Search engine help

thewebkid

What must I do to allow search engines like Google or Yahoo find me easier? Is there an HTML code I must use? Or is there more to it?

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Rakuli

Well most search engines have the option for you to submit a link to them.. Also, if you can get your site linked to from another, they will crawl their way to you.

Once they have found you, where you come up in their search results requires that you use clean XHTML and have useful, relevant content (there is a whole industry for getting your way to the top of search results). Search engines will return once they have indexed your site once, that's when you will start to come up in their results.

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Rakuli

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alexgeek

Rob suggested before not to submit your site manually, it's better to wait for search engines to find you.
Lots of other sites linking to you will get you ranked in no time.

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linkerjpatrick

The most important thing is to have compelling content that truly makes your site valuable in itself and as a recognized resource for others to link to. In the "old days" when they were a lot fewer web pages and you didn't have the famous "Google page rank algorithim you could trick out the site easier with keywords, descriptions and pretty much the useless and infamous "link page."

One reason the who concept of "blogging" has reached the mainstream so to speak is you are creating interesting content that other find useful and come back to. One thing that is very important is the use of certain keywords within blog posts.

If you have images remember to use decriptive file names and alt tags.

It all boils down to content, compelling content, descriptive content.

AdRock

I used <meta> tags like description and keywords and I found that my site slowly crept to the top without having to submit my site. It might take a few days or weeks but they do find you

Using meta tags doesn't cost you anything unlike companies who charge you to get you listed

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alexgeek

Meta tags are almost completely pointless.

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linkerjpatrick

Yes, with Google especially. Traditional meta tags don't count for a whole lot. The actual content of the site is what matters. However a limited number of them in the header doesn't hurt either and "meta information" is important to have with images or at least descriptive names. For example if you have a photo of John Smith it better to called it johnsmith.jpg instead of image01.jpg for example.

If you do have a set if "key words" that are important to your business/web site" consider how they can be used in the actual content. I'm almost at the point of changing what I tell people I do. Instead of saying I'm a web designer or web developer I am seriously looking at telling people I am a Content Management Professional or something to that effect for the reason I concentrate more on using content management software instead of designing static pages, I am big on compelling content, using RSS and intelligent SEO.

AdRock

It worked for me

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linkerjpatrick

The key word is "almost" depending on your site and how much competition you have.

MikeHopley

Correlation is different from cause.

<meta> tags are not useless. <meta> keywords is useless, but <meta> description, date, author, content-type, and many more are useful.

In particular, <meta> description can be used to increase the chance of someone following the link to your site, after finding it on Google.

Note that there is much controversy over the use of <meta> keywords. I believe it's useless, but many others disagree. Of course, they're all wrong.

AdRock

You could try using search engine friendly urls by using mod-rewrite

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