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What Does NOT Help You Rank Higher on Search Engines

Search engines are not mystical beings that are moved by the correct sequence of cerimonial rituals. Search engines are simply trying to bring the best results to their users for their searches. If you just use some basic logic as to how a search engine might determine the best results you can rule out a lot of common myths that people claim help you rank higher, here are a few that I've been seeing lately:

Resubmitting your web site to the search engines regularly. This helps nothing, search engines are smart enough to know how often you update your web site, resubmitting doesn't make them check more often. Resubmitting is a waste of time, submit your site once, and don't worry about it after that.

Making your web site XHTML compliant. (sorry if this one is over most people's heads, but at least you'll know about it if someone tries to sell it to you) Seeing that 99% of the internet is not XHTML compliant, search engines would have a real problem if they decided these web sites were somehow not important. Search engines are trying to get you the best information for your searches, how cleanly your code is written is not a factor.

Trading links with other people. This is probably one of the most widely practiced method of search engine optimization that doesn't help you at all. Search engines are smart enough to know that your are trading links, and they know why you are doing it. It's ok to swap links for the traffic it might bring to your site, but it's not going to help you rank higher in search engines.

Just think about it logically. If you were a search engine, and you wanted to give people the best results for their searches, what would you look at to generate your results? I bet you wouldn't care how many times they resubmitted their site that week. :)

Posted by Robert Krames - Gainesville, FL Real Estate on 12/28/2007 09:44 AM

Comments (18)

search, search engines, seo, page rank, web marketing

18 Comments on What Does NOT Help You Rank Higher on Search Engines

DEC

2007

Robert - Not only does resubmitting your website not help, it can hurt. Resubmissions can put your website on the fast track to the search engine spam list.

Thanks Robert. You bring up some good points for us unknowledgable bloggers

Ryan:

You may be right, it's hard to know for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Robert - I have heard from several reliable sources that search engine resubmissions can get your site banned, but you are right that it is hard to know for sure. Maybe you should test it and let us know ;-)

Robert-search engines seem to have a mind of their own. What is interesting is even though I don't seem to be at the top of any of the lists for "common" search terms in my area I do get leads and phone calls. My research shows consumers are NOT searching on the keywords we think they are. Go figure.

I had't heard of the XHTML one, but the other two are widely practiced. I know I've been asked by several people in the past to trade links -- at that time everyone thought it was great. Now I'm glad that I didn't since it's not really helping.

Cindy:

What are they searching for? I'm curious. There are lots of free tools that can tell you what search terms people are using to find you. Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools to name a few. Let me know. Thanks. :)

Ryan:

I'll ask my clients if they mind. :P

Yes and no. The problem with most link swaps is that most swaps involve making reciprocal link arrangements with sites that use directories that link everything from aardvarks to Zzyzzyva, CA. These are essentially link farms.

See my post "Optimizing Reciprocal Links: A Synthesis " for info about reciprocal links that are valuable.

It is all over the board. A lot of the hits I get on my blogs come from very odd combinations and most importantly from neighborhood specific terms. I've had a lot of hits recently on foreclosures combined with northern virginia (or other local counties). All I know for sure is that the phone has been ringing (including the press) so something is catching google eyes :-)

Jim:

I still think the value of reciprocated links is so low it's not even worth the time.

But hey, that's just the opinion of one webmaster. :)

Robert - Do you see the value of strong backlinks? I think that contextual linking can be quite effective. I have seen it work in practice.

Robert,

Of course you are right, but check out Ryan's post just below yours. Then read my post. It outlines a method for creating content rich contextual links.

For reciprocal links to work, you have to think beyond the conventional. This is the biggest problem I have implementing my strategy, finding people who truly understand SEO and are driven enough to engage themselves. It's not as much work as social networking--wait a minute, yes, it is--I have to spend as much time and effort social networking as anything else.

I have six years experience promoting Web sites and placed 3/4 of the sites on the first page of hits on each of the top search engines. The primary usefulness I found for common reciprocal links was to find site owners who had the vision to partner with me in my link optimization strategy.

Jim:

The degree that reciprocal links are helping you is hard to know, but coupled with a strong, methodical SEO plan I'm sure is very effective.

Ryan:

I call them inbound links. They are probably in the top 3 if not the most important aspect of SEO. I only try to build one way inbound links though. As mentioned above, even from a really good relevant site, I don't think recip links help much. If it's a high traffic site though, it may be worth doing it just for the traffic you would get from a recip link though.

Thanks for the tips. Today seems to be an SEO reading day for me as I've gone through about 30 posts on it!

You're welcome!

The cyber blog game to me is still very mysterious to me, but I actually did get a call about my blogs the other day - first call since I started blogging a couple of months ago! That was pretty neat...

JAN

2008

so trading links does nothing?? hmmm... Good to know...

JAN

2008

Well it does something, just nothing to help you rank higher in search engines.

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