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Dispelling the Myths - Will WebPosition Get My Site Banned from Google?
by Matt Paolini

In mid November of 2003, Google seriously revamped their ranking algorithm. As a result, many sites were dropped from their index, or fell dramatically in rank. This infuriated many Web site owners at the height of the holiday buying season. Since that time, many accusations have been thrown at Google as to the reasons why this happened. Some say it's a plot to encourage people to buy Adwords listings. Others have even theorized WebPosition is somehow to blame. Still others cite more traditional causes.

As soon as Google changed their algorithm, many WebPosition Gold customers with sites that had dropped contacted me demanding an explanation. Some wanted to make sure their sites were not dropped because they had used WebPosition Gold. I reassured them that this was not the case. I went on to explain that many thousands of sites were dropped that do not even use WebPosition Gold. Many of our customers even saw their rank increase after the Florida update. In addition, most of the time the site had not actually been banned from the index. It had simply dropped in rank.

In this article, I will attempt to dispel many of the pervasive myths regarding WebPosition Gold and Google. I've used WebPosition for years on my own site and for clients. I've also helped provide technical support to others using the product. Therefore, I've been on both sides of the fence, and therefore feel uniquely qualified to address the most common questions that come up:

1. Will running automated Reporter Missions on Google get my site banned?

No. Despite persistent rumors, when running a Reporter Mission, WebPosition Gold does not pass personal information, such as your name, address, email, Web site URL or domain name to Google. Instead, it conducts queries as a normal browser would, and then examines the results offline. With that in mind, Google cannot determine if you're running a query relating to a specific domain. The only information that is passed to Google is your "IP" address. In most cases, your Web site's IP address is different than the IP address of your ISP (Internet Service Provider). So, how can Google connect the two? Simply put, it can't.

Google states on their FAQ page that they do not recommend automated queries to be run on their service because it utilizes server resources. Yet, most businesses find it impractical not to measure their search engine rankings at least occasionally. It's also hardly reasonable to check ranking by hand in Internet Explorer, which for the same keyword list, would yield the same number of queries on Google anyway. Therefore, most businesses optimizing their Web sites find it impractical not to use some kind of automated tool to monitor their progress and to measure their visibility.

Working as a search engine marketer myself for many years, I've found that the best policy is to simply be sensitive to the needs of the search engines. Avoid being "abusive" in your practices, whether it is your optimization strategies, your submissions, or your rank management.

Therefore, when using WebPosition, I often recommend the following strategies:

1. Avoid excessive numbers of queries if you choose to check your rankings on Google. Most people do not have time to improve their rankings on hundreds of keywords. Therefore, there's no need to rank check hundreds of keywords if you don't have the time to optimize every keyword anyway. While your site won't be banned for excessive queries, Google could block your IP address that you use to connect to Google, if it found your query volume to be excessive. This is true regardless of what tool you may use, even if it's a browser.

It has been my experience that a blocked IP is extremely rare even among consultants conducting rank checks for dozens of clients. Presumably, Google would not want to accidentally block an IP that does a large volume of queries simply because it's shared by many different users. Even so, it's always a good idea to practice a little common sense.

2. If you choose to run queries, try to run most of your queries at night and during off-peak periods, which is something Google has suggested in the past. This is when many of their servers are presumably standing idle, waiting to handle the increased volume during peak periods. The WebPosition Scheduler makes this easy to do.

3. Do not run your queries more often than is really necessary. Since Google normally doesn't update their entire index more than once a month, there's limited benefit to checking your rankings more often than that.

4. As an alternative to Google, consider checking your rankings using a Google "clone" engine in the Reporter such as AOL, ICQ Search, Iwon, or Netscape. Generally these rankings are identical to Google.com, although they can vary slightly depending on when they last refreshed their index with Google. Generally, any differences in ranking, if there are any, are only temporary until the indexes synchronize again.

5. With WebPosition Gold 2, you can also use the "Be courteous to the search engines" feature on the Options tab of the Reporter so you don't query their service so quickly. This gives you added peace of mind not found in many other automated tools, assuming you don't mind your missions taking longer to run. The Submitter has a similar feature to submit randomly at various time intervals.

2. Can I use WebPosition Gold to get my competitors' banned from Google?

No. If running automated queries on Google with WebPosition Gold would result in your site being banned, then presumably, you could use it to get your competitors' banned from Google. However this is not the case.

Google even verifies this on their web site. They don't specifically name WebPosition Gold in this section; however, they do mention that there is nothing you can do to get your competitors' banned from Google. For more information on this, please see the "Google Facts and Fiction" document at Google's site.

3. Will over submitting my site get me banned?

No. Many people think that Google will ban your site if your submissions exceed the recommended daily limits. If this were the case, we could over submit our competitors' sites and easily get them banned from Google.

Google is very clear on this and even states that over submitting will not get you banned. Even though it will not get you banned, some of your submissions might still be ignored or discarded if they break the rules. Therefore, I recommend using the "Slow Submit" option in WebPosition Gold's Submitter and staying within WebPosition's recommended daily limits. Some people argue that manual submissions are best. However, manual submissions can't warn you if you inadvertently over-submit, make a typo in your submission, or forget what you submitted and when.

For achieving top rankings, and staying indexed long-term, the best submission technique may be to not submit at all. Instead, try to establish third party links to your Web site and wait for Google's spider to find you on its own. WebPosition's Page Critic offers numerous strategies for doing this.

4. Will Doorway or Entrance pages get me banned from Google?

That depends on whether these pages contain spam. If your definition of a doorway page is a page full of irrelevant or duplicate content, and excessive keyword use, then yes, you could find your site banned. That's how Google often defines a doorway page. Consequently, the term doorway has developed a negative connotation over the years.

If your optimized page is nothing more than an extension of your main Web site that happens to contain search engine friendly content, then you'll be fine. In fact, you'll be rewarded for the effort through top rankings. The key is not whether you label a page a doorway, entrance, optimized, informational, or "whatever" page. The key is whether the page contains quality, relevant content that provides the search engine with what it wants to see.

Google mentions that they discourage the use of "doorway" pages because they fear that webmasters will optimize for keywords that are not relevant to the page's content. This is a legitimate fear as they are in the business to provide relevant results to their visitors. However, if you create pages that contain what Google is looking for, then obviously Google will not penalize this page, or view it differently from any other page on your site.

With this in mind, here are a few tips on creating Google-friendly pages:

1. Always Include Relevant Content - Make sure that the content on each of your pages is relevant to your site. Many sites have various resources on a number of different topics. This is fine, as long as the overall theme for your Web site is solid. I would also suggest that you organize your related content into individual directories. Some businesses find it beneficial to organize each sub-theme of their site into a separate domain so they can cross-link the domains. If you do this, make sure you have links from other sites as well.

2. Avoid Duplicate Content - Create each page with unique content. If you are targeting different search engines for the same keyword, then you may find that you have some very similar content between certain pages. If this is the case, you can always create a robot.txt file to tell each search engine crawler not to index a page or directory that was created for another search engine. See the October 2000 issue of MarketPosition for more information on creating a robot.txt file.

3. Avoid Keyword Stuffing - Creating pages that excessively repeat your keyword phrase is definitely not a good idea. This almost always will throw up a red flag to the search engine and is one of the most common forms of "spamming." How many keywords are too many? See WebPosition's Page Critic for up to date, specific recommendations regarding how many words and keywords are recommended in each area of your page.

4. Design Good Looking Pages - Although Google cannot tell if your page is aesthetically pleasing, it is recommended that you create pages that look good and fit the theme of your Web site. This will definitely increase the click through rate from the arrival page to the rest of your Web site.

5. Avoid Using Hidden Image Links - Many site owners think they can fool Google by including transparent 1x1 pixel image links on their home page that point to their optimized pages. These are very small images contained in a hyperlink that are not visible to the naked eye. This can get your page dropped from Google's index.

6. Avoid using links that have the same color as the background on your page - Many site owners try to hide the links on their home page by making the text color the same as the background color of the page. As with the scenario above, this can also get your page banned from Google.

7. Avoiding using Javascript Redirection Techniques - A number of Web site owners have implemented the use of Javascript to redirect a user to another page while allowing Google to crawl the page that includes the Javascript code. This did work for a while, but Google eventually caught on. Other forms of redirection, like IP cloaking are also frowned upon by Google.

In Summary:

The rules regarding each search engine change routinely. That's why WebPosition's Page Critic is updated monthly to keep pace. As a search engine marketer, it's critical that you keep informed as to the latest search engine rules and strategies.

It's also important to understand that WebPosition Gold is only a tool. When used properly, it will not get you banned or blocked, and will in fact improve your rankings dramatically. However, as with any tool, you can choose to ignore its recommendations and to go your own way. For example, you can use a hammer to build a fine house, or you can take that same hammer to knock a bunch of holes in someone's wall. Ultimately, this call is up to you, the user of the tool.

This article is copyrighted and has been reprinted with permission from Matt Paolini. Matt Paolini is a Webmaster and support specialist for FirstPlace Software, the makers of WebPosition Gold. He's also an experienced freelance Search Engine Optimization Specialist and Cold Fusion/ASP.NET/SQL Server Developer/Designer. For more information on his services, please visit http://www.webtemplatestore.net/ or send him an email at webmaster@webtemplatestore.net

New Year's Resolution: Put Your Web Pages on a Diet
by Christine Churchill

It's January, the time for New Year's resolutions. Polls show that going on a diet is the number one resolution Americans make. After all that holiday eating we start eyeing our waistlines and promising ourselves to do something about it. It occurs to me that this same resolution should apply to search engine marketers this year.

So raise your right hand and repeat after me: "I hereby resolve to slim down my Web pages so I can get a better search engine ranking."

Experienced SEOs know that you can boost your rankings by moving your page content as close to the start of your HTML code as possible. Search engines consider words near the start of your HTML code to be more prominent, and therefore more important, than words buried deep inside the file.

Unfortunately, many web pages are hurt by using layout templates that downgrade the prominence of the page's primary content. Elaborate HTML tables used to create the page's masthead and left navigation areas end up pushing the page's content section - and therefore its keywords - far down in the file.

Just as seriously, web designers clutter the HEAD section of their documents with large sections of JavaScript code or embedded Cascading Style Sheets. While this code can be useful, it pushes your keywords even farther down in the HTML file.

Restructuring your layout tables to improve keyword prominence can be a real challenge, and may force you to make design compromises. The May 2003 MarketPosition newsletter discussed one approach to improving your layout tables.

Fortunately, our New Year's resolution involves something that's much easier to address: those bloated JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets.

That's good, because for many web pages these are the fattest components. I've seen HTML files that were 100 kilobytes in size, yet fully 60k of this was JavaScript code.

The prospect of changing your JavaScript code intimidates many people. If you're like most webmasters, you don't write your own JavaScript, but instead use a third-party script or script inserted by your HTML editor.

However, to slim down our pages we won't actually change the content of our JavaScript. We will lift it intact and place it in an external file. Just be aware that when you place your JavaScript in an external file, you don't need to surround the JavaScript code with SCRIPT tags. In fact doing this may keep your script from working properly.

Once you've moved your java code to a separate file, modify your main HTML page to reference the external JavaScript, like this:

<SCRIPT SRC="myscript.js"></SCRIPT>

In other words, scan your Web pages for appearances of the <SCRIPT> tag. Remove anything between that tag and the closing script tag. Place it in a separate file and save it. You should then reference that file with a SCRIPT SRC tag like the above example. Upload your changes when you are done.

Offloading a Cascading Style Sheet is just as easy. Again, cut and paste your style sheet into a separate file. It must be a different file from the one containing your JavaScript. This external file should contain the body of your style sheet, without the STYLE tags surrounding the CSS code.

Now modify your web page to reference the external CSS file, like this:

<LINK REL="stylesheet" HREF="mystylesheet.css" TYPE="text/css">

To follow proper HTML coding, this LINK tag should be in the HEAD section of your page and before any references to the defined CSS styles.

It's also a good idea to assign different file extensions to your external files, such as code.js and style.css, to distinguish them from your HTML files.

That's it. Be sure to backup your pages before making any significant changes, and to test your new pages when you're done.

Offloading JavaScript and CSS code like this has an additional benefit that has nothing to do with search engine optimization: It speeds up your page's load time. Internet Explorer treats external JavaScript and CSS files in much the same way as graphics, caching the files in case other pages use them. If the same CSS or JavaScript is used on multiple pages, the later pages will benefit from the cached copy already having been downloaded. That means your visitors will only need to download the files once. The more bloated your JavaScript, the better this load time improvement will be.

Not only that, but you'll only have to make changes to your script in one location. The changes will then be reflected in all the pages that reference the script, making maintenance much easier. This is another example of how SEO techniques can also improve the usability of your web pages.

To sum things up, our New Year's resolution can improve your search engine ranking, improve your page's load time, improve maintenance, and it's easy to implement. That takes a lot less willpower than a real diet!

Christine Churchill is President of KeyRelevance.com a full service search engine marketing firm. She is also on the Board of Directors of the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) and serves as co-chair of the SEMPO Technical Committee.

Big changes continue at LookSmart

As many of you already know, LookSmart will be losing its biggest partner, MSN on January 15th, 2004. This came after Microsoft announced it would not be renewing its contract with LookSmart. Only adding to its woes, LookSmart's contract with Sprinks expired in December. In addition, their agreement with Inktomi is expected to expire February 24th, 2004. In response, LookSmart has reportedly laid off half its work force in an effort to cope with the loss in revenues.

However, the news is not all bad for LookSmart. Last month they signed up new partners including ABCSearch, SearchFeed, and My Geek. LookSmart also added a new, optional bidding model that allows advertisers to place bids for top positions.

The Latest on Google's Florida Update

More information continues to roll in regarding the unprecedented algorithm change at Google in recent months. As you may know, we debated the initial theories and strategies in last month's MarketPosition. This month you'll find the updated Google research inside WebPosition Gold's Page Critic. Therefore, don't delay in loading up your copy to get the latest information.

If you don't already have WebPosition installed, you may download your free trial copy.

Last Month:

Last month we talked about several important topics including:

• Google's "Florida" update spawns a hurricane of ranking changes. Get the latest scoop on
  Google's biggest update of the year and what your business should be doing.

• Microsoft to ban pop ups. Learn how this may not only affect your surfing, but also your marketing strategy.

• LookSmart waives listing and change fees for the holidays. Is it a good deal?

• WebPosition Page Critic sports new category organization. How will this make SEO easier?

If you missed these or other key discussions, you can find the back issues at:

http://www.marketposition.com/newsletters.htm

Advertise in MarketPosition and Reach Over 550,000 People

If you're interested in advertising in MarketPosition™, the most popular search engine marketing newsletter in the world e-mail jim@firstplacesoftware.com for current competitive rates and information or see:

http://www.marketposition.com/advertising.htm

Webmasters, marketers, and business owners around the globe read this high quality newsletter and depend on its advice for promoting their businesses online. Whereas many low quality newsletters tend to get deleted as soon as they arrive in a person's inbox, MarketPosition subscribers look forward to reading the in-depth and invaluable content offered each month.

Other Resources:

FirstPlace Software, Inc. produces several products, including WebPosition, the first software program to report your search positions on the major search engines and to help you improve those positions.

Download a FREE trial of WebPosition Gold 2

You may call us at 1-800-962-4855 if you have questions not addressed on our site. You will also find an array of additional tips and techniques for improving your search positions in both the WebPosition Help File and the Reports it generates.

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