What The Search Engines Say - MSN Part I

Technical recommendations for your website

Use only well-formed HTML code in your pages. Ensure that all tags are closed, and that all links function properly. If your site contains broken links, MSNBot may not be able to index your site effectively, and people may not be able to reach all of your pages.

If you move a page, set up the page's original URL to direct people to the new page, and tell them whether the move is permanent or temporary.

Make sure MSNBot is allowed to crawl your site, and is not on your list of web crawlers that are prohibited from indexing your site.

Use a robots.txt file or meta tags to control how MSNBot and other web crawlers index your site. The robots.txt file tells web crawlers which files and folders it is not allowed to crawl. The Web Robots Pages provide detailed information on the robots.txt Robots Exclusion standard.

Keep your URLs simple and static. Complicated or frequently changed URLs are difficult to use as link destinations. For example, the URL www.example.com/mypage is easier for MSNBot to crawl and for people to type than a long URL with multiple extensions. Also, a URL that doesn't change is easier for people to remember, which makes it a more likely link destination from other sites.

Content guidelines for your website

The best way to attract people to your site, and keep them coming back, is to design your pages with valuable content that your target audience is interested in.

In the visible page text, include words users might choose as search query terms to find the information on your site.

Limit all pages to a reasonable size. We recommend one topic per page. An HTML page with no pictures should be under 150 KB.

Make sure that each page is accessible by at least one static text link.

Create a site map that is fairly flat (i.e., each page is only one to three clicks away from the home page). Links embedded in menus, list boxes, and similar elements are not accessible to web crawlers unless they appear in your site map.

Keep the text that you want indexed outside of images. For example, if you want your company name or address to be indexed, make sure it is displayed on your page outside of a company logo.

Adsense Golden Rules

Google Adsense scam or not. If you are one of those who tried Google Adsense and failed or got banned when you were near your payout, it looks disappointing and even more when Google does not tell you the reason. Why did Google kick you out? Well, most of the time we never know. Once you have been kicked out, you cannot join back. So to prevent this, I listed below a very, very abbreviated version of Google Adsense T&Cs and policies. If you follow these rules you should have no problems.

* Do not encourage users to click your ads.
* Do not put ads on pages with no content, pop-up, pop-under, error page, registration or similar pages.
* Do not overlap ads with content that users cannot distinguish between.
* Do not use automated bots to increase clicks.
* Do not encourage or participate in ‘click groups’ that click each others ads.
* Make sure you don’t display more than the maximum number of ads on a page. Check with the Google Adsense rules.
* Do not create more than one Adsense account. You CAN have more than one site for a single Adsense account.
* Do not edit or modify the Adsense code ( does not include changing properties).
* Do not redirect users away from any advertisers page.
* Do not click your own ads (not even to test them).
* Do not display pornographic, hatred or any other banned content.
* Do not buy banned sites, typically MFA from others.

Enjoy!

Google.Com

What The Search Engines Say - Lycos

How do I improve the ranking of my web pages in search engines?

Although we cannot guarantee your placement within search results for particular keywords, the following tips will help you to ensure that your pages are spider friendly:

Write great content that human searchers would understand and do not try to trick the Search Engine's algorithms.

Use keywords that searchers use to find your web site in the meta-data. Use your web logs to determine the keywords. Don't guess!

Make sure your web content mentions those keywords near the top of the page. For instance, place the keywords in the headline or in the first paragraph on the page.

Repeat keywords more than once within your web page, but don't over do it. Too much repetition is considered spam.

How can I make my site spider-friendly?

• Speed: If your site is slow, it will affect the length of time it takes to spider the web site. Try to build pages with few and small graphics.
• Title: Spiders won't index the information if TITLE tags are the same on every page. (TITLE tags are displayed at the very top of the browser.)
• Descriptions: META description tags can be included for each web page. These can provide a better search result description than a spider-created excerpt.
• Registration: Spiders can't traverse a site if there is a username/password in their way. If you must have users login, set up a separate site where the spider can access the content.
• Search-based Sites: Spiders function by following hyperlinks. Purely search-based sites cannot be spidered. Therefore, create a "spider.html" file (i.e. a list of URLs on the site for the spider to traverse).

How do I improve the ranking of my web pages in search engines?

Although we cannot guarantee your placement within search results for particular keywords, the following tips will help you to ensure that your pages are spider friendly:

• Write great content that human searchers would understand and do not try to trick the Search Engine's algorithms.
• Use keywords that searchers use to find your web site in the meta-data. Use your web logs to determine the keywords. Don't guess!
• Make sure your web content mentions those keywords near the top of the page. For instance, place the keywords in the headline or in the first paragraph on the page.
• Repeat keywords more than once within your web page, but don't over do it. Too much repetition is considered Spam.

What The Search Engines Say - Yahoo!

Yahoo! strives to provide the best search experience on the Web by directing searchers to high-quality and relevant web content in response to a search query.

Pages Yahoo! Wants Included in its Index

• Original and unique content of genuine value
• Pages designed primarily for humans, with search engine considerations secondary
• Hyperlinks intended to help people find interesting, related content, when applicable
• Metadata (including title and description) that accurately describes the contents of a web page
• Good web design in general

Unfortunately, not all web pages contain information that is valuable to a user. Some pages are created deliberately to trick the search engine into offering inappropriate, redundant or poor-quality search results; this is often called "spam." Yahoo! does not want these pages in the index.

What Yahoo! Considers Unwanted

Some, but not all, examples of the more common types of pages that Yahoo! does not want include:

• Pages that harm accuracy, diversity or relevance of search results
• Pages dedicated to directing the user to another page
• Pages that have substantially the same content as other pages
• Sites with numerous, unnecessary virtual hostnames
• Pages in great quantity, automatically generated or of little value
• Pages using methods to artificially inflate search engine ranking
• The use of text that is hidden from the user
• Pages that give the search engine different content than what the end-user sees
• Excessively cross-linking sites to inflate a site's apparent popularity
• Pages built primarily for the search engines
• Misuse of competitor names
• Multiple sites offering the same content
• Pages that use excessive pop-ups, interfering with user navigation
• Pages that seem deceptive, fraudulent or provide a poor user experience

YST's Content Quality Guidelines are designed to ensure that poor-quality pages do not degrade the user experience in any way. As with Yahoo's other guidelines, Yahoo reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to take any and all action it deems appropriate to insure the quality of its index.