The Truth About Search Engines

There is a huge new industry of "Search Engine Experts"…. most of them are not. Most of them took a two week course and now they know everything.

Two important things you need to know….

1. Just because you got to "page 1" with certain key words does not mean that folks will contact you from that listing. They may click on your website, but that does not mean they will call or email you. These SEO "experts" get you focusing on your position in the search engines, and they won't talk about Return on Investment.

2. You can do everything yourself. Easily. And they don't want you to know that.

Some search engine experts are legitimate and if you truly understand what you are getting, they may provide a service you should consider using.

How to do-it-yourself

Meta Tags

These are the "hidden" words that help the search engines "index" or list your website properly. They are simply a few lines of text the your web designer can "copy-paste" into your website. Here is a link that does a nice job of explaining this for beginners. You can actually view meta tags on any website by right-mouse clicking on an empty spot of the website and choosing "View Source" (if you use Internet Explorer), or "View Page Source" (if using FireFox).

You can simply type up the meta tags you want and send them to your web hosting person, and they can easily add them to your site. Here's an example of meta tags from a top-ranked insurance website in Dallas, Texas (just google "sr22 dallas"):

<title>SR-22 Specialists for Dallas-Ft Worth Metroplex</title>

<META NAME="description" CONTENT="SR22 Insurance Agency">

<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="SR22, SR-22, SR 22, mexican travel insurance, auto insurance, life insurance, home insurance, annuities, renters insurance, business insurance, condo insurance, townhome insurance, townhouse insurance, condominium insurance, workers comp, work comp insurance, umbrella insurance, restaurant insurance, individual health insurance, group health insurance, short term medical insurance, flood insurance, medigap insurance, medicare supplement insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance, boat insurance, atv insurance, motorcycle insurance">

Google AdWords  Do-It-Yourself,  Pay-per-click

Yahoo Sponsored Search  Do-It-Yourself,  Pay-per-click

Yahoo Staff Helps: $199 setup

"NEW YORK - Comcast Corp. actively interferes with attempts by some of its high-speed Internet subscribers to share files online, a move that runs counter to the tradition of treating all types of Net traffic equally"

"Starting Wednesday, the popular video-sharing site plans to feature semitransparent "overlay" ads at the bottom of selected video clips." Fox News

But read the article in full and you will see that 1) they ain't makin' no money the way things are (15 million last year) and 2) advertisers will be "larger" (cost will be per view, not per click) and 3) video producers like me can "opt-out" and finally 4) if I "opt-in I can make some money and still decline selected ads (like competitor ads) 

Google… you guys have done it again - you rock.

Short answer… there is no privacy on the Internet. That's why businesses like the following website flourish (the privacy freaks love this): www.megaproxy.com

Long answer (btw, people who care already know all this):

The "website" doesn't do or collect anything by itself. It's just code that displays pages. However, here are some things to know…

IP addresses: every "server" that hosts a website, like mine, *does* read the IP address of everyone accessing it and keeps that information in log files. The IP address can be "drilled down" to identify the ISP (Internet Service Provider, the company that provides Internet access to that user). Beyond that, it takes a court order (I'm pretty sure) to identify a specific user from that. One advantage a server has in reading these IP addresses is to protect against malicious attack on the server by being able to "block" specific IPs from accessing the server.

If you've ever watched "Law and Order" you know from that TV show the privacy limits…. Jack McCoy is always trying to get a warrant to serve on the ISP to find out who belongs to a specific IP.

So in short, regarding IPs, *you* cannot ever find out the name of the person who visits your site just from their IP address. Only Jack McCoy can do that.

Cookies "good": technically, all a cookie is is any file that is placed on someone's computer when they visit a website. The *good* reason that this is done is to speed up load time of a page that you've been to before. (This is loosely referred to as "caching." These would be (for instance) many of the smaller photos that are on a web page… they actually will often load into the users computer. The website and website designer do not make this happen… it's a function of the browser.

Cookies "bad": these are all the small coded text files that a website (ie a web designer) specifically puts on a user's computer when they visit the website that serves only one purpose, and that's to gather information. This type of cookie breaks into 3 categories:

1) Tracking: *not so bad* (see http://www.google.com/analytics/)… these are small files placed on a visitors computer that help the website owner see the navigation history of that visitor as they go through the website.

2) Adware: *evil* these cookies track your entire Internet browsing habits and report it back to advertisers, who then specifically target your computer with ads that correspond to your likes/dislikes.

3) Spyware/Malware: *really evil* cookies that capture your private data, such as passwords, keystrokes, etc. Trojan Horses, Worms and such like. Then of course good ol' fashioned Viruses. Most (virtually all) of these can only get into your computer if you run a program (executable *.exe) from an email or website. That's why you run AntiVirus programs- they should protect you from these. Though the technical lines seem to be getting blurred between what AntiVirus software protects you from and what you need another layer of protection for, such as http://www.lavasoftusa.com/

Fun huh? You should always run AnitVirus software (Norton/McAfee, etc) as well as LavaSoft's AdAware, and also frequently clear the "cache" from your computer. And of course, never ever click on any link in an email, unless you know for certain the sender (like if I told you I'm sending you a link). These simple steps are just computer safety 101 stuff.

Google searches web's dark side
From the BBC online

One in 10 web pages scrutinised by search giant Google contained malicious code that could infect a user's PC.

Researchers from the firm surveyed billions of sites, subjecting 4.5 million pages to "in-depth analysis".

About 450,000 were capable of launching so-called "drive-by downloads", sites that install malicious code, such as spyware, without a user's knowledge.

A further 700,000 pages were thought to contain code that could compromise a user's computer, the team report.  read more

Manipulation of Links
It didn't take long for people who wanted to rank well for certain terms to figure out that they needed a lot of links with their chosen keyword phrases to improve their rankings in the search engines. Many schemes were born, including mini-sites, site networks, link farms, and reciprocal linking.

Reciprocal Linking
At the most basic level, reciprocal links are links you trade with other sites (you add their link, they add yours) in order to build link popularity. There are online services, group exchanges, and software available to help you link up with more like-minded webmasters, fast. As a result, many sites have grown sizeable directories on topics that have nothing to do with their area of expertise, simply because those other sites were willing to trade links with them. Does this work? At the moment, it does seem to work. The engines (except for Teoma, which analyzes link communities) tend to count a link as a link, regardless of the subject matter of the originating site. 

Will it continue to work? Who knows? As the engines look for more ways to determine which sites are truly expert and which ones are simply manipulating their way to the top, link relevance is sure to come into play. Some say it's already starting to affect rankings.

Mutual Linking
I like to separate mutual linking from reciprocal linking. Mutual linking is where the content of each site actually benefits each other's sites. If you sell shoes, you may want to recommend other sites for replacement shoelaces and still other sites for shoe cleaning supplies. You may even maintain a directory of regional shoe repair service shops. This is useful information for your visitors, who are likely to need these services as well. It makes sense for these sites to also recommend your shoes and link to your site. While it's technically still a reciprocal link, it has a mutual benefit for both sites. 

While you can make a case that visitors to your shoe site might actually need weight loss formulas, like to gamble, or are concerned about the size of certain body parts, it really isn't likely that links to these sites will be clicked and followed by your visitors…they only make your site look unprofessional. The links you trade with these sites may or may not actually be helping you in the engines, but they're definitely not helping you to make more sales.

So. What Will Happen if I Do Reciprocal Linking?
While no one knows for sure what the future of link relationships will be with each search engine, I tend to think that as soon as they can figure out how to do it most effectively, off-topic links simply won't count anymore. If you pin ALL your link popularity on trading links with whoever will trade with you, you could find yourself starting over from scratch at some point. If you are looking to build long-term rankings (and real business links that can attract customers), it takes more work and creativity than just sending out automated emails or joining a linking program. 

Give your site an advantage by giving people a reason to link to it — a helpful tool, a guide, an industry-specific directory, or some other useful content that people will feel good about recommending on their site. If your site is worth linking to, you won't have to rely as much on swapping links as a promotion strategy. Read more

Courtesy, Right Click Web Services Scottie Claiborne is the owner of Right Click Web Services, a firm specializing in usability, search engine optimization, and internet marketing. Copyright © 2003 by Right Click Web Services. All rights reserved under U.S. and international law.

Internet Explorer
Most of you are still running version 6. Good for you. I upgraded one of my machines to IE 7 and I'm still trying to get past the shock and annoyance. Bill Gates has done it again. He built in so much "protection" that I can't work. If you have enjoyed the "PC / Mac" TV commercials (as I have) you will know what I mean - the latest is the one with poor ol' PC struggling to talk to anyone because of the big scary bodyguard that is "protecting" him.
Enough said.

Mozilla Firefox
Currently Firefox has about 8% of the browser audience- and it's growing fast. That's because they invented the "tabs" that IE 7 copies, and still outperforms IE in simplicity of use and security. (My editorial opinion). Firefox will render pages more accurately to the designer's intentions- it "respects code." Installation is easy. Download Firefox
Kim Komando has an excellent short article on how to make the change. read it

Which one should I use?
My advice- set Firefox as your default browser, and use it for day-to-day browsing. Keep a shortcut to IE, for those sites that still require IE to view properly. Why do some sites require IE? Simple. Since web designers know that most viewers are using IE, sometimes we have to make a coding choice. In other words, sometimes we just can't get the same look and functionality to work in both browsers. So we choose IE for optimal viewing, knowing that the majority will be using IE. But with more converts, those days may become history. We can hope.