Build High Web Site Ranking

A word on convergence

build your high ranking website — Sun, 14 May 2006 04:39:00 +0000

Convergence is an important mathematical aspect of PageRank, which allows
Google to provided unprecedented search quality at comparably low costs. This is
a semi-complex topic but it is important to your understanding of how and why
PageRank works. We've tried to make it as simple as possible but, unless you're
Sergey Brin or Larry Page, you'll still need to concentrate!

Whilst it will take some concentration, it isn't that hard to understand.

We've shown that the outlet values (final values) of one stage of the
calculation become the inlet values (starting values) of the next stage, and
that we keep on doing this (it's known as a recursive procedure). But the really
big question is how and when does the recursive procedure stop?

The answer is "convergence". Provided the dampening factor (d in our equation) is less than one, then convergence will occur. Nominally we set it to 0.85
(because that's the value mentioned in the Stanford papers).

This convergence basically means that whatever values we start at, after running
the calculation a number of times we will end up with the same final values and
that these values will no longer change if we do further iterations of the

calculation. These final values are known as limiting values.

Once the limiting values have been reached, Google no longer needs to expend
processing power on calculating the PageRank. They can finish there!

This is easier to understand with an example. Let's take a look at the following
structure:

PageRank for pages A, B, C, D at various stages of iteration

How PageRank is calculated

build your high ranking website — Sun, 14 May 2006 04:06:00 +0000

On a simple level, we can tell quite a lot about how PageRank is calculated. This is because when Google was just a university research project, the creators of PageRank published a paper that detailed a formula for calculating it. This formula is now more than a handful of years old, and we suspect that it has changed somewhat since then. However, for detailing the over-riding principles of how PageRank works, it is as accurate today as the day it was written.

PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1) /C(T1) + ... + PR(Tn) /C(Tn) )
Where PR(A) is the PageRank of Page A ( the one we want to work out ) .
D is a dampening factor. Nominally this is set to 0.85
PR(T1) is the PageRank of a site point ing to Page A
C(T1) is the number of links off that page
PR(Tn) /C(Tn) means we do that for each page point ing to Page A

Source: The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine, Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, http://www-db.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

Couldn't be simpler right? Depending on your mathematical competence, this is either remarkably easy to understand, or remarkably complex. So here's the deal ? this isn't a one-time calculation. It looks pretty above, but you can't just do one simple calculation and get an answer with the PageRank of a page! If you look at it, to calculate the PageRank of Page A, we need to know the PageRank of all the pages pointing to it. To calculate the PageRank of those pages we need to know the PageRank of all the pages pointing to them (one of which could, and is quite likely to be Page A!). If this seems like it could go around in circles forever, that's because it nearly does. We have to do a whole lot of little calculations many times over before we actually get the answer. What this formula tells us is that however you slice it, and however the formula may have changed since it was written:

The PageRank given to Page A by a Page B pointing to it, is decreased with each link to anywhere that exists on Page B. This means that a page?s PageRank is essentially a measure of its vote; it can split that vote between one link or two or many more, but its overall voting power will always remain the same.

This really is important. So to be totally clear, let's put some numbers to it (these numbers are made up for demonstration purposes only, and have no relevancy to any particular page). Say Page B has a PageRank value of 5 and has a single link on it pointing to Page A. Page A's PageRank is improved by a proportion of Page B's value of 5 (Page B doesn't lose anything, but Page A gains). If Page B has two links, that PageRank improvement would be split, and Page A would only gain half the PageRank that it did before.

Now put the formula out of your mind for a moment, as it's easier to understand how it works using a diagram. Let's say we have a hypothetical set of pages imaginatively titled Page A, Page B, Page C and Page D. They link to each other as shown below:

To begin with, in our example at least, we don't know what the page's starting PageRanks are. There's nothing special about the number that we pick to start with (in fact, if you read forward to the section on convergence ? you can see that we can start at any number we want). Since in the last version of this paper we performed the calculations by setting these values to 1 ? we're going to set them to zero this time around in order to prove that it doesn't matter what the starting values are.

Next, we perform the necessary calculation to obtain the PageRank for each page. The rules are:

1. We take a 0.85 * a page's PageRank, and divide it by the number of links on the page.
2. We add that amount on to a new total for each page it's being passed to.
3. We add 0.15 to each of those totals.

The first calculation is easy. Because we've started at zero ? 0 * 0.85 is always 0. So each page gets just 0.15 + 0. Meaning each page now has a PageRank of 0.15. Clearly we're not done ? we want to show the importance of each page based upon links, and they're all the same; so we need to run the calculation again.

Page A links to pages B, C and D. Page A's PageRank is 0.15 so it will add 0.85 * 0.15 = 0.1275 to the new PageRank scores of the pages it links to. There are three of them so they each get 0.0425.

Page B links to page C. Page B's PageRank is 0.15 so it will add 0.85 * 0.15 =0.1275 to the new PageRank score of the pages it links to. Since it only links to page C, page C will get it all.

Page C links to Page A, all 0.1275 passes to page A.

Page D links to Page C. Again all 0.1275 passes to page C.

The new totals for each page them become:

Page A: 0.15 (base) + 0.1275 (from Page C) = 0.2775
Page B: 0.15 (base) + 0.0425 (from Page A) = 0.1925
Page C: 0.15 (base) + 0.0425 (from Page A) + 0.1275 (from Page B) + 0.1275
(from Page D) = 0.4475
Page D: 0.15 (base) + 0.0425 (from Page A) = 0.1925

So we've got:

Pretty neat huh? Already we're begining to see that Page C is probably the most important page in the system (but we can't be sure yet ? it could well change). We carry on doing these calculations until the value for each page no longer changes (this is called convergence ? there's more about this in the next section). In practice, Google probably doesn't wait for this convergence, but instead run a number of iterations of the calculation which is likely to give them fairly accurate values (more on this later as well). If we carried out all the calculations for the example given, it would take us 143 calculations [ Excel Example 1] and we'd reach final values of:

As suspected, Page C is the most important. If we take a quick look at these raw values we can see something about the number of links pointing out from a page. Look at Page A, which has a link from a high PageRank page (Page C), which has only one outbound link. Then look at Page B and D; both share links from a high PageRank page (Page A), with three outbound links. The number of links significantly alters the way PageRank is distributed.

Really heavy competition

build your high ranking website — Sun, 14 May 2006 03:55:00 +0000

No explanation of PageRank strategies would be complete without a final statement regarding heavy keyword competition. There are some queries where competition is so intense that you must do everything possible to maximize your ranking score (for example "web hosting"). In such situations it is impossible to rank highly through Non-PageRank factors alone (as you will not initially be listed high enough to be noticed and linked to). That is not to say that Non-PageRank factors aren't important. Consider what your final rank score is:

Final Rank Score = (score for all Non-PageRank factors) x (actual PageRank score).

Improving either side of the equation can have a positive effect. However, because the Non-PageRank factors have a restricted maximum benefit, the actual PageRank score must be improved in order to compete successfully. Under really heavy competition ? it holds true that you cannot rank well unless your actual PageRank score is above a certain level. In other words:

There exists a query specific "Minimum PageRank level". For queries that do not have heavy competition, this level is easy to achieve without even trying. However, where heavy competition exists, Non-PageRank factors are just as important (and easier to get) until they reach the Non-PageRank factor threshold. This is why careful keyword choice can help you avoid the extensive work associated with highly competitive search phrases.

Using the threshold to derive the worth of two ranking strategies

build your high ranking website — Sun, 14 May 2006 03:46:00 +0000

The threshold explains principles and the different ways that search engine marketers work. It also demonstrates why some of the misunderstandings about PageRank occur. Let's consider the strategies of two people, Person A consders PageRank to be unimportant, and Person B considers PageRank to be very important.

Person A says "PageRank" is unimportant. They have optimised pages for years and know how to use "on the page" factors very successfully. They understand the basics of anchor text but they couldn't care at all about PageRank.

What's happening: person A is reaching the Non-PageRank Factor Threshold very quickly because they are maximising the "on the page" factors. Through carefully choosing keywords they jump-start themselves up the SERPs. As long as their content is good, high-ranking sites (over time) tend to get linked to. Whilst they didn't directly ask for it, a slow trickle of sites will begin to link to them and give them PageRank, which helps consolidates their position.

Person B says "PageRank" is important. We've all seen those pages in the results that have no content, but great rankings (With big brands, this can often occur naturally even when they have no idea what PageRank is. This would be Person C who is not relevant to the discussion at hand.) Person B understands lots about PageRank and concentrates heavily on it.

What's happening: person B is doing the reverse of person A. Whilst person A concentrated on the Non-PageRank factors and found herself getting PageRank anyway, person B concentrates on the PageRank Factor and finds himself getting Non-PageRank factors. The reason for this is that increasing

PageRank requires links, and links have anchor text. Thus, through carefully choosing the anchor text linking to his page, person B automatically increases his Non-PageRank factor scores whilst obtaining his high PageRank score. Obviously, these are two extremes, but we can use these to extrapolate the advantages and disadvantages of each approach:

It is clear that both strategies can and do work. Both strategies are using PageRank as part the mix of factors that will ultimately improve their ranking in the SERPS. Because there is such a mix, we can use them to different degrees, depending on the strategy that best suits your style. My personal strategy is to use a combination, but to save some of the ?on the page? factors for later, in case I need a quick boost if the competition heats up at a later time.

Non-PageRank Factor Threshold

build your high ranking website — Sun, 14 May 2006 03:35:00 +0000

Having written about the difference between PageRank and other factors, and how PageRank is harder to get, it should now be clear that whilst we could use many methods to get good rankings, there is a threshold which defines when high PageRank is worth striving for and when it is not.

With ranking factors other than PageRank, there is a score beyond which the slow down in the rate that any factor adds to this score is so insignificant that it is not worthwhile. This is the Non-PageRank Factor Threshold. To illustrate this,
let?s put an example figure on this of 1000.

If we have a query where the results are Page A and Page B, then Page A and B have scores for that query which are the total scores for all ranking factors (including PageRank). Let's say Page A's score is 900 and page B's score is 500. Obviously Page A will be listed first. These are both below our hypothetical Non-PageRank Factor Threshold, thus without any change in PageRank, it is possible for page B to improve their optimization to beat Page A for this particular query. There are lots of queries like this on Google; they're more commonly thought of as less competitive queries!

Now assume Page A raises its score to 1100. Suddenly page B cannot compete in the SERPs (search engine results pages) without increasing its PageRank. In all probability, page B must also improve for all the other ranking factors, but an increase in PageRank is almost certainly necessary. There are also lots of queries like this on Google, which are more commonly thought of as more competitive queries!

Generally, when querying Google, the group of pages in the SERPs will contain some pages that have a score above the Non-PageRank Factor Threshold, and some that do not.

There is an important point to be made here:

To be competitive you must raise your page's search engine ranking score beyond the Non-PageRank Factor Threshold. To fail to do so means that you can easily be beaten in the search results for your query terms. The quickest way to approach the Non-PageRank Factor Threshold is through "on the page factors", however you cannot move above the Non-PageRank Factor Threshold without PageRank.

The obvious question is what?s the numerical value of the Non-PageRank Factor Threshold, and how much work do you need to do to get past it. The answer is that it has no value; it is a hypothetical line. Google could put a value on it, but that would not help us unless we know what the page's individual scores are. We need only be aware that the threshold exists, and that it gives us information about principles.

The difference between PageRank and other factors

build your high ranking website — Sun, 14 May 2006 03:30:00 +0000

To assess when PageRank is important and when it is not, we need to understand how PageRank is different from all other ranking factors. To do this, here's a quick table that lists a few other factors, and how they add to the ranking score:

All other ranking factors have cut off points beyond which they will no longer add to your ranking score, or will not add significantly enough for it to be worthwhile. PageRank has no cut off point.

Google's First 1000 Results

build your high ranking website — Sun, 14 May 2006 03:24:00 +0000

Remember, PageRank alone cannot get you high rankings. We've mentioned before that PageRank is a multiplier; so if your score for all other factors is 0 and your PageRank is twenty billion, then you still score 0 (last in the results). This is not to say PageRank is worthless, but there is some confusion over when PageRank is useful and when it is not. This leads to many misinterpretations of its worth. The only way to clear up these misinterpretations is to point out when PageRank is not worthwhile.

If you perform any broad search on Google, it will appear as if you've found several thousand results. However, you can only view the first 1000 of them. Understanding why this is so, explains why you should always concentrate on "on the page" factors and anchor text first, and PageRank last.

Assume that you perform a search on Google and it returns 200,000 results. If we were to calculate every factor for each 200,000 pages ? do you think it would really take just 0.34 seconds to search? The answer to speeding up the search is to get a subset of documents that are most likely to be related to the query. This subset of documents needs to be larger than the number of search results. For example, let's say that number is 2000. What the search engine does is query the whole database using 2 or 3 factors, finding the 2000 documents that rank highest for them. (Remember, there were 200,000 possible documents, and that's the number that actually gets shown). Then the engine applies all the factors to those 2000 and ranks them accordingly. Because there's a drop in the quality of the results (not the pages) at the bottom of this subset, the engine just shows the first 1000. PageRank is almost certainly not one of those factors. Notice how before, we highlighted the word "related," in creating the subset of 2000 pages. The search engine is looking for pages that are on-topic. If we included PageRank in that list we?d get a lot of high PageRank pages with topics that are only slightly related (because of the second factor), but that?s not what we want.

Why this is critical:
You must do enough "on the page" work and/or anchor text work to get into that subset of 2000 pages for your chosen key phrase, otherwise your high PageRank will be completely in vain. PageRank means nothing if you do not have enough ranking from other factors to make it into the first subset.

Is PageRank a good determination of the quality of a page?

build your high ranking website — Sun, 14 May 2006 03:16:00 +0000

To examine the worth of PageRank, we need to first look at its premise, and how accurate it is. Basically PageRank says:

1. If a page links to another page, it is casting a vote, which indicates that the other page is good.
2. If lots of pages link to a page, then it has more votes and its worth should be higher.

The basic implication here is: People only link to pages they think are good.

It shouldn't be hard to convince you that this premise is wrong. A few of the reasons people link to pages other than ones they think are good are:

1) Reciprocal links ? "Link to me and I'll link to you."
2) Link Requirements ? "Using our script requires you to put a link to our page." or "We'll give you an award solely because you link to our page."
3) Friends and Family ? "This is my friend Pete?s site.? or "My mum?s site is here, my dad's site is here. My dog's site is here."
4) Free Page Add-ons ? "This counter was provided by www.linktocountersite.com."

Furthermore, anybody who has a top-ranking site will tell you that it tends to get links from new sites. This is not necessarily because it's good (although they generally are). Assume a Webmaster is setting up a new site and they are looking for some outbound links. Nowadays, one of the first things they do is a Google search for similar sites. The links they end up with may not necessarily be the best sites, but merely the easiest ones to find. If PageRank influences rankings, and if they subsequently link to those pages ? the new Webmaster will be adding to the inaccuracies in the judging of the quality of a page. The same is true when these new Webmasters use the Google Toolbar PageRank indicator to choose whom to link to.

To put this another way:

How significant is PageRank?

build your high ranking website — Thu, 04 May 2006 13:43:00 +0000

The significance of any one factor in search engine algorithms depends on the quality of the information it supplies. A factor's importance is known as its weight. To demonstrate how weighting is arrived at, it's easiest to move away from
PageRank for a second and look at Meta tags. Originally, when the Meta keyword tag was new, you could write something like this in your document:

In theory, the Meta keyword tag was a very good indicator of what the page was about. However, as most are well aware - the weighting for the keywords tag is fast approaching nothing. Two things have contributed to this:

1. The ease at which Webmasters can manipulate it.
2. The level of manipulation by Webmasters.

These two things are separate factors, but with human nature being what it is, the easier something is to influence - the more it is manipulated. The combination of these factors determines the "weighting" - i.e., how much we trust the nformation provided by that factor.

So it makes sense to look at these factors in relation to PageRank first.

PageRank is, without doubt, one of the hardest things for a Webmaster to manipulate ethically. However, it is possible to generate links to your site from other sites fairly simply through the use of link farms and guestbooks. Google frowns upon this kind of abuse, and many sites that have tried this have had their PageRank influence blocked. But it must be said that the abuse is still rampant, and that it can have an influence on PageRank. So, whilst not easy to do, PageRank is still subject to manipulation.

The extent to which PageRank is manipulated has also changed. Most people no longer believe Google?s old line of people not being able to influence PageRank and the results based on it. However, there is more information about PageRank available than ever, and people are more aware of manipulation techniques.

So whilst PageRank is valuable, you should be careful not to over-estimate its usage and capabilities. Your final ranking in Google is due to a mix of factors, of 6

which PageRank is only one. We?ll get into more details later by discussing how PageRank is different than the other ranking factors, and thus, when it applies and when it doesn?t. Ironically enough, PageRank's weighting factor is undeniably declining. Since the original version of this paper gave out detailed information about PageRank, in all likelihood it may also have contributed in some small way to the decline in weighting of the very subject it talks about!

How accurate is the Google toolbar?

build your high ranking website — Thu, 04 May 2006 13:30:00 +0000

The Google toolbar is not very accurate in showing you the actual PageRank of a site, but it?s the only thing right now that can give you any idea. As long as you know the toolbar?s limitations, then at least you know what you are viewing.

There are two limitations to the Google toolbar:
1. The toolbar sometimes guesses. If you enter a page, which is not in its index, but where there is a page that is very close to it in Google?s index, then it will provide a guesstimate of the PageRank. This guesstimate is worthless for our purposes because it isn?t featured in any of the PageRank calculations. The only way to tell if the toolbar is a guesstimate is to type the URL into the Google search box and see if the page shows up in the SERPS. If it doesn?t, then the toolbar is
guessing!

2. The toolbar is just a representation of actual PageRank. Whilst PageRank is linear, Google has chosen to use a non-linear graph to portray it. So on the toolbar, to move from a PageRank of 2 to a PageRank of 3 takes less of an increase than to move from a PageRank of 3 to a PageRank of 4. A comparison table best illustrates this phenomenon. The actual figures are kept secret so we?ll just use any figures for demonstration purposes:

The PageRank shown in the Google directory (http://directory.google.com) suffers from the same problems. The PageRank shown in the directory is also on a different scale. There have been attempts to cross-reference these two scales but because they are non-linear, the results really do not tell you anything more than you already know.

Also of note is that a programmer managed to generate a tool to look up PageRank without using Internet Explorer. This tool has since been withdrawn, but whilst originally the numbers given by this software and Google?s toolbar matched - presently querying with such software sometimes produces different numbers than querying with the toolbar. This is Google?s right to protect their data, but is the strongest indication that:

How can you tell what a page's PageRank is?

build your high ranking website — Thu, 04 May 2006 13:26:00 +0000

To learn what a page's PageRank is, you can download a toolbar for Internet Explorer from http://toolbar.google.com. Once installed, there will be a bar graph at the top of the browser showing a version of PageRank for the page you're browsing. When you hold the mouse over the bar, you see a number from zero to ten. (If you don't see the number, you may have an older version of the toolbar installed. You will need to completely uninstall it, reboot your computer and reinstall the latest version. Once this is done, you should be able to see the PageRank number.)

What is PageRank?

build your high ranking website — Thu, 04 May 2006 13:06:00 +0000

PageRank is Google's method of measuring a page's "importance." When all other factors such as Title tag and keywords are taken into account, Google uses PageRank to adjust results so that sites that are deemed more "important" will move up in the results page of a user's search accordingly.

A basic overview of how Google ranks pages in their search engine results pages (SERPS) follows:
1) Find all pages matching the keywords of the search.
2) Rank accordingly using "on the page factors" such as keywords.
3) Calculate in the inbound anchor text.
4) Adjust the results by PageRank scores.

In reality, it?s slightly more complex and we?ll discuss this in more depth later, but for now the above description serves our purposes. It?s worth noting that PageRank is a multiplier and is not just simply added to the score. Thus, if your page had a PageRank of zero, it would rank at the very end of the SERPS.

How is PageRank determined?

build your high ranking website — Thu, 04 May 2006 13:08:00 +0000

The Google theory goes that if Page A links to Page B, then Page A is saying that Page B is an important page. PageRank also factors in the importance of the links pointing to a page. If a page has important links pointing to it, then its links to other pages also become important. The actual text of the link is irrelevant when discussing PageRank.

SEO For Yahoo!

build your high ranking website — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 09:40:00 +0000

by Dave Davies

This article is part two of a four part series on optimizing your website for the the three major search engines. Part one, titled "SEO For MSN" covered optimizing your website to rank highly on MSN. In this article we will cover optimizing your website for Yahoo!

Yahoo! is the second biggest of the three major engines and includes an enormous network of websites. The algorithm is based on that of Inktomi which Yahoo! purchased back in 2002 as part of their plan to stop serving Google results to search queries. The algorithm itself can pose a problem for some SEO's as we optimize client website to rank highly on multiple search engines due to the way that it deffers from Google and MSN. That said, any issue can be addressed provided that the right attention is given to the right details.

The Factors

To optimize and rank highly on Yahoo!, as with any of the major engines, specific areas need to be addressed. On Yahoo! the major areas are as follows:

Keyword density
Site structure
Backlinks
Aging
Keyword Density

As noted in the article on MSN, it would be unwise for me to specify a keyword density for you to target on your website. There are two reasons for this. First, if there is a delay between the writing of this article and when you read it specific numbers could well send you off in the wrong direction. Second, you will need to analyze your specific competitors to determine what the best density is in your area and for your type of website. Optimal keyword densities are no longer a one-size-fits-all calculation. Your industry and site-type will affect the optimal densities and thus, a complete analysis using a tool such as Total Optimizer Pro will be necessary.

Additionally, optimal keyword densities change on a regular basis and so you will need to periodically reanalyze your densities and compare them with others in the top 10 to insure that your densities remain within the optimal levels. When using Total Optimizer Pro for the onsite analysis we generally aim our densities for the upper end of the top 10 results but not aiming to be the top. Generally you will see a range that appears much like a bell curve with a couple sites in the very low range (0.5 to 1.0%) and a couple site in the very high range (5.0 to 8.0%). The rest will generally fall in the middle. Ignore those in the very low and very high range and target towards the upper end though not the highest of the remaining sites and you will be on target.

Site Structure

On no other engine is site structure more important than on Yahoo! While having a good site structure is important for a vaiety of reasons, it was on Yahoo! that Beanstalk noted the most significant gains when we brought our homepage and key internals into compliance with W3C standards (the rest of the site will be brought into compliance as part of our complete redesign scheduled for launch on April 24th). While slight gains were noticeable on both Google and MSN they were so minor that they may well have just been part of the ebb-and-flow of the results. On Yahoo! however we noted a three page jump the day the changes were picked up. No other changes to the site were performed during this time.

The site structure is important for two key reasons. First, the site structure determines the order in which your page content gets seen by the search engines and thus, whch content will be given the highest priority. Content that occurs higher up in the code of your page (not necessarily in your browser) is given a higher weight than content lower down in the code. Second, a properly structured site will be lower in code through the use of CSS, reduced or eliminated table use, etc. The reduction in code will push the content higher up the page as far as a search engine is concerned and thus, it will be given more weight.

Backlinks

Like the other two major engines, having a solid backlink count from relevant sites using good anchor text practices is a major factor on Yahoo! for any reasonably competitive phrase. When it comes to calculating backlinks Yahoo! is far more similar to Google than MSN. Aspects of backlink counts that must be taken into consideration when optimizing your website for Yahoo!:

Quality of site - like Google has attempted to do in the past with PageRank and is learning to do with TrustRank, sheer numbers aren't what will get you high rankings on Yahoo!, the quality of those links is more important. We must remember than PageRank is a Google calculation, not Yahoo! and so it alone cannot determine the value of a link when we are optimizing for this engine. It can be used as a quasi-benchmark however when determining if a link is a quality link on Yahoo! we are better off to considered whether it is from a site that is ranking well on Yahoo! for the same or related phrases, does it come from a site that it related to ours, does the site link to a site that is ranking well on Yahoo! and does the link come from a trusted domain. For these purposes a trusted domain can be considered any domain that is over 3 years old, has a solid number of backlinks coming from a wide variety of sites and which at least a solid number of are non-reciprocal links.
Position of link - like all the major engines, the position of your link on the page is important. A link at or near the bottom of the page is less valuable than a link nearer to the top. Also, if your link is on a page with other links, the effect that link will have on your rankings decreases respective to the number of links on the linking page.
Anchor text - the text used to link to your site will help reinforce that the keywords in that anchor text are associated with your site/page. Also, if that anchor text in in the midst of the content it will hold greater weight than if that anchor text is in a directory-style format above a description (i.e. link a standard links page)
Non-reciprocal links - reciprocal links are certainly still valuable on Yahoo! however it is important to supplement these links with non-reciprocal links in the form of directory listings and other one-way links.
Aging

The bane of new websites is the aging delay. Many focus on Google's "sandbox" when they think of aging delays however Yahoo! employs one as well, though it is lighter and lasts a shorter duration of time. New sites and links are not given the same weight as sites and links that have been around for a while. The aging delay on sites has been extended over the past couple years however it isn't as severe as that imposed by Google. New sites can expect to find it extremely difficult to rank for competitive phrase inside of 6 months even if everything else is in place. To add to the difficulty is a delay on the value of links. When a new site launches it obviosly has no links. These links are subjesct to a delay that appears to be somewhere between 3 to 4 months before they hold their full weight.

The combination of these delays can make it very difficult for new sites to rank for competitive phrases inside of 8 to 12 months however because the restrictions are lighter than those imposed by Google one can expect to see rankings for secondary, tertiary and completely unexpected phrases far faster on Yahoo!

Conclusion

If is important to note that a very important area that needs to be considered is coming in part four of this series. Simply optimizing your website for Yahoo! will likely not get you the traffic you're hoping for. Part three will cover optimizing your website for Google and part four will be titled "SEO For The Big Three: Tieing It Together" and will outline how to tie all the optimization tactics together into a concise strategy that will result in top rankings on all three major engines.

SEO For MSN

build your high ranking website — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 09:39:00 +0000

by Dave Davies

This is article one of a four part series on optimizing your website for the "Big Three". Part two will focus on Yahoo!, Part three will focus on Google and part four of this series will explain how to perform SEO on your website to attain high rankings across all three major engines. We are beginning with MSN as rankings are generally faster attained on this engine and thus it is a good place to begin, especially if you have a new site that is likely still in the sandbox on Google or are just at the beginning stages of link building.

Like all of the major search engines, MSN builds their index of sites using spiders to crawl the web finding new and changed information. This information is then processed by the MSN servers using complex algorithms to determine which sites are most relevant to the search query entered. This may seem like an extraordinarily complex process and it is however the resulting environment is simple: all search engine algorithms are mathematical and thus, there is a fixed set of rules and factors which, if addressed correctly, will result in a high ranking. In short, because it's math we have the benefit of knowing that if we take action x and action y we will get result z.

The Rules For MSN

Assuming that you are following the right rules, the results you can achieve on MSN can be fast and solid. MSN does not apply the same types of aging delays that the other two engines do and thus, when you change your content the change in results can be realized as quickly as they reindex your site and as quickly as your incoming links get picked. This differs greatly from Google and Yahoo! in that those two engines age both domains and links requiring a longer period of time before the full effects of your efforts are realized.

As an additional note on MSN, users of MSN are 48% more likely to purchase a product or service online than the average Internet user according to a comScore Media report.

So what are the rules for MSN that can help us get top rankings? As with all the major engines, there are two fundamental areas that need to be addressed to attain top rankings. The first is the onsite factors, the second is the offsite. Because they are fundamentally different we will address them separately.

Onsite SEO Factors

The problem with writing an article about the onsite factors is that by the time many of you read this some of the weight these factors hold and the optimal levels noted may well be out-of-date. Thus, rather than listing overly-specific-and-sure-to-change factors we will focus on how to know what the factors are, how to get a handle on what you need to adjust and by how much, and how to predict what will be coming down the road. And so we'll begin:

How To Know What The Factors Are:

Unfortunately there's no one over at MSN Search calling us up weekly to let us know what the specifics of their algorithm are, we have to figure it out for ourselves with research, reading and playing with test sites. From all of this there is only one conclusion that an SEO can make: the details matter. When we're discussing onsite factors this includes:

the content of the page including keyword density
the internal linking structure of the site (how the pages of your site are linked together)
the number of pages in your site and the relevancy of those pages to your main topic and phrases
the use of titles, heading tags and special formats
There are a number of lower weight factors however the ones noted above, if addressed correctly, will have very significant results on your rankings if the offsite factors noted below are also addressed.

Page Content:

The content of your page must be perfect. What I mean by this is that the content must appeal to both the search engines and the algorithms. In order to write properly for the visitors you must be able to write clearly and in language that is both appealing and understandable to your target market. While there is much debate about whether the keyword density of your page is important I am certainly one who believes that it is. It only makes sense that a part of the algorithm takes into account the use of the keywords on your page. Unfortunately the optimal keyword density changes slightly with each algorithm update and also by site type and field. For this reason it would be virtually impossible for me to give you a density that will work today and forevermore. For this reason you will need a keyword density analysis tool which you will want to run on your own site as well as the sites in the top 10 to assess what the optimal density is at this time. You may notice a variation in the densities of the top 10. This is due to the other factors including offsite which can give extra weight to even a poorly optimized site. I recommend getting your site to a keyword density close to the higher-end of the top 10 but not excessive. Traditionally this percentage will fall somewhere near 3.5 to 4% for MSN.

Internal Linking Structure:

The way your pages link together tells the search engines what the page is about and also allows them to easily (or not-so-easily) work their way to your internal pages. If your site has an image or script-based navigation it is important to also use text links either in your content, in a footer, or both. The text links are easy to follow for a spider and perhaps more importantly, the text links allow you the opportunity to tell the spiders what a specific page is about though the anchor text and, in the case of footers, allows you to add in more instances of the targeted phrases outside of your general content area.

The Number Of Pages & Their Relevancy:

MSN wants to please their visitors. For this reason they want to insure that highest likelihood that a searcher will find what they need once they get to your site. For this reason a larger site with unified content will rank higher that a smaller site or a site with varying content topics. (note: this assumes that all else is equal in regards to the other ranking factors)

When you are optimizing your site for MSN be sure to take some time to built quality content. Do a search on your major competitors to see how large their sites are, over time you will want to build yours to the same range through general content creation or the addition of a blog or forum to your site.

Titles, Heading Tags & Special Formats:

Titles are the single most important piece of code our your entire web page for two reasons. The first is that it holds a very high level of weight in the algorithm. the second reason is that it is your window to the world. When someone runs a search the results will generally show your page title in the search results. This means that a human visitor has to be drawn to click on your title or rankings your site is a futile effort (this isn't about bragging rights, it's about return on investment).

Heading tags are used to specify significant portions of content. The most commonly used is the H1 tag though there are obviously others (or they wouldn't bother numbering them would they). The H1 tag is given a significant amount of weight in the algorithm provided that it is not abused though overuse (it should only be used once per page). Try to keep your headings short-and-sweet. They're there to tell your visitor what the page is about, not your whole site.

Special formats are, for the purpose of this article, and text formatting that distinguishes a set of characters or words apart from the others. This includes such things as, anchor text, bold, italic, different font colors, etc. When you set content apart using special formats MSN will read this as a part of your content that you want to draw attention to and which you obviously want your visitors to see. This will increase the weight of that content. Now don't go making all your keyword bold or the such, simply make sure to use special formats properly. Inline text links (links in the body content of your page) is a great way to increase the weight of specific text while actually helping your visitor by providing easy paths to pages they may be interested in.

Offsite SEO Factors

With MSN, the offsite factors are much simpler to deal with than either Google or Yahoo! MSN will give you full credit for a link the day they pick it up so link building, while time consuming, is reworded much quicker on MSN. When dealing with MSN and offsite SEO there are two main factors we must consider when finding links:

Relevancy. The site must be relevant to yours to hold any real weight.
Quality is better than quantity. Because PageRank is Google-specific we can't use it as the grading tool for MSN however upon visiting a website it's generally fairly clear whether we're visiting a good site or not. Spending extra time to find quality is well rewarded. Also, finding one-way links as opposed to reciprocal links is becoming increasingly important and I'd recommend utilizing both in your link building strategies.
You will have to begin your offsite optimization by running link checks on your competitors to see what you're up against. This is also a good place to start for potential link partners though those of you using a tool such as Total Optimizer Pro or PR Prowler will find it far faster and more effective to use these tools.

Conclusion

This entire article may seem fairly simplistic and there's a reason for that, what we've noted above is a list of the more important areas however to save you frustration and me from receiving hundreds of emails a few months from now noting that the keyword densities don't work, etc. I've tried to keep it general. Below you'll find a list of recommended resources. These are tools and SEO resources to help keep you updated and on top of the rankings.