Best SEO Blog|Launch your site.

Not every aspect of search engine optimization is about your Web sites, your visibility, your traffic, and your conversions. There are some very naughty, unscrupulous people out there who will walk all over you if you allow them to. They do this in their ongoing efforts to cheat the search engine community.

Yes, friends, I’m talking about those so-called Black Hat Search Engine Spammers.

There are some things members of the black hat community do that I just don’t appreciate, agree with, or tolerate (when they get in my face). Nor should you tolerate their nefarious activities when these anti-social behaviors abuse your resources. Here is a list of things you should know.

Script Kiddies Rape Your Registrations - If you operate a forum, a blog, or some other UGC Web site where people can register and post content, you’re all but hanging a “Spam me” sign on your back. The script kiddie link spammers (most of whom in my experience promote adult content, illegal pharamaceutical content, and transparent affiliate sites) will hammer your server with bogus registrations. Once registered, they will hammer your server with comments, posts, and other link-filled user-generated content.

You can counteract these jerks’ best efforts by:

1. Requiring confirmation of all registrations (force them to respond to confirmation emails)
2. Moderating all registrations and first time posts (some scripts will post up to 4 or 5 random linkless comments before they start dropping links)
3. Blocking all Russian, Ukrainian, Chinese, and other non-English domains
4. Blocking hyperactive IP addresses in your “hosts.deny” and/or .htaccess file (or equivalent)

There ARE people in Russia and the Ukraine (and other eastern European nations) who may want to visit your forums, but if you see 100 registrations in one day from accounts like “asgheod@menshealthusa.ua” it’s a pretty safe bet a script kiddie is trying to abuse your service.

Some people favor using CAPTCHAs over confirmation emails. I actually use both. Scripts have been written that actually get past typical CAPTCHAs. How do they do it? I don’t know. They just do.

Of course, Google claims some people in India sell their registration services. These people sign up for Gmail accounts and other free email accounts. I’m currently blocking Gmail and Hotmail from my own forums because of abuse from their users. So the listen to take away here is: When you use free email services, you look like a spammer.

Your images appear in the strangest places - If you post interesting pictures or pictures of celebrities and politicians on your Web site, the odds of those images appearing in other peoples’ forums and blogs are astronomically high. Over the past couple of years many people in the SEO community have noticed increased search referrals from image search, and there has been growing interesting in optimizing for image search.

But here’s the trick: image search referrals rarely convert well for most sites. Those referrals are usually people looking for images to share in forums and blogs. They tend to hotlink to your images and eat up your bandwidth.

Here are a few ways to counteract hotlinking:

1. Restrict access to your images to “known” domains. That includes your domains and search engine domains.
2. Substitute a standard promotional ad for all hotlinked images.
3. Brand all your images with your domain name.
4. Block image search from indexing your images.

If you cannot think of a good reason to be found in image search, then just don’t fall into the image search trap. Many people do block the search engines from indexing their images. But there is no hard and fast rule on this. Consumers often use image search to find specific products (particularly where product names are ambiguous, like “Rolex watch” or “Citizen watch”).

If you do want to leverage image search to draw traffic to your site, then make sure that you discourage hotlinking. You cannot prevent people from capturing images and reusing them (even if you go to extreme lengths, all they have to do is take a snapshot of their screen and they have your image). Image search referral can bring customers to your site, but it will more likely bring bandwidth thieves. Make it hard for them to abuse your bandwidth.

Not all email packages are alike - Believe it or not, the old UNIX sendmail service can be more easily secured than some of today’s popular “safer” email packages. I’ve written about Qmail spam exploits in the past. Qmail’s creator claimed it was not vulnerable to spam exploits. The spammers proved him wrong.

Postfix is another email package that is supposedly better than sendmail. However, the braindead designers of Postfix decided it was better to not allow you to blacklist and whitelist domains with “hosts.allow” and “hosts.deny” (which you can do with both sendmail and Qmail). If you go through enough Rube Goldberg machinations, you can sort of filter spam with Postfix but the learning curve and implementation time are ridiculously high compared to older, “less secure” sendmail and other packages.

Internet Service Providers combat email spam in several ways that may affect you regardless of which email package you use.

1. They detect and block open relays.
2. They perform reverse DNS lookups and reject emails from servers that fail these tests.
3. They subscribe to the wrong black lists.
4. They white list domains and require you to ask to be included in the white list.

Not all emails are bounced back when they fail these tests. Theoretically, the ISPs are SUPPOSED to send a bounce message, but some ISPs refuse to do that. These rogue admins either believe you’re a spammer because someone says you are a spammer and therefore you should be ignored like a spammer OR they just don’t have a clue about how to handle spam email.

There are some reputable blacklist services (like Spamhaus.org) that allow you to find out your server is an open relay, fix the problem, and then be removed from their black lists. Then there are guys like Joe Jared who don’t believe in treating people fairly. Jared’s blacklists have been known to block as many as 32,000 IP addresses at a time with no option for vetting or whitelisting individual domains and IP addresses. He and his friends historically pursued economic blackmail against hosting providers whom they concluded were “spam-friendly”. By driving customers away from those services, Jared and his friends thought they were doing themselves and everyone else a favor.

A spammer took down Jared’s blacklist at his OsirusSoft site a few years ago. I don’t know if he is currently engaged in blackmailing hosting providers with another blacklist, but the day Jared’s site went day was the one day in history I was applauding an email spammer. I don’t encourage or condone email spam — but Jared’s solution was worse than the cure and it hurt a lot of people, forcing us to move our domains more than once (an expense Jared and his cronies did not care to share or ameliorate in any way).

If your server is failing reverse DNS lookups despite your best efforts to fix the problem, check with your hosting provider. Many Web host services now routinely control email DNS settings at their level to help fight email spam. They will usually work with clients who need to pass reverse DNS lookup. Don’t be rude and angry with your host for failing to disclose this security practice to you. Just be glad they are trying to stay out of the gunsights of idiots and morons like Joe Jared and his friends.

I have found a growing number of ISPs (like AT&T and all their subsidiaries) require human review for domains or IP addresses that fail spam tests. Although it is inconvenient to have to fill out their forms and wait for the review process, I am grateful to them for taking the time to work with Webmasters on these issues. They’ll remove blocks when you show that you’ve closed your open relay or have resolved your reverse DNS lookup issue.

But be warned: if your site is repeatedly hacked or exploited you may find it elevated to a tighter restricted list, and getting off that won’t be so easy. We may be coming to the day when it’s better to allow a reputable third party (or your hosting ISP) handle your domain’s email.

But I’m not ready to hand the reins over to Gmail just yet. I’ve heard some Web sites actually block their emails because of spam abuses.

Take that for what it’s worth.

“Why does google ignore my meta description?”

I’ve seen this question asked in forums, on blogs, and in search referral strings. There are several reasons why a search engine may ignore a meta description, although the search engines might change their algorithms at any time.

The meta description element is presently only used by the major search engines to assist in managing the listings they provide in their search results. That is, they don’t index your meta descriptions for resolving queries. Hence, if you’re embedding keywords in the meta description element but not elsewhere on your page (or in link anchor text), the search engines are essentially blinding themselves to the keywords you want to rank for.

The meta keywords and meta description elements have, unfortunately, been abused by search spammers through the years. To reduce the effect of that abuse, search engines just look at the meta description for help in determining what they can show searchers whenever your page is included in search results.

For that reason, the SEO industry has been advising people for several years to create unique, concise, relevant meta descriptions for each of the pages on their sites for several years.

But even if you create the meta descriptions correctly, some search engines may instead prefer to use descriptions provided by Yahoo!’s directory or the DMOZ directory when they show your page listings. To prevent that from happening, you need to include “noydir,noodp” in a robots meta element for each page. There is presently no way to implement this directive on a site-wide or page-independent basis.

But what if you have excluded the directory descriptions and you have written unique, concise, relevant meta descriptions for each page and they still don’t appear?

The search engines are trying to match the queries users type in with the information they provide in search listings. If you don’t use the exact query expression in your meta description but it does appear elsewhere in the page (in indexable content), there is a good chance the search engine will create a descriptive text snippet for its listing from the content on your page rather than from your meta description.

Which is not to say that the meta description is a waste of effort — you can target the meta description element, using it to focus on your primary keyword. You can embed other text snippets on your page that address other queries that are similar.

I would not do this for many expressions, and I would be careful not to use keyword injection (simply replacing query expressions and then replicating the same text block several times). Try to keep each page focused on 2-4 expressions.

The fact that you CAN optimize a page for 100 expressions doesn’t mean you always should. That takes more skill and practice than most people can devote to the task.

Another reason why your meta description element may not be working is you could have broken code — a mistyped element — in your page header. It happens. If the search engines cannot parse your content correctly, they’ll ignore huge swathes of text and code until they find something that looks like it makes sense to them.

1. Too Many Topics

You talk about everything from earthworm digestion to butt-rock and philanthropy and wonder why you can’t develop a reader base. Dial in. Focus on a subject or cluster of related subjects rather than repeating that middle school exercise where you write continuously for 15 minutes.

2. Low Pages per Visit

The pages per visit metric can be useful in measuring visitor engagement with your content. See if you can’t squeeze one or two additional page views out of each visitor by linking to other posts within your post, making intuitive navigation and using cross-engagement strategies like tag clouds and featured articles.

3. More Ads than Content

Don’t make users mine for something meaningful. Placing a tiny nugget of useful content in the dead center of the page and placing ads on four sides then throwing timed JavaScript bombs that ask questions and invite users to take surveys is just plain irritating.

Getting a consumer to trip on an advertisement will do very little for conversion. Articles that are 300 words should not span 5 pages. Yeah we’re on to you.

4. Bum Feeds

Yep, the new theme comes with an RSS button but does it work? How does your site look through a feed? People will try once, maybe twice to activate a feed subscription. If it doesn’t work you have 1 less subscriber.

5. Too Many Plugins

Too many plugins are hazardous to your blog. Plugins do all kinds of cool things but they are written by the multitude. Study up on each plugin before using it. Make sure anything you enable has been reviewed and is compatible with your framework version AND theme. Try to keep up on updates to avoid security vulnerabilities.

A few well executed plugins can greatly improve your blog while too many can become STDs for Wordpress.

6. Widget Farm

Widgets are an easy way to manage additional features on your blog. Don’t get overzealous with the widgets! Enabling every widget you can get a hold of bogs up appearance, clutters information and over-stimulates the user.

7. The Content Isn’t Yours

Yes you can copyright, copyscape, hash-slice imagery and publish summary feeds but some slacker is still going to steal your content. Don’t be that guy.

You are legally able to use up to 1/3 of an original piece so long as you properly attribute your source. Original content is ALWAYS king.

8. Too Many Broken Links

Don’t have em. Periodically check for busted links with an admin panel like Google Webmaster tools or crawl your site with a link-checking tool to see what’s busted.

9. You Hate the Subject

Faking enthusiasm for a subject reads like a furniture manual. Find your motivation and write about something you actually care about. If you’re building out a company blog find a way to make it your own.

10. Search Doesn’t Like You!

This one’s easy. All you have to do is click this button:

This is part 3 of a 3 post series meant to help you identify some areas to focus on when choosing a web designer who also understands SEO. Keeping these ideas in mind during the building process may help you to get the most out of your designer’s “on-the-clock” hours.

Aesthetic appeal is subjective, but the objectives of your website should be a fully conscious, coordinated effort. If you build with search in mind, it will be much easier to get qualified traffic in effective queries rather than trying to retrofit a built and indexed website with an SEO campaign. Obviously the ladder is still very plausible but in terms of business, may cost you more dollars than sense.

The following are a few things to keep in mind when choosing a designer for a new website. (Note: For the purpose of this discussion we’ll assume that content is not up to the designer.)

Choose a web designer who understands the crawl.

Work with your designer to ensure that all portions of your website will support proper web crawling and indexing.

Spiders, also called bots, are automated scripts in charge of crawling the interweb for information gathering, and other stuff. In regards to search engines, if a spider hasn’t touched your page, it won’t be indexed or served to search users.

Although being crawled by a search engine doesn’t give you an automatic jump to the indexed bin, building a spider accessible, fully indexable website that stimulates frequent crawling to deep rooted pages will go a long way to maximizing your web presence. Like all things search, keeping the crawl in mind during the building process will make your life much easier when you choose to expand.

Redundant Accessibility

Build out new sections with redundant accessibility by linking to each page from multiple pages within the same site. Shoot for at least 2 to 3 ways to access a single page. It’s really not as daunting as it sounds. If you build an HTML/XHTML sitemap for your user, that’s 1. Build parent pages for each individual item or concept, that’s 2. Provide navigational aids, such as breadcrumbs, that provide a link back to each previous section, boom you’re done! Be creative and ONLY ADD LINKS IF IT AIDS THE USER.

JavaScript Navigation

There are always new methods to MacGyver the ability to crawl navigation but to truly put an emphasis on search stick with XHTML/CSS. Hey, you can do a lot with CSS and XHTML!

If you’re not sure if that glitzy navigation allows the spider to pass from section to section then test it with an all text browser. If you can’t navigate your site, neither can the spider.

Stimulate the Deep Crawl

If deploying a larger website, 100+ pages, it may take several visits for spiders to fully index your pages. Anything that you or your designer can do to increase the rate of crawl is a good thing. Placing dynamic, engaging, natural link-worthy content on hub pages will be ideal points of entry for spiders. Channeling spiders like blood flow to deep rooted pages may help keep leaf pages from being isolated or dropping out of the index.

Plug Yourself

When deploying new sections or content remind users, and spiders, with links to existing sections. You’ll want to plug your hub pages because you will have already designed these sections to keep those bots barreling through page after well linked page of your website.

Use the robots.txt

Make sure your designer understands the power of the robots.txt. You can use it to tell the spider to auto-discover your sitemap.xml, ignore certain sections, or strait tell it to go away while you perform maintenance or finish building.

There are really too many options to list. In not so many words it is one of the only opportunities you’ll get to guide the spider with explicit directions of how it should treat your website.

I hope after reading this little 3 post series that it will be easier to choose a web designer that also understands SEO. I tried to approach this topic by identifying what I would look for if I were to outsource a website. Thanks for reading!

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Quick Reference:

How to choose a web designer that also understands SEO

Part 1: Choose a web designer that understands how to build for the search user.
Part 2: Choose a web designer that understands usability.
Part 3: Choose a web designer who understands the crawl.

This is part 2 of a 3 post series meant to help you identify some areas to focus on when choosing a web designer who also understands SEO. Keeping these ideas in mind during the building process may help you to get the most out of your designer’s “on-the-clock” hours.

Aesthetic appeal is subjective, but the objectives of your website should be a fully conscious, coordinated effort. If you build with search in mind, it will be much easier to get qualified traffic in effective queries rather than trying to retrofit a built and indexed website with an SEO campaign. Obviously the ladder is still very plausible but in terms of business, may cost you more dollars than sense.

The following are a few things to keep in mind when choosing a designer for a new website. (Note: For the purpose of this discussion we’ll assume that content is not up to the designer.)

Choose a web designer that understands usability.

Collaborate to design effective pages with your user in mind. What will they see? Where will they go? What are they supposed to do now that they’ve found your website? What do they need to know in order to convert? Show them where to go with legible fonts and graphics that make sense.

Navigation

Don’t omit tabs on your main navigation from section to section. On the conception stage, make sure your designer integrates navigational pillars that do not change. Static navigation to hub sections reassures the visitor that by clicking around they will always be able to find their way back to a main section. Never strand them in cyberspace by walking them through a series of links that follow no back logic.

Lay breadcrumbs, use static hub sections, provide an icon with a home link, something to stop them from wandering into the void while encouraging them to explore. If you don’t instantly know where to go when you see the mockup, then chances are nobody else will either. A good rule of thumb is to try to make all pages of your site accessible without having to resort to the browser’s navigation.

K.I.S.S.

Clean coding and strait forward presentation are always a best bet. Revolutionary effects in bleeding edge technologies are sexy, but simple carts and predictable navigation convert. Statistics reveal that bounce rate greatly increases when new users are paired with flamboyant and over-excitable layouts. Avoid distracting users with what is not relevant. Keep them focused and clear the path to a conversion.

Clean Coding

It may not be necessary to code to W3C’s evolving standards but remember that bad code breeds. Sloppy code is often replicated in hidden areas and may remain hidden until integral components of your site are shifted around. Launching your holiday product line is not the time to discover that your shopping cart doesn’t integrate into your new product pages.

Avoid Application Dependency

Designers that rely too heavily on web building programs can box in your options for expansion as your website matures. It is important to discuss the architecture options of your website with your designer prior to implementation. A 20 page website is vastly different architecturally than a 20k page website.

Site building programs often clutter the code with extraneous injections and specialized tags. Seek designers that have a proven track record of integrating their work into a production environment. Such environments often test the adaptability, resourcefulness and troubleshooting of a designer’s skill set.

Plan for Transition

If your intention is to build out the content over time, make sure that you have a plan to transition the tools and working files to the next designer. Agree on a set of core technologies to be used and ensure that they are consistent with current standards and the projected half-life of your website.

And of course, the best evaluation of potential designer is to ask for samples and run them by someone with a few years experience to look under the hood.

___________________________________________________________________

Quick Reference:

How to choose a web designer that also understands SEO

Part 1: Choose a web designer that understands how to build for the search user.
Part 2: Choose a web designer that understands usability.
Part 3: Choose a web designer who understands the crawl.