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The Basics of Search Engine Optimization  (View post)

Elias Kai [PersonRank 10]

Sunday, January 7, 2007
17 years ago14,188 views

Great guide Philipp, and you can tell your aunt and uncle to taste some wine-linking strategy from my site.

In my opinion, growing your site popularity and ranking is like growing your own wine tree and juice of any of various kinds of grapes.

http://www.google-kai.com/admin/protect-your-linking-strategy-like-your-wine-during-xmas-and-for-2007.htm

David Hetfield [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Off topic:
why did you use MSN Philipp, and not Live?
http://blogoscoped.com/files/basics-of-seo/0.png

Dado [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Great post.

SirNuke [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Good list, but...

"Don’t use tools that automatically submit your site’s URL to directories, search engines and such"

I assume you are not referring to things like Google Sitemaps?

Travis Harris [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

<<But maybe you do offer those blue dog shoes somewhere else on your site>>

I think you meant Blue Dog Coats in this sentence

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

> I think you meant Blue Dog Coats in this sentence

Ah, thanks Travis, fixed!

> I assume you are not referring to things like Google Sitemaps?

Right, Google Sitemaps is OK...

> why did you use MSN Philipp, and not Live?

No specific reason except MSN is a little more known as starting point for the Microsoft search engine...

Huw Leslie [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

The ultimate white hat SEO guide.

People forget that with black hat, people are unlikely to find your site useful when they arrive, even if your SEO itself is a success.

David Hetfield [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

[put at-character here]Philipp,
i guess youre, but MS is working on lets say "deleting" MSN and focusing more on Live..

but after all.. as you said, people are familiar with MSN.

David [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Excellent work there Philipp, thanks very much, weldone.

Marie and Tilman [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Life's complicated but there are some really smart guys who ease the way through – many thanks indeed

The true aunt and uncle from Cologne

JohnMu [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Great stuff, Phillip!

Michael Markman [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

I like that you stick to fundamentals rather than slick SOE gimmicks.

Craig Danuloff [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Very good introduction and advice. I do quibble with the 'don't worry about Google for a few months' bit – I think most people don't have that kind of patience and if it's a business they probably shouldn't. I posted some thoughts on this on my blog at

http://blogs.commerce360.com/archives/search_optimization/the_basics_of_seo.html

[Edited URL – Tony & Philipp]

t xensen [PersonRank 4]

17 years ago #

Nice introduction.

ben [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

good article. one complaint. you can create (with some programming knowledge) a perfectly acceptable, in fact, wonderful website, using completely free tools. You aint gotta pay jack – as long as you're diligent, smart, and have the knowledge and time.

酷软 [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Thank Philipp,there is my Translation of this post:http://kuruan.blogspot.com/2007/01/seo.html

douglas [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

thanks for the grea article.Hope to use your SEO tips in future.
Thanks a lot.

[Unrelated URL removed – Tony]

Marvin Barraquias [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

[Moved to this more appropriate thread and URL inlinked – Tony]

This is perfect blog for my own interest I have my few posts also with seo basics in my blog seo-tips-basic.blogspot.com check it out!

Fred [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #


Great post, Philipp.

Renato [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

There's nothing new, but it is a very good summary!

Jorge Herrero [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Great guide

Ben Licher [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

".....Furthermore, there should be a (limited) set of links on that page leading to related areas of your site, ...."

Very clear article! About how many links are the limit?
Thanks

Tadeusz Szewczyk [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

You dirty spammer! All SEO is spam and all SEOs should be locked behind bars! SEO destroys Google! ;-)

Great article. That's what I tell people over and over but people in Germany still tend to insult me in those ways cited above and in many other more explicit ways "hange 'em high" style.

Exactly that's also why German websites tend to spam Google because even web savvy people do not grasp the concept of SEO.

Indeed many self proclaimed "SEOs" do not even get it right.

There is one small mistake in your article: People should worry about their meta description tags! They are very importnat as they are displayed in the search results. If I do not like the description I don't click on the result. Especially if there is just a list of keywords in it. Write one short sentence about the particular page you describe.

"Dog supplies, special feed-the-dog game – don't miss it if you love dogs!"

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

> you can create (with some programming
> knowledge) a perfectly acceptable, in fact, wonderful
> website, using completely free tools.

Agreed, I was more getting at "free infrastructures". Stuff like Geocities, Google Pages, or super-cheap (but instable) servers.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

> Very clear article! About
> how many links are the limit?

There's no specific limit, but with every new link you are adding complexity to the page, lowering the importance of each link on its own, possibly risking that the most important links you want to offer will be missed.

> Thank Philipp,there is my Translation of this post:

Wow, that's cool 酷软!

Michael Flessas [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

And, of course, always comment on blogs commenting on SEO. ;)

Navneet Kaushal [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Very good tips Philipp. I agree that good content, linking building and page designing are highly required for SEO. However, you did not speak about the Site Map.

Mike B [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Good tips.. but how can i trust these when i can still find the same #1 result for "failure" search on google? (yeah they explain how it gets there... but it's STILL #1)
I heard a lot of "don't do this do that instead" but i keep finding some weird results and websites that uses "dirty tricks" on top 10 results page.

Seth H [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Thanks for the great & informative post.

I have a concern regarding "Don’t create multiple pages with exactly the same content". My site, nycbikemaps.com, originally started as html, but I eventually switched to using php & have been maintaining the old html pages since they are still being used. So for many of my pages there is both a php version & a nearly identical html version.

Will search engines penalize this?

   It was not done with blackhat SEO in mind, but with making sure returning visitors do not get an error page. Any additional insight would be greatly appreaciated.

Cliff D [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Great Post

Mark M [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Seth, you could use a 300 redirect, that's what google recommends when moving pages around. Seamless for your users.

Joe Whyte [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Very good article for beginner SEO's.

Cam Turner [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Excellent article. Love the "relax" comment since it's so true. Also the emphasis on "ought" to rank rather than "want" to rank is excellent.

This article is similar to one I wrote on the same topic over a month ago:
http://www.camturner.com/archives/how-to-meet-new-friends-traffic-generation-basics/

If anyone cares for a different point of view on a few topics then consider stopping by for a read. For those that won't, here are the key differences:
- I disagree with the "don't bother with Meta DESCRIPTION" statement as it's been proven to be used by at least Google. But do ignore meta keywords, they are useless.
- Use Google Sitemaps, since they are now a standard they are important.
- I get more technical on the use of proper HTML tags.

thanks again.

Cam Turner [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Mark, I think you mean Seth should use a 301 redirect. Probably just a typo but important none the less.

Tadeusz Szewczyk [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Not bad, 400 diggs and running...!

joe [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

yep, thanks a lot. Very timely advice. I just had a couple clients in the past couple days ask how they could get better search results. I designed and built their websites, but i'm not an SEO'er, nor do I claim to be. I told them that after I create a basic structure for the site, the rest is mostly up to them – fill it with good content, then do their best to get the word out on their own. Print their URL on business cards, put it on presentations and publications, put it in your email signature, get written up in a news paper article, see if your old college department can link to you, or an alumni association link, etc. This is a good guide to send to people who are not technically inclined and who want to know how to get good search results. They need to know that if you have a good site with good content, and your do a lot of self-promotion (white hat, of course), then the search results will come. After I create the site for you, there's not THAT much more I can do.

ashokartgallery [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

The most valuable tips and a great analysis.I'll always remeber this Quote,

OK, blogs may die out too…one fine day, but content creation never dies, because “thoughts are things.” – Napoleon Hill

Jon Zencovich [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Good list. I like how it's nice and simple :)

Most other SEO tips are usually complicated and meant to fish you out into buy their services. Kudos!

I would recommend using Google site maps though. It really helps, plus it analyzes your page and helps you get higher ranked: https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=sitemaps&nui=1&continue=https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/siteoverview%3Fhl%3Den&hl=en

--Jon Z

[Signature URL removed – Tony]

Michael [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Anyone who has a website for a business needs to understand this stuff because they are things you could ultimately do yourself that should only cost you time (except adwords).

Sarven Capadisli [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

For those interested in optimizing a site's internal structure, check this out:

http://www.csarven.ca/internal-seo-guidelines

Jonathan Young [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Great job, the simplest beginner SEO I've read to date.

It's thanks to people like you who actually give something back that a complete novice, like me, can comfortably set up a page well and hope the content is good enough.

So far so good, 60% of traffic is now organic from the big three, cheers.

Shaun Stevens [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Excellent well written article.
Always works its way to back to common (or perhaps uncommon) sense.

mark rush [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

BLAH BLAH what a load of rubbish... this doesant go into any detail... what IS good content? how do i know if my content is good etc... Ive been SEO'ing for many years now and this is just regurgitated whitewash with no real value.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

> what IS good content?

It depends on what you're doing, and whatever that is, it will be *your* field of expertise, not mine, so you (the specific company/ the individual) will the best to answer it. However I outlined some important parts of it in the article: good content ought to be interesting, in-depth, high-quantity, original and authoritative. Miss any of these variables, and your content may be lost in the noise. For example, you may write in-depth about the patterns on your kitchen ceiling, but that is not interesting in itself, so you'd be missing an important variable. (Well, unless you make your text on kitchen ceilings highly original and humorous – like this great book: http://www.amazon.com/Mezzanine-Nicholson-Baker/dp/0679725768/ .)

Jenn [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Great summary article, and reminder to tend the website, growing new content to maintain good rankings (that's the part most folks forget, yes, build it they will come, but they won't keep coming back if there is nothing new)

I think having an Adwords account helps for organic search, if only that Google then crawls your site more frequently.

wkcow [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

great post, i translated it into chinese, thank you very much.

robwatts [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Great post Philipp, thanks for sharing

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Glad you like the article Jenn!

> I think having an Adwords account helps for
> organic search, if only that Google then crawls your
> site more frequently.

If you mean that having AdSense on the site helps your pages get indexed more frequently in terms of Google web search, that's not what happens according to Google.They say that while both AdSense crawling and Google web search crawling may cache through the same proxy, AdSense participation doesn't get you any extra crawling. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/crawl-caching-proxy/

Mambo [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

AdWords or AdSense?

I'm confused!

Dave White [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Very good article indeed. Lots of good information on the different techniques used and very well explained.

ashokartgallery [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Yes like Mambo said, "AdWords or AdSense? "

I can understand about AdSense and using it at [URL removed] but i don't start AdWords yet.Please answer.

tison [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Thanks for the great post! As far as I know you are nearly 100% correct. The only comment I would offer is that sometimes, as the algorithm works today, it helps to "beef" up your keywords, almost too a strong degree.

If someone can prove me wrong, please do, but you can see the top google results for "search engine optimization" for example, have tons of hidden content. This definitely isn't the "trick" to seo, but it certainly, and unfortunately can't be ruled out yet.

Other than that, great, insightful post, looking forward to hearing more from you.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

> but you can see the top google results for "search
> engine optimization" for example, have tons of hidden content

Do you have some examples?

Hong Xiaowan [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Great post, it is also my guide for business. Always search newest. Or make newest.
Good content. You post is the best content.

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