This is big news for the search engine industry, and it's important that search engine optimizers and website owners take notice.
Google has introduced a new link tag, and it's ultimately designed to tell the search engines to ignore the link when it comes to calculating their algorithm. This new link tag is called rel="nofollow" and it can be added to any typical href link. By adding the tag to a link on your site, you're telling the search engines to ignore it. According to Google, "From now on, when Google sees the attribute (rel="nofollow") on hyperlinks, those links won't get any credit when we rank websites in our search results."
Yahoo!, MSN Search, and other search engines are taking Google's lead and beginning to recognize this new link tag called the (rel="nofollow") tag.
This new (rel="nofollow") tag, though, may begin to be used on many other sites--you can begin using it immediately, in fact.
Some website directory owners might consider adding links to their directory but only removing the (rel="nofollow") tag if the link submitter pays them to remove the (rel="nofollow") tag.
Google recently commented on the issue, "We think any piece of software that allows others to add links to an author's site (including guestbooks, visitor stats, or referrer lists) can use this attribute. We're working primarily with blog software makers for now because blogs are such a common target."
According to Ken Moss, the General Manger of MSN Search Dev & Test, "Any link with this tag will indicate to a crawler it is not necessarily approved by this page and shouldn’t be followed nor contribute weight for ranking...Over the coming weeks, our MSNBot crawler will start respecting this new tag, and sometime after that MSN Spaces will start to support this as well."
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Blogs and SEO
If you are wondering if Blogs help in the search engines type in "Triple Grande Caramel Mocha"
I'm #3 and #4 in google. I was after about 10 days after starting blog. If you want to start a blog email Eric Fransen and I'll teach you how to do it the right way.
Eric
I'm #3 and #4 in google. I was after about 10 days after starting blog. If you want to start a blog email Eric Fransen and I'll teach you how to do it the right way.
Eric
Two Harbors, MN
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the next big thing for small business owners. It doesn't matter if you have a website and nobody can find it. Premier Spot helps small business owners achieve top ranking in the search engines. Some of the things that we do to help two harbors, mn area businesses are:
One of the biggest things that website owners forget is that the SEO process is a marathon... not a sprint. It's takes working on the site every week and you'll slowly get to where you need to be. I currently manage the SEO of over 40 websites and I'm confident I can help your site.
A typical month of SEO would consist of:
1) Add inbound links to website (Average at least 2/week for all my sites, and
one week/month I concentrate on links for all my sites and try to get 10 links
/site.) It might not sound like much, but they really start to add up over
time. The great part about links is that once a bunch of links are out there
other sites pick them up more and more.
2) I read SEO websites and forums on a daily basis. When the search engines
tweak what they are looking for I can respond immediatley and make the
appropriate changes to each of my sites.
3) I usually re-optimize each of my sites at least once per month depending on
how they are ranking in the search engines.
4) Add appropriate doorway pages that are relevent to the websites location,
industry, etc. I don't add any pages that could be harmful to the websites
ranking.
5) Check search engine rankings in Google, MSN, and Yahoo once each week to make
sure the rankings are staying steady or improving.
6) Monitor stats on a weekly basis and run full reports once/month.
7) Provide SEO consultation services and advice to my clients.
If you are interested in speaking with Eric email eric@premierspot.biz
One of the biggest things that website owners forget is that the SEO process is a marathon... not a sprint. It's takes working on the site every week and you'll slowly get to where you need to be. I currently manage the SEO of over 40 websites and I'm confident I can help your site.
A typical month of SEO would consist of:
1) Add inbound links to website (Average at least 2/week for all my sites, and
one week/month I concentrate on links for all my sites and try to get 10 links
/site.) It might not sound like much, but they really start to add up over
time. The great part about links is that once a bunch of links are out there
other sites pick them up more and more.
2) I read SEO websites and forums on a daily basis. When the search engines
tweak what they are looking for I can respond immediatley and make the
appropriate changes to each of my sites.
3) I usually re-optimize each of my sites at least once per month depending on
how they are ranking in the search engines.
4) Add appropriate doorway pages that are relevent to the websites location,
industry, etc. I don't add any pages that could be harmful to the websites
ranking.
5) Check search engine rankings in Google, MSN, and Yahoo once each week to make
sure the rankings are staying steady or improving.
6) Monitor stats on a weekly basis and run full reports once/month.
7) Provide SEO consultation services and advice to my clients.
If you are interested in speaking with Eric email eric@premierspot.biz
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Amway and Mary Kay
I am to the point in my life where I can point and call out an amway or mary kay presenter within 5 seconds of them sitting down in a coffee shop. Right now I have a Amway (quixtar...who are you trying to fool) behind me, and a Mary Kay presentation (you'll gain so much confidence!) in front of me. I'm trying to update a website - www.playingwithyarn.com - Check it out... very nice and great search engine optimization is happening and will continue to happen over the next 6 months, and all I hear is the amway guy tell the plan without telling who they are. It's Amway!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I want to scream.... but I don't. I'm going to continue playing with yarn.
Friday, December 24, 2004
The Week is Over!
It's been a great week for the coffee shop website consultant. If you type in "triple grande caramel mocha" in google I come up number 4! Now, how can you beat that? I have the famous drink from starbucks beat.
Click http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/12/prweb187423.htm to view my first press release. It's a marketing tactic that I'll be using for all of my old and new websites. The press release is picked up my websites and news organizations throughout the world and works great to add inbound links (which Google loves).
It took mine only 2 days to have it show up on the web and be found in the search engines. Not too bad. This is a free service so if you have any questions send me an email and I'll get you all the info.
Click http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/12/prweb187423.htm to view my first press release. It's a marketing tactic that I'll be using for all of my old and new websites. The press release is picked up my websites and news organizations throughout the world and works great to add inbound links (which Google loves).
It took mine only 2 days to have it show up on the web and be found in the search engines. Not too bad. This is a free service so if you have any questions send me an email and I'll get you all the info.
Monday, December 20, 2004
Search Engine Crazyiness from Google
Google searches have been crazy all weekend and into today. Many website owners have been frusterated as their first page listings have dropped below 100 pages. Although I haven't seen any big drops I do have a lot of sites that have moved quite a bit this weeked. I'm currently checking the rankings for www.blueskiesglassworks.com and they are holding pretty steady. If you type in "minnesota glassworks" in Yahoo, Google, and MSN they are number 1! Recycled Glass Earrings and Recycled Earrings also are top 10 results in both.
How's your search engine optimization? Send me an email and I'll let you know.
How's your search engine optimization? Send me an email and I'll let you know.
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
MSNBot - Searching For Ways To Make Redmond Rise Again
Excerpts from an article written by Jim Hedger SEO Manager of StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc.
What would you do if you were tasked with designing a new search engine?
You have all the resources the world can offer and the certain knowledge that your project is so important to your employer that mountains, molehills, companies, code and really comfy office chairs will be moved, built or acquired to meet your needs, no questions asked. Your boss demands a product that is better than best and, having failed to notice how overwhelmingly essential search would become back when he came to dominate everything else, appears ready to back your project with missionary zeal and Machiavellian maneuvering. The cold hard truth is, the future of one of the largest corporations in the world, owned incidentally by the world's wealthiest man, may well rest on your shoulders. In this scenario, there are no obstacles, only the challenge of beating Google at Google's best game. Whoa....
MSN released the beta version of their long awaited proprietary search engine earlier this quarter. Beta releases are the software world's version of a dress rehearsal. Mistakes will happen, even in the best productions, and the beta stage is the place to field-test a product, finding and fixing inevitable problems before the real, commercial version of the product is introduced. MSN(beta) search has seen its share of bumps over the past few weeks including a short period when it appeared the search tool had crashed. Regardless of any minor mishaps in its first weeks, MSN(beta) Search shows very good results generated from a database of approximately 5 billion spidered websites it began compiling over a year ago. While MSN(beta) and the search tool found at MSN.Com are different search tools delivering very different sets of results, the results generated by MSN(beta) will eventually replace the Inktomi based listings shown on MSN.Com. That's when the real fun will begin. Please note, as other commentators have pointed out, this is a BETA version and likely to change in coming weeks before the undisclosed live release date.
When told to build a better mousetrap, MSN engineers set their goals fairly high and approached the problem from the most logical point possible. They seem to have looked at the best ideas everyone else has come up with and tried to incorporate them into their search tool. The results are better then expected with highly relevant site listings that have been compared to earlier versions of Google's index. That makes sense given that MSNBot the beta-search spider works very much like GoogleBot, looking for many of the same site elements including incoming links, contextual relationships between linked documents, and overall site context. MSNBot also seems to be interested in keyword-enriched titles and seems especially interested in anchor text.
This article is not going to provide a lot of details around these elements as some or even much of what is written is subject to sudden change (this is a beta version after all), and the beta version simply hasn't been around long enough to express reliable ideas in writing yet. Once you have ensured that MSN(beta)'s spider can travel from one end of your site to another, and has a way into your site from an outside reference, take a look at the following elements of your site.
MSNBot seems to really like the techniques used by SEOs at StepForth. StepForth pays a lot of attention to keyword enrichment of the basic but critical elements of a site. Assuming navigation issues have been taken care of, websites that use keyword phrases in titles, anchor text, and early in the page content are doing very well in MSN(beta)'s index. We do not know for sure what MSNBot thinks of meta tags however we recommend using the basic description and keywords meta tags along with robot exclude text when necessary. MSNBot, basically likes clean code with good, common sense SEO. In a previous article, we republished the guidelines MSN posted to the MSN(beta) search site.
MSNBot Guidelines, at a glance:
Any common sense rule that applies to SPAM on other search engines applies at MSN(beta) as well.
If you have any question feel free to email Eric at info@premierpsot.biz.
What would you do if you were tasked with designing a new search engine?
You have all the resources the world can offer and the certain knowledge that your project is so important to your employer that mountains, molehills, companies, code and really comfy office chairs will be moved, built or acquired to meet your needs, no questions asked. Your boss demands a product that is better than best and, having failed to notice how overwhelmingly essential search would become back when he came to dominate everything else, appears ready to back your project with missionary zeal and Machiavellian maneuvering. The cold hard truth is, the future of one of the largest corporations in the world, owned incidentally by the world's wealthiest man, may well rest on your shoulders. In this scenario, there are no obstacles, only the challenge of beating Google at Google's best game. Whoa....
MSN released the beta version of their long awaited proprietary search engine earlier this quarter. Beta releases are the software world's version of a dress rehearsal. Mistakes will happen, even in the best productions, and the beta stage is the place to field-test a product, finding and fixing inevitable problems before the real, commercial version of the product is introduced. MSN(beta) search has seen its share of bumps over the past few weeks including a short period when it appeared the search tool had crashed. Regardless of any minor mishaps in its first weeks, MSN(beta) Search shows very good results generated from a database of approximately 5 billion spidered websites it began compiling over a year ago. While MSN(beta) and the search tool found at MSN.Com are different search tools delivering very different sets of results, the results generated by MSN(beta) will eventually replace the Inktomi based listings shown on MSN.Com. That's when the real fun will begin. Please note, as other commentators have pointed out, this is a BETA version and likely to change in coming weeks before the undisclosed live release date.
When told to build a better mousetrap, MSN engineers set their goals fairly high and approached the problem from the most logical point possible. They seem to have looked at the best ideas everyone else has come up with and tried to incorporate them into their search tool. The results are better then expected with highly relevant site listings that have been compared to earlier versions of Google's index. That makes sense given that MSNBot the beta-search spider works very much like GoogleBot, looking for many of the same site elements including incoming links, contextual relationships between linked documents, and overall site context. MSNBot also seems to be interested in keyword-enriched titles and seems especially interested in anchor text.
This article is not going to provide a lot of details around these elements as some or even much of what is written is subject to sudden change (this is a beta version after all), and the beta version simply hasn't been around long enough to express reliable ideas in writing yet. Once you have ensured that MSN(beta)'s spider can travel from one end of your site to another, and has a way into your site from an outside reference, take a look at the following elements of your site.
MSNBot seems to really like the techniques used by SEOs at StepForth. StepForth pays a lot of attention to keyword enrichment of the basic but critical elements of a site. Assuming navigation issues have been taken care of, websites that use keyword phrases in titles, anchor text, and early in the page content are doing very well in MSN(beta)'s index. We do not know for sure what MSNBot thinks of meta tags however we recommend using the basic description and keywords meta tags along with robot exclude text when necessary. MSNBot, basically likes clean code with good, common sense SEO. In a previous article, we republished the guidelines MSN posted to the MSN(beta) search site.
MSNBot Guidelines, at a glance:
- Incoming links from other websites with keyword-enriched anchor text used to phrase the links
Easily read code that has been W3C validated
As with all search engines, best results are found when you only address one topic per page
Keep your page site reasonable, 150kb is the maximum size recommended in the MSN guidelines
Apply keyword phrases to well written sentences early in the code. Don't use techniques such as keyword stuffing or invisible text.
Use a sitemap to ensure that every page in your site is open to MSNBot.
Any common sense rule that applies to SPAM on other search engines applies at MSN(beta) as well.
If you have any question feel free to email Eric at info@premierpsot.biz.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Lake Superior Nautical Update
Lake Superior Nautical was updated today. I did some tweaking of the home page text with a lot of good nautical words and variations. As you can see they key word density is very good at this point and Lake Superior Nautical should be moving up in the search engines pretty steadily over the next few months.
It currently as a home page page rank of 4, which is average. I'd like to get the page rank at 6 within the next 6 months. I feel that would be a success. If you don't know what page rank is feel free to email eric@premierspot.biz and I'll let you know.
It currently as a home page page rank of 4, which is average. I'd like to get the page rank at 6 within the next 6 months. I feel that would be a success. If you don't know what page rank is feel free to email eric@premierspot.biz and I'll let you know.
Friday, December 03, 2004
Enjoy the Weekend
The weekend is here and it's much needed. A lot of great search engine optimization (SEO) took place this week.
Yahoo looks for keywords throughout the site to determine search engine placement so I've been changing text to make it relevent for the reader and the search engines. For example, the name "Two Harbors" is searched almost 1000 times per month, but a lot of companies are going for that "Two Harbors" key word. So I'm in the process of mixing in the "Two Harbors" key word with other relevent Two Harbors searches... like "high school" and "gift" and "lake superior", you get the picture. Anyways that's my week in a nutshell. The scarry part is I actually enjoy it. So if you are looking to get higher in the search engines send me an email and I can help.
Yahoo looks for keywords throughout the site to determine search engine placement so I've been changing text to make it relevent for the reader and the search engines. For example, the name "Two Harbors" is searched almost 1000 times per month, but a lot of companies are going for that "Two Harbors" key word. So I'm in the process of mixing in the "Two Harbors" key word with other relevent Two Harbors searches... like "high school" and "gift" and "lake superior", you get the picture. Anyways that's my week in a nutshell. The scarry part is I actually enjoy it. So if you are looking to get higher in the search engines send me an email and I can help.
Busy Day
It's a busy day at the coffee shop -- It'll be a quick day for me as I just need to make some changes to the e-commerce shopping cart for Lake Superior Nautical and add a couple of new wireless internet hotel locations for Wi-Fi Guys.
Thursday, December 02, 2004
Almost Done
I'm almost done with my days work. Some of today's highlights were setting up a couple of wireless internet login pages for one of my favorite clients, http://www.wi-figuys.com. The hotels are in Michigan and they will be providing wireless internet to their hotel guests.
I was told today that I'm the #1 customer at the 156th and Dodge Starbucks in Omaha, NE. Nobody comes more and stays longer. I'm not sure if I should be proud or apologize to my wife. I'll go for both....I'll be proud and apologize.
Some recent work was a website design job for the Voyageur Motel in Two Harbors. You can view the site at http://www.voyageur-motel.net. This site reuired website design, website consultation, and search engine optimization.
I was told today that I'm the #1 customer at the 156th and Dodge Starbucks in Omaha, NE. Nobody comes more and stays longer. I'm not sure if I should be proud or apologize to my wife. I'll go for both....I'll be proud and apologize.
Some recent work was a website design job for the Voyageur Motel in Two Harbors. You can view the site at http://www.voyageur-motel.net. This site reuired website design, website consultation, and search engine optimization.
From the Cafe
Welcome to by Blog. I'm Eric Fransen and I'm a small business owner and website consultant. I consult about website design, marketing, hosting solutions, e-commece and anything in regards to website creation. This blog is two-fold. It will be here so people can keep track of my new sites, relevant website news, and my own personal ramblings about working out of a coffee shop. Not just any coffee shop, but currently a Starbucks on 156th and Dodge in Omaha, NE. I occassionally do a little work at a sandwich shop with high-speed wireless, but at this time they will be nameless. I'm also creating this blog to drive my website higher in the search engines. So yes... this is some what financially motivated. You can send a check to....
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