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Insider tips for your Google ranking
"GoogleGuy" is the nickname of a Google employee
who is very helpful in responding to questions of webmasters
in the forums at WebmasterWorld.com.
During the last few weeks, GoogleGuy revealed some previously
unknown tips and information that may help you to improve
the ranking of your web site on Google (and possibly other
search engines as well).
About getting indexed on Google
- GoogleGuy says that new web sites take time to rank well
in Google and other search engines. He also says that most
newer sites take time to build up PageRank.
- If you have your domain hosted on a shared server that
also provides other domains, there was always the fear that
your domain could be penalized when a domain on the same
server was penalized. Now GoogleGuy said that Google was
smart enough to recognize virtual hosting.
- Contrary to popular belief, Google does not penalize web
sites that use pop-up ads.
- GoogleGuy clarifies that participating in Google's AdSense
program does not get your web site indexed more quickly.
- He says that Google doesn't start indexing web sites in
alphabetical order.
- Rumors had it that Google could not index more than 2
billion web pages but GoogleGuy negated it.
About URLs on Google
- GoogleGuy recommends avoiding URLs on your web site that
contain an "id" parameter because "id="
usually marks a session ID. For example, if your web site
has page URLs like "www.your-domain.com/index.php?id=xyz",
then you should rename the "id" parameter to something
else.
- He finally clarified the everlasting question whether
file names should be separated by underscores ("_")
or hyphens ("-"). Now we know that Google does
not treat underscores as word separators.
- Top level domains, for example .com, .net, .org, etc.,
are not a factor in Google rankings.
Other noteworthy facts about Google
- GoogleGuy says that it's likely that Google can detect
hidden text, for example "a white text link in a white
table, where the page background is blue".
- If a search result on Google shows only the URL, and the
site description is missing, then it could be that the web
site was down when Google tried to index it.
Sources:
Mark Carey's web
site collects quotes of GoogleGuy. The ultimate source
is the webmaster forum "http://www.webmasterworld.com"
but a subscription is required to read all postings.
This Search Engine Facts newsletter is free and will keep
you informed about the latest trends in search engine ranking.
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