I am doing some spring-cleaning on my non published posts here is an article that I wrote weeks ago but never got around to publishing. So here it is. Wipe your hands on your pants if you need to.
Google is a really weird beast. If your site doesn't show up on Google it might as well not even exist on the web. In advertantly I have gotten some of the top listing for certain search phrases without really trying but there are some things that do help search engine placement. I probably get about 25% of my referrals links from some form of Google.
So here are my tips:
1. Having static non JavaScript links so the Google Bot can start on your main index page and search your entire site by following real html links with out having to trigger a JavaScript or send variables to a sever side script. On my site I have an entry archived in a category page that is linked to each perminante individual archived page. Also Google bot ignores links in Java and Flash. So Flash menus on an HTML page can really screw up Google bot unless you have a traditional HTML link to it somewhere on the page.
2. Alt Tags on your images really help in marking the content of your images. I have gotten some search engine hits just form my alt tags. And the existence of alt tags helps to reinforce the subject of your page to the Google Bot.
3. Don't change your urls. I had a corrupt database and had to rebuild all my archives from a back up and it restructured the numbers and urls of my entries. So Google will find some of the old urls and send searches to the wrong places on my site. I don't know of a way to fix this but I hope that it will correct it self in time and also all the content that I have added since my Database disaster is indexed properly. On one post that was linked to by a radio talk show I had to put and update notice at the top of the new page so that people being linked to the old URL will find what they are looking for. I had one topic on my site mentioned on national radio months ago and I still get posts and comments about it.
4. Mention the topic of the entry in the Title of the page. This really helps Google find things and it also helps people who bookmark an article
5. Having text in Images such as a slogan or a logo head without having an alt tag with a good description of the content will really hide the content from the Google bot.
6. Make your pages accessible to Text only browsers. It is a bit weird but the same things that you need to do to help text only browsers such as putting your content first really helps the search engine bot. Also including a doc Type and validating your XHTML or HTML couldn't hurt either.
7. Avoid mixing non-related articles on a page. I used to have this monthly archive page that had multiple articles on the same page and it really messed up the search engine by having the search engine peace together words and phrases from non-related subjects.
8. Key words in your Meta tags are pretty much worthless. Google ignores them and I have never gotten a hit from things that I have mentioned in the Meta tags.
9. Sometimes it takes Google about a week to find new content and update their databases so don't expect instant search results after you post something.
Here are some of the phrases that my site is at the top results for.
Dr Phil has no penis
Dr Phil has no wang
Costco hot dogs
Target hot dogs
Slurp and gulp bong
Redhat Linux 8 review
Tony Hawk 3 soundtrack
Tony Hawk 3 Music
Secret Plot
Geams
Joystick
about the joystick
Jake Metcalf
Buzz Aldrin Punch
Sexy Bitch
Starbucks Logo
sharon osborne cancer
maruchan
maruchan ramen
love icons
You have stuff you don't publish? What's the point of typing it out, then? *shrug*
Well I have stuff that I don't publish because I am not done with it. I will start a post but keep it in reserve because it is only a URL or a rought idea. I was waiting to spell check this one but I got distracted so it slipped between the cushions of my couch just like my remote control
You were most correct - since I converted all my archive links from the drop down menu Google now indexes all of them...
Jake, You spell check? hehehehe.. just teasing ;o)
With Movable Type you can save your posts by the title. I had the same problem, so I changed the archive format so that it stores it as /archive/yy-mm-dd/entry_title.shtml How to do it is in the Movable Type manual.
Also with 2.5 of movable type you can add meta tags as part of the new entry form. I've set my site up so the meta keywords tag has some static values and then fills in the rest from the keywords. And I seem to have a lot better luck with meta keywords then you do, almost every time an archived post is refered to by google, it's exactly what's in the keywords.
yeah Jamison but that would break rule number 3 don't change your URLs. If I changed my naming scheme ever link to specific posts would be broken. The sad thing is one you start a naming method it is almost impossible to change it.
Jamison what is the MT code to do the Keywords thingie? I don't see it in the default MT templates.
It also helps that 8bitjoystick is one of the finest blogs on the net. You consistantly put in the time and effort to write original copy on interesting topics. You use a great vocabulary too, which I think helps, Im sure lots of ppl have you tucked away as a link on their site, the big google factor...
Actually, I just wrote to google, they dropped our site lobot.net from their database.. I guess I used to play around with google hits too, and was quite proud of being #1 for "usa army" "give me head", then, whoosh, lobot.net is gone from the google database.. sorry, I know Im just being paranoid.
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