What exactly do SE's take into account?

[dotDan]

Every article I read contradicts another. Does anyone know the general consensus on how important each of the following are?

- <title> keywords
- <meta> info
- <strong>keywords</strong>
- <h1-6> content
- first text on the page
- inbound links
- outbound links [aren't these negative?]
- submission to SE's
- link directories
- search engines that aren't Yahoo/MSN/Google/the other major ones

I know that they're all important, but I'm wondering on just HOW important each one is.

[spiderden]

This is from 11 years of using and almost abusing se's , not reading seo boards...

Title... should be used.. not super long

Meta tags ... do not matter to majors... but why not use, they have not been important to the se's since the 90's, some minor depend on these

Strong and bold is good, but a hyper link with the keyword seems to do better

h1-h6 , ok no big deal

inbound links... seem to be one of the largest factors

outbound ... no more than 10-15 out bound links per page

Submissions to the se's (never) I have never submitted a site to the se's , I always make the se find the site though inbound links.. it causes the site to get crawled in days... not months, most people who know se's never submit using a automated submitter nor do they go to the se and submit

Link directories... I use them and I loved them, however I do not use them if all the pages are on the same ip, network or they just rotate through a list of links... I have found this and inbound links to be the fastest factor in getting pr with a good site with good content... I can take any new domain name and have it a pr4 or better on the next google update

search engines that are not major ones... don't worry about them.. they will find you as most of the crawl google etc...

edit... oh sorry.. I think you forgot the number 1 factor... Good Content

my 2 cents worth...

[profecy]

Not 11 years from me, more like 11 months. But I agree completely. That's exactly what's worked for me. Except, I do want to point one thing out, description meta tage are where SE's usually get the description under the title, so it's good to have a "catchy" and relevant description to get clicks.
I have two questions though:
Why do you say the title needs to be short? I've crammed as many related keywords as I can in some titles and it seems to work well...
How are inbound links that important? Do you just mean links to all your other pages from every page so spiders can crawl it efficiently?

Thanks

[spiderden]

Title is not that big of a deal either way, I have seen them long and short, I have better luck in google with a short title.

Inbound links... you should be placing links back to your site using keyword phrases example "budget web Hosting" "web hosting review" , if you have say 1000 incoming links with the exact keyphrase, when a search is done you will come up on the first page, if not increase the links.

You should also have links going to your sub pages, if you have a sub page talking about watch repair then buy/exchange links using phrases about watch repair.

This title, "something watch repair"
With page content talking about "watch repair"
Then incoming links "Rolex watch repair" , Timex watch repair" "professional watch repair"

When other sites talking about watches link to you with your watch repair key phrases, google seems to fall in love with you.

With inbound links you can buy a new domain name PR0, leave off all meta tags titles etc, put a subject on it, purchase a PR8 link and a couple PR6's. On the next google update for pr, you will have a PR5 or PR6. Now go back and add your titles, meta stuff... and you will still have about the same PR, that tells me inbound links provide the greatest results.

I have put just an image with no words and with inbound links you can pull top results. It is hard on major keywords but minor keywords it can be done.


not an expert... but it works...

[kritter]

Thanks for all the great advice,

Can someone tell me how often google updates PR?

Thanks.

[profecy]

Oh, duh. For some reason I was getting inbound confused with a link from your homepage to your subpage for something like that. Of course, INBOUND links are extremely important, like you said.

[NosajiX]

Im curious spider den you said:

Link directories... I use them and I loved them, however I do not use them if all the pages are on the same ip, network or they just rotate through a list of links... I have found this and inbound links to be the fastest factor in getting pr with a good site with good content... I can take any new domain name and have it a pr4 or better on the next google update

Do unique IPs make a difference>? I am a commercial web designer and all of my sites point to my PR5 home page, but they are all on the same IP. Are you suggesting I may do better with seperate IPs for each?

[change]

Im curious spider den you said:

Do unique IPs make a difference>? I am a commercial web designer and all of my sites point to my PR5 home page, but they are all on the same IP. Are you suggesting I may do better with seperate IPs for each?

yes they donot give full importance if many sites on same c class ip range are pointing towards one particular domain

[NosajiX]

hmm, sound like its worth a couple extra bucks. Thanks.

[POLiSH]

When doing SE there are many factors to consider. You will find that all people have old-skewl habits, some work and some don't. Remember you are doing Optimization for not only the search engine but the user which comes on the site, yes your site may get a lot of visitors if you just do it for the Search Engines, but will they stay there in the long run? Will They come back?

The factors that I take into account are accessibility; habits, titles, and meta data; text; information architecture.

The first one would be the accessibility, how will the content in the site flow on both search engines and users. There must be a good repore with both or you will pay in the long run. Another overlooked focus point, There is some debate about whether your site's HTML and CSS must be fully in accordance with all of the guidelines laid down by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This is how your site is graded as far as the search engines are concerned, this is time consuming and if you don't know what your doing, I suggest hiring someone to do so.

Make sure you keep the size of your site, quick and easy.

With your URL's, I would suggest keeping the to the point. If the site is about taser guns you would have = abouttaserguns.com and so forth, this seems to go very far when it comes to keyword optimization.

The use of meta tags has gone down in to the point that search engines no longer use them in their ranking of pages, but potential site visitors still see them. For the most part the search engines will pull the most relevant text and place it under the link on most SERP pages.

As far as link submission / PR Ranking. I think it's a joke and don't waste my time.

[mrgtbike]

Hi, I'm new to this, but I heard Google searches more based on content rather than keywords...while Yahoo, MSN, etc deal more with keywords. Is this true?

[mrgtbike]

Also, is this why I am #2 on yahoo for one of my sites and don't show up on google?

sorry, something happened with my mouse, can an admin please delete those extras?