Search Engine Optimization - SEO

At ogdenian we are available for consultations in regards to proper search engine ranking methods, linking techniques, press releases, Html compression, onsite protected sitemap generators, reciprocal link and directory inclusion methods while focusing on desired traffic through the proper use of textual content/copy and keywords. Don't forget to check out our other Search Engine Optimization (SEO) topics and tips in the Flash Web Designer Blog. Feel free to contact Ogden if you have any questions.

The following are some great free webmaster tools and information:

• Google, Yahoo and MSN Sitemap Submissions
• PageRank (PR)
• Keyword Selector Tools and Keyword Density Tool
• What is my Internet Ranking?
• One-way Link Building
• HTML, CSS, Link, RSS, Atom, Section 508 and WAI Validation
• robots.txt file
• Statistical Analysis of Ogdenian.com
• How Fast do my Web Pages Load Around the Globe?
• How do I Avoid a Duplicate Content Penalty in the Search Engines?
• Webpage Spam Detector

Google, Yahoo and MSN Sitemap Submissions:

Ever wonder how to force the Google and Yahoo cache of your site to be updated? Therefore making changes to the site almost instantaneous to the search result rank listings? Well I love to be able to control a little of what happens on the internet battlefield.

Now all you need is to signup for Google Sitemaps and Yahoo Site Explorer

Then create a sitemap and download the un-compressed "XML" Sitemap to upload to your web server.

Upload the googlexxxx.html and/or yahooxxxx.html and xxxx.xml to your server to verify and activate. then bingo, now you tell Google and Yahoo when to index your site instead of waiting for their next spider crawl. You also can set the priority of the pages you want indexed. Also, the regular Google indexing of your site will still take place so you don't have to worry about pages not getting indexed if you didn't mention them in your sitemap. Sitemaps do not help you to improve your rankings on Google and Yahoo. It is just another way to invite their spiders to index your site.

Backdoor MSN sitemap submit - Use this format:
Submit sitemap: MSN LIve Webmaster Tools
Also, this format can be used:
http://api.moreover.com/ping?u=http://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml

Ogdenian.com's Sitemap1.xml

PageRank (PR):

• To know the page rank (PR) of a web page install Google Toolbar
• Pagerank Checker
• Microsoft Yahoo pagerank checker and information
• Google PageRank Explained

To see how many sites are linking to your site without your site being in the results use this format in a Google or MSN Search:
ogdenian.com -site:ogdenian.com -site:ogdenian.com

To see how many sites are linking to your site without your site being in the results use this format in a Yahoo Search:
linkdomain:ogdenian.com -site:ogdenian.com -site:ogdenian.com

To see how many pages are in the main (non-supplimental) index use this format in a Google or MSN Search:
site:ogdenian.com -inallurl:ogdenian.com

Keyword Selector Tools and Keyword Density Tool:

I can't emphasize enough how important it is that the copy on a webpage needs to have key word phrases which people actually search for, or a site will be invisible in the search engine results. The following tools actually show you what people searched for in the last month. The information gained from using these tools is invaluable in regards to your website's success in the search engines.

• Keyword Discovery Tool
• SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool

Keyword Density Checker This keyword density tool is an analyzer that calculates the keyword density for a web page, analyzing single keywords and keyphrases of two or three terms. A great tool for determining if a web page is keyword dense enough to be found in a search.

HTML, CSS and Link Validation:

The less valid a web page's html is the less search engine friendly it is. Bad code, excessive code and dead links confuse search engines.

• HTML validator: W3C Markup Validation Service
• CSS style sheet validator: W3C CSS Validation Service
• CSS Comprehensive Validation: WDG CSS Validation Service
• Single page link validator: W3C Link Validator Service
• Validate WAI - Section 508 Standards, or WCAG 1.0 Priority 1,2,3:
  HiSoftware Company CynthiaSays Portal
• Feed Validator for Atom and RSS: FEED Validator

robots.txt file:

You need a robots.txt file in your root directory to let search engine spiders know to index all your site files. You can also specify which bots, web directories or web pages to disallow search engine to spider (go to www.robotstxt.org for more information.) Now you can also tell the search engine spiders the location of your site map and what file types to not index within the robots.txt file.

Note: Do not have empty lines in-between text in the robots.txt file.

example codes:
Disallow: /*.swf$ (stops indexing of swf files)
Disallow: /folder/ (stops indexing of a particular folder)
Disallow: /folder/page.html (stops indexing of a particular webpage)
Sitemap: http://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml (mark location of your sitemap)

Analyze your robots.txt file This tool identifies many common errors in the robots.txt file.

Here is the file used on ogdenian.com: ogdenian.com/robots.txt

Statistical Analysis of Ogdenian.com:

• Ogdenian visited by individuals from 8,540 cities in 178 countries.
• 57.19% visitors use Internet Explorer, 32.44% use Firefox, and 5.19% use Safari Browsers.
• 87.18% visitors use Windows and 9.21% use Macintosh computers.
• 39.09% visitors at 1024x768 screen resolution, 15.42% at 1280x1024, 14.25% at 1280x800, 7.74% at 1440x900, 6.77% at 1680x1050, 3.12% at 800x600, and the rest use other screen resolutions.
• 85.93% visitors use 32-bit screen colors. Increase Graphic Viewing Quality.
• 95.67% visitors have java enabled.
• 95.8% visitors have flash 9 or higher installed.
  If needed: Update your Flash Player to Version 10.0.12
• 2.01% visitors still use dialup.

How Fast do my Web Pages Load Around the Globe?

Check Website Performance from Multiple Locations Around the World.

How do I Avoid a Duplicate Content Penalty in the Search Engines?

• Click here to check a webpage to see if others are copying it, hence creating duplicate content. rewrite your copy to stop the duplication.
• Do not duplicate pages with the sole purpose of spamming the search engines. Multiple URL's or identical homepages with the same content constitutes spamming.
• If both the www and non-www versions of your pages are listed in the search engines it is possible to trigger a duplicate content penalty, hence receive a drop in your search results. You can add the following to your .htaccess file in your site's root directory. A loss of traffic while the search engines realign your information may result, though I feel the benefit outweighs the temporary setback.
  
  Example 1 - If you wish to direct all non-www traffic to www add this to the .htaccess file:
  
  Options +FollowSymLinks
  RewriteEngine on
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yoursite.com [NC]
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yoursite.com/$1 [L,R=301]
  
  Example 2 - If you wish to direct all www traffic to non-www add this to the .htaccess file:
  
  Options +FollowSymLinks
  RewriteEngine on
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.yoursite.com [NC]
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yoursite.com/$1 [L,R=301]
  
  Example 3 - If you wish to direct traffic from one webpage to another add this to the .htaccess file:
  
  Redirect 301 /file.html http://yoursite.com/newfile.html
  
  
• There is a new tag that stops search engine duplicate content penalties within the same site and allows one to set a preferred version of a site page. Just add something like:
  <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.yoursite.com/preferred.html"> in the <head> section of the page with duplicate content.

What is my Internet Ranking?

One-way Link Building

In the confusing arena of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) one-way links are valuable when pointing to your domain. Especially if they are from high Page Ranked, popular and similar genre sites. You can start to create these one-way links yourself: Check out the article I wrote titled "Search Engine Optimization (SEO) One-Way Link Building"

Webpage Spam Detector?
Webpage Spam Detector analyzes a webpage, searching for characteristics that a search engine could consider as spam. Spamming the search engines could get a page to rank 1000+ in the search results.