HAVE YOU DANCED WITH GOOGLE LATELY?


(This article will help you place a web site with Google)

Google is indisputably the #1 search engine, boasting a higher market share than Yahoo, AOL, MSN, Looksmart family and 4000 other search engines. However, Google does not own the largest index of spidered data. Google does however power other search engines through partnering agreements. By example, Google has for some time provided Yahoo’s web search results (not to be confused with Yahoo’s directory results). More recently, the two companies signed a partnership agreement and Google currently shares its index results with Yahoo. Yahoo has since purchased Inktomi, which happens to have the second largest index of information on the worldwide web. Just recently, Yahoo also purchased Overture, which is the largest keyword bidding search engine amongst its 50 or so bidding engine competitors. Now that Yahoo has its guns reloaded, look for the Google/Yahoo relationship to turn adversarial when the partnership agreement ends - update it has ended. Google also draws results from DMOZ directory although it consistently places these search results below its top choices from its own search algorithms.

So enough of the background. How does Google work and why is placement on Google so frustrating for some?

Google is focussed on speed and efficiency. In addition to crawling and indexing your title tag and body text of your site, Google weights a large portion of its algorithm to establishing a theme from the links that are pointing at your site. This is commonly referred to as their "page rank" system although there are other elements to the patented “page rank” formula beyond the links pointing at your site. Google explains it as follows: "Page rank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page value. In essence, Google interprets a link from Page A to Page B as a vote, by Page A for Page B…yada, yada…it also analyzes the page that casts the vote." (This means it is crawling back to the links that point at your site and also the links of those sites too!). Google is trying to establish how strong your site theme carries through on the links that point at you or whether the site should be de-ranked for irrelevant links or purchased "link farm" services. To do well on Google (and therefore Yahoo, AOL Netscape partners) you need links that share relevance to your site that point at your site. You can achieve this by exchanging links with like-minded sites (but not your resort competitors) or by registering with service directory sites such as the Resorts Ontario site that happens to carry a very high quality theme, which, in turn, would improve the ranking of your own site.

How many themed links do I need to place well? This depends on the site quality, body text, title tag and the volume of the sites pointing at your site. Generally 10 strong themed links are ok - 30 are better - 100 is lots – 200 and you are putting in more effort than necessary.

YIKES – WHAT HAPPENED TO MY SITE!

Once you are listed with Google, you should be aware that Google re-indexes and reorganizes its listings 10 times per year. Google has over 10,000 Linux servers humming away that share data and during this sort (which takes two or three days) sites get added, sites get dropped, site placement changes and new algorithm factors are factored in. This bewitching time is referred to as the “google dance”. Some of the placement changes are temporary and some are permanent. Basically, all hell breaks loose. Site owners are known to flip out when their hard earned placement tanks and SEO consultants anxiously wait for the dance to end to see if the news is good or bad and begin to make adjustments in preparation for the next go round.

In summary, once the fundamentals of your site optimization are in place work on developing a themed link strategy for your site. You can do this yourself or you can hire a knowledgeable professional (like First Page SEO) to do this for you. In the accommodation industry, it is not uncommon for 80% of resort business to come off the web. And of that web-based business about the same percentage can be attributed to keyword search engine queries. It is clear that where your site places in a search directly translates into bookings and sales for your resort.

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