Search Engines Steps

How to Make Search Engines Happy in 3 Easy Steps

Does your web site make search engines happy? Despite all the negative hype lately, it's pretty easy to design a web site that search engines will accept with open arms. All it takes is 3 easy steps:

1) Follow the Search Engine Guidelines

Nearly all search engines publish their own guidelines regarding the submission of sites, the type of sites they will accept and recommendations for optimized content. Google recently updated their Webmaster Guidelines which cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative search engine behavior that they consider to be "spam". They also published SEO Guidelines - advice for webmasters to heed when choosing an SEO. Google was the first search engine to publicly acknowledge search engine optimizers in this fashion.

It's not just Google publishing anti-spam guidelines. You'll find them at the following search engine sites as well:

- MSN Search webmaster guidelines

- AltaVista terms of use (AltaVista is a Yahoo-owned company)

- Yahoo terms of service

- Yahoo guidelines on search engine spam (covering AltaVista and AllTheWeb as well)

- Yahoo definitions of search engine spam (covering AltaVista and AllTheWeb as well)

- Yahoo content guidelines

- AskJeeves / Teoma terms of service and spam policy

- AskJeeves / Teoma editorial guidelines


2) Avoid Spamming the Search Engines

Often, webmasters will use search engine spam techniques without even being aware that they are doing so. Or worse, web designers can - advertently or inadvertently - integrate techniques that could cause a site to be penalized in the site's rankings in one or more engines, without the site owner's knowledge of such penalties. The key to avoiding spamming the engines is research.
Keep track of the various search engine guidelines via the links above. Watch for any changes they make to these guidelines and tweak your site accordingly. Trawl the various webmaster and search engine forums regularly to ensure your site doesn't use any of the latest methods that appear to be penalized. If you suspect your site has been penalized, remove the offending content, contact the engine concerned and ask to be reinstated.

Google actually encourage you to file a re-inclusion request via their Help Center and this post by Google staffer Matt Cutts outlines what should be included.

Article by Kalena Jordan, CEO of Web Rank.Kalena was one of the first search engine optimization expertsin Australasia and is well known and respected in her field.For more of her articles on search engine ranking and onlinemarketing, please visit high-search-engine-ranking.com