~~~High Rankings Advisor – Issue No. 238~~~
Your Host: Jill Whalen [jill@highrankings.com]
________________________________________________________
~~~IN TODAY'S ADVISOR~~~
*Introductory Comments:
----> SEO Q&A Email Bonanza
*This Week's Sponsor:
----> SMX East in NYC October 6–8
*Search Engine Marketing:
----> Can Google Follow Non-www Links?
----> Blog on Different IP
----> Getting Search Engines to Re-crawl
----> Top Search Engine Ranking Software
*High Rankings Offers
----> SEO Training Class Customized for You!
----> Search Marketing Training Videos
*Stuff You Might Like:
----> Recent Interviews
*Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week:
----> Will Google Suggest Changes in the Way You Optimize?
----> Important Hub Pages in Supplemental / Not Ranking
*Advisor Wrap-up:
----> Conferences, Classes and Computer Games
________________________________________________________
~~~Introductory Comments~~~
Hey everyone! It's time once again for an SEO Q&A email bonanza issue of the HRA. For those who are new here, the email bonanza issues are basically me digging up some of the SEO questions I've received during the past few weeks and posting them with my answers.
Enjoy! – Jill
~~~Search Engine Marketing Issues~~~
++Can Google Follow Non-www Links?++
Dear Jill,
To begin, I love your website. Very informative. On to my question. I am creating a site map for my website and have run into a problem.
For purposes of discussion, let's say my main URL is www.example.com. I have a plethora of links in my site for indexing purposes between pages. The page links all go to their respective pages properly, but are linked to example.com (without the www part).
So, long story short, a person can follow these links without a problem and get to the page they clicked on, but can Google follow these links?
I am unsure as www.example.com and example.com might be considered different URLs.
Looking forward to your thoughts.
Levi
++Jill's Response++
Hi Levi,
Google can and does follow both www links and non-www links in your website. They used to often see them as distinct URLs, and would often index both versions, which is not good.
That said, for the past 6 to 9 months or so, Google seemed to have figured out that the www version and the non-www version of URLs are the same pages on most websites.
While I haven't seen others online mention this much, I noticed this when every website I reviewed in this past year has not had a problem with Google seeing the www and the non-www as different. This is indeed a big switch from past years when it seemed to be a problem.
To be sure that Google (and the other search engines) index only one version of your URLs, you can have your server people redirect the non-www version to the www version. That's still good practice, regardless of how Google currently sees things.
I wrote about this previously here as well:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-O446PSlBGZyno%403574124-8Bap.UPw.jypQ
Hope this helps!
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-6QL/Y4ZjA4ADg%403574125-kTzzqFxk7A.vk
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__________________________________________________
++Blog on Different IP++
Hi Jill,
I'm wondering if there is more link value provided by a new blog if it is hosted on an IP with a different C block than the IP address of the web site itself. The owner of the business would be writing the blog and sharing business expertise with the idea of building the brand of the business.
Also, in this case, the domain name could be different and include keywords.
Thanks,
Gaya
++Jill's Response++
Hi Gaya,
The whole "IP on a different C block" thing is a red herring. There's no reason to worry about different C blocks unless you are attempting to trick the search engines into thinking that the blog was somehow unrelated to the website (which I don't recommend doing).
Most companies create their blog as part of their main website because it's easier for most to remember that way – e.g., www.example.com/blog. You could also make it a subdomain – e.g., blog.example.com. Either way is fine for the search engines and your users.
Hope this helps!
Best,
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-DH8p90YDsF6uk%403574127-jgSTgF73BqvRc
______________High Rankings SEO Training____________________
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______________________________________________________
++Getting Search Engines to Re-crawl++
Jill,
I recently set up a new site, which isn't something I often do, and forgot to set up the meta title and description. Now what is called up on Google for my site is HOME and a sentence from mid-page. Now that I have fixed the Web problem, how do I get the search engines to do another crawl of the site?
Sincerely,
Dorothy
++Jill's Response++
Hi Dorothy,
First, because I'm a stickler for always trying to use the proper SEO vocabulary, you should know that there's no such thing as a "meta title." I believe you are talking about the "title tag."
It's not that big of a deal that you didn't have your Titles customized when you first went live. While you can't force the search engines to re-crawl your website, they do it fairly frequently these days, depending on the overall popularity of your website.
So basically, don't worry about it – they'll crawl in their own time. Most likely, they already have!
Best,
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-sCzLjZcq7..Lc%403574129-kI7w7Z8BGVoCs
++Top Search Engine Ranking Software++
Hi Jill,
I'm about to renew our contract with our search engine ranking optimization software, but thought I'd check out other options before committing. What do you folks use?
I've done a bunch of research and asking around, and besides a few recognized applications, the one we use seems to be the tool to use to see how well we improve search engine rankings for our clients.
Thanks for your input!
Best regards,
Melinda
++Jill's Response++
Hi Melinda,
We actually haven't checked search engine rankings for clients in years, besides a few manual spot checks. Search engine rankings are simply not a metric that makes sense anymore.
Please see my article "5 Reasons Why Search Engine Rankings Are a Poor Measurement for Success" for more info:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-KUwWboMLV2UZo%403574130-6eNV99tpQfkKo
Along these lines, recently Google has made an effort to stop allowing automated queries by many of the search engine ranking optimization software programs.
Rank-checking programs use up a lot of Google's bandwidth, so it's not surprising they don't want people to use them. You used to be able to get a Google API key and use the programs with Google's blessing that way, but for some reason Google is no longer giving out API keys, which is unfortunate. If you have an old key, it will work, however. If, after reading the article mentioned above, you still want to check your search engine rankings, be sure to do it only via Google's API database.
Hope this helps!
Best,
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-CKdrmeHw3nd8k%403574131-M87/hFK5NzNug
(P.S. If anyone would like to republish any of the above Q&A posts, please email me your request and I'll send you a short bio you can use with it for your site.)
______________________High Rankings______________________
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_______________________________________________________
~~~Stuff You Might Like~~~
++Recent Interviews++
I had the pleasure of being interviewed recently by a number of online marketing folks and thought you might enjoy learning more about me and my thoughts on a plethora of search marketing issues.
Here are two latest of the latest:
Google, Ethics and The Myths of Social Media: An Interview with Jill Whalen by Nick Wilsdon
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-2DkygWhkCk5bs%403574133-VoYKVggNOZLF%2e
Search Feature Interview with High Rankings CEO Jill Whalen by Mike Dammann
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-0vLyMiiM0dN9.%403574134-7aEKkZPO6TksA
If you're really interested, you can always keep up with my latest interviews in our press section here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-GKh/cfHCEHDo2%403574135-j6s6EuhZD7Y0U
~~~Advanced SEO Forum Threads of the Week~~~
++Will Google Suggest Changes in the Way You Optimize?++
Google has announced that they are rolling out "Google Suggest" this week, which will provide searchers with a list of query suggestions when they start typing into the search box.
Some High Rankings forum members are wondering if this will change the way (or the words) in which you optimize.
Read the thread and share your comments here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-6vHa6Ycazzdcs%403574136-mYUMO94k7GJis
++Important Hub Pages in Supplemental / Not Ranking++
Forum member "don h" discusses a website problem that's been plaguing him for ages.
Read about it here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-L8iWRXJxCZHWE%403574137-.d1e5Jk6ti9eE
~~~Advisor Wrap-up~~~
That's all for today!
Lots has happened since the last newsletter. Had a belated 25th anniversary dinner celebration with my husband and saw a rainbow on the way out (we saw one on our first date too!). There's a pic of the rainbow posted here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-uVgyUIGhWqaqU%403574138-NIiipUBS7B3zo
Also, our August SEO training class went really well. Yet another great group of 6 budding search marketers attended. We're looking forward to the September class in a few weeks.
And last, but not least, the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose – especially the Google Dance – were a lot of fun. My 3 panels seemed to go really well. The Black Hat / White Hat panel got a lot of attention. It was an interesting panel to be on because it was mostly Q&A. I think I held my own against the evil-doers and even got a few good one-liners in when I could!
On the home front, only a week or so left of freedom for Tim before he starts back up in school. Last week he entered the computer game he was programming all summer (called "Anti Matter") in a contest. You can play it here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-KITnBAjVKSJc.%403574139-63iS/O3ARvqLU
It's pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. Hope he wins! (I'm stuck at level 11.) Be sure to give it a good review on the website if you like it.
Catch you in 2 weeks! – Jill
Looking for SEO Services, Consulting or Training?
See what High Rankings has to offer:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-MspZ584qaa3DA%403574140-97Ip7BI/KYLuY
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http://m1e.net/c?86763832-AUnHksEinENYI%403574141-RawqwwWv1qCbI
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