basis, if you update the page every couple of days, put it to like 2), make sure images have alt tags, use <p> tags, use h1 tags...

No.

Meta tags are useless, the search engines have ignored them for nearly 10 years now.

Submitting your site is useless. The engines will find it on their own.

Specifying revisit time is useless. The engines prefer to figure out for themselves when to revisit and to recrawl.

Putting alt parameters in images is probably the least important thing, unless you're trying to rank well on image searches. My sites rank highly with zero alt parameters.

What works is *building a great site with compelling content*. Period. The cream rises to the top. Which of the following do you think Google would prefer to say?

"We picked these sites to show you because they're adept at putting in META tags and they specified revisit time in their robots.txt file and they did a whole bunch of other tricks."

- or -

"We picked these sites to show you because WE THOUGHT THEY BEST MATCHED WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR."

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Meta tags are useless, the search engines have ignored them for nearly 10 years now.

Submitting your site is useless. The engines will find it on their own.

Specifying revisit time is useless. The engines prefer to figure out for themselves when to revisit and to recrawl.

Putting alt parameters in images is probably the least important thing, unless you're trying to rank well on image searches. My sites rank highly with zero alt parameters.

What works is *building a great site with compelling content*. Period. The cream rises to the top. Which of the following do you think Google would prefer to say?

I don't claim to be an expert, but I can "G00gle" and read.

> Meta tags are useless, the search engines have ignored them for nearly 10 years now.

This is a credible, recent article, with reference links, that says MSN and Yahoo currently use some meta tags.

> Submitting your site is useless. The engines will find it on their own.

I agree the engines will probably find it eventually, as G00gle confirms, but they also say even they miss some sites and seem to encourage submitting site maps. Their invitation to submit your site probably wouldn't be there if it wasn't somewhat useful.

> Specifying revisit time is useless. The engines prefer to figure out for themselves when to revisit

If one, as site owner, thinks an engine visits too often, communicating a preferred time to the engine is useful.

> Putting alt parameters in images is probably the least important thing, unless you're trying to rank well on image searches. My sites rank highly with zero alt parameters.

It is quite important to some *people*, which is more important to me. I also enjoy the descriptive text "popup", but it seems like title is now required for that?

> What works is *building a great site with compelling content*. Period. The cream rises to the top.

Good content that's well viewed with Lynx. ;-)

Just to add to what Anonymous2 already said:

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Meta tags are useless, the search engines have ignored them for nearly 10 years now.

Google doesn't represent all search engines. But even if only 1 or 2 used them, wouldn't it be worth taking the extra 5 seconds to add them?

And if scraper sites/directories are going to grab my info to trigger Adsense ads, I'd rather they use MY description of the site, rather than just pulling a random sentence or two from the page.

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Submitting your site is useless. The engines will find it on their own.

They find them through links... which submitting to a few directories that are already indexed accomplishes.

Unless Google drops the whole PR thing, there's no reason to not submit to directories that pass it along.

All of them seem to value incoming links--and I don't think any of them are as good at picking out which ones are trash as they'd like us all to believe... so I definitely wouldn't consider it a waste.

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What works is *building a great site with compelling content*. Period.

That helps with getting natural inbound links & return visitors... but SEO doesn't end there.

There are plenty of subjects that have a bunch of good sites out there, but you can't have 20 people tie for first place.

The ones that climb are often the ones that do every little thing they can--even though other people told them, "that won't help." Not because a panel of experts analyzed their sited then manually placed them in order of relevance.

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The cream rises to the top.

Paid ads rise to the top. And to the side. ;)

The 'cream' and the garbage get to share the remaining real estate left on the page. I just did a test search on Google that brought up 11 paid ads and 10 organic results on the first page. So no amount of content--or SEO--can match the mighty power of an Adwords account. ;)

Surely, you've done a search where the top results were spam/trash, right? How do you think they got there?

Even just recently, someone managed to get over one billion spam subdomains indexed in Google.

The Googlebot isn't as smart as many people seem to think.

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Which of the following do you think Google would prefer to say?

It doesn't matter what they'd prefer to say. Unless they find a team of unbiased humans to hand review billions of websites, there will always be an advantage for those that figure out bits & pieces of their algorithm and now how to use it.

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Google doesn't represent all search engines. But even if only 1 or 2 used them, wouldn't it be worth taking the extra 5 seconds to add them?

Okay, name EVEN 1 OR 2 major search engines that actually use the META Keyword tag in their ranking algorithm. There aren't any. Not Google, not Yahoo, not MSN, not anybody.

If people really want to put in META Keywords tags, y'all have fun wasting your time. I'll continue to focus on content (and continue to outrank you).

Okay, I checked, and stand corrected: Yahoo *does* use Meta Keywords in its ranking algorithm, but probably only to a very small degree. Definitely not enough for me to add them to my pages (which are already ranking well without them).

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... not Yahoo ...

16 minutes later...

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Okay, I checked, and stand corrected: Yahoo *does* use Meta Keywords in its ranking algorithm

Yeah, a small player like Yahoo is pretty easy to overlook in the search engine world.

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I'll continue to focus on content (and continue to outrank you).

Who told you not to focus on content? The problem is that you did tell people not to focus on things that actually help.

You can come here and blab that you can outrank anyone for anything as much as you want. Even if you ever provide actual proof to back up what is otherwise a pointless claim, you should still expect to get called out when giving bad advice.

Did you miss where I said "I stand corrected."? Geez.

I still maintain that even though Yahoo may look at Meta keywords, it almost certainly does not place that much weight on them. If it did then search would be as useless as it was in 1998.

Oh, and as far as putting my money where my mouth is, shall we make this interesting? I currently rank #6 and #7 in Yahoo for the money-phrase searches "cheapest airfare" and "cheapest airfares". I will bet you that after adding Meta Keywords to my page that it does not improve its rank. I'll even let you specify the timeframe and write the keywords tag. Shall we say a mutual bet of $100? I'm certainly willing to go higher if you prefer.

How about if you take out your meta description, and let's see if your ranking gets worse and what the search result description becomes? :-)

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I also enjoy the descriptive text "popup", but it seems like title is now required for that?

The title attribute was always the proper way to do this. In the late '90s IE and Netscape started showing tooltips with the value of the alt attribute, but this was incorrect (or, at the very least, not intended by the W3C). I don't know if IE still does this but Mozilla-based browsers never have.

Hey, this argument was about Meta KEYWORDS, wasn't it? I want to keep my Meta DESCRIPTION for a reason completely unrelated to ranking: It's what shows in the Yahoo SERPS, and a well-worded Description is what encourages people to click. I remove that, I get fewer clicks, even if my ranking doesn't change.

I was challenged over the Meta Keywords tag, and I'm definitely willing to wager based on my position (pun intended) on that. If the person taking the other side is confident in their position, they should be too.

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I got that by focusing on quality, and NOT by using invisible text, keyword stuffing, keyword density, stupid reciprocal link exchanges, search engine "submission", META tags, or any of the other popular things that many people think they need to worry about.

(groan) If you're suggesting that this is inconsistent because I sometimes use Meta Descriptions, I remind you that our big dispute was over Meta KEYWORDS (which is what I meant when I said "Meta Tags", because that's what people usually mean when they talk about Meta Tags for search ranking purposes). How many times do I have to say that? I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is on my claim on Meta Keywords. Are you?

Also, I firmly believe that my meta DESCRIPTIONS have no value for ranking purposes, they're there to make the SERP result pretty (like I already said). I can't remove those without making the clickthrough on my SERPs listing suffer, even if the ranking doesn't change. Even so, I'm willing to temporarily remove the Meta Description if we make the bet high enough, to compensate me from the fewer clicks I'll get. Again, I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is on this, are you?

You've backtracked and hemmed and hawed enough for me already.
Thanks

The *one and only thing* I "backtracked" on is that I agreed I was mistaken that no major search engine uses Meta Keywords *at all*. I later agreed that Yahoo (alone) does "look" at them, but that I'm still skeptical that they affect rankings significantly. I've been CONSISTENT in every post that I don't think Meta Keywords (or even Meta Descriptions) affect rankings. I've said that consistently, in my original post, in my post now, and all the posts in between. If you want to call that "hemming and hawing" then you're not being honest.

I've also said repeatedly that I would put my money where my mouth is about my position. If you won't, it looks like you're not so confident in your position after all. If you truly believe you're right and that I'm wrong (or that I'm "hemming and hawing") then put up or shut up, rather than taking shots at me. I will lay money down that adding Meta Keywords or removing Meta Description will not affect my site ranking. Don't blame me if you won't accept the bet.

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Did you miss where I said "I stand corrected."? Geez.

Nope, I saw it. It was exactly 16 minutes after a post that was too stupid to ignore.

Here's a crazy idea: Think before posting a bunch of incorrect crap and you won't have to follow up with a "I stand corrected" post.

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I currently rank #6 and #7 in Yahoo for the money-phrase searches "cheapest airfare" and "cheapest airfares".

And all of the sites ahead of yours have a keywords meta tag, so what's your point?

I'm not saying that's why they're ahead of you, but like I said before... the ones that are shooting for the top generally put in the extra effort and cover as many bases as possible.

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I will bet you that after adding Meta Keywords to my page that it does not improve its rank.

And I'll bet it doesn't hurt it. So, again, what is your point?

Tell me which part of this sentence is so hard to understand:

If it helps AT ALL, it's worth the extra 2 minutes it takes to add them.

Get it?

You've wasted more time here with your "Wanna bet?" crap than it would have taken to simply add the tags.

I say don't add them, just because it could help, and I don't see why you should be rewarded for laziness or being wrong.

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Tell me which part of this sentence is so hard to understand:

If it helps AT ALL, it's worth the extra 2 minutes it takes to add them.

Great, show me where you ever said that in this thread. Searching for the word "helps" I don't see it.

If you did say some variant of that, I'm sure it was in the context of "if it helps YOUR RANKINGS at all". And I remain skeptical that it really *will* help rankings "at all". And I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is on that front. You're not.

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Hey, this argument was about Meta KEYWORDS, wasn't it?

Nope. Your very first post: "Meta tags are useless, the search engines have ignored them for nearly 10 years now."

Then, after being pointed out that you were wrong, you narrowed it down to the keywords tag... then 16 minutes later, realized you were wrong again.

In fact, in my first reply to you, the only meta tag I specifically mentioned was the description.

So it was you who was changing the topic? My post was in response to the question that this thread started with:

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I've coded the site using Web Standards, and chosen solid meta keywords/descriptions....I was just curious, what else are some free, effective ways of improving search engine rank?

That's what *I* was talking about, that Meta tags are *not* an "effective way of improving search engine rank". I'm sorry if I wasn't clear.

If you were talking about *other* benefits of Meta Descriptions (which I've never denied), then it's you who was changing the topic.

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Great, show me where you ever said that in this thread.

I didn't say that I already said it. I said tell me which part of that is so hard to understand.

But if being said twice is that important to you, then I believe I was pretty close when I said this:

"But even if only 1 or 2 used them, wouldn't it be worth taking the extra 5 seconds to add them?"

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And I remain skeptical that it really *will* help rankings "at all".

You being skeptical doesn't change that they're used.

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And I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is on that front. You're not.

You didn't break a world record by ranking at #6 or #7, and as I already mentioned, the sites above yours have keyword tags... so your rank staying the same wouldn't be an argument for not using meta tags.

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You being skeptical doesn't change that they're used.

And your lack of skepticism doesn't change they way they're used (or not used) either.

Not surprised you won't take the bet, or suggest different parameters for one.

Oh, and I was challenged to put up or shut up about my rankings, and I did. Now let's see yours.

You quoted the OP and replied to yourself, but I'll assume this is aimed at me.

You are backpedaling again. My exact quote in reference to meta tags was this:

"Google doesn't represent all search engines. But even if only 1 or 2 used them, wouldn't it be worth taking the extra 5 seconds to add them?"

I didn't specify a single meta tag, which I didn't feel a need to do, since you made the blanket statement that they're useless. This has already been pointed out.

I then referred to the description tag in the same context you did when you were told to remove it--stating that I want people to use MY description when indexing my site. That's not changing the subject.

But who's to say the description doesn't help? If they're pulling it to use as a description, then it could easily be scanned for other reasons.

In any case, the same logic applies to both tags. If it can help at all, it's worth the tiny amount of effort it takes to use them. On the other hand, since it can't hurt at all to use them, it is pointless/stupid to argue against their usage.

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But who's to say the description doesn't help?

Me.

I know you believe otherwise. But you can't prove your position any better than I can prove mine. At least I've *tried* to back my position with an experiment and wager. You're just spouting opinion that you won't stand behind.

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If they're pulling it to use as a description, then it could easily be scanned for other reasons.

It *could* be used for ranking, but what evidence do you have of that? Zero.

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On the other hand, since it can't hurt at all to use them, it is pointless/stupid to argue against their usage.

I see, you think that a proper way to debate is by name-calling. Anyway, it *can* hurt to use them. The time you spend screwing around with worthless Meta Keyword tags could better be spent on things that will truly make your site better. I manage around a thousand pages of content. I shudder to think how much time I could have wasted writing useless Meta Keywords for all of them. Certainly I'd have fewer pages of content, which is what's most important to me.

And again, I was challenged about my good rankings, and I provided an example. Let's see yours. You're such an SEO expert that you feel you're in a position to call others stupid. Well, let's see how good you really are.

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And your lack of skepticism doesn't change they way they're used (or not used) either.

It's the fact that they ARE used that matters. Did you already forget your "I stand corrected" post?

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Not surprised you won't take the bet, or suggest different parameters for one.

I still don't see the purpose of your bet? What, that you might not pass the other 5 or 6 sites ahead of you, all of which use keyword tags, just because you finally catch up an add your own?

No kidding... I didn't say keyword tags are the only reason they're better than you. What I did say, is that everyone outranking you is using a tag you called useless, in the one search engine that you are now aware of using them.

A less dense person might see that as a "clue" and add the tags, knowing that it might help.

Everyone uses Meta Keywords for the same reason you're suggesting it: They have zero proof it will help, but they figure it can't hurt. So I absolutely don't see their use of Meta Keywords as any kind of proof that Meta Keywords helps with rankings. There are a gazillion sites BELOW me that ALSO use Meta Keywords.

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A less dense person might see that as a "clue" and add the tags, knowing that it might help.

You're really good at insulting others, less good at backing up your position. How many times now have I asked you to show us your excellent rankings? Come on, show us the mastery of the SERPs you've achieved with that supposedly useful Meta Keywords tag. Put up or shut up.

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Everyone uses Meta Keywords for the same reason you're suggesting it: They have zero proof it will help, but they figure it can't hurt.

They also listen to the advice from the horses' mouths; for example, linked to in the article I previously linked:

http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/ranking/ranking-02.html

# Use a "description" meta-tag and write your description accurately and carefully. After the title, the description is the most important draw for users. Make sure the document title and description attract the interest of the user but also fit the content on your site.
# Use a "keyword" meta-tag to list key words for the document. Use a distinct list of keywords that relate to the specific page on your site instead of using one broad set of keywords for every page.

Maybe they use keywords to test webmaster honesty: If the keyword list doesn't match the body text well, according to their formula, then something might be fishy.

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You're really good at insulting others, less good at backing up your position.

How many times have I used that line? ;-) seiler shows it when s/he gets frustrated.

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How many times now have I asked you to show us your excellent rankings?

So, you really want to compare the size of our trucks? ;-) Rather than comparing how little ours are, why don't we try this experiment. How little can you make your ...helpers/seo article's rank for:

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Great Search Engine Rankings ?

I support the idea that we should use evidence to prove SEO methods, if we wanted to be scientific about it, but you're not really doing it either or you'd have more evidence in your articles. Interestingly, you have a really long section on keywords (for Titles and body).

You already admitted that you were wrong and Yahoo uses them. Why are you still arguing against using them? It's stupid.

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There are a gazillion sites BELOW me that ALSO use Meta Keywords.

Twist it all you want. Here's another way to look at it:

There aren't any sites in the top 5 without a keywords tag, but there are plenty in the bottom gazillion.

WOW! That convinced me not to use them!

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You already admitted that you were wrong and Yahoo uses them. Why are you still arguing against using them?

I did NOT admit I was wrong that META KEYWORDS DON'T ACTUALLY COUNT FOR DIDDLY. How many times do I have to say that before you acknowledge it?

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Why are you still arguing against using them? It's stupid.

For the umpteenth time, you're really good at insulting others, less good at backing up your positions. Show us all an example of how well you rank on Yahoo using the Meta Keywords tag. Put up or shut up.

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I know you believe otherwise. But you can't prove your position any better than I can prove mine.

I already did. Here's my position:

If they CAN help, and definitely DON'T hurt, then it's worth an extra minute or two of work.

You are arguing against common sense.

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It *could* be used for ranking, but what evidence do you have of that? Zero.

You don't need evidence that it is. You need evidence that it ISN'T, if you're going to argue against using something that is so simple to implement.

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And again, I was challenged about my good rankings, and I provided an example.

You were challenged on "outranking without keyword tags" and your example of doing that was a phrase that you are outranked on by 5 - 6 people that are using what you called a useless tag.

How is that proving anything?

You targeted one phrase in your title & h1. Anyone can do that and it doesn't mean much. Here's a key phrase: "Mike Seiler"

Hey, look! #1 in all 3 biggies without any content.

Wait, I know what you're thinking. That's no fair because it's only #1 of about 451,000--but "cheapest airfares" for you is #7 of about 1,830,000.

The money-makers don't even have my name anywhere on them, or in the registration, so they don't get mentioned... but it's not even necessary to prove this point.

Let's try "apartment review" for a different site...

Yahoo: #4 of about 16,600,000
Google: #4 of about 3,690,000
MSN: #1 of 2,497,950

And that site was just slapped together as an example for someone else. It hasn't been updated and it didn't receive much effort on my part.

The money makers get more effort... and have even pushed their product manufacturers into the #2 spot for their own company names at times.

And now here's how Yahoo DOES use keywords from the meta tag, using the first site again.

A Yahoo search for this phrase brings up the entire site, even though it's never mentioned: +"warren hills regional high school" site:mikeseiler.com

Oh wait, there it is... in the keywords tag!

And even without a site command, it's at 125 for the same phrase... and it's not mentioned once on the entire site.

I'd say ranking 125 for a phrase that isn't in the domain, title, h1, or anywhere else on the site is pretty good.

So if it ranks on nothing more than a meta keyword, that would seem to indicate that keywords make a difference.

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Let's try "apartment review" for a different site...

Yahoo: #4 of about 16,600,000
Google: #4 of about 3,690,000
MSN: #1 of 2,497,950

LMAO! This is the best example you can give? A site where the KEYWORD IS THE DOMAIN NAME?! Still laughing.

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I'd say ranking 125 for a phrase that isn't in the domain, title, h1, or anywhere else on the site is pretty good.

I'd say it's not. Any keywords you want to rank for are going to be ON THE PAGE, which is where they count, and then if you ALSO put them in Meta Keywords I believe the additional benefit is diddly. And BTW, as a test I've gotten a page to #1 without the keywords on the page and WITHOUT Meta tags.

Anyway, got any real examples that show your prowess, that are more of an apples-to-apples comparison? (e.g., keyword not the same as the domain name, still laughing over that one)

> A site where the KEYWORD IS THE DOMAIN NAME?! Still laughing.

So now I guess we should laugh at your airfare.michaelbluejay.com "cheapest airfare" example.

BTW, what sort of important tags are these, which we find in most of your pages. ;-)

<X-CLARIS-WINDOW
<X-CLARIS-REMOTESAVE
<X-CLARIS-TAGVIEW

The point seiler made, excellently IMHO, was meta keywords ARE used by Yahoo. You can blabber about the relative importance all you want, but that won't change the fact you came here playing the expert and proceeded to give a few pieces of bad advice, including this classic:

"Meta tags are useless, the search engines have ignored them for nearly 10 years now."

Guess who's been laughing for a while. ;-)

In reply to:
"Meta tags are useless, the search engines have ignored them for nearly 10 years now."

I'm amazed at the ability of people here to ignore the context of what I said, when that context has been explained repeatedly.

Yet one more time: The context in which I said that was IN ANSWER TO THE POST THAT STARTED THIS THREAD, inquiring as to what "other" things will help search rankings besides Meta tags. When I said that Meta tags were useless, THAT was the context I was talking about. Is that really so hard to understand? I agree that engines grab Meta DESCRIPTIONS, for reasons unrelated to ranking.

I believe that Meta KEYWORDS are ultimately all but useless for ranking purposes, I've been clear and consistent on that point, and I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is, but my detractors AREN'T. That tells me something.

If you want to laugh at me, you'll need to also laugh at THE TOP SEARCH ENGINE EXPERTS IN THE WORLD, who take exactly the same position as me. Take for example Danny Sullivan:

"I think the meta keywords tag isn't worth the effort, given that only Yahoo officially supports it � and even then, the tag provides little toward ranking boost."
http://www.webreference.com/authoring/interview/

"Indeed, my advice about the meta keywords tag for ages has been simple. For those running large web sites or short on time, don't worry about it. The stress and time involved in trying to craft a tag was not worth it, in terms of the minor benefit it might bring."
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2165061

And Richard Ball:

"Most people agree that this tag is useless (read Danny Sullivan's 2002 Death of a Meta Tag article). I'll take it a step further and argue that it's hazardous."
http://www.searchengineguide.com/ball/006037.html

If you're laughing at me, then I'm in good company. Of course the posters here are so much smarter than all the top SEO experts in the world.

In reply to:
"Okay, I checked, and stand corrected: Yahoo *does* use Meta Keywords in its ranking algorithm, but probably only to a very small degree. Definitely not enough for me to add them to my pages (which are already ranking well without them)."

So in context of the OP, who was *not* already ranking well, it might pay to take advantage of every relatively easily implemented option, but you don't care because you already rank well.

FWIW, Most of the stuff at SEW looks old and stale.

In reply to:
"I'll take it a step further and argue that it's hazardous."

Funny thing about that is: the logical extension is one should use misleading, irrelevant meta keywords, so lazy competitors who only use something like http://www.apogee-web-consulting.com/tools/keyword_tool.php will spend money on the wrong keywords. It won't hurt your rankings according to you, but it will cost your competitors time and money. ;-)

In reply to:
"My sites rank highly with zero alt parameters."

Written like someone who doesn't care about accessibility. :-)

In reply to:
I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is, but my detractors AREN'T. That tells me something.

The fact you think bluffing with money makes a difference tells me a lot.

In reply to:
That tells me something.The fact you think bluffing with money makes a difference tells me a lot.

Who's bluffing?

And how would you know if you won't accept the challenge?

> And how would you know if you won't accept the challenge?

Maybe blustering and boasting would've been better keywords than bluffing. Anyway, given you couldn't even acknowledge seiler proved the main point - that keywords are used by Yahoo - the probability of us agreeing on a meaningful wager, or agreeing on the outcome, is approximately zero. Not that it has anything to do with anything.

WooHoo! *I* get to add the *50th* post to this thread...it started out to be a useful thread, and then:

1)MichaelBlueJay says "Meta tags are useless, the search engines have ignored them for nearly 10 years now."

In reply to:
yet you pontificate "Meta Tags are useless",

HOW MANY TIMES DO I SAY THIS?! WHEN I SAID THAT WHAT I *MEANT* WAS: "Meta KEYWORDS are useless for SEARCH RANKINGS." For the umpteenth time, you have to consider the context in which I made my statement. And because you're apparently unable to consider the context, I SPELLED THAT CONTEXT OUT, repeatedly.

I clarified my comments long ago, and repeatedly. If you won't accept the clarification that's your own fault.

As for credibility, I'll let the industry be the judge.

Do you really think "yelling" in all caps is gonna help you look professional? Did you even read my post? Even if a reader is to "automagically" discern what you *meant* to say (meta keywords) as opposed to what you *wrote* (meta tags), the whole , "... the search engines have ignored them for nearly 10 years now," hurts your credibility, and makes you appear either ignorant or prone to exaggeration - 2002 is *a lot less* than 10 years ago (see my link in previous post). Some of us remember well they days when even Meta Keywords were very important to some search engines.

When you claim to have knowledge, and then say something ridiculous, or wildly exaggerated, it's not unreasonable for people to suspect that you don't know as much about your subject as you claim (to know). wink

--rlparker

In reply to:
Even if a reader is to "automagically" discern what you *meant* to say

Automagically? No, maybe simply understanding the context because of the post I was making my comment in reference to. And if they missed that, there's the fact that I *CLARIFIED IT A BUNCH OF TIMES FOR PEOPLE LIKE YOU WHO INSIST ON IGNORING THE CONTEXT*. Call that automagically if you want, that statement can only be made by ignoring what I've said repeatedly.

Yes, I use all caps when the people I'm communicating with miss the obvious.

*You* responded to another poster's comments about "meta tags", not "meta keywords"; the posts are there to review if this confuses you. The "context" (which you feel no one except you understands) was *not* a discussion about meta keywords, but rather about tags.

*You* made a "leap of cogency" on your own when you "assumed" the other poster(s) were talking about "keywords" even though they clearly had typed "meta tags" in their messages. It's pretty obvious to the casual observer who has problems reading things "in context".

I'm still curious as to whether you will respond to my observations about your claim regarding Meta tag/Keywords that ,"...the search engines have ignored them for nearly 10 years now," (which you have now ignored twice). Is that just an issue of "context according to michaelbluejay" too, or did you possible exaggerate a bit there? wink

--rlparker

> Yes, I use all caps when the people I'm communicating with miss the obvious.

Please allow me to clarify what I wrote previously: What I meant was a bunch of intelligent stuff that explained correctly and precisely how to get high search engine rankings, with optimum or minimum amount of effort. If that doesn't clarify what I meant, then there's something wrong with you guys. ;-)

In reply to:
LMAO! This is the best example you can give? A site where the KEYWORD IS THE DOMAIN NAME?! Still laughing.

You no longer believe your own BS? Or maybe you just don't remember saying this: "What works is *building a great site with compelling content*. Period. The cream rises to the top."

So, what exactly did you mean by "works," "content," "Period," "cream" and "rises to the top"?

Is airfare NOT in airfare.michaelbluejay, as already pointed out by Anonymous? If you want to cry about it and use it as an excuse, then move your site to michaelbluejay.com/nokeyworddirectory/ and start over... and don't 301 from the keyword subdomain.

Read your first post in this thread, then come back and explain what's not fair, without completely contradicting what you've already said.

YOU started this crap by picking YOUR site and choosing YOUR keywords. Then I did the same, except I picked one with more competition, and ranked higher. You respond by making up excuses that go against your own advice, rather than thanking me for not taking your $100.

If you're saying that being 4th out of 16,600,000 isn't way more impressive than 7th out of 1,830,000 simply because of the domain name, then it's time to admit that you were way off on your silly claim that content is all it takes. Maybe you can address that in your next "I stand corrected" post.

Other than that, you seem to be blaming me for using my brain when choosing a domain name. Are you saying that I can always outrank your content with a simple domain purchase? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe domain selection is part of SEO... and this was an SEO thread before you polluted it with bad advice.

You should also look back at how I first threw my name out as an example, showing #1 in the big 3. Do you think maybe I already saw excuses coming a mile away? Maybe that's why I listed the number of results, showing the big difference between 451,000 and 16.6 million? I guess your new advice will be "Screw content! A domain is all it takes to rank #4 out of 16 million for a competitive search phrase!"

In reply to:
I'd say it's not. Any keywords you want to rank for are going to be ON THE PAGE, which is where they count, and then if you ALSO put them in Meta Keywords I believe the additional benefit is diddly.

Are you even being serious? I said that phrase doesn't appear anywhere on the entire site. Are you still with me? It ONLY shows up because of the keyword tag.

If it ONLY shows up because it's in the keywords, then that would seem to prove the tag is helping out. I am indexed for something that is never mentioned anywhere because of the keywords tag. Get it?

That simple-for-most-people-to-understand example proves that anyone with any SEO interest at all should take a few minutes to add some keywords. On the other hand, you cannot name a single reason for not adding them, which is because there isn't one.

Typos are a reason to use it. Slight variations of words/phrases that don't quite fit the content layout would be another. Having a clue is another popular reason for adding it.

In reply to:
Anyway, got any real examples that show your prowess, that are more of an apples-to-apples comparison? (e.g., keyword not the same as the domain name, still laughing over that one)

As already explained, it is apples-to-apples until you drop the airfare subdomain.

If crying, making excuses and not using meta tags doesn't help you in the search results, maybe you should figure out what's wrong with your almighty "content." If that doesn't work, maybe send the search engines an email asking why their "rises to the top" algorithms are favoring domain names over "cream." Be sure to throw a "Period." in there somewhere, so they know you mean business. If they fail to take you seriously, just say something stupid and try turning it into a $100 bet. When all else fails, HIT THE CAPS LOCK BUTTON AND REPEAT YOURSELF, BUT THIS TIME, ADD A FEW ROFL'S AND LMAO'S.

Yes, you sure told me.

Be sure to mention to Danny Sullivan, Jill Whalen, Brett Tabke, and the other top SEO experts that they're stupid like me for telling people that Meta Keywords are a waste of time.

In reply to:
If you're saying that being 4th out of 16,600,000 isn't way more impressive than 7th out of 1,830,000...

Oh, and try this one: "save electricity" -- #2 in Yahoo, 11,100,000 results.

Zero meta tags.

But then again, we've already established that I'm an idiot for not using them.

In reply to:
Be sure to mention to Danny Sullivan, Jill Whalen, Brett Tabke, and the other top SEO experts that they're stupid like me ....

Now *that's* rich!

You didn't seem to think enough of Danny Sullivan's knowledge to even comment when I pointed you to an article of his where he disagreed with one of *your* statements.

--rlparker

In reply to:
Zero meta tags. But then again, we've already established that I'm an idiot for not using them.

No, I've formed *my* opinion about your knowledge of the subject solely on the basis of your incorrect statements; I don't know if your are an idiot or not - I just know your second entry into this thread gave questionable advice followed by an inaccurate historical statement.

--rlparker

ps. BTW, I thought your *first* post in this thread (back on 11/15/06) was "sound" advice...you should have quit while you were ahead and before you succumbed to inaccuracy and exaggeration. wink Edited by rlparker on 12/10/06 05:25 AM (server time).

In reply to:
you should have quit while you were ahead

If he had done that I would have missed out on all this entertainment! smile

I know next to nothing about SEO, but I have been following this thread on-and-off for the last few days and I must say I have found many of the comments to be very funny. I don't think I have learnt too much about SEO, but it has been fun reading. smile

Mark

No, we established that that you're an idiot because everything you've posted here has been idiotic.

Still #2. #1 uses a keyword tag. #1 doesn't have "save electricity" in their domain name, so you'll need to find another reason to blame them for outranking you.

> No, we established that that you're an idiot because everything you've posted here has been idiotic.

Oh, come on. Now you're exaggerating as much as Bluejay. But then, you usually get to the "stupid idiot" name calling phase in long threads. ;-)

> #1 doesn't have "save electricity" in their domain name

Well, not in the domain, but...

http://www.eei.org/industry_issues/retail_services_and_delivery/wise_energy_use/how_to_save_electricity_in_your_home/

http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/

Right--I guess complaining about complete URLs could be his next step, in which case, eei.org has clearly cheated by putting "save" in theirs, giving them the unfair advantage. tongue

But I think that only domain names are cheating at this point, since he didn't disqualify his own subdomain last time around.

In reply to:
No, we established that that you're an idiot because everything you've posted here has been idiotic.

Are you able to debate without insulting people who hold different positions than you?

In reply to:
[You're] still #2. #1 uses a keyword tag.

Yeah, and you're conveniently failing to mention that sites #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, and #10 UNDER me all *do* use Meta tags. My Meta-tagless site outranks all these. And note that 2 of the top 3 sites (mine included) use no Meta tags.

In reply to:
If you're saying that being 4th out of 16,600,000 isn't way more impressive than 7th out of 1,830,000...

Okay, so then I provided an example where I'm #2 out of 11 million (which BTW outperforms scads of sites that *do* use Meta Keywords, although your point was how high a ranking one could get based on competition). You challenged me, so I gave a better example. Do you have something better to show?

I'm guessing no one even bothered to read my first post in this thread.
META tags are used by most search engines, however, the weight applied to them varies -- in some cases they're only used to weed-out (really dumb) keyword bombers. So to repeat myself, proper use of META information, including content info, description, etc. will almost certainly help your page ranking, as that, coupled with properly formed X/HTML, makes the job of the various crawler bots that much easier.

If you've managed to come up high in rank for whatever keywords with missing/malformed META info and sloppy X/HTML - hey, congratulations, you are the Winner of The Intarnets!

OTOH, fouling META data with keywords that are irrelevant to page content, overlarge, or (as has been pointed out by others) keyword bombing via repetive and/or invisible text will actually hurt your ranking, or get you banninated (Google actually does this).

For myself, none of my clients care about my website except to pay my invoices - but that doesn't stop me from taking an extra few seconds to fuss over META tags and running pages through the W3C HTML validator.

Bottom line: Properly formed META data will almost always help your site rank and certainly won't hurt it at all.

> I'm guessing no one even bothered to read my first post in this thread.

Sure we did. It was the last word for a month, until Mr. Bluejay re-awakened the thread.

I agreed with everything except:

> 6..As always: Spamming=BAD.

But I was afraid to disagree. :-) Spammers provide referrals to satisfy many software and medicinal needs.

I read it, and agree with you. The fact that the thread deteriorated is not due to *you* failing to give sound advice. wink

--rlparker

In reply to:
(and continue to outrank you).

Having your personal website listed in numerous places on the Wikipedia probably helps with that.

(I saw this big argument going on without me, and I was feeling kinda left out.)

That's a interesting tool I didn't know about, thanks for posting it.

I assure you, though, my sites ranked highly well before the Wikipedia phenomenon.

Also, the majority of times my site is listed on that page are for Talk pages, and all the Talk page links have REF=NOFOLLOW. So I don't get any credit for those.

On all the remaining pages, I didn't add the links myself (with the exception of the Aesthetic Realism and Eli Siegel articles, since I have important information on those topics not published anywhere else. And yes, these adds have survived admin scrutiny.) I think this support my point about how content is important. People unknown to me linked to my site from various Wikipedia articles because they thought my content complemented encyclopedia articles. It's an honor, really, and I say that without sarcasm. I'll really know when I'm succeeding at providing good content when people link to me from even more WP articles.

In reply to:
I think this support my point about how content is important.

I agree with you on that, and it *is* a very good example of how quality content really drives search engine "hits".

--rlparker

Oh, BTW, I think Seiler said that my #2 ranking for a two-word search query with 11 million results wasn't impressive because I wasn't in the #1 position (or words to that effect). Well, after the latest Yahoo update, looks like I'm #1 for that search ("save electricity").

With zero Meta Tags.

How many million Meta Tag'd sites am I beating? I don't know the exact number, but the general answer is, "All of them." :)

I grow weary of fighting. Many of us just have different opinions. I admit I get defensive when I feel attacked, as I'm sure others do, so I pledge to try to play nice and I hope others will do the same. Thanks.

In reply to:
all the Talk page links have REF=NOFOLLOW. So I don't get any credit for those.

First of all, the attribute is rel="nofollow". Secondly, I completely agree with you on the value of content - there is no substitute for quality content, and content trumps keywords any day of the week.

Finally, I will say that you would be able to improve your site ranking by embracing web standards and moving your precious content nearer to the top of your document. View the source code of my home page to see what I mean - only major navigation links come before my content, and even those could be moved if necessary. As a proof of concept, you will note that my relatively dull personal site has a Google PageRank equal to your own (6/10).

In reply to:

I agreed with everything except:
> 6..As always: Spamming=BAD.
But I was afraid to disagree. :-) Spammers provide referrals to satisfy many software and medicinal needs.

You forgot mortgage re-financing and HOT STOCK TIPS!

In reply to:
you would be able to improve your site ranking by embracing web standards and moving your precious content nearer to the top of your document

Um, #1 out of 11 million results on a traffic-driving two-word term is good enough for me. :)

And at the risk of starting another war, the PageRank number has nothing to do with whether your site follows standards or not, it's based on the PageRank of the pages that link to yours.

In reply to:
And at the risk of starting another war, the PageRank number has nothing to do with whether your site follows standards or not, it's based on the PageRank of the pages that link to yours.

Well, then, there ya have it folks - straight from the God Haxxor Of Teh Intarweb's keyboard: Don't follow standards, because rebelling against basic Internet web standards is coolness and following them means you're just some dullard that doesn't know what they're talking about and your page will suck!

ObSheesh: Spot it.

In reply to:
the PageRank number has nothing to do with whether your site follows standards or not, it's based on the PageRank of the pages that link to yours.

You are both right and wrong. From Google's own PageRank blurb:

"Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query."

That means, boys and girls, how your document is constructed can be just as important as what your document is about. Furthermore, other (less sophisticated?) search engines will not scan an entire document, but rather concentrate on headings (<h1>, <h2>, etc.) and early paragraphs (<p>). If the search bot has to wade through lists of links before it gets to the meat and potatoes, the good stuff might not be found. The easier the site is to find on any search engine, the more PageRank mojo you are likely to get because you will get more "quality" links. Things like nested layout tables will make the relevant content harder for search engines to find.

Finally, let me present you with the icing on the cake. Embracing web standards will result in faster page loading times due to less bandwidth overhead from the smaller, easier-to-render documents.

For more on web standards, let me modestly point you to this extremely popular document.

In reply to:
Well, then, there ya have it folks - straight from the God Haxxor Of Teh Intarweb's keyboard: Don't follow standards, because rebelling against basic Internet web standards is coolness and following them means you're just some dullard that doesn't know what they're talking about and your page will suck!

I did say that I would play nice and asked others to do the same. May I ask you to not put words in my mouth? I never said I was "rebelling" against standards nor have I ever encouraged anyone else to do the same. I think standards are great and eventually I'll get around to updating all my pages. But in the meantime, my point was simply that a page that doesn't follow standards exactly can still rank well. I think I've proved that beyond any doubt -- which is perhaps why people are looking for other ways to attack me.

This was in response to the suggestion that I could improve my rank by following standards, to which the obvious reply is that my sites have great rank even though they're not coded according to strict standards. That is by no means an *endorsement* of not following standards, just stating the obvious. And again, I don't know how I'm supposed to "improve" my rank beyond the #1 position.

Do any of the people criticizing my ranking methods actually rank better than me? If not, then why are they criticizing me?

In reply to:
"Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques...." That means, boys and girls, how your document is constructed can be just as important as what your document is about."

This addresses something different than what I actually said. Note that Google says it COMBINES PageRank with OTHER STUFF. It's saying that importance is determined by the PR# + Other Stuff (such as, perhaps, web standards). I wasn't talking about the other stuff, I was talking about the PR# *only*. What I said was:

In reply to:
And at the risk of starting another war, the PageRank number has nothing to do with whether your site follows standards or not, it's based on the PageRank of the pages that link to yours.

This is undeniably true. No expert disputes that the PageRank score itself for a page is derived only from the PageRank score of the other pages that link to it, and nothing else. The PR score isn't the be-all and end-all of how high pages rank in the SERPs to be sure, but there is also no question that it's calculated solely on the basis of he PR scores of the other pages linking in.

It looks like I was prescient by prefacing my comments with, "At the risk of starting another war..."

In reply to:
I did say that I would play nice and asked others to do the same.

Oh, *puh-leeze*, spare me the doe-eyed wounded Bambi routine, willya?
In the midst of people making completely valid suggestions you came blustering in to "poo-pooh" the lot, stating basically that META tagging and proper formatting isn't worth it - because *your* website is the shiznitz #1 site.

If that's your idea of "play nice", then you need to get a grip.

In reply to:
May I ask you to not put words in my mouth?

Again, spare me; you've already stepped on your own crank a number of times in this thread amidst offers of throwing down with teh moneys on your #1 webinator site. Try Googling for "bw sports travel tackle bag"; one of my client sites ranks #2. I didn't see yours in the list.

So if perhaps I exaggerated, call it an interpretive view of your self-righteous prattle.

In reply to:
It looks like I was prescient by prefacing my comments with, "At the risk of starting another war..."

To people that've gotten over themselves to some greater or lesser degree, "prescience" isn't quite the same as that which you bring upon yourself.

In reply to:
In the midst of people making completely valid suggestions you came blustering in to "poo-pooh" the lot, stating basically that META tagging and proper formatting isn't worth it - because *your* website is the shiznitz #1 site.... If that's your idea of "play nice", then you need to get a grip.

And you think *those comments* you just made *do* qualify as playing nice? Read my last several posts and try to find any of the kind of venom you've been directing at me. What's odd is not how much you're insulting me, but that you're insulting me in the same breath as you're complaining that *I'm* not the one who's playing nice. I tried several posts ago to propose a truce, yet the abuse of me keeps coming. I haven't returned it, much as you might wish to pretend I have.

I mentioned my site ranking because I was simply providing evidence to prove my point that a site can rank well with no META tags and without following standards. Surely if I *didn't* provide evidence then you would have given me an even stronger lashing. What' I'm not supposed to provide evidence to support my claims? Please, be reasonable.

In reply to:
"May I ask you to not put words in my mouth?" Again, spare me.

No, sorry. When someone puts words in my mouth I will call them on it. You suggested that I was "rebelling" against web standards because I thought doing so was "cool". I said no such thing, believe no such thing, and advocate no such thing. I explained this above already. Your saying "Spare me" doesn't change that fact.

In reply to:
Try Googling for "bw sports travel tackle bag"; one of my client sites ranks #2. I didn't see yours in the list.

Are you being sarcastic or serious? Are you truly bragging about being #2 for a *five-word* search phrase? There are only 49,000 results for that phrase. The example I gave of my own site was #1 for a two-word phrase with 11 million results.

As for my site not being in the SERPS for your five word phrase, are you being serious about that, too? Obviously I've never *targeted* that phrase (or even covered that topic) so how would I rank for it?

If you wish to continue this, could you identify exactly what it is you disagree with me about, and do so without name-calling? Thank you.

In reply to:
And you think *those comments* you just made *do* qualify as playing nice

Nope, but my first two posts in this thread were almost entirely polite. Your first post following mine was mildly disparaging along with being moderately inaccurate, and yet I remained relatively polite. Then, after several other users had corrected your inaccuracies, you continued to (obnoxiously) maintain that what you do is the ONE TRUE WAY even "at the risk of starting another war". So before you go gibbering on about who's naughty and who's nice, have yourself a long look in the mirror, there, sparky.

In reply to:
Are you being sarcastic or serious?

Bit of both. 'Tis my wont in life.

In reply to:
Are you truly bragging about being #2 for a *five-word* search phrase?

It's what my client wants. He also does *not* want to create long, overlinked, garish web pages that are almost solely designed to attention-foo their way to the top of search engines - he wants simple and decent rankings for the products he's selling and doesn't have time to scour the web for hours upon end to fill pages full of junk his customers won't read and might be put-off by. He's selling fishing gear, not philosophy or page rank.

As for who's got the market cornered on braggadocio in this particular thread, I'm afraid I'll leave that honor to you, Mister "Cream Rises To The Top".

And in case you didn't notice, the OP in this thread was referring to a site selling sportswear, so here's my question to you:
Do you think his site will benefit if it's more like yours, or more like mine?

As for the number of words in a search term, I looked through the input cache of my Google page and find that of the 70-some-odd entries, most are four words or more and only 5 are three words or less (and four of those were proper names). But even eliminating the first two words of my HUGE five keyword search, my client's dinky little site site still comes up #4 among all of the retail competition out there, beating such strongarms like BizRate and NexTag.

In reply to:
The example I gave of my own site was #1 for a two-word phrase with 11 million results.

I'm ever so happy for you - really I am. But being a world-class attention foo isn't the necessarily the equivalent of putting the proper SEO to a site according to a client's needs.

To put it "politely", you are certifiably wrong about a number of things you claim in this thread; you are at least mildly correct about content, but way, way off in terms of using proper X/HTML formatting and META information (including keywords) for an accurate and effective web site SEO.

In reply to:
As for my site not being in the SERPS for your five word phrase, are you being serious about that, too?

You betchya. I'm surprised that you haven't sussed out what an ominously deadly serious person I am, what with that uncanny knack for detetcting the obvious you seem to possess.

In reply to:
Obviously I've never *targeted* that phrase (or even covered that topic) so how would I rank for it?

The question you're failing to find isn't about "how" so much as "why". You yourself never bothered to ask "why" anyone would bother with proper formatting and META information. If you'd like the answer, it's contained right in this post. I still bet you won't find it.

In reply to:
If you wish to continue this

Actually, I don't. Feel free to have the last word.

In reply to:
you continued to (obnoxiously) maintain that what you do is the ONE TRUE WAY even "at the risk of starting another war".

No, I didn't, at least not in the way that you claim. Again, please don't put words in my mouth, or extract one thing I said and claim it applies to everything I've ever said. My comment about "at the risk of starting another war" was specifically about my claim that the calculation of the PageRank number doesn't consider whether the site followed standards or not. There was no judgement there about the way to do anything, much less the "only" way. Why must you lie about what I actually said?

And again, for the third time, I've never *championed* not following standards, I merely *provided an example* that a site that doesn't follow standards (and doesn't use META tags) can still rank right at the top on a highly competitive search query.

In reply to:
"Are you truly bragging about being #2 for a *five-word* search phrase?" -- It's what my client wants.

I don't deny it's what your client wants. But why brag about something that's ridiculously easy to achieve? One can get a great ranking on a five-word search (or even a 3- or 4-word search) almost by accident. This just doesn't seem to prove anything to me.

In reply to:
He also does *not* want to create long, overlinked, garish web pages that are almost solely designed to attention-foo their way to the top of search engines

Yet again, since you're referring to my sites, can I ask you to lay off the insults please? As for your charge of "attention-fooing" my way to the top of the SERPs, that's a weird way of dismissing the fact that others think my sites have value (including, this week, the Wall Street Journal). You dismiss my methods, and then when I prove that my methods work, you dismiss them again anyway. That seems rather unfair.

In reply to:
And in case you didn't notice, the OP in this thread was referring to a site selling sportswear, so here's my question to you:
Do you think his site will benefit if it's more like yours, or more like mine?

If you're talking about the "Reelin-N-Dealin" site, I agree, that site is a great example of a good e-commerce site. But my site isn't even *trying* to be an e-commerce site, so it's an apples-to-oranges comparison. When I create e-commerce sites, they're appropriate for that audience, and they still rank well.

In reply to:
You yourself never bothered to ask "why" anyone would bother with proper formatting and META information.

That's not true. I *agreed* that following standards is a good idea repeatedly, much as you prefer to pretend that I haven't. As for why people would want to include META keywords, I know why: They believe it will help their search engine rankings. I simply believe that it won't, and the success of my own META keyword-less pages proves that to me.

In reply to:
my claim that the calculation of the PageRank number doesn't consider whether the site followed standards or not.

As I said earlier, you are wrong about that. It is easier for Google (or any other search/index facility) to index a site built using web standards. By making your content properly accessible to all such sites, you are going to get more quality links, which in turn gives you a higher PageRank. The same can be said for the use of metadata. Because some indexing systems make use of them, including them in a site will lead to more quality links. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Now the fact that you have a good ranking for your chosen search terms cannot be denied. Clearly your content, despite being lost in a maze of tag soup, is valuable enough to get the quality links that promote your ranking. Self-publicity on the Wikipedia has much to do with it (rel="nofollow" is almost completely useless, because thousands of indexing services ignore it, and many of those will still help to promote a ranking by proxy), and controversy is another. Let me sum up as succinctly as I can: your site fares well in Google despite your poor approach to SEO. It does well because your content is obviously hitting a nerve with some people.

In reply to:
Self-publicity on the Wikipedia has much to do with it...

May I ask you to stop lying about me? As I mentioned earlier, the overwhelming majority of the links to me on Wikipedia were placed there by others, not me, the overwhelming majority of links I placed (on Talk pages) are there for reference (not self-promotion), I have never, ever, placed a link to that site which is #1 for a two-word search query out of 11 million results, not even on a Talk page, and my sites ranked well long before the Wikipedia phenomenon anyway.

In reply to:
Let me sum up as succinctly as I can: your site fares well in Google despite your poor approach to SEO.

That is just bizzarre. My sites rank well across the board, not just the one I gave an example of. They old ones have ranked well for years, and the new ones start climbing as soon as I make them. You can call my approach "poor" all you want, but since I've consistently ranked well it seems an odd criticism.

In reply to:
May I ask you to stop lying about me?

And who exactly do you think you are to be calling me a liar? You have placed links to your own site on the Wikipedia (example). The Wikipedia's history facility makes this quite clear. Regardless of whether or not these are articles or talk pages, this will have some effect on your search engine "mojo". I am simply employing basic logic here.

In reply to:
You can call my approach "poor" all you want, but since I've consistently ranked well it seems an odd criticism.

You have ignored the intent of my last post completely. You have repeatedly bragged about your search engine ranking throughout this thread, but you have yet to grasp the simple fact that your results could be even better if you adopted some or all of the principles I have previously described.

I'm sorry if I exaggerated, but I do believe your jab at me was not in good faith. When you make inflammatory accusations about people you can't be surprised when they take offense.

I never denied that I've ever placed a link on WP, and I thought my last post (as well as an earlier one) made that very clear. I take offense at your characterizing my referencing one of my sites (which is just about the only good reference on the subject) as a campaign of "self-publicity", as though it's my standard operating procedure to use WP to promote my sites. It is not. I've made close to 1000 non-linking edits on WP because I believe in the medium. I've never used it as an SEO tool.

I also never denied that a link from WP can help search rankings, but you're ignoring a couple of things I've said repeatedly: First, I had great rankings long before the Wikipedia phenomenon, so it's rather spurious to "blame" my success on WP links, no matter who placed them there. Second, the overwhelming majority of the links to my site on WP were placed there by others, not me. Since we're agreed that WP links help rankings, why on earth are you blaming my good rankings on the 1 or 2 links I placed myself and not on the many others that others have placed on their own? When any "self-promotion" is the clear minority, why do you zero in on that? I believe it is because you are looking for any way to discount my success.

By the way, I have never linked to my business site from Wikipedia, though I see you have here. Yes, it's on a Talk page with rel=nofollow, but you argued yourself that that doesn't matter.

In reply to:
You have repeatedly bragged about your search engine ranking throughout this thread, but you have yet to grasp the simple fact that your results could be even better if you adopted some or all of the principles I have previously described.

It's not that I don't understand that position, it's that I simply disagree. As for ranking "better", I'm not sure I could do better than #1 in Google and Yahoo for a two-word search that yields 11 million results. Is this is failure, I'll take it.

There are a lot of people here saying that I'm doing SEO wrong, but I haven't seen any evidence that their results are better than mine...unless you count a #3 ranking on a five-word query with 49,000 results -- and I certainly don't.

Again, you have failed to comprehend the meaning of my statements. I have not not said that linking to your site on the Wikipedia is the reason for your good search engine ranking. I have simply stated that doing so will have helped that ranking.

In reply to:
I have never linked to my business site from Wikipedia, though I see you have here. Yes, it's on a Talk page with rel=nofollow, but you argued yourself that that doesn't matter.

Absolutely. There is no policy on the Wikipedia about what you can or cannot link to in the user namespace (besides anything illegal or libelous, etc.), and the link to my business site is purely informational. You are completely free to do the same thing in your own user namespace if you wish. And yes, any of these links will give a boost (though probably not significant) to search engine rankings, despite any use of rel="nofollow".

In reply to:
It's not that I don't understand that position, it's that I simply disagree. As for ranking "better", I'm not sure I could do better than #1 in Google and Yahoo for a two-word search that yields 11 million results.

You are free to disagree, but I'm afraid you are quite wrong. Limiting your search engine optimization to a specific two-word phrase shows a lack of scope. And incidentally, I have now lost count of the number of times you have posted about being #1 out of 11 million - that is what I meant by bragging. It's just a teeny bit vulgar of you, don't you think?

In reply to:
Again, you have failed to comprehend the meaning of my statements. I have not not said that linking to your site on the Wikipedia is the reason for your good search engine ranking. I have simply stated that doing so will have helped that ranking.

I do understand what you're saying, though this last description of your comments is further from what you originally said, and different from what I responded to. What you actually said about my rankings was, "Self-publicity on the Wikipedia has much to do with it." In that statement you attributed "much" emphasis to WP on my ranking result. And as I've said repeatedly (but which you've never acknowledged), my rankings were great long before the WP phenomenon (or any links to my site on it). And another major point (which you also failed to acknowledge), was that in your swipe at me above, you try to disparage me by blaming "much" of my rankings on "self-publicity" on WP, as though the one or two links I placed to non-commercial sites are somehow help my rankings to a greater extent than all the other links that others placed by themselves.

In reply to:
There is no policy on the Wikipedia about what you can or cannot link to in the user namespace...and the link to my business site is purely informational.

I didn't say it was wrong of you to link to yourself from your Wikipedia talk page. What's bizarre is your accusing me of "self-publicity" for linking to a non-commercial I have, when you yourself link to your business site.

In reply to:
And yes, any of these links will give a boost (though probably not significant) to search engine rankings, despite any use of rel="nofollow".

Well, that seems to be different from what you said earlier:

In reply to:
Self-publicity on the Wikipedia has much to do with it (rel="nofollow" is almost completely useless, because thousands of indexing services ignore it, and many of those will still help to promote a ranking by proxy)

As for this:

In reply to:
have now lost count of the number of times you have posted about being #1 out of 11 million - that is what I meant by bragging. It's just a teeny bit vulgar of you, don't you think?

I'm repeating this example because it seems rather necessary in the face of you and others continuing to insist that I'm doing SEO wrong, and that if I weren't so wrong I could improve my rankings. I don't see why the evidence should bother you so much.

In reply to:
Limiting your search engine optimization to a specific two-word phrase shows a lack of scope.

(groan) Where on EARTH did you get the idea that I limited my SEO to a two-word phrase?!?! It's just an EXAMPLE. Geez. Either you're really grasping at straws here, or you really don't understand.

It's not even my best result, either, just the first one I picked to get an example for this discussion. Yesterday it was only the #10 driver of traffic to the domain it's on. That domain saw close to TWO THOUSAND *different* search queries driving traffic to it.

Anyway, you're adamant that I'm "quite wrong" in my approach to SEO. Fine. Show me your results so that I can see that you're better.

In reply to:
Fine. Show me your results so that I can see that you're better.

As we approach the N-th repetition of "show me yours", nobody is learning anything useful anymore. How's about we all agree on this:

In reply to:
(groan)

and let's return to regularly scheduled programming.

In reply to:
and let's return to regularly scheduled programming.

I thought this was the regularly scheduled programming?

To make your SEO successful ...first ensure that you have a focussed website, with meaningful contents and strategic placement of targeted keywords and keyphrases. Then keep on building links as much as your can through forums, blogs and press releases.

for end to end software solution pls check our site www.rootinfosol.com.

In reply to:
Then keep on building links as much as your can through forums

Translation:

Register on a forum where your site isn't hosted, dig up an old thread from last year, then make a useless post because everyone appreciates a spammer.

In reply to:
dig up an old thread from last year

But this thread was so much fun! It's nice to see an old favorite resurrected.

Can we we get back to the meat and potatoes and forget the past. I clicked on this discussion because I thought I might learn something - I did for the first page but everything since has been garbage.

Leave your flame wars for private messages and concentrate on our good content here for discussion. That said, has there been anything new in the SEO side of life since we last visited this discussion?

http://www.jconnors.net - City Streets

In reply to:
Leave your flame wars for private messages and concentrate on our good content here for discussion.

Whoooa there, young grasshopper! Every online community/forum has it's own set of acceptable conduct, and you are generally well advised to look around a bit and get the lay of the land before jumping in to instruct others how to behave. wink

This unpleasant (and generally usefless) thread was well buried until another "new" poster decided to resurrect it with a frivolous comment, the main purpose of which seemed to Seiler (a long time contributor to this these forums) to be advocating forum link spamming. Seiler elected to comment on that, and Scjessey(another DH forums old-timer) added his thought. Fair enough.

In reply to:
That said, has there been anything new in the SEO side of life since we last visited this discussion?

Maybe, maybe not, but if there *is*, a new thread would definitely be the place for it; or you could just visit MichaelBl*ejay's site and learn all there is to know about the subject (he he smile )

BTW, Welcome to DH! Generally speaking, though there are exceptions, you'll find the signal to noise ratio very high here; Enjoy!

--rlparker

My apologies, sir. I wasn't looking at time stamps and towards the 5th page of posts I was selectively reading. Perhaps we can delete my comment and re-bury this.

Thanks for the welcome!

http://www.jconnors.net - City Streets

He he..no problem...that thread has been a PITA for almost 6 months now. No worries!

While you *could* delete your post if you wanted to, it won't bury the thread, (it will just show "deleted", but the thread will still show up) so I'd just let it go. wink

Actually, I'm surprised that you stuck it out for 5 pages on that thread (as the noise to signal ration *there* was horrible!).

I think it is great that you have jumped right in helping others, and I really do want you to enjoy these forums!

--rlparker

I try to help whenever possibile, though I'm realizing every reply here is giving this page a bump to the top. So with that, I think I'll call it a night for this thread - onwards and upwards.

http://www.jconnors.net - City Streets

Start a new thread - this one is trash. But here's a good place to start: Read through the SEO & relevant forums at Digital Point.

Keep an eye on Matt Cutts' blog for Google info. Lots of non-SEO stuff there, but that's as close to the voice of Google you'll get on SEO tips.

Honestly, there aren't many SEO questions that you could have that haven't already been asked & answered at Digital Point. I'd spend some time just reading through the threads & searching for specific topics.

You can always ask stuff here, too--but you might get better results if you research the basics then ask more specific questions.

The Matt Cutts blog is also a good place to get a heads up when they're going to crack down on stuff. He's pretty helpful when it comes to telling people what not to do.

If you get sidetracked somewhere by the mention of "hat colors," stick with white until you're familiar with what's going on, and how much of a risk you're willing to take before bending the rules (gray hat, black hat, etc...). I think the hat-talk is a stupid thing to waste time on, though... but it comes up non-stop.

Seiler!

Start a new thread yourself with this exact post!!! It will be a great starting point for anyone and will give people something to respond to without having to dredge this one up again.

I will wait one day and then I'm going to repost this in a new thread for you to help you our.

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