Search Engine Optimizers

SEO is an abbreviation for "search engine optimizer." Many SEOs provide useful services for website owners, from writing copy to giving advice on site architecture and helping to find relevant directories to which a site can be submitted. However, a few unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to unfairly manipulate search engine results.

While Google doesn't have relationships with any SEOs and doesn't offer recommendations, we 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.

1. What Is Link Popularity?

Link popularity is the number of incoming links that you have to your site from other sites. These links can be from directories, articles, or web sites. The more links you have pointing to your site, the better.

The number and quality of links that you have pointing to your site are a factor that many search engines consider when determining the rank or your site and individual pages of your site. Also, the more incoming links you have, the greater the traffic to your site.

On a recent search engine conference, Tim Mayer from Yahoo, Matt Cutts from Google and Kaushal Kurapti from Ask Jeeves revealed information on how these three search engines analyze links to determine the ranking of web pages in a public discussion.

What did these insiders say about linking?

Basically, the old linking principle still applies: if page a links to page b then it is a recommendation from page a to page b. The more links point to your web site, the better your rankings.

The Ask Jeeves representative pointed out that text links can be understood by search engines but not image links. He also pointed out that you should avoid link farms, cloaked pages and invisible or hidden links. It seems that ethical search engine optimization is still important.

The Yahoo representative said that links had been very popular and that the link popularity on Yahoo would be moving to the social community aspect (without revealing further information). He also said that the links to your web site should look natural.

Google's representative agreed with Ask Jeeves' statements. In addition, he suggested to add one new page of content everyday and that the links to your web site should not all have the same text. He also confirmed that Google only returns a few of the backlinks they have in their index.

Since Search Engine Optimisation seems like a rocket science to most people including some SEO experts who i met last month, we decided to make it easier to understand this alien speak to our clients and associates. It's a handy guide to the most commonly used terms and are pretty simple to comprehend. And since the way Search Engines are ruling the roost, we suggest that you browse these terms if you are looking towards getting famous on the Internet.

The A-Z glossary of search engine optimization terms and definitions.