The Axandra newsletter archive

1 October 2002

This week we're helping search engines finding the keywords on your Web pages and we're explaining the difference between a link and a link. :-)

I've seen many Web pages that use tables to lay out a page with a sidebar for navigation. These sidebars make a Web page easy to navigate. Unfortunately, they are not so good for search engines.

Here's an example:

Product Order Contact

body text with keywords

The corresponding HTML code is (simplified):

<table>
<tr>
<td>Product<br>Order<br>Contact</td>
<td>body text with keywords</td>
</tr>
</table>

Many search engines emphasize keywords in the first part of the text in your HTML source. Unfortunately, with the example above, the search engine finds "Product, Order, Contact" instead of your body text with keywords.

On a real Web page, the navigation sidebar is much more complicated than in the example above so that the body text with the keywords is located in the lower part of the HTML code.

Fortunately, there's a simple trick that lets the body text come first. The trick is so easy that you wonder why so many Web pages do it wrong.

You just have to insert an empty cell. It looks like this:

	body text with keywords
Product Order Contact

The corresponding HTML code is (simplified):

<table>
<tr height="0">
<td height="0"></td>
<td rowspan="2">body text with keywords</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Product<br>Order<br>Contact</td>
</tr>
</table>

Now the body text with the keywords comes first. This means that the search engines are now able to find your keywords quickly and easily.

Note: If you use the "height=0" command in the HTML code, you won't see the empty cell. We didn't add the "height=0" in this example so that you can see what we mean.

The New York Times recently wrote:

"And industry executives say Google's relations with Yahoo are quite strained; Yahoo owns Google stock and was responsible for much of its early growth. Indeed, last July, Yahoo agreed to only a short-term extension of its Google contract, which is now set to expire at the end of this month. Yahoo is said to be seriously considering switching its Web search to Inktomi, a Google rival that does not run its own Web site.

Indeed, Yahoo recently removed the Google logo from its pages that include Google's search results and replaced them with a box of tiny text reading 'search technology provided by Google.'"

You can read the full article here . (there may be a free registration necessary to view it).

A high percentage of #1 ranked Web pages on Google don't contain the queried search term in the body text or in the META tags (source: Search Engine Ranking Study ). How can that be? The answer is: These top ranked Web pages have high link popularity and a good PageRank™.

In our series we're going to tell you how to obtain high link popularity and a good PageRank so that your Web pages get a high ranking on Google and other popular search engines. Link Popularity is becoming the determining factor for successful Web sites.

Part 2: Not all links are considered equal

As mentioned in the last issue of our newsletter, the more Web sites link to your Web site, the higher your link popularity.

However, not all links are equal. Some links count more than others. Links from important Web sites have a greater effect on your link popularity and your search engine rankings.

A link from www.Yahoo.com to your Web site has more weight than a link from a small private Web page. A link from a Web site with high link popularity is better than a link from an unknown Web site.

It's also important that the Web site that's linking to you has a similar topic as your Web site. Imagine that you sell shoes on your Web site. A link from another Web site that is all about shoes will count much more than a link from a Web site that links to all kind of Web sites.

Finally, it's important how the link to your site looks like. For example, one of your important keywords might be "brown leather shoes".

The link

<a href="http://www.domain.com">Brown leather shoes</a>

leads to much better search engine rankings for the keyword "brown leather shoes" than the following link

<a href="http://www.domain.com">Smith and Partners</a>

By the way, many people think that they can increase their link popularity by submitting their Web site address to FFA (free for all) link pages and link farms (Web sites that link to all kind of Web sites). This doesn't work.

More and more search engines recognize FFA pages and link farms and choose to ignore these pages. Usually, submissions to FFA pages are a waste of time that only results in many spam email messages.

In addition, you should avoid services that promise you 2000 links to your site within a week or so. If they link to you at all, these 2000 links must be of poor quality or they don't have a similar topic as your Web site.

Use common sense. Offers that sound too good to be true probably aren't true.

Summary:

• try to get links from important Web sites
• try to get link texts that contain your important keywords
• don't use FFA or link farm pages
• don't use services that promise lots of links within days
• focus on quality links, not on quantity

Next week, we're going to tell you how to find good potential link partners quickly and easily.

Recommended link popularity tools:

• Link Popularity Check (freeware)
  Checks and compares your link popularity.
  
  
• ARELIS (commercial)
  Helps you to improve the link popularity of your Web pages.

* Increasingly popular: now more than 300 affiliates

Our 2-tier affiliate program pays you 35% whenever a visitor of your Web site buys one of our products on our site. You can earn up to $138.95 per sale.

Our affiliate program is free to join and easy to use. It provides real-time statistics so that you can immediately see when you've earned a commission.

2. We also provide text snippets. You can use the articles from our newsletter archive .

3. Testimonials about ARELIS can be found throughout our ARELIS pages and at here.

Personal endorsements usually work best. Find out why more than 300 webmasters use our affiliate program: http://www.Axandra.com/affiliates.htm

* Marketing and promotion Web sites we recommend

• Who works with whom?
  
  
• How to report search engine spam to Google & Co.
  
  
• Google: Keywords in link texts
  
  
• AllTheWeb and META Refresh tags
  
  
• Finding relevant keywords with Google
  
  
• AltaVista ranking tip

If you want to publish one of the above articles on your Web site, you're allowed to do so! However, you must not change the contents in any way. Also, you must keep all links and you must add the following two sentences with a link to www.Axandra.com: "Copyright by Axandra.com. Internet marketing and search engine ranking software ."

Please recommend this issue to anyone you know who is interested in search engine facts. It's a good way to stay in touch with your clients, too.

If you're receiving this issue as a forward, and would like to get your own free subscription, visit

http://www.Axandra.com/subscribe.htm


Back issues:
http://www.free-seo-news.com

Copyright © 2005 Axandra / Voget Selbach Enterprises GmbH

Back to our newsletter archive