Google Search

Google is a search engine that makes significant use of link popularity as a primary way to rank web pages. This can be especially helpful in finding good sites in response to general searches such as cars and travel, because users across the web have in essence voted for good sites by linking to them. The system works so well that Google has gained wide-spread praise for its high relevancy.

For more information on the way Google uses link popularity and relevancy for web page ranking and placement go to PageRank Information.

Google also has an enormous index of about 6 billion different web pages, and provides organic search results to AOL, Netscape and TerraLycos.

Google Adwords

Google's Adwords results are also used by AOL, TerraLycos, and Netscape, as well as Teoma, AskJeeves, and HotBot, which also uses Google's directory results.

Google Directory Service

Google not only maintains its own spider-based index, it has a directory service powered by DMOZ that is ranked according to Google's link popularity technology.

If you want to be listed in Google's directory service, you have to submit your site to Open Directory Project.

Google Search Engine Submission

Although you can submit your web site to Google by going to their submit to Google page, if you have back links from web pages already indexed by Google you will be found. It is often not necessary to submit your site if you have links pointing to it, as in most cases, Google spiders will index it automatically.

It may take up to several weeks for Google to index your site after submission and your website might not get indexed at all if it has no backlinks.

So, expect it to take about 3 to 6 weeks from the time of submission to get listed in the Google index, and expect subsequent indexing once every 3 to 6 weeks as well; although index pages already in the Google index are visited more often.

If you add new and unique content on a regualar basis you may find the Google spider visiting your index page as often as every few days!

Google Search Engine Ranking and Placement

Only visible text on your web page gets viewed, the meta description and keywords meta tags have little influence on Google's rankings and web page positioning and remember, Google is vigilant in its efforts to eliminate spam.

Google spiders the web putting strong emphasis on content and link popularity:

• The number and quality of relevant links pointing to your site (popularity).
• The text in and around the anchor text that link back to your website (determines the relevance of page content).
• Who you link your website to.

Google takes into consideration many on and off page factors when deciding web page rankings, including (but not limited to) PageRank (link popularity), on page content, page titles, meta descriptions, alt and title attributes, and anchor text.

Although, it can be said that some are more important than others, each element of optimization has a weight and value that Google calculates to appropriately rank the site.

The key is to avoid spam and create topically themed, relevant, user friendly pages.

Besides spam, Google doesn't like...

• Hidden or inconspicuous links
• Hidden text in divs, layers, iframes, css
• Automatic positioning tools
• Sneaky redirects or cloaking (whether user agent/ip-based or redirects through javascript, meta refreshes, 301/302's, or 100% frames)

These search engine optimization techniques are considered “unethical” as they try to deceive the search engine into higher ranking placement in the SERPs.

Right From the Horses Mouth...

Craig Neville-Manning, Senior Research Scientist at Google, had some great advice for webmasters.

The Google algorithm values text and links that visitors can see, more highly than anything they can't see. This means focusing your efforts more specifically on the things that can improve the visitors experience when navigating your web site can help with your search engine ranking and placement ... particularly explicit, helpful, and keyword-focused links, and copy that informs your visitors.

Google bot follows the robots.txt file to the letter, and for those of you concerned that the Google bot uses too much bandwidth ... stop worrying. Google bot can detect when your server is slowing down and it will back off.

If you have content you don't want the bot to find be sure to put the robots.txt file up to keep it out.

Google bot can find content that's unlinked. That's right, the Google bot can find single pages dangling unlinked in space.

Google does index words from the url, but they don't have as much weight as text links, and you should not engineer your links for the algorithm - it's better to have your url meaningful to your visitors than use it to affect your ranking.

Tim Mayer, of Yahoo seconded this. He said focusing too much on url engineering can get you into the realm of over-optimization. "As a user," said Tim, "if I see a domain with lots of hyphens it's usually a low quality site." He advised that you not push your filenames too hard, and that you have intuitive directory structures.

The Google Dance

Google's regular updates, or “Google Dance” as our SEO company calls it, used to occur once every three to four weeks. Google has recently indicated that they are now updating sites on a continuous basis. This will eliminate the former “Google Dance Shake Up” and increase the level of up-to-date cached pages within their index.

Google Ranking and Placment Tips

• Write your page with the end user in mind first and Google second.
• Take the time to write a good title tag for your page that makes sense and incorporates relevant keywords and appropriate densities.
• Have numerous relevant and qualitative backlinks pointing to your site.
• Have quality content that is updated often and add new unique content pages often.
• Have your site finished and optimized before submittal.
  

For more information on search engine ranking and position go to our Search Engine Optimization and Website Promotion Tutorials and Search Engine Industry related Articles.

Learn more about Why you need Search Engine Positioning and Website Optimization to truly suceed online.

Google Facts and Fiction ... dispelling the myths and Google and search engine rankings.

Webmaster Guidelines ... following these guidelines will help Google find, index, and rank your site, which is the best way to ensure you'll be included in Google's results. Even if you choose not to implement any of these suggestions, we strongly encourage you to pay very close attention to the "Quality Guidelines," which outline some of the illicit practices that may lead to a site being removed entirely from the Google index. Once a site has been removed, it will no longer show up in results on Google.com or on any of Google's partner sites.

SEO Search Engine Positioning and Ranking Information for Search Engine Optimizers ... while Google does not have relationships with any SEO optimizers and does not offer recommendations, they do have a few tips that may help you distinguish between an SEO that will improve your site and one that will only improve your chances of being dropped from search engine results altogether.

Learn more about How Google Ranks a Webpage... Google's order of results is automatically determined by more than 100 factors, including the PageRank algorithm. Check out Google's Technology Overview page for more details.

If you want to know about submission policy, spam restrictions, or other submission information… go to Google.com

Other Google Links

Search engine site loyalty and the search toolbar: A recent Internet search site survey performed by iProspect shows that today’s web users are in fact loyal to the search engine of their choice.

Which search toolbar to use? Research shows Google, Yahoo and MSN are close in the search engine toolbar wars. But which search toolbar you use really depends upon which search site you use on a regular basis.

Google Deskbar ... Google has done it again. It has come up with another new, interesting, simple and useful innovation and made its competitors look lazy and sloppy.

Go to the this link to download the Google Deskbar.

Google's mission is to make the world's information universally accessible and useful. As a first step to fulfilling that mission, Google's founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed a new approach to online search that took root in a Stanford University dorm room and quickly spread to information seekers around the globe. Google is now widely recognized as the world's largest search engine ... an easy-to-use free service that usually returns relevant results in a fraction of a second.

FAQ about Google, Googlebot is Google's web-crawling robot. It collects documents from the web to build a searchable index for the Google search engine. On their page, you'll find answers to the most commonly asked questions about how their web crawler works.

FAQ about web robots, frequently asked questions about web robots.

Google's PPC and AdWords Overview: After completing Beta testing which started in January, Google entered the PPC search engine market with their unique AdWords Select service on February 20th, 2002.