Jawed’s Blog

Google seems to apply the -30 filter to web sites that use spammy SEO methods. If Google finds out that your web site uses invisible text, JavaScript redirects, doorway pages or similar spam techniques then your rankings will drop by 30 spots.

The Google bomb filter seems to be applied to web sites that get too many identical links in a short time period. If a web site gets many links with exactly the same link text then Google will downrank the page because such an unnatural linking behavior indicates a manipulation attempt.

The page load filter is not exactly a filter. Nevertheless, it can affect your Google rankings. If your web site takes too long to load then the search engine spiders will time out and continue with the next web site in the list. That means that your web site won’t be indexed and that it won’t appear in Google’s result pages.

How to get around these filters

If the -30 filter has been applied to your web site then you must remove the spam elements from your web site. After removing the spam elements from your site, send a reinclusion request to Google.

It is very important that all spam elements have been removed from your site before contacting Google. Otherwise, the reinclusion request won’t work. Use white-hat SEO methods to optimize your web pages.

If the Google bomb filter has been applied to your web site then you also have to file a reinclusion request. However, it is better to avoid that Google applies that filter to your site. Try to get high quality inbound links with similar but varying link texts. These links will tell search engines that your web site is relevant to a special topic.

If you want to avoid that a slow loading web page prevents search engine spiders from indexing your page, make sure that you have a . If your web host offers 99% uptime then this means that your web site can be down for nearly 4 days per year. If search engines try to index your site when it is down then it will be removed from the index.

I got this article from Axandra newsletter and found interesting. You may also read this article from here.

Is your web site still not listed on search engines although you submitted it weeks ago? There are several reasons why search engines might ignore your web pages.

1. Check if search engines can read your web page content

Search engines use very simply software programs to index your web pages. A web page that looks great to the human eye can be totally meaningless to search engines.

If you have a great looking web site that is meaningless to search engines, you won’t be able to achieve high search engine rankings with that web site - no matter how good and interesting your web site content is.

In general, search engines cannot see content that is presented in images (GIF, JPEG, PNG, etc.), Flash elements, JavaScript and other script languages or other multimedia file formats.

To find out how search engines see your web page, use a search engine spider simulator. The free IBP trial has a fully functional spider simulator that allows you to see your web pages through the eyes of a search engine.

2. Check if search engines can find your web pages

If your web page navigation is based on JavaScript then chances are that search engines cannot find your web pages. Most search engines don’t follow JavaScript links and many search engines also don’t follow image links.

To search engines, your web site can look like a one page site with hardly any content if you use JavaScript links. If you want to make sure that search engines can find all pages of your web site then use simple text links.

3. Check if your web server causes problems

It is very important that you choose a reliable hosting company. If your web server is down when search engines index your web pages then search engines cannot index your pages.

Some web hosts even change the web pages of their clients. They insert links to other web sites on the web pages of their clients and they only show these pages to search engine spiders.

Some web servers return an error message when a search engine spider wants to access a web page.

Again, the search engine spider simulator in the free IBP trial can help you to find out if your pages are returned correctly when search engines visit your web site.

4. Check if your web page content makes sense to search engines

It’s important that you make the content of your web pages search engine ready. Search engines must be able to find out what your web pages are about.

If you put lots of keywords in your web page title, the meta tags and the body text of a web page then the web page will be somewhat relevant to many keywords.

If you want to get high rankings on search engines, then the web page must be very relevant to a search term. Use IBP’s Top 10 Web Page Optimizer to optimize the content of your web pages so that they are highly relevant to your important search terms.

Only highly relevant web pages can get high search engine rankings.

5. Check if your web site has the right inbound links

Some webmasters still believe that search engines will list their web sites if they just submit it. That’s not the case. Many search engines require at least one inbound link before they list a web site.

In addition, the big search engines also rank web pages based on the number and quality of the inbound links. Use IBP’s Top 10 Inbound Link Optimizer to find out how inbound links influence the position of the top 10 pages on Google.

6. Check if your web pages contain spam elements

A single spam element can destroy all of your SEO work. If you use hidden text or other spam elements on your web page then many search engines won’t list your web site, no matter how great its content might be.

If you use white text on a white background, text in invisible CSS elements or similar elements that might be interpreted as spam then you should remove these elements as soon as possible. It will be difficult to get high rankings if your web pages contain spam elements.

Submitting your web site to search engines is not enough. If you want to get high rankings you must make sure that search engine spiders can access your web pages without problems.

In addition, search engine spiders must find the right content on your web pages and your site must have enough inbound links.

I know there are lot of articles about Search Engine Optimization, commonly refferred to as SEO, that talk about techniques and tips. Well, I am just going to talk about the basics that you need to know, not try to show you how to do it.

Meta Tags: First and the most important in my point of view is meta tags. You need to have this on your website no matter what. Google doesn’t use it to calculate your pagerank or ranking but there are lot of other search engines that use it. Getting listed in those engines is important because it matters to google who links to your site, thats how google determines pagerank.

Page Title: Lets move on, what is your page about? I am talking about page title. It should tell people and search engines what your page is about. Shouldn’t be a mile long, shouldn’t be two words either. In my view, it should be four words or less.

Content: It thats also one of the most important things. No content means you don’t deserve a search engine placement. Whatever your site is about, content is the key to higher search engine placement. Google likes it too.

Image Tags: This is new emerging technique in SEO. Make sure all your images have ALT tags. Google crawls through images and indexes them. Be descriptive when describing images.

Robot.txt: Then there is something called robots file, this is a simple file that tells the search engines where they can’t go to on your site. Incase you have material you don’t want the search engine to index.

Site Map: A site map (or sitemap) is a web page that lists the pages on a web site, typically organized in hierarchical fashion. This helps visitors, and search engine bots, to find pages on the site. Site maps can improve search engine optimization of a site by making sure that all the pages can be found. This is especially important if a site uses Macromedia Flash or JavaScript menus that do not include HTML links.

These were just the basics. This is a must before you pay thousands of dollars trying to get your website to rank better in search engines. It takes time and effort and for you to see any fruitful results in the search engines. Your website is not the only website but you can make sure it has what other websites don’t have. This could be anything, everything and nothing. You have to decide what you want to do with the limited resources you have.