The Other Search Engines

**conkermaniac** · 07:38 AM

Hi everyone,

I have started this thread as an area where we can all share tips on how to "beat the search engines". Feel free to share "secrets" or just general tips that you have found somewhere. Hopefully, this will help many newer webmasters (myself included) drive more traffic to their site.

I would first like to share some tips that I have found on www.apromotionguide.com ...this is more of a summary of what I have found on the site. If you want the whole thing, make sure you visit their website.

- Use the META tags to your advantage! However, don't abuse this system. Many webmasters of regular non-adult sites try to add adult terms (since these are searched for more often than anything else) and it really drive more visitors, but instead of getting valuable visitors that will come back again and again, you'll only have a bunch of one-time visitors who may in turn warn others against visiting your site. However, try to include as many keywords related to your site as possible, and make sure that your description is perfect and "human-friendly".

"Accidentally" misspelling a word is another helpful tip.

- Make sure your sites load up fast! If your site is far too slow, visitors, especially those with slower connections, will simply give up and back up. And believe it or not, search engines measure how long a user stays on a site. So to ensure that users will stay longer, make sure your site looks clean and loads quickly!

- Now for some cheaper tricks. But be warned, if a search engine catches you, you'll be banned! So only read on if you are willing to take this risk...

Well, first, search for the keyterm that you are interested in getting a Top 10 ranking on. Then, go through all the pages until you find your site. Click on the listing and close the browser window. Don't visit that search engine again for at least another hour. Now, you need to keep two things in mind. Your IP has been logged, and therefore, you should try to avoid doing this again for at least 2 days, unless you have a really dynamic IP address. Also, before you try it again, search engines also add cookies. Make sure you clear 'em all out before attempting this again. Then repeat the above steps. Now, make you tell all your friends and relatives about this too, since this will be a slow process without them.

You can also try this method with proxies to speed up the process, but remember, you have to delete your cookies after every attempt.

(more to come soon

)

**DaveTodd** · 10-12-2002, 10:25 AM

thankx for those tips conk...here's some of mine

- Keywords - put in all the keywords that relate to your site, the right spellings, and other spelling alternatives, as well as misspellings. If you were targetting keyword "optimization," you'd put in:
optimization
optimisation
optomisation
optomization
etc....
to make sure you got *all* the traffic you could from this term

-title tags- are arguably the most important tags on your site. they tell search engines what your site is about, and they rank you *alot* on your title tag. if you have an optimised tag that's well suited to your site and its content, you'll get a better rank. make sure you include keywords in these tags to boost your rankings for them.

-alt image tags- *always* use alt image tags. they give you bonus points with the search engines. they don't always have to describe the image they're under, just use them wisely, with keywords in them, to boost your rankings under the search engines.

-css trick- search engines blacklist sites that use text the same colour as the background to keyword spam. this means they use orange text on an orange background and type in "sex" 300 times, hoping to get a really good rank for this term. they get banned from search engines.
if you really wanna do this, do it the right way!! put in the text, in an ordinary style, black font, size 2 etc...and then change it by applying a css file to the text.
the css file changes the text to the same colour as the background, but the search engine won't realise. you may still get banned for spamming because of word repetition, but you've at least ruled out one part of the problem

- keyword usage - make sure you repeat as many of your primary keywords as far up the page as you can. the higher up they are, and the more frequent they are, on the page, the better they'll rank.

- headings - use headings, and put keywords in them!! if you have an h1 heading with your primary keyword in it, it will be weighted heavier than your primary keyword in a sentance half way down your page. repetition of keywords in a few headings throughout the page can really boost your rankings

- navigation - search engines rank sites on how well they navigate. the better and easier your navigation, the better you'll rank. so make navigation as easy and straight forward as possible. the better the navigation, the more user friendly the site, and the better you'll rank!!

thats all for now...maybe more later

**conkermaniac** · 10-12-2002, 11:02 AM

Hi DaveTodd,

I was just about to get to that CSS trick. It actually might be better if you linked to an external CSS stylesheet containing all the invisible text and used something like robots.txt (hmm...anyone have suggestions about a robots.txt file?) to direct the search engines away from that stylesheet. Sneaky, huh?

APromotionGuide.com does not recommend this trick, but they mentioned it anyway.

Check out this page for the full directions on how to use CSS:
http://www.apromotionguide.com/css_tricks.html

I was talking with Dave (DMo224) earlier today, and he said that one of his top tips was to include as many of your keywords in the introductory paragraph. I think this is a great idea, and it goes along with your suggestion of using words higher up on a page. I'm guessing that big header text on the main page at the very top will be the most important factor for search engines (along with your title, of course).

BTW, I'm taking careful notes for my website (which I have recently "rejuvenated"). I think we can all learn something from this discussion.

**david** · 10-12-2002, 11:34 AM

The 'PageRank Uncovered' report at: http://supportforums.org/pagerank
gives a lot of information about optimizing for Google (if you read all 56 pages of it

)

**DaveTodd** · 10-12-2002, 11:47 AM

thankx dave, some great ideas have already been posted...what do you do to beat the engines into giving you a better ranking?

robots.txt file is definately a go-er conker...i've not used them before though. anyone with any ideas on this? anyone with any other ideas? we can all benefit from each other on this one. its not like we're all in competition, our sites are so widely segregated, theres enough keywords for us all! so come on...share your tips!!

**conkermaniac** · 10-12-2002, 12:45 PM

Hi david,

That seems like a very valuable resource, but I wish they had a version of it in HTML! I can't seem to be able to view the .pdf file they have. Perhaps it's two large or something...I mean, 56 pages is certainly a lot.

I agree with DaveTodd: anybody have some info on robots.txt? Don't be shy to share any info you've got. We're all a friendly bunch and non-members of W-T can't see this thread.

**DaveTodd** · 10-12-2002, 12:57 PM

i did manage to get the pdf file to open, but it took about a minute to download + open right in IE. just be patient and it will load!! David, or anyone else, do you have any articles or ideas that you are the author of that you would like featured on my site when it is launched? if you do...send them to me!!

keep the ideas comming guys...

**DaveMo~** · 10-12-2002, 08:39 PM

Quote:

-alt image tags- *always* use alt image tags.

Not only use the alt tags, but make your graphics keyword rich also. Instead of naming the graphic something like graphic001.jpg, name it with a keyword like keyword001.jpg, where keyword is replaced with an actual keyword for your site.

Quote:

include as many of your keywords in the introductory paragraph

I think this is always taught to new webmasters, but something that is soon forgotten or omitted. Your heading and welcome/introductory paragraph should be keyword rich.

Tiggy has a good article about text files for the robots. Hmm, might be something good to include in an upcoming issue of Webmaster-Talk Newsletter!

Dave

**Criper2000** · 10-12-2002, 08:50 PM

I forgot that on my first edition of scottbat.com

**DaveTodd** · 10-13-2002, 06:03 AM

thats some good advice there dave

i never even considered using my keywords in the graphic names...guess it makes sense though. can you get away with keyword001.jpg - or are you better with keyword_001.jpg, to ensure that the search engine realises that the characters and letters are different?

something else for me to write about now...keep the ideas coming!!

**DaveMo~** · 10-13-2002, 04:46 PM

I think the better name would have the underscore separating the keyword and the number.

But, instead of using one keyword and having numbers to separate them, why not use your different keywords for different graphices? Usually, you won't have only one keyword, you'll have multiple keywords.

For example, a webmaster site might have graphics like:
webmaster.jpg, resources.gif, sitehelp.jpg, etc. I think you get the idea.

Dave

**Criper2000** · 10-13-2002, 04:56 PM

great ideas people! I can use some of these tips on my site!

**SiteDeveloper** · 11-23-2002, 06:22 PM

These are some good ideas! Thanks alot

**Damascus** · 12-05-2002, 07:02 AM

Just one small point...
a lot of site administrators - not necessarily up-to-speed webmasters like ourselves (!!!) - ignore the importance of 'meta preparation', often rather lavishly referred to as 'web page optimisation'. fact is though, this is absolutely vital to do and much more important than chasing the most comprehensive or expensive search engine registration strategy with various engines etc. the good thing is that I think everyone in this thread is more or less making that point...there are literally so many things you can do with metadata and even html code to give your site the best possible chance of being picked up by a search engine...in fact, a really well optimised web site may not even need to formally register with search engines if it has good metadata and works in a reasonably defined area (!!???) in short, meta preparation includes title tags, meta description, meta keywords and HTML code (including lots of tricks such as alt tags, keywords at top of page etc.) and needs to be done at a minimum on the main index page of the site but easy enough and advisable to copy metadata to all pages of site.....that's my quarter of wisdom for the day anyhow! metadata first, search engines second; a bit like eat your greens, and you'll get your dessert. more or less saying what you are all saying of course via all your good tips.......

**ghettocars** · 12-06-2002, 08:36 PM

so how does the list go from most important to least important?

**DaveTodd** · 12-21-2002, 07:41 AM

As something to follow up this thread a little...I've just added a few articles + hints / tips etc. to my site over at www.phoenixd.com

There's a little more in depth info on some of the issues investigated in this thread, i'll be adding in a load more soon as i have chance to finish writing them.

Anyone have any other hints or tips for us?

**conkermaniac** · 12-21-2002, 12:04 PM

Hi DaveTodd,

Care to post a few of your tips here? *hint hint*