The Optimizer - Weekly SEO News

Yahoo! has added a new search function to it's ever-growing bag of tricks.

Yahoo! Instant Search displays results as you type your query. The results come from either Yahoo! Shortcuts to news, weather and other relevant information or from the #1 results in it's index. Yahoo! Search also provides instant corrections for "select" misspellings. I emphasize select because it did not offer any corrections for misspellings that I entered.

If this becomes a popular tool, I see a lot of webmasters scrambling even more feverishly to get their web sites listed in the #1 position at Yahoo!.

Try Yahoo! Search Beta for yourself.

Labels: search, seo tools, yahoo

The results from Google Groups are now appearing at the bottom of related Google web results pages. These results are from messages that users have posted to a discussion group about a topic related to your search. The Google Groups results contain three links to specific posts along with link to the query in the Google Groups database.

News Groups are an excellent way to get those hard to find questions answered fairly quickly plus, they are usually a great resource for research. So, keep a lookout for Google Group results on the bottom of your Google queries.

Google Groups web site

Labels: google, search

Stuntdbl, a member of Search Engine Watch forums, has started an interesting thread about what he believes are the top 20 SEO contradictions that people in the web promotion field debate about frequently.

Here's the list:

1. All links work vs. Contextual links work
2. Buy links for click through (or don't buy them) vs. Buy links for search rankings
3. There's nothing a competitor can do to hurt your site vs. Googlebowling
4. SEO is dead vs. Long live SEO
5. Directory links are important vs. Google hates directory links
6. All penalties are algorithmic vs. Lots of hand edits
7. Sandbox vs. There is no sandbox
8. Filters vs. Penalties
9. The blue pill vs. There is no spoon
10. Pagerank is dead vs. Buy links based on Pagerank (okay this one is just plain WRONG)
11. Content remix vs. Scraper sites
12. Blogs rank too well vs. SE's don’t like blogs
13. Real simple syndication vs. Real simple stealing
14. Lots of links vs. Quality links
15. Google knows all vs. Google is dumb
16. Lots of directories vs. Good directories
17. Automated vs. Manual
18. Linking in vs. Linking Out
19. Global vs. Local
20. Google is good vs. Google is evil

Here's a link to the thread - Top 20 SEO Contradictions

Iotaweb.org is a new search engine that allows you to search for the approximate values of high dollar keywords for Google Adsense and Yahoo! Publishers Network.

Results are sorted from highest to lowest value. When you click on a result it will show you the approximate pay per click value of that keyword phrase. The values are updated monthly and new keywords are added daily. There's also plans for keyword value trend data as the search engine matures.

Try Iotaweb for yourself.

Labels: adsense, google, seo tools

Google apparently has been updating their count of backlinks in the last couple days.

To check your site's backlink list in Google, go to http://www.google.com and type link:www.yoursite.com in the search box.

Keep in mind, Google only shows a sample of the backlinks that they have indexed. Noone knows for sure just what percentage the sampling is. If I were to guess, I would say it shows about 5-10%.

Labels: google, links

As a beginner or novice webmaster/website owner, you may not yet be familiar with the tech definitions in today's search engine placement world. In this article, I define keyword prominence, density, frequency, proximity and marketing and how they can affect your search engine placement.

Keyword Prominence

Keyword prominence refers to how prominent keywords are within a web page.

To achieve the best rankings, place your most important keywords at the start of the page, the end of the page, and in your H1, H2 and TITLE tags.


Keyword Density

Keyword density is quotient of the number of occurrences of a particular keyword or phrase divided by total number of visible words within a web page.

For example:

In this sentence, the keyword density of the word "keyword" is 16.6%.
(2 occurrences divided by 12 total words)

The optimal keyword density varies among different search engines. I recommend using a keyword density of 1.5-4.0%.


Keyword Frequency

Keyword frequency is the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase appears in a web page.

The idea is, the more times a keyword or keyword phrase appears, the higher the ranking will be for a search for that keyword or phrase.

I recommend that the most important keywords or keyword phrases are the most frequently used for the particular web page.

You have to be careful not to repeat the same keywords too much as this is considering keyword spamming by most search engines and consequently, can lower your search engine rankings.


Keyword Proximity

Keyword proximity is how close your keywords are to one another. In most cases, the closer the keywords are, the more chance of getting a good search engine ranking.

Take these two sentences for example:

Beginner Keyword Definitions

Keyword Definitions for the Beginner

Using the example titles above, if a search was made for "beginner keyword definitions," a web page with the first sentence is more likely to rank higher than the second.


Keyword Marketing

Keyword marketing is the process of targeting customers by keywords. In terms of advertising, keyword marketing involves purchasing ad units, typically banners and text links, on the search results page for particular keywords. In terms of search engine optimization, keyword marketing involves achieving top rankings in the actual (organic) search results themselves.

I hope this article has helped you further you understanding of keyword optimization. Till next time!

Labels: keywords

As you may have heard recently, the SEO company Traffic-Power has filed a suit against Aaron Wall, writer of an online blog titled SEOBook. The suit is apparently over negative comments left on his blog by readers who were upset with Traffic-Power's optimization techniques and business practices. At the time the suit was filed, the negative comments ranked #5 in Google for the search "Traffic Power".

Ironically, Traffic-Power's site doesn't show up in any of Google results because they were previously banned by Google for black-hat "doorway" search engine optimization techniques. Most of Traffic Power's clients were also affected by the ban.

Not only is Aaron Wall getting sued, but some of Traffic-Power's client's are also getting sued for apparently nothing more than voicing their opinions about Traffic Power's business practices. One of their clients even went so far as to create a website registered as Trafficpowersucks.com.

Because he believes that the comments are free speech, Aaron Wall has decided to fight this case and is now looking for donations. Here's a quote from a recent post on SEOBook:

This suit is not about Traffic Power. This suit is not about this blog. This suit is more about free speech, which is the very fabric that holds the web and democracy together. An issue far more important than I could ever pretend to be.

If I do not face this suit, then it is easier for the next person to get trampled. After all the support people have offered I do not think it is the right decision to tuck tail and run, especially since I am still unaware of what specifically is wrong - and never once has there been an attempt to tell me.

If you want to help Aaron Wall fight this suit with a donation, details can be found in his latest blog posting - "Legal Donations Accepted.."