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Much has happened to search engine optimization (SEO) in the last years. It has become much more difficult to get high rankings for a web site. However, it's still possible to get your web site at the top of the list if you do the right things.

The good old days

When the Internet was young, it was enough to submit your web site to search engines to get high rankings.

Then webmasters found out that they could further improve their rankings by stuffing their web sites and meta tags with keywords. Search engines quickly discovered that this was abused by many webmasters.

Nowadays, the meta keywords tag isn't worth much anymore and search engines can quickly detect web sites that stuff their pages with keywords.

When Google entered the market, incoming links seemed to be the trick of the trade. However, many Google updates have shown that even a high number of incoming links cannot guarantee high search engine rankings.

What have you got to do to get high rankings in the current search engine situation?

The rules have changed

There's no single path to successful search engine optimization anymore. Most people know that it's pointless to submit a web site to search engines without doing further SEO work. However, it's likely that you also won't get good results if you focus only on incoming links or optimizing your web page content.

If you want to succeed with search engine optimization, it's important that your web page has all factors that are important for high search engine rankings:

• Create a content rich web site with lots of information.
• Optimize the content of your web pages.
• Get high quality incoming links with the right link texts.
• Host your web site on a reliable server.

Make it as easy as possible to find and to parse your web site. Good incoming links and optimized web page content are a must if you want to have high rankings.

Don't try to trick search engines

Tricking search engines with techniques such as cloaking, doorway pages and other dodgy tricks might be tempting because it seems that you can save so much time and effort with them.

Be very careful with that. Search engines don't like to be tricked. You might get away with this for some time but as soon as search engines find out that you're tricking them, they will ban your site.

Don't go for quick-fix solutions

You probably get spam email messages promising you to get listed in Google within a few days, others promise you to submit your web site to thousands of search engines (although there are only a few search engines that really count).

Getting high search engine rankings with these one-shot-no-work-quick-fix solutions is as likely as getting rich with the hot stock tips you get in other spam email messages. Use common sense. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't true.

Getting your web site into the top 10 results on Google and other major search engines is possible if you employ the right tactics. Further information can be found in our free SEO book.

FastStats: Search Loyalty

"Internet users are likely to use search engines affiliated with their email accounts and vice versa [...]

46 percent of Internet users who regularly use the Yahoo search engine also have a Yahoo email account. Likewise, 38 percent of those who use MSN search have an MSN account, 35 percent of those who use AOL search have an AOL account, and 13 percent of those who use Google’s search engine use Google’s Gmail service."

AOL swings from dying relic to coveted partner

"AOL now is in play, with chief rivals Microsoft, Google and Yahoo all talking to parent Time Warner about a stake — for a price tag that reportedly starts at $10 billion. Google has discussed both a solo bid and one in partnership with cable giant Comcast."

Google's privacy policy in layman's words

"I’ve gone through the 'highlight' of the Google Privacy Policy (which recently changed). The highlights document is supposed to be a translation of the longer legalese found in the full privacy policy, but I think it’s still not down-to-earth simple enough. So here’s my try on improving that."

Search engine newslets

• Healthline is a new health search engine.
• Inform is a new news search engine.
• See-Em is a new search engine with previews.
• Gheto-Search is a new search engine with the reverse algorithm of FyberSearch.
• Take a look at Google 2084.
  

"Google returns to the [Frankfurt Book] fair Tuesday to tout the program — and to announce searches in French, Spanish, Italian and German. But it is no longer reaping the initial positive glow from publishers. Instead, it finds itself in the position of having to defend itself to the industry.

Google's satellite images spook Indian leader

"Indian military analysts are divided over whether Google's satellite image service, which the president has warned could help terrorists find targets, poses a serious threat to national security."

The Hollywood mogul who cast himself as a star of the internet

"It might be surprising to learn that Barry Diller, the famously fierce Hollywood mogul turned internet executive, does not get a thrill from the cut and thrust of competition. [...]

The first priority with Ask Jeeves is to try to boost its position from fifth in the internet search market. Mr Diller says that is already happening, with queries growing by 25 per cent a month in the US."

"I am getting top ten listings on Google for many keywords. In addition I have also got listings on most of the other search engines.

My Destin Adventure site has over 100 pages and we have 1042 listings in the top ten. This includes all search engines. [...]

IBP version 8 is a great piece of work, and I wanted you to know how well it works."
Allyn Kemp, webmaster www.destinadventure.com

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