SEO Questions & Answers (FAQ) (Knowledgebase)

SEO Questions & Answers (FAQ) (Knowledgebase)

• What is a Title?
• What is a keyword?
• What is a Description?
• What is "body content relevance"?
• What is link popularity?
• What does the Submission Process Actually Do?
• When will my Submissions appear on the engines?
• What is the difference between submission and placement and when will my first page paid placement list on the search engines?
• What is a search engine and how does it work?
• What is an algorithm?

Q:	What is a Title?
A:	The "Title" of a web site is probably the single most important element for natural search engine positioning. The Title is placed within the "head" of the html, is generally 12-15 words long and should be descriptive in nature.

Q:

What is a keyword?

A:

A "keyword" or "keyword Phrase" is the word or words a person types into the search box on a search engine to look up subject matter on the Internet. If you are looking for a flag for your home or office, you might type in "American Flags". The Search Engine screens its database for those web sites it has obtained and looks for the words, "American Flags". Through programming, it then finds and places in order those web sites which it believes to be a match and displays them in order of relevancy. With proper design of a web site, you should have a keyword meta tag area within the head of your html to list the words or "keywords" which best describe your web site. It is important to reflect carefully when choosing your keywords. If you sell boats, but you are only licensed to do so in Maine, then your keywords might best be "boats for sale in Maine" or "Maine Boats", etc.

Q:	What is a Description?
A:	The "Description" of your web site also resides within the "head" of your html and is usually a sentence or two containing approximately 15 words which best describe your web site.

Q:	What is "body content relevance"?
A:	"Body content relevance" is the written "non-image" text on the page of the web site which is descriptive in nature and relates to the title, description and keywords. It is not mandatory to have relevant body content, but it most definetly will assist your ranking on the search engines.

Q:	What is link popularity?
A:	Link popularity refers to the number of web pages on the Internet which are recognized by a search engine to have a hyperlink reference to your site, or in other words are "pointing" to your web site as a reference.

Q:	What does the Submission Process Actually Do?
A:	The SUBMISSION programs send your web site address, "URL" to search engines and links using what is referred to as add-a-URL strings. After receiving the URL, engines use a "spider" to then parses through the HTML code looking for tags that begin with "

Q:

When will my Submissions appear on the engines?

A:

Every engine and directory is different. In some cases, your submission will appear within a few days. In some cases your submission may be much longer and in some instances, your web site may never get listed by that submission. Because of this, the idea is that the more engines you submit to, the better your visibility will be and if you submit regularly (every month), you have a better chance of getting added to the engines that didn't add you the last time. Many engines and directories put you in a queue. Some will manually add you when they get a chance. Some will wait to check your site out for content.

Q:	What is the difference between submission and placement and when will my first page paid placement list on the search engines?
A:	With search engine submission, we do not guarantee that a search engine will place your web site. With search engine placement, we ask for you to allow ten days for placement on the search engines. You will receive a ranking report at the email address you provided on your order form.

Q: What is a search engine and how does it work? A: On the Internet, a search engine has three parts: A spider (also called a "crawler" or a "bot") which travels to every page or representative page on every searchable web site, reads it, then using hypertext links on those pages, travels throughout the other pages linked by that web site. A catalog or Index which is created by programs compiling the pages read from those web sites, and... A program which receives your search request, compares it to the entries in the index, and returns the results to you. An alternative to using a search engine is to explore a structured directory of topics. Yahoo, which also lets you use its search engine, is the most widely-used directory on the Web. A number of Web portal sites offer both the search engine and directory approaches to finding information Not all search engines are created equal, but all of them have a few basic components that are essential to their use. Some components are more visible than others to the average user, but all of them must be working in tandem to create a high performance search tool. The three basic actions that have to be performed for a search engine to be useful are: Gather information, analyze information, and display information. The only major difference between major search engines is how these tasks are performed and how often they are performed. Gathering information Spiders are the programs that search engines use to collect information about web sites on the Internet. These programs traverse the world wide web gathering the content of web sites and store that information for later processing. There are two basic ways that spiders can find your web site. You can tell the search engine about your web site, or let it find your site on its own. Typically search engines will have a place on their web site which allows you to suggest a site to them. After a site has been suggested, the search engines spider will visit that web site to collect information about it. Spiders also follow the links on each web site to find linked sites to visit. This is how a spider will find your site by itself. The more web sites that link to your site, the more likely a spider will find your site without you telling it your sites URL. Usually search engine spiders will revisit your site when you submit your URL again. When the spider finds a link to your site, or after a specified amount of time has passed since its last visit. Depending on the number of web sites that the spider needs to visit and the resources that the spider has at its disposal, it can take days or months for a spider to visit or revisit your web site. Displaying information Search engines take a search request from a user and display a list of web pages that relate to that topic. These returned sites give clues to the algorithm used to analyze the web pages in the search engines index. When a search engine displays the file size of the web page or a percentage next to the web site, it can be used to help figure out how to optimize your web pages better for that search engine. Some search engines return results in the order of relevance, others mix up the results to make sure the web sites returned are from different sites. No matter how a search engine displays the information requested by a user, this result is typically the first impression of your web site. It is important to follow any guidelines that search engines give and do research on how each search engine analyzes web pages so that you not only get a good ranking for your search, but the description of your site is accurate as well.

Q:	What is an algorithm?
A:	The term algorithm (pronounced "AL-go-rith-um") is a procedure or formula for solving a problem। The word derives from the name of the Persian mathematician, Al-Khowarizmi (825 AD). A computer program can be viewed as an elaborate algorithm. In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm usually means a small procedure that solves a recurrent problem.

Q:What is a search engine and how does it work?

A:On the Internet, a search engine has three parts:

A spider (also called a "crawler" or a "bot") which travels to every page or representative page on every searchable web site, reads it, then using hypertext links on those pages, travels throughout the other pages linked by
that web site.

A catalog or Index which is created by programs compiling the pages read
from those web sites, and...

A program which receives your search request, compares it to the entries in the index, and returns the results to you. An alternative to using a search engine is to explore a structured directory of topics. Yahoo, which also lets you use its search engine, is the most widely-used directory on the Web. A number of Web portal sites offer both the search engine and directory approaches to finding information Not all search engines are created equal, but all of them have a few basic components that are essential to their use. Some components are more visible than others to the average user, but all of them must be working in tandem to create a high performance search tool. The three basic actions that have to be performed for a search engine to be useful are: Gather information, analyze information, and display information. The only major difference between major search engines is how these tasks are performed and how often they are performed. Gathering information Spiders are the programs that search engines use to collect information about web sites on the Internet. These programs traverse the world wide web gathering the content of web sites and store that information for later processing.

There are two basic ways that spiders can find your web site. You can tell the search engine about your web site, or let it find your site on its own. Typically search engines will have a place on their web site which allows you to suggest a site to them. After a site has been suggested, the search engines spider will visit that web site to collect information about it. Spiders also follow the links on each web site to find linked sites to visit. This is how a spider will find your site by itself. The more web sites that link to your site, the more likely a spider will find your site without you telling it your sites URL.

Usually search engine spiders will revisit your site when you submit your URL again. When the spider finds a link to your site, or after a specified amount of time has passed since its last visit. Depending on the number of web sites that the spider needs to visit and the resources that the spider has at its disposal, it can take days or months for a spider to visit or revisit your web site.

Displaying information
Search engines take a search request from a user and display a list of web pages that relate to that topic. These returned sites give clues to the algorithm used to analyze the web pages in the search engines index. When a search engine displays the file size of the web page or a percentage next to the web site, it can be used to help figure out how to optimize your web pages better for that search engine. Some search engines return results in the order of relevance, others mix up the results to make sure the web sites returned are from different sites. No matter how a search engine displays the information requested by a user, this result is typically the first impression of your web site. It is important to follow any guidelines that search engines give and do research on how each search engine analyzes web pages so that you not only get a good ranking for your search, but the description of your site is accurate as well.