Climbing
the Beanstalk
October 19, 2004
Welcome
to the October 19, 2004 edition of “Climbing The Beanstalk”,
the bi-weekly newsletter on search engines and search engine positioning
from Beanstalk. In this edition we will explore the recent backlink
update on Google and how this affects your site, recent published
article by Beanstalk staff, proper internal linking structures,
as well as a reply to an excellent question we were asked in responce
to our last
newsletter.
If
you have any questions regarding any of the areas covered in this
newsletter please don’t hesitate to contact
us.
Backlink
Update
About once every 4 to 6 weeks Google updates it's backlink count.
Backlinks are links to your website from other sites and about once
every month or so Google looks at all the links it has found pointing
towards your site and adds this new number into its calculation
of your value on the Internet. This new backlink calculation started
(and seems to have completed) last Saturday (October 16).
The
addition of new backlinks into Google's calculations has become
increasingly important in recent months as the value of links to
your site continues to increase. Most of the recent algorithm updates
by Google including the update that occurred a couple weeks ago
has continued to place extra weight on the links to your site but
there are some new twists.
It
used to be that simply creating enormous link directories and attaining
the maximum number of links to your website was enough. This trend
is coming to an end with the relevancy of the sites linking to you
being considered more-and-more strongly.
What
this means to you is that you have to take more into account than
simply getting links but rather having to find quality sites related
to your content and getting links from them.
We
mentioned in the last newsletter a software program called "PR
Prowler". The value of this tool has been further reinforced
with this last update as it gives webmasters and SEOs the ability
to search for links on related sites with a minimum PageRank (it
lets you choose the minimum).
It's
a very handy program and while it cost around $100, the time it
saved on just the first promotion we used it on more than paid for
the software. Our link building campaigns have yielded much higher
success in far less time since the introduction of this tool with
dramatic results being noted at the very next Google backlink update.
Click
here for more information on PR Prowler.
Recent
Search Engine Positioning Articles
Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning has recently had two of it's
articles picked up by WebProNews, ISEDB, and an assortment of other
SEO resource sites. These are recommended reading for anyone interested
in attaining high rankings.
Table
Structures For Top Search Engine Positioning
The first step in designing a website that will rank well on search
engines is to build the proper table structure. This framework for
your website will easily guide the search engine spiders through
your site taking the route you want them to ... <more>
10
Steps To Higher Search Engine Positioning
I have been ranking websites highly on the Internet for quite a
few years now and there are some essential rules that, if followed,
will insure that over time your website does well and holds solid
and profitable positions on the major search engines ... <more>
Spider
Bait
You've chosen your keyword targets, you've got your website built,
but can the search engines get to all your pages? Are you maximizing
how they get there and what relevancy they gain during the trip?
The
way your pages link together is of significant importance to your
rankings. If your site is like may you have an image based navigation
system along the left hand side of the screen. If you are like some,
you use a script-based navigation system (for drop-down link menus
for example). While both of these are effective for visitors, neither
of them will give you an advantage over your competition on the
search engines.
Image-based
navigation is fine for getting a search engine spider through your
site however the spider does not "see" your image and
thus does not know what it is. What this means to you is that the
spider can get no relevancy for that link. If you are linking from
the homepage of your "Christmas gifts" site to an internal
page on "Christmas ornaments" using an image the spider
will get to the internal page but will have to base what it knows
of that page purely on the content.
If
you are using script-based navigation the spider may not be able
to get through it at all.
If
you are using either of these two systems of navigation, the addition
of text-based navigation will significantly improve your odds or
ranking well on the search engines. While a spider can't read an
image, the simple addition of a text link in your footer that reads
"Christmas Ornaments" and links to the ornaments page
will not only get the spider to that page but will also "tell"
the spider that the page is about ornaments and when it reads more
content about this topic on the page itself, that page will have
increased relevancy for that term than with image-based or script-based
navigation alone.
It
is recommended, if possible, to add text links in your footer to
the main internal pages of your site and, again if possible, to
use appropriate anchor text (the text used to link to the page)
that matches the targeted keyword phrase for that page. If this
is impossible, the addition and/or optimization of a sitemap which
is linked to from your homepage is a reasonable (though less effective)
method for for accomplishing the same thing. The spider will get
to your homepage, follow the link to your sitemap, and then continue
on through the appropriately worded link to all your internal pages
and the relevancy will be reinforced and the spider will have no
problem working it's way through.
This
may seem simple (and it is) however we have seen just this simple
adjustment yield dramatic results. It may only give a 1 or 2% advantage
but in tight competitions this may very well be the difference between
second page and first page results.
Letters
From Our Readers
This weeks spotlight question comes from a reader of the article
"Table Structures For Top Search Engine Positioning":
We
Received:
Hi Mary,
I read, with interest, your article on search engine table structure.
I have one question I hope you can answer for me. It appears that
you have designed two table for the example. The first one at the
top a one row, one column in which to place the header, and then
a second table with three rows and two columns for menu, text and
footer. My question is why the extra table on top? Couldn't you
just add another row to the top of the second table, or is there
a specific reason we want a separate table?
Thanks, Cathy M.
Our
Reply:
Hello.
Thanks for the interest in the article.
The reason for the 2 tables is that if you wanted to split the header
image row into 2 columns, which I often do in order to add text
on the top right, it then forces the first column to the width of
your header image or the width of that first column, which does
not fit the navigation and forces your content area over. If the
first row or table does not need a second column then it is completely
fine to design 1 table with the header in the first row. I have
attached 2 images showing what I have explained above.
I hope this answers your question.
Sincerely,
Mary Davies
Images Mentioned As Examples
Table
built with 1 table. Note the content "TEXT TEXT ...."
forced to the right.
Table
built with 2 tables. Content properly alligned.
Thank
You
Thank you very much for subscribing to “Climbing The Beanstalk”,
the bi-weekly search engine positioning newsletter. If there are
any areas of search engine positioning that you would like to see
covered please don’t hesitate to contact
us. We want to write what you want to know.
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