Ranking high at Google
Updated: Nov 21.2005
Most of this stuff I have gotten from other sites. They seem to work pretty good.
If you get your website listed in the Open Directory Project, google will rank you very high. Google seems to heavily favor sites and pages that are listed in there. As this is not plausible for most of us, in the next section we'll talk about ways to format your html to get higher rankings.
So basically when people use google they search on a few keywords or a phrase.
Make sure you pick your target keywords well. How do you think people will search for your web page? Then placing these properly in your webpage can make your ranking higher.
- Title tag - The keywords should be in the title of the page. But remember, the title is also used by your browser for bookmarks and window title. So the trick is to use a title that makes sense but also contains your keywords.
- Heading tags - Use H1 or H2 heading at the beginning of the page with the keyword in it.
- Keyword frequency - Your keywords should be scattered all over your page with a little more in the beginning of your page.
- Link text and Bold text - Include the keyword in links and bolded text to get a slight advantage.
- ALT tag on images - Google apparently indexes text given in this tag. I don't do this cuz it takes forever!
- Linking - Links from other pages, especially high ranking ones like ODP and yahoo will raise your ranking. Google rannks your page based on how many other quality websites are linked to you.
A couple things to note is that Click popularity and Meta Tags don't seem to make any difference. But I would include meta tags anyways.
Also Google provides things not to do!
Basic principles:
- Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as "cloaking."
- Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"
- Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
- Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition GoldT that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.
Specific recommendations:
- Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
- Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.
- Don't send automated queries to Google.
- Don't load pages with irrelevant words.
- Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
- Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.
These quality guidelines cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative behavior, but Google may respond negatively to other misleading practices not listed here (e.g. tricking users by registering misspellings of well-known websites). It's not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique isn't included on this page, Google approves of it. Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles listed above will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit
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