SEO UPDATES

Search Engine Optimization is a tricky business. You really have to stay on top of it; everything that applied last month (or even last week) may have have considerably less value today. For example, submitting to search systems. That SEO for Dummies book you have on your desk may have been written well over a year ago, and by now half of the material within is probably outdated.

In fact, I’m currently reading an SEO book that even admits the potential discrepancies between the information presented on its printed pages and the more timely information presented on a websites such as SEO Updates. The book declares that some search systems–such as MSN Search, which is not as widely used as Google or Yahoo!–will probably have become major players by the time of the book’s publishing. (This turned out to be true, as MSN Search has since become one of the top search systems.)

The key is to keep digging up the most current information and watching those websites and blogs which update regularly. A very recently-published book will give you a good enough idea of what to expect if you’re just starting to learn SEO techniques, but stay away from the two or three-year-old tomes, as the information presented within will be about as relevant to your needs as the 1999 price of RAM to a current computer shopper. If you’re really serious about keeping up with SEO, also subscribe to sites that offer an RSS feed so that updated information will be delivered right to your desktop just as you’re busily updating that website you want to build traffic for.

Here are a few guidelines suggested by MSN to help you out. First and foremost, MSN readily admits that MSNbot will actively be using Meta tags for part of its web site analysis. Yes, meta tags are still relevant pieces of code (despite all the nay sayers out there), and with this new Bot they seem to play a very important role within the indexing algorithm. Similar to other search engines, the ‘title tag’ again appears to be the most heavily weighted within the algorithm, followed closely by the Meta Description Tag and if you read between the lines, it is suggested that your best ‘keywords’ should be included in both places. MSN does not come straight out and say that the “keywords meta tag” will be utilized, but by reading between the guidelines it strongly suggests the keywords in all areas (title, description and keyword tag and content) should adhere to each other.

Content of course is still king when it comes to MSNbot’s ability to put the entire puzzle together. Apparently, at this stage, the Bot does not read text within a graphic, so if you have important keywords contained within a graphic (especially on your main page), they strongly suggest you move those keywords into plain old text format. And here’s a tip; the closer to the top of the page, the better.

MSN Search calls for pages to be under 150K in size, suggesting the Bot will either simply stop reading after this point or in a worse case scenario, may measure/weigh the page size before reading and simply skip the page all together. This point is not made entirely clear, but it should be of enough concern to have every SEO firm scampering to measure their clients web site’s index pages, just in case. In actuality, a page size of 150k could contain a lot of relevant text content, but add a few fancy graphics in there and the total can add up quickly.

An interesting point within the guidelines suggests that words (even keywords) within headers, footers and tables will not be read. Again, simple text is the rule of thumb. This may cause some web sites to need a complete redesign. Graphics with long or non-content supported ALT tags will also be dismissed. This is very similar to the rules from other major search engines, as it provides somewhat of a safeguard against sites that stuff keywords in an attempt to fool or “spam” the engines into thinking they are something they are not. Redirects will not be read either.

Linking, as per usual, will be an important part of MSNBot’s equation. They offer two suggestions as to which links will be deemed the most important: links from the main page and links no more than three levels deep. This means all hyperlinks on your site should be accessible within three clicks or less from each other for maximum effectiveness. Very interesting. Larger web sites may have a problem adhering to this rule, but it should be kept in mind that the MSNBot is still feeling its way through the web. A three deep scenario is probably the beginning of the parameter. It will surely offer a deeper crawl as it becomes more sophisticated.

Read More

SEO Updates is a new weblog devoted to the sometimes bizarre, sometimes insanely profitable, and other times just a bit too shady, world of Search Engine Optimization.

SEO Updates is yet another fine creation of Niner Niner.

Niner Niner is a collaborative media company that pays you, yes you, to blog about your favorite topics!

If you’re an SEO maven and would like to write for SEO Updates, head on over to Niner Niner and sign up today!