SEO Guidelines - Standards and Practices Information

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization 2006

White Hat Methods and Practices

White hat methods of SEO involve following the search engines' guidelines as to what is and what isn't acceptable. Their advice generally is to create content for the user, not the search engines; to make that content easily accessible to their spiders; and to not try to game the system. Often webmasters make critical mistakes when designing or setting up their websites, inadvertently "poisoning" them so that they will not rank well. White hat SEOs attempt to discover and correct mistakes, such as machine-unreadable menus, broken links, temporary redirects, or a poor navigation structure.

Because search engines are text-centric, many of the same methods that are useful for web accessibility are also advantageous for SEO. Methods are available for optimizing graphical content, including ALT attributes, and adding a text caption. Even Flash animations can be optimized by designing the page to include alternative content in case the visitor cannot read Flash.

Some methods considered proper by the search engines:

• Using unique and relevant title to name each page.
• Editing web pages to replace vague wording with specific terminology relevant to the subject of the page, and that the audiences that the site was developed for will expect to see on the pages, and will search with to find the page.
• Increasing the amount of unique content on a site.
• Using a reasonably-sized, accurate description meta tag without excessive use of keywords, exclamation marks or off topic terms.
• Ensuring that all pages are accessible via anchor tag hyperlinks, and not only via Java, Javascript or Macromedia Flash applications or meta refresh redirection; this can be done through the use of text-based links in site navigation and also via a page listing all the contents of the site (a site map).
• Allowing search engine spiders to crawl pages without having to accept session IDs or cookies.
• Developing "link bait" strategies. High quality websites that offer interesting content or novel features tend to accumulate large numbers of backlinks.
• Participating in a web ring with other quality websites.
• Writing useful, informational articles under a Creative Commons or other open source license, in exchange for attribution to the author by hyperlink.

Black Hat Methods

Main article: Spamdexing

"Black hat" SEO are methods to try to improve rankings which are disapproved of by the search engines, typically because they consider such methods deceptive, and unrelated to providing quality content to site visitors. Search engines often penalize sites they discover using black hat methods, by reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from the SERPs altogether. Such penalties are usually applied automatically by the search engines' algorithms, because the Internet is too large to make manual policing of websites feasible.

Spamdexing is the promotion of irrelevant, chiefly commercial, pages through deceptive techniques and the abuse of the search algorithms. Over time a widespread consensus has developed in the industry as to what are and are not acceptable means of boosting one's search engine placement and resultant traffic.

Spamdexing often gets confused with white hat search engine optimization techniques, which do not involve deceit. Spamming involves getting websites more exposure than they deserve for their keywords, leading to unsatisfactory search results. Optimization involves getting websites the rank they deserve on the most targeted keywords, leading to satisfactory search experiences.

When discovered, search engines may take action against those found to be using unethical SEO methods. In February 2006, Google removed both BMW Germany and Ricoh Germany for use of these practices.[9]

Cloaking is the practice of serving one version of a page to search engine spiders and another version to human visitors.

Page Quality and Ranking

When a site has useful and engaging content, there's a good chance that other webmasters will naturally place links to the site, increasing its PageRank and flow of visitors. When visitors discover a useful website, they tend to refer other visitors by tagging or bookmarking the page, linking to it, and sending others links to it by email or instant message.

As a result, SEO practices that improve website quality are likely to outlive short term practices that simply seek to manipulate search rankings. The top SEOs recommend targeting the same thing that search engines seek to promote: relevant, useful content for their users.

See also

• Google consultant
• SEO contest
• Spamdexing
• Search engine marketing
• Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization
• Search Marketing Association - North America
• Organization of Search Engine Optimization Professionals

References

• Pringle, G., Allison, L., and Dowe, D. (1998). "What is a tall poppy among web pages?". Proceedings of the seventh conference on World Wide Web.
• Brin, Sergey and Page, Lawrence (1998). "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine". Proceedings of the seventh international conference on World Wide Web 7, 107-117.
• "The Clever Project." History. URL accessed on May 4, 2006.
• "Google Patent Application - Information Retrieval Based on Historical Data." History. URL accessed on October 10, 2005.
• "'Optimize' Rankings At Your Own Risk by By David Kesmodel at The Wall Street Journal Online." Google. URL accessed on September 9, 2005.
• "Legal Showdown in Search Fracas By Adam L. Penenberg at Wired.com." Google. URL accessed on September 8, 2005.
• "Confirming a penalty by Matt Cutts at Matt Cutts Blog." Google. URL accessed on February 2, 2006.
• Cho, J., Garcia-Molina, H., and Page, L. (1998). "Efficient crawling through URL ordering". Proceedings of the seventh conference on World Wide Web.
• "Ramping up on international webspam by Matt Cutts at MattCutts.com/Blog/." Google. URL accessed on February 4, 2006.

External links

Additional Research Resources

• Our Search: Google Technology
• Google: Company Overview
• Yahoo! Patent Application - Link-based spam detection on May 4, 2006

Search Engines' Guidelines

• Google's Guidelines on SEO's
• Google's Guidelines on Site Design
• Yahoo! Search Content Quality Guidelines
• MSN Search Guidelines for successful indexing
• Editorial Guidelines for Ask.com

Sources of Background Information

• Matt Cutts Blog - Matt Cutts is the only Senior Engineer from Google who actively communicates with the SEO/SEM community
• SearchEngineWatch.com - Search Engine News, Resources, Forums, Organizer of SES (Search Engine Strategies) Summit, Daily Search Cast SEO News and Podcast.
• Thread Watch- Open Internet Marketing Community - News, Alerts and Articles. If something happens in SEO/SEM, TW is often the first to report.
• Webmasterworld.com - Search Engine Optimization Forum. WMW is known to be watched by Google and posted to anonymously by a Google employee (Google Guy).
• HighRankings - A very active forum for experienced SEOs and those new to the field.
• SES Search Engine Strategies Most important Conference and Expo of the SEO Industry

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization"

Categories: Spamming | Internet terminology | Search engine optimization

Legal issues

In 2002, SearchKing filed suit in an Oklahoma court against the search engine Google. SearchKing's claim was that Google's tactics to prevent spamdexing constituted an unfair business practice. This may be compared to lawsuits which email spammers have filed against spam-fighters, as in various cases against MAPS and other DNSBLs. In January of 2003, the court pronounced a summary judgment in Google's favor.

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