On-Page Ranking Factors - SEO Best Practices On-Page factors are the aspects of a given web page that influence search engine ranking. Code Sample Content <body>, <div>, <p>, <span>, no tag Alt Text Bold/Strong What are On-Page Factors? There are several on-page factors that affect search engine rankings. Content of Page The content of a page is what makes it worthy of a search result position. Good content supplies a demand: Just like the world’s markets, information is affected by supply and demand. Good content is linkable: From an SEO perspective, there is no difference between the best and worst content on the Internet if it is not linkable. Title Tag Title tags are the second most important on-page factor for SEO, after content. Along with smart internal linking, SEOs should make sure that the category hierarchy of the given website is reflected in URLs. The following is a good example of URL structure: The following is a bad example of URL structure:
The Anatomy of a Search Engine Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page {sergey, page}@cs.stanford.edu Computer Science Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 Abstract In this paper, we present Google, a prototype of a large-scale search engine which makes heavy use of the structure present in hypertext. 1. (Note: There are two versions of this paper -- a longer full version and a shorter printed version. 1.1 Web Search Engines -- Scaling Up: 1994 - 2000 Search engine technology has had to scale dramatically to keep up with the growth of the web. 1.2. Creating a search engine which scales even to today's web presents many challenges. These tasks are becoming increasingly difficult as the Web grows. 1.3 Design Goals 1.3.1 Improved Search Quality Our main goal is to improve the quality of web search engines. 1.3.2 Academic Search Engine Research Aside from tremendous growth, the Web has also become increasingly commercial over time. 2. 2.1 PageRank: Bringing Order to the Web 2.1.1 Description of PageRank Calculation Vitae
Google Search Operators The following table lists the search operators that work with each Google search service. Click on an operator to jump to its description — or, to read about all of the operators, simply scroll down and read all of this page. The following is an alphabetical list of the search operators. This list includes operators that are not officially supported by Google and not listed in Google's brief online help Refine web searches. Each entry typically includes the syntax, the capabilities, and an example. allinanchor: If you start your query with allinanchor:, Google restricts results to pages containing all query terms you specify in the anchor text on links to the page. Anchor text is the text on a page that is linked to another web page or a different place on the current page. allintext: If you start your query with allintext:, Google restricts results to those containing all the query terms you specify in the text of the page. allintitle: allinurl: In URLs, words are often run together. cache:
HTTP/1.1: Status Code Definitions Each Status-Code is described below, including a description of which method(s) it can follow and any metainformation required in the response. 10.1 Informational 1xx This class of status code indicates a provisional response, consisting only of the Status-Line and optional headers, and is terminated by an empty line. There are no required headers for this class of status code. Since HTTP/1.0 did not define any 1xx status codes, servers MUST NOT send a 1xx response to an HTTP/1.0 client except under experimental conditions. A client MUST be prepared to accept one or more 1xx status responses prior to a regular response, even if the client does not expect a 100 (Continue) status message. Proxies MUST forward 1xx responses, unless the connection between the proxy and its client has been closed, or unless the proxy itself requested the generation of the 1xx response. 10.1.1 100 Continue The client SHOULD continue with its request. 10.1.2 101 Switching Protocols 10.2 Successful 2xx - Date
Preferred domain (www or non-www) - Webmaster Tools Help The preferred domain is the one that you would liked used to index your site's pages (sometimes this is referred to as the canonical domain). Links may point to your site using both the www and non-www versions of the URL (for instance, and The preferred domain is the version that you want used for your site in the search results. If you see a message that your site is not indexed, it may be because it is indexed under a different domain. For example, if you receive a message that is not indexed, make sure that you've also added to your account (or vice versa), and check the data for that site. Once you tell us your preferred domain name, we use that information for all future crawls of your site and indexing refreshes. It may take some time before you see this change fully reflected in our index. On the Search Console Home page, click the site you want.
Tip/Trick: Fix Common SEO Problems Using the URL Rewrite Extension Search engine optimization (SEO) is important for any publically facing web-site. A large % of traffic to sites now comes directly from search engines, and improving your site’s search relevancy will lead to more users visiting your site from search engine queries. This can directly or indirectly increase the money you make through your site. This blog post covers how you can use the free Microsoft URL Rewrite Extension to fix a bunch of common SEO problems that your site might have. It takes less than 15 minutes (and no code changes) to apply 4 simple URL Rewrite rules to your site, and in doing so cause search engines to drive more visitors and traffic to your site. [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Measuring the SEO of your website with the Microsoft SEO Toolkit A few months ago I blogged about the free SEO Toolkit that we’ve shipped. Search Relevancy and URL Splitting How many other sites link to your content. (.*?)
Pagination with rel=“next” and rel=“prev” Webmaster level: Intermediate to Advanced Much like rel=”canonical” acts a strong hint for duplicate content, you can now use the HTML link elements rel=”next” and rel=”prev” to indicate the relationship between component URLs in a paginated series. Throughout the web, a paginated series of content may take many shapes—it can be an article divided into several component pages, or a product category with items spread across several pages, or a forum thread divided into a sequence of URLs. Now, if you choose to include rel=”next” and rel=”prev” markup on the component pages within a series, you’re giving Google a strong hint that you’d like us to: Consolidate indexing properties, such as links, from the component pages/URLs to the series as a whole (i.e., links should not remain dispersed between page-1.html, page-2.html, etc., but be grouped with the sequence).Send users to the most relevant page/URL—typically the first page of the series. Outlining your options A few points to mention:
Google Analytics Now Tracks Page Load Speed The author's posts are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz. Improving site speed is crucially important, Craig at Distilled recently wrote a phenomenal post site speed for dummies which really breaks down WHY improving site speed is a high ROI activity and there was a great Youmoz post recently published which explains HOW to improve page load speed: Optimizing Page Speed - Actionable Tips For SEOs and Web Developers. So understandably when Google Analytics released a new feature that lets you track your pages load speed right within their interface I got crazy excited. This is huge news and I think is another big win for Google pushing people to create faster websites. It was so exciting I really couldn't contain myself when I heard the news - here's my tweet stream: SEOmoz Data And here's the summary stats for the same time period: Why this is important Supporting Resources Yikes, looks like something went wrong.
Google Sitemap Generator for Windows :: GSiteCrawler How Bing Uses CTR in Ranking, and more with Duane Forrester Key Interview Points Let me start you with the big ones up front. This interview had two startling parts to it. These were: The huge weight placed by Bing on user interaction with the search results as a ranking factor. This was fascinating stuff. (Duane): “You need to remember that the search engine sees everything across the web on every layer and as a whole, all at the same time. Interview Transcript Eric Enge: Duane, you are now running the Bing Webmaster program at Microsoft but you were formerly a SEO. Duane Forrester: It's like being a kid in a candy store. Eric Enge: What perspective would you share with SEOs who are still on the outside? Duane Forrester: People need to wrap their heads around the fact that things are changing. It's a way for us to reach out directly to people who control websites and give them all kinds of data that we are willing to share it with them, but they need to take action. My perennial example is it's the eBay school of selling. Duane Forrester: Yes.
Canonical URL Tag - The Most Important Advancement in SEO Practices Since Sitemaps The announcement from Yahoo!, Live & Google that they will be supporting a new "canonical url tag" to help webmasters and site owners eliminate self-created duplicate content in the index is, in my opinion, the biggest change to SEO best practices since the emergence of Sitemaps. It's rare that we cover search engine announcements or "news items" here on SEOmoz, as this blog is devoted more towards tactics than breaking headlines, but this certainly demands attention and requires quick education. To help new and experienced SEOs better understand this tag, I've created the following Q+A (please feel free to print, email & share with developers, webmasters and others who need to quickly ramp up on this issue): How Does it Operate? The tag is part of the HTML header on a web page, the same section you'd find the Title attribute and Meta Description tag. This would tell Yahoo! The Canonical URL tag attribute is similar in many ways to a 301 redirect from an SEO perspective. from Yahoo! p.s.
Technical Site Audit Checklist The author's posts are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz. We all want to deliver actionable site audits, but doing the research can be a bit overwhelming if you don’t have a process in place to systematically go through a site. I have created a site audit checklist that will walk you through how to do a site audit. This will work for most sites - in many cases you will need to customize the checklist a bit as some aspects won't be relevant or are unable to be changed. Make sure to look at really important pages (high priority landing pages, pages with a lot of links, pages flagged by crawl tools, or pages that the client has specifically asked for help with) in addition to the template pages. At the end of your audit, don’t write a document that says what’s wrong with the website. Quick Overview Check indexed pages Search for the brand and branded terms Check Google’s cache for key pages Is the content showing up?