Google Rules
January 24, 2009 · Posted in SE Guidelines · Comment
More than any other search engine, Google is helping webmasters and search engine marketers keep better track of their sites in Google’s index. The past few years have seen a variety of tools and help from Google aimed at making it easier for site owners to get their web site indexed and ranked.
But before using the many resources that Google has available, make sure that your site is compliant with Google’s technical and quality guidelines. You can access the full list here.
Important Google guidelines:
- Review the general guidelines for all search engines
- Create a Google Sitemap
Google now offers a variety of tools to communicate with site owners. One of these – Google Sitemaps – can help you tell Google’s spider which pages you’d like included, their importance and how often you’d like your site revisited.For more information, visit Google’s Webmaster Tools.
- Use relevant keywords on your pages
Ask yourself how you’d like your customers to find you and make sure that these terms are included on your pages. You can use Google’s Webmaster Tools to see which keywords are viewed as important for your web site by Google (choose “Page Analysis” under the “Statistics” tab). - Use text, not images or Flash
Don’t hide your keywords inside images or Flash files. Search engines can’t see this text, which means that it doesn’t add any relevance to your pages. - Use Lynx to check your site
Google offers a very useful tip for webmasters: Use a text browser, such as Lynx, to check how search engines view your web sites. If you see that your keywords are hidden behind JavaScripts or template files, redesign your site so that it becomes easily accessible to a search engine spider.
If you’d like to have your site indexed and ranked by Google, we recommend making use of the numerous resources Google now has available for web site owners:
- Google Webmaster Tools
Includes Sitemaps, Page Analysis, crawl statistics and other tools - Google Help for Webmasters
Comprehensive FAQs for web site owners - Google Webmaster Blog
This is an official blog maintained by Google for webmasters. It includes tips, latest news and updates - Google Webmaster Discussion Group
This discussion board is moderated by Googlers. You can ask general questions and talk to other site owners about Google indexing and ranking issues - Matt Cutts
Matt Cutts, a software engineer at Google, blogs about Google, SEO and other things. Unlike the Google Webmaster Blog, Cutts’ blog is unofficial, but it still has plenty of useful insights and tidbits.
