Common SEO Questions
SEO, SEM, PPC What's with the acronyms?
SEO = Search engine optimisation
SEM = Search engine marketing
SERP = Search engine ranking position
SEMP = Search engine marketing practitioner
PPC = Pay-Per-Click
Search Engine Optimisation is a combination of technical methods mixed with marketing techniques. The computer and marketing industries are two of the worst for acronyms with terms like IT, PC, DNS, ROI, SWOT etc. being used regularly, so it is no surprise the Search Optimisation industry is also full of acronyms.
What is Website Code?
Website Code is what makes a website look aesthetically pleasing. It tells your web browser (such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari etc.) what colour to make the text on the page, how big it should be, where to put the images and the menus and everything else that pertains to the look of a website.
The code is also important with how search engines view your website. The search engines do not view your website like you or I - they look only at the code and the information contained within the code. If your website code is poorly structured, it makes it a lot harder for the search engines to determine what your website is all about.
Why do I need SEO?
Every day, hundreds of thousands of new web pages are added to the billions of pages on the internet. It's the search engines job to find all these new websites and organise them appropriately so people can find them. What's the point in having a website if no one can find it? With SEO, it greatly increases your chances of the search engines finding your website and ranking it accordingly.
What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?
Search Engine Optimization (abbreviated by SEO) is the process of designing, writing, coding, programming, and scripting your entire Web site so that there is a good chance that your Web pages will appear at the top of search engine queries for your selected keywords.
Can I do it myself?
Yes, by researching the different search engines and reading the information on this and other sites you can do it yourself. However, be prepared for a lot of hard work and constant research to keep up to date with search engine changes. Site optimisation needs constant monitoring to ensure that after you have got those top positions, you keep them. If you are willing to spend the time and effort needed to do this, you will find every tool you need here.
Why doesn't my site appear after being submitted?
Due to the volume of sites submitted to the search engines on a daily basis, it can often take a month (or more) before the search engines process the submission request. The other thing is that your website may actually be listed after you submit it, - but it could be so low down that you'd have to click through 10 or more pages of results to find it. Many people find it's more effective to build relevant inbound links to their website instead of submitting to the search engines. But regardless of which approach you use, it will take some time before your site is listed and often the best results are gained only by combining a number of optimisation techniques.
I'm in Australia and my .com web site isn't listed in Australian engines - yet it is in the US engines, why?
During the .com boom, a .com domain was always considered the best to have - yet Australian surfers associate a .com with a US site (which most results are). As a result of surfer demands, search facilities were asked to show results which were more applicable to local search needs - so many of the major search engines which have a local presence give the option to search on Australian or World Wide sites. The easiest way of doing this is filtering out most domains which end in .com - which indicates World Wide and boosting those that end in .au.
I have a domain which points to my free hosting service and can't get listed, why not?
Use of free hosting does not automatically lead to a ban from being listed - but it can do. Also, many search engines view a commercial site which can't afford to pay for hosting as probably not worthy of a listing. If you are a commercial site - get your own paid hosting plan, they are not expensive and will be your first step to getting higher rankings not to mention making your company seem more professional.
I've heard of doorway and gateway pages - what are they?
Simply put, a doorway or gateway page is a page in to your web site which has been made attractive to search engines for a particular keyword or phrase which is relevant to your services or products. Any page on your site can be a doorway and an integral part of your site if your web site has been designed properly. However, many sites have been designed using Frames, Flash or other graphical means and can make it more difficult for the search engines to navigate their way through your website. To change the site might be impossible so creating a text rich doorway to the main site is an alternative. Be careful though, creating doorway pages which are not perceived as useful to surfers can lead to your site being complained about - and your website could be banned.
If I do this myself, are there any tools to help me?
Yes, we have listed many of the best free and commercial tools in our Resources and Tools section. With work and effort you can optimise your own site and get the listings you deserve by researching the subject through the many articles and links we have set up. It can take a lot of time and be frustrating, but once you start gaining results it is very rewarding!
What is indexing and how long does it take to get indexed?
When a search engine lists your site in their search results, the process is known as being "indexed". Each search engine is different. Some list you in a few weeks, some a few months and others up to a year. Prepare for a 6 month wait before you start to see the full benefits of your optimisation efforts.
This looks complicated and a lot of work! Can you help?
Of course! We offer a range of services that are specifically designed to generated highly targeted traffic to your website. These services include "on site" optimisation work, link building, directory submissions, pay-per-click advertising, pre-sell marketing pages and many more. It doesn't matter what business you're in or what goals you have for your site - we will have an online marketing solution that will get you more clicks!
What is "PageRank (PR)"?
PageRank™ is actually a trademarked term owned by Google Inc. and refers to the "rank" of a website as determined by Google's ranking system. The PageRank (PR) of a website is determined by the number of inbound links a website has and the quality of these inbound links.
How Do I Increase My PageRank?
You don't need a high PageRank to achieve the top positions in the search results, so it is counter-productive to spend all your time trying to increase your rank. Instead you should focus on increasing the size of your web site with quality content. Make sure that the navigation of your site promotes cross-linking of important pages. The more useful information you have, the more people that will want to link to you and this is what will increase your PageRank as well as bring-in more targeted visitors which means they are a lot more likely to purchase your products and/or services.
Why is search engine traffic so important?
A very large percentage of people (as much as 90%) looking for stuff on the internet find what they're looking for through search engines. Given that most people will only browse through 20 or 30 results in order to find what they're looking for, it is important that your website rankings highly, otherwise you risk loosing a vast amount of traffic to competitors.
What are META tags and are they still useful?
META tags are a part of your website code which is viewable only to those that are specifically looking for it. The META tags cannot be seen directly through a browser such as Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari. These META tags can be used in order to supply information to spiders / crawlers or other robots that are looking for alternate information. These tags may present information such as keywords, site description and title etc. A few years ago, these tags were very effective for optimisation, but now most search engines no longer use them.
What are spiders / crawlers / robots?
The terms "spiders", "crawlers" and "robots" all refer to a computer program which is designed to browse websites and download information. The information that it usually downloads is the HTML source code. In the case of search engines, this source code is stored in a large database and later analyzed.
Is optimisation a difficult task?
No, but it requires a lot of work and patience. The work part involves researching how the search engines rank websites and then making the necessary changes to your website code manually which requires some technical knowledge and a reasonable amount of spare time. The patience part involves nothing more than waiting and monitoring the results and knowing how best to analyse the results to know what parts of your website require more work. All the information you need can be found on this site and throughout many other sites listed on our Resources page.
How do I go about optimizing my website?
Firstly, you need to have the correct tools at hand. Such tools would include keywords density analysers, server header checkers, meta tag analysers, spider simulators etc. Such tools can be found in abundance on the internet also check out our Resources page.
Next you will need to decide for exactly which search terms you wish to optimize your site for. It can be difficult to optimize a site for more than say 5 search terms. Do some research with keyword suggestion tools, check which phrases bring you currently the most traffic, check your opposition and find out the most commonly used phrases and consider local searches for your product services.
The best optimization procedures vary by search engines and change over time. More often than not changes will need to be made to the directory structure of your website, along with changes to filenames and resources.
How long will it take before I start ranking better?
It is just about impossible to predict how long it will take. Sometimes you can be lucky and see changes to your pages within days; more often it will take much longer, up to 6 and 8 weeks.
Hidden text, should I use it on my website for better ranking?
To be short, NO. Many search engines consider hidden text to be "unethical". Hidden text can easily be detected and it can lead to a website being dropped from the index (banned).
Dynamic pages, will they be harming my rankings?
The use of straight forward dynamic pages, as in using the extensions .php, .asp, etc. should not harm rankings. Using "query strings" in the URL's can be bad. The use of "?param=yes&other=no" will make it difficult for search engines to crawl your website.
Do filenames and directory structure matter?
Many say that filenames do not directly matter; there is evidence however that they can be part of the ranking algorithm in many major search engines. For optimal performance we suggest that filenames should be no longer than 15-20 characters in length and should contain the keywords for the content of the page, with words being delimited with dashes "-". Directory structure too is important, with directory names including at least one target keyword and the directory structure should be kept as close to the root as possible i.e. www.site.com/page.htm is much better than www.site.com/folder/folder2/page.htm.
What is a "reciprocal link"?
Let's images there are 2 websites, one is "Site A" and the other "Side B". If Site A provides a link to Site B and Site B simultaneously provides a link to Site A, then the 2 respective links are known as "reciprocal" links given that each site links to the other.
What does "cross linking" mean?
Cross linking is the terms used to define a volume of sites that provide links to each other for the purpose of increasing link popularity. The sites are often owned by one person or firm and have little or no other purpose that to be part of the link farm.
What are "inbound links"?
Inbound links are nothing more than links coming from given external websites. For example, any links on this website to Ingenuity.net.au are considered to be inbound links to Ingenuity.
How can I find how many inbound links I have?
In reality it is difficult to know the exact number of inbound links if. A good tool to check for inbound links to your website is to use the Google query "link:www.example.com". Another query goes through AllTheWeb "link.all:www.example.com".
How important are inbound links?
Over the past 4 years or so, search engines have been placing more and more importance on inbound links. Inbound links are a good way to judge the popularity of a website i.e. the more inbound links a website has, the more important it is considered to be. Many people use words that describe a website in order to link to it, so the words used to the link have become very important. Ideally, all of the inbound links to your website should use your target keywords as the link text.
How can I tell if my site has been banned?
If your site was listed and then suddenly disappears, it might be reasonable to assume the site was banned. Normally only sites that engage in some kind of spamming or poor practices get banned. For example, if you have used hidden text, URL cloaking, or been part of a link farm, then it is possible your site would have been banned.
What is "Cloaking"?
Some sites have decided to cheat the search engines and deliver optimised content to the search spiders yet deliver different content to regular users. This is usually done when the site wants to use frames, java, flash or some other such media that would be difficult for search engines to read. The page is said to be "Cloaked" whenever this optimised content is delivered to search engines.
Does PageRankTM affect my rankings in Google?
In short, yes PageRank does effect how your website ranks in Google. The PageRank system was designed to be yet another factor in how pages should rank, it is not the only thing that matters however. When you do a search at Google, the highest PR websites are not always placed at the top. Sometimes a page with a lower PR can outrank a higher PR website if it is better optimized for the search terms.
What is unethical SEO?
Unethical SEO is a term that is used to describe search engine optimizers, or the optimization of a website which uses any form of spamming or tricks in order to falsely improve rankings. For example, the use of hidden text or doorway pages as mentioned above would be considered unethical search engine optimization.
