Here is a checklist of the factors
that affect your rankings with Google, Bing, Yahoo! and the other search
engines. The list contains positive, negative and neutral factors because all
of them exist. Most of the factors in the checklist apply mainly to Google and
partially to Bing, Yahoo! and all the other search engines of lesser
importance. If you need more information on particular sections of the
checklist, you may want to read our SEO tutorial, which gives more detailed explanations of Keywords,
Links, Metatags, Visual Extras, etc.
Keywords
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1
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Keywords in <title> tag
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This is one of the most important
places to have a keyword because what is written inside the <title> tag
shows in search results as your page title. The title tag must be short (6 or
7 words at most) and the the keyword must be near the beginning.
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2
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Keywords in URL
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Keywords in URLs help a lot - e.g.
- http://domainname.com/seo-services.html, where “SEO services” is the
keyword phrase you attempt to rank well for. But if you don't have the
keywords in other parts of the document, don't rely on having them in the
URL.
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+3
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3
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Keyword density in document text
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Another very important factor you
need to check. 3-7 %
for major keywords is best, 1-2 for minor. Keyword density of over 10% is
suspicious and looks more like keyword stuffing, than a naturally written
text.
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4
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Keywords
in anchor text
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Also very important, especially
for the anchor text of inbound
links, because if you have the keyword in the anchor text in a link
from another site, this is regarded as getting a vote from this site not only
about your site in general, but about the keyword in particular.
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5
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Keywords in headings (<H1>,
<H2>, etc. tags)
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One more place where keywords
count a lot. But beware that your page has actual text about the particular
keyword.
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6
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Keywords in the beginning of a
document
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Also counts, though not as much as
anchor text, title tag or headings. However, have in mind that the beginning
of a document does not necessarily mean the first paragraph – for instance if
you use tables, the first paragraph of text might be in the second half of
the table.
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7
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Keywords in <alt> tags
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Spiders don't read images but they
do read their textual descriptions in the <alt> tag, so if you have
images on your page, fill in the <alt> tag with some keywords about
them.
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8
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Keywords in metatags
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Less and less important,
especially for Google. Yahoo! and Bing still rely on them, so if you are
optimizing for Yahoo! or Bing, fill these tags properly. In any case, filling
these tags properly will not hurt, so do it.
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9
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Keyword proximity
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Keyword proximity measures how
close in the text the keywords are. It is best if they are immediately one
after the other (e.g. “dog food”), with no other words between them. For
instance, if you have “dog” in the first paragraph and “food” in the third
paragraph, this also counts but not as much as having the phrase “dog food”
without any other words in between. Keyword proximity is applicable for
keyword phrases that consist of 2 or more words.
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10
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Keyword phrases
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In addition to keywords, you can
optimize for keyword phrases that consist of several words – e.g. “SEO
services”. It is best when the keyword phrases you optimize for are popular
ones, so you can get a lot of exact matches of the search string but sometimes
it makes sense to optimize for 2 or 3 separate keywords (“SEO” and
“services”) than for one phrase that might occasionally get an exact match.
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11
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Secondary keywords
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Optimizing for secondary keywords
can be a golden mine because when everybody else is optimizing for the most
popular keywords, there will be less competition (and probably more hits) for
pages that are optimized for the minor words. For instance, “real estate new
jersey” might have thousand times less hits than “real estate” only but if
you are operating in New Jersey, you will get less but considerably better
targeted traffic.
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+1
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12
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Keyword stemming
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For English this is not so much of
a factor because words that stem from the same root (e.g. dog, dogs, doggy,
etc.) are considered related and if you have “dog” on your page, you will get
hits for “dogs” and “doggy” as well, but for other languages keywords
stemming could be an issue because different words that stem from the same
root are considered as not related and you might need to optimize for all of
them.
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13
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Synonyms
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Optimizing for synonyms of the
target keywords, in addition to the main keywords. This is good for sites in
English, for which search engines are smart enough to use synonyms as well,
when ranking sites but for many other languages synonyms are not taken into
account, when calculating rankings and relevancy.
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14
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Keyword Mistypes
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Spelling errors are very frequent
and if you know that your target keywords have popular misspellings or
alternative spellings (i.e. Christmas and Xmas), you might be tempted to
optimize for them. Yes, this might get you some more traffic but having
spelling mistakes on your site does not make a good impression, so you'd
better don't do it, or do it only in the metatags.
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0
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15
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Keyword dilution
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When you are optimizing for an
excessive amount of keywords, especially unrelated ones, this will affect the
performance of all your keywords and even the major ones will be lost
(diluted) in the text.
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16
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Keyword stuffing
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Any artificially inflated keyword
density (10% and over) is keyword stuffing and you risk getting banned from
search engines.
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Links - internal, inbound,
outbound
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17
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Anchor text of inbound links
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As discussed in the Keywords
section, this is one of the most important factors for good rankings. It is
best if you have a keyword in the anchor text but even if you don't, it is
still OK. However, don't use the same anchor text all the time because this
is also penalized by Google. Try to use synonyms, keyword stemming, or simply
the name of your site instead
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+3
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18
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Origin of inbound links
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Besides the anchor text, it is
important if the site that links to you is a reputable one or not. Generally
sites with greater Google PR are considered reputable. Links from poor sites
and link farms can do real harm to you, so avoid them at all costs.
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19
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Links from similar sites
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Generally the more, the better.
But the reputation of the sites that link to you is more important than their
number. Also important is their anchor text (and its diversity), the
lack/presence of keyword(s) in it, the link age, etc.
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+3
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20
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Links from .edu and .gov sites
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These links are precious because
.edu and .gov sites are more reputable than .com. .biz, .info, etc. domains.
Additionally, such links are hard to obtain.
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+3
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21
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Number of backlinks
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Generally the more, the better.
But the reputation of the sites that link to you is more important than their
number. Also important is their anchor text, is there a keyword in it, how
old are they, etc.
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22
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Anchor text of internal links
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This also matters, though not as
much as the anchor text of inbound links.
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+2
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23
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Around-the-anchor text
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The text that is immediately
before and after the anchor text also matters because it further indicates
the relevance of the link – i.e. if the link is artificial or it naturally
flows in the text.
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24
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Age of inbound links
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The older, the better. Getting
many new links in a short time suggests buying them.
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+2
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25
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Links from directories
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Could work, though it strongly
depends on which directories. Being listed in DMOZ, Yahoo Directory and
similar directories is a great boost for your ranking but having tons of
links from PR0 directories is useless or even harmful because it can even be
regarded as link spamming, if you have hundreds or thousands of such links.
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+2
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26
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Number of outgoing links on the
page that links to you
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The fewer, the better for you
because this way your link looks more important.
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+1
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27
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Named anchors
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Named anchors (the target place of
internal links) are useful for internal navigation but are also useful for
SEO because you stress additionally that a particular page, paragraph or text
is important. In the code, named anchors look like this: <A href=
“#dogs”>Read about dogs</A> and “#dogs” is the named anchor.
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+1
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28
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IP address of inbound link
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Google
denies that they discriminate against
links that come from the same IP address or C class of addresses, so for
Google the IP address can be considered neutral to the weight of inbound
links. However, Bing and Yahoo! may discard links from the same IPs or IP
classes, so it is always better to get links from different IPs.
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29
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Inbound links from link farms and
other suspicious sites
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Presumably, this does not affect
you, provided the links are not reciprocal. The idea is that it is beyond
your control to define what a link farm links to, so you don't get penalized
when such sites link to you because this is not your fault. However, some
recent changes to the Google algorithm suggest the opposite. This is why, you
must always stay away from link farms and other suspicious sites or if you
see they link to you, contact their webmaster and ask the link to be removed.
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0
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30
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Many outgoing links
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Google does not like pages that
consists mainly of links, so you'd better keep them under 100 per page.
Having many outgoing links does not get you any benefits in terms of ranking
and could even make your situation worse.
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-1
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31
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Excessive linking, link spamming
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It is bad for your rankings, when
you have many links to/from the same sites (even if it is not a cross-
linking scheme or links to bad neighbors) because it suggests link buying or
at least spamming. In the best case only some of the links are taken into
account for SEO rankings.
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-1
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32
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Outbound links to link farms and
other suspicious sites
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Unlike inbound links from link
farms and other suspicious sites, outbound links to bad neighbors can drown you. You need
periodically to check the status of the sites you link to because sometimes
good sites become bad neighbors and vice versa.
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33
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Cross-linking
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Cross-linking occurs when site A
links to site B, site B links to site C and site C links back to site A. This
is the simplest example but more complex schemes are possible. Cross-linking
looks like disguised reciprocal link trading and is penalized.
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-3
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34
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Single pixel links
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when you have a link that is a
pixel or so wide it is invisible for humans, so nobody will click on it and
it is obvious that this link is an attempt to manipulate search engines.
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Metatags
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35
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<Description> metatag
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Metatags are becoming less and
less important but if there are metatags that still matter, these are the
<description> and <keywords> ones. Use the <Description>
metatag to write the description of your site. Besides the fact that metatags
still rock on Bing and Yahoo!, the <Description> metatag has one more
advantage – it sometimes pops in the description of your site in search
results.
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36
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<Keywords> metatag
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The <Keywords> metatag also
matters, though as all metatags it gets almost no attention from Google and
some attention from Bing and Yahoo! Keep the metatag reasonably long – 10 to
20 keywords at most. Don't stuff the <Keywords> tag with keywords that
you don't have on the page, this is bad for your rankings.
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37
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<Language> metatag
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If your site is language-specific,
don't leave this tag empty. Search engines have more sophisticated ways of
determining the language of a page than relying on the
<language>metatag but they still consider it.
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38
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<Refresh> metatag
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The <Refresh> metatag is one
way to redirect visitors from your site to another. Only do it if you have
recently migrated your site to a new domain and you need to temporarily
redirect visitors. When used for a long time, the <refresh> metatag is
regarded as unethical practice and this can hurt your ratings. In any case,
redirecting through 301 is much better.
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Content
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39
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Unique content
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Having more content (relevant
content, which is different from the content on other sites both in wording
and topics) is a real boost for your site's rankings.
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+3
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40
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Frequency of content change
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Frequent changes are favored. It
is great when you constantly add new content but it is not so great when you
only make small updates to existing content.
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+3
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41
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Keywords font size
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When a keyword in the document
text is in a larger font size in comparison to other on-page text, this makes
it more noticeable, so therefore it is more important than the rest of the
text. The same applies to headings (<h1>, <h2>, etc.), which
generally are in larger font size than the rest of the text.
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+2
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42
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Keywords formatting
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Bold and italic are another way to
emphasize important words and phrases. However, use bold, italic and larger
font sizes within reason because otherwise you might achieve just the
opposite effect.
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43
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Age of document
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Recent documents (or at least
regularly updated ones) are favored.
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+2
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44
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File size
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Generally long pages (i.e.
1,500-2,000 words or more) are not favored, or at least you can achieve
better rankings if you have 3 short (500-1,000 words) rather than 1 long page
on a given topic, so split long pages into multiple smaller ones. On the
other hand, pages with 100-200 words of text or less are also disliked by
Google.
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45
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Content separation
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From a marketing point of view
content separation (based on IP, browser type, etc.) might be great but for
SEO it is bad because when you have one URL and differing content, search
engines get confused what the actual content of the page is.
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46
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Poor coding and design
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Search engines say that they do
not want poorly designed and coded sites, though there are hardly sites that
are banned because of messy code or ugly images but when the design and/or
coding of a site is poor, the site might not be indexable at all, so in this
sense poor code and design can harm you a lot.
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-2
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47
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Illegal Content
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Using other people's copyrighted
content without their permission or using content that promotes legal
violations can get you kicked out of search engines.
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-3
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48
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Invisible text
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This is a black hat SEO practice
and when spiders discover that you have text especially for them but not for
humans, don't be surprised by the penalty.
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-3
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49
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Cloaking
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Cloaking is another illegal
technique, which partially involves content separation because spiders see
one page (highly-optimized, of course), and everybody else is presented with
another version of the same page.
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50
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Doorway pages
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Creating pages that aim to trick
spiders that your site is a highly-relevant one when it is not, is another
way to get the kick from search engines.
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51
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Duplicate content
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When you have the same content on
several pages on the site, this will not make your site look larger because
the duplicate content
penalty kicks in. To a lesser degree duplicate content applies to pages that
reside on other sites but obviously these cases are not always banned – i.e.
article directories or mirror sites do exist and prosper.
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Visual Extras and SEO
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52
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JavaScript
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If used wisely, it will not hurt.
But if your main content is displayed through JavaScript, this makes it more
difficult for spiders to follow and if JavaScript code is a mess and spiders
can't follow it, this will definitely hurt your ratings.
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0
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53
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Images in text
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Having a text-only site is so
boring but having many images and no text is a SEO sin. Always provide in the
<alt> tag a meaningful description of an image but don't stuff it with
keywords or irrelevant information.
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0
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54
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Podcasts and videos
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Podcasts and videos are becoming
more and more popular but as with all non-textual goodies, search engines
can't read them, so if you don't have the tapescript of the podcast or the
video, it is as if the podcast or movie is not there because it will not be
indexed by search engines.
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0
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55
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Images instead of text links
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Using images instead of text links
is bad, especially when you don't fill in the <alt> tag. But even if
you fill in the <alt> tag, it is not the same as having a bold,
underlined, 16-pt. link, so use images for navigation only if this is really
vital for the graphic layout of your site.
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-1
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56
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Frames
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Frames are very, very bad for SEO.
Avoid using them unless really necessary.
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-2
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57
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Flash
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Spiders don't index the content of
Flash movies, so if you use Flash on your site, don't forget to give it an
alternative textual description.
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-2
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58
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A Flash home page
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Fortunately this epidemic disease
seems to have come to an end. Having a Flash home page (and sometimes whole
sections of your site) and no HTML version, is a SEO suicide.
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Domains, URLs, Web Mastery
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59
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Keyword-rich
URLs and filenames
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A very important factor,
especially for Yahoo! and Bing.
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+3
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60
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Site Accessibility
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Another fundamental issue, which
that is often neglected. If the site (or separate pages) is unaccessible because
of broken links, 404 errors, password-protected areas and other similar
reasons, then the site simply can't be indexed.
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+3
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61
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Sitemap
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It is great to have a complete and
up-to-date sitemap,
spiders love it, no matter if it is a plain old HTML sitemap or the special
Google sitemap format.
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+2
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62
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Site size
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Spiders love large sites, so
generally it is the bigger, the better. However, big sites become
user-unfriendly and difficult to navigate, so sometimes it makes sense to
separate a big site into a couple of smaller ones. On the other hand, there
are hardly sites that are penalized because they are 10,000+ pages, so don't
split your size in pieces only because it is getting larger and larger.
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+2
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63
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Site age
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Similarly to wine, older sites are respected more.
The idea is that an old, established site is more trustworthy (they have been
around and are here to stay) than a new site that has just poped up and might
soon disappear.
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+2
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64
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Site theme
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It is not only keywords in URLs
and on page that matter. The site theme is even more important for good
ranking because when the site fits into one theme, this boosts the rankings
of all its pages that are related to this theme.
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+2
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65
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File Location on Site
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File location is important and
files that are located in the root directory or near it tend to rank better
than files that are buried 5 or more levels below.
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+1
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66
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Domains versus subdomains,
separate domains
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Having a separate domain is better
– i.e. instead of having blablabla.blogspot.com, register a separate
blablabla.com domain.
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+1
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67
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Top-level domains (TLDs)
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Not all TLDs are equal. There are
TLDs that are better than others. For instance, the most popular TLD – .com –
is much better than .ws, .biz, or .info domains but (all equal) nothing beats
an old .edu or .org domain.
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+1
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68
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Hyphens in URLs
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Hyphens between the words in an
URL increase readability and help with SEO rankings. This applies both to
hyphens in domain names and in the rest of the URL.
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+1
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69
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URL length
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Generally doesn't matter but if it
is a very long URL-s, this starts to look spammy, so avoid having more than
10 words in the URL (3 or 4 for the domain name itself and 6 or 7 for the
rest of address is acceptable).
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0
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70
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IP address
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Could matter only for shared
hosting or when a site is hosted with a free hosting provider, when the IP or
the whole C-class of IP addresses is blacklisted due to spamming or other
illegal practices.
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0
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71
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Adsense will boost your ranking
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Adsense is not related in any way
to SEO ranking. Google will definitely not give you a ranking bonus because
of hosting Adsense ads. Adsense might boost your income but this has nothing
to do with your search rankings.
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0
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72
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Adwords will boost your ranking
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Similarly to Adsense, Adwords has
nothing to do with your search rankings. Adwords will bring more traffic to
your site but this will not affect your rankings in whatsoever way.
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0
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73
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Hosting downtime
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Hosting
downtime is directly related to
accessibility because if a site is frequently down, it can't be indexed. But
in practice this is a factor only if your hosting provider is really
unreliable and has less than 97-98% uptime. Try using a reputed hosting
provider such as Hostgator for hosting.
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-1
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74
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Dynamic URLs
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Spiders prefer static URLs, though
you will see many dynamic pages on top positions. Long dynamic URLs (over 100
characters) are really bad and in any case you'd better use a tool to rewrite dynamic URLs in
something more human- and SEO-friendly.
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-1
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75
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Session IDs
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This is even worse than dynamic
URLs. Don't use session IDs for information that you'd like to be indexed by
spiders.
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-2
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76
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Bans in robots.txt
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If indexing of a considerable
portion of the site is banned, this is likely to affect the nonbanned part as
well because spiders will come less frequently to a “noindex” site.
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-2
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77
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Redirects (301 and 302)
|
When not applied properly, redirects can hurt a lot –
the target page might not open, or worse – a redirect can be regarded as a
black hat technique, when the visitor is immediately taken to a different
page.
Source :
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