SEO Beginner

search engine optimization for beginners

11 Ways to Get Your Website De-indexed by Google

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Index
Index
index (Image credit: Stuart Caie – Flickr.com)

Getting de-indexed by Google and vanishing from their search results is almost equal to not existing at all. Google is the world’s most popular Internet search engine, and if your website isn’t showing in their results it can mean the end of the business you’ve invested years to build.

Search engines are still the number one way to drive traffic to a website, and they all have their own rules you need to follow and play by. The most recent Penguin and Panda updates in Google’s algorithms caused many websites to get penalized and even banned, significantly changing the previously established SEO practices.

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“Buffet” Top Search Trend in Malaysia During Ramadhan

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Ramadhan Buffet
Ramadhan Buffet
(Image credit: amrufm – Flickr.com)

MALAYSIA — If your hotel or restaurant advertised using the keyword “Ramadhan buffet” during the holy month, you probably have nailed it.

According to Google Malaysia, Malaysians searched “buffet” during Ramadhan more than any other time of the year. Buffet is certainly the Malaysian interested dining styles during Ramadhan period.

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List of PageRank 10 Websites In The World (2010)

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Google PageRank 10One of the factor to rank well in Google search results is getting high PageRank. The highest PageRank is PR10 and it is very rate. Here are the list of PageRank 10 sites in the World:

  1. http://www.google.com/ — Google homepage
  2. http://www.w3.org/ — World Wide Web Consortium
  3. http://www.usa.gov/index.shtml — US Government website
  4. http://www.hhs.gov/ — US Department of Health and Human Services
  5. http://www.whitehouse.gov/ — The White House
  6. http://go8.edu.au/ — Group of Eight (Education)
  7. http://india.gov.in/ — National portal of India
  8. http://www.miibeian.gov.cn/ — Miibeian (China’s IT department site)
  9. http://us.cnn.com/ — CNN
  10. http://get.adobe.com/reader/ — Adobe Reader
  11. http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ — Adobe Flash Player
  12. http://www.facebook.com/ — Facebook
  13. http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php — AddThis social bookmarking widget

5 sites in the list are government websites (3 from US, 1 India, 1 China). 2 PR10 sites are Adobe’s and the only PageRank 10 sites for software. Facebook, the World’s most popular social network site, is in the list, too.

The AddThis bookmarking widget made in the PR10 list is surprising me. I think the direct links from all the websites that use the AddThis widget boost its PageRank.

All sites’ PageRank double-checked by me using whatsmypagerank. What’s your website’s PageRank?

[via SEG]

29 Bad SEO Practices You Want to Avoid

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We do not only learn what is “GOOD”, we also have to avoid what is “BAD”. Search Engine Land published a checklist of “worst practices in SEO” showing the bad practices that would hurt your website search engine rankings.

Book: "The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization"

  1. Do you use pull-down boxes for navigation?
  2. Does your primary navigation require Flash, Java or Javascript to function?
  3. Is your web site done entirely in Flash or overly graphical with very little textural content?
  4. Is your home page a “splash page” or otherwise content-less?
  5. Does your site employ frames?
  6. Do the URLs of your pages include “cgi-bin” or numerous ampersands?
  7. Do the URLs of your pages include session IDs or user IDs?
  8. Do you unnecessarily spread your site across multiple domains?
  9. Are your title tags the same on all pages?
  10. Do you have pop-ups on your site?
  11. Do you have error pages in the search results (“session expired”, etc.)?
  12. Does your File Not Found error return a 200 status code?
  13. Do you use “click here” or any other superfluous copy for your hyperlink text?
  14. Do you have superfluous text like “Welcome to” at the beginning of your title tags?
  15. Do you unnecessarily employ redirects, or are they the wrong type?
  16. Do you have any hidden or small text meant only for the search engines?
  17. Do you engage in “keyword stuffing”?
  18. Do you have pages targeted to obviously irrelevant keywords?
  19. Do you repeatedly submit your site to the search engines?
  20. Do you incorporate your competitors’ brand names in your meta tags?
  21. Do you have duplicate pages with minimal or no changes?
  22. Does your content read like “spamglish”?
  23. Do you have “doorway pages” on your site?
  24. Do you have machine-generated pages on your site?
  25. Are you “pagejacking”?
  26. Are you cloaking?
  27. Are you submitting to FFA (“Free For All”) link pages and link farms?
  28. Are you buying expired domains with high PageRank scores to use as link targets?
  29. Are you presenting a country selector as your home page to Googlebot?

Examine your site against the list, how many are truth to your site? Avoid everything in the list. Want to know the reasons? Click here to read the explanation for each item.

Google Drop Search Ranking of Slow Sites

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max-speed.jpg
[image by jpctalbot]

Google has started including “site speed” when ranking your website in search engine results. Slow site might drop ranking. How do you check?

Site speed means how fast is your website response to a web request (a visit). Admit it, we love websites that load in a blink. Google’s decision can be totally understood.

How to check website speed?

No, not using a timer and load your website.

There are some free tools for you (site owner or webmaster) to evaluate the speed of your site:

  • Page Speed — A Firefox add-on. Required: Firefox & Firebug add-on.
  • YSlow — A free add-on for Firefox from Yahoo! that suggest ways to improve website speed. Required: Firefox & Firebug add-on.
  • WebPagetest — web tool. show waterfall view of your site load performance plus optimization checklist.
  • Google Webmaster Tools’ “site performance” — shows the speed of your website as experienced by users around the world.
  • Many more tools

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