10 Ways To Getting Links to Your Site

To this day, the best way to build links is still doing it by hand. Here are the steps you should follow when building links:

1. Set a goal. Link building takes a lot of time, but it is very effective and easy to do, so you want to keep at it. Set a goal for the number of links you want as a way to stay motivated through the process.

Depending on the sites you ask and your approach, your results will vary. But a general rule of thumb is to set your linking goal at four-to-six times higher than the number of links you actually want to receive. You need to set your goal higher because most sites will not want to trade links, for various reasons.

2. Make sure your site is worth a link. This means your site must offer something of value to entice other sites to link to yours.

If all your site does is sell products or services, you need to get busy creating some additional linkable content. Examples of linkable content include how-to articles, product reviews, tools, tips and so on. Creating content can be tough, but if you don't have some on your site already, you've got to do it. Adding linkable content not only will encourage others to link to your site, but it will improve the overall quality of your site for your visitors.

Make it easy on yourself by writing about something you know that relates to your site. This column is a perfect example. It teaches without trying to sell something. The best part of creating linkable content is that if you do it well enough, you will find that people will link to your site without you even asking, and that's the easiest way to build links.

You're not a writer? You can always add free tools or free downloads. Also, consider creating a links page prior to requesting a link trade with a site. You can usually expect a better reception from a potential link partner if they can see where you will place the link to their site.

3. Determine the type of sites you want to trade links with. This takes some thought. You need to figure out all of the different types of sites that could potentially trade links with you. Focus on sites that are related to your target market.

Here's a good example:

I worked on a site that sold sunglasses, so I approached sites that sold swimsuits and tanning lotions, but not sunglasses. Once we accumulated links from those sites, we then developed a section of our site on eye protection and asked for links from all of the sites we could find that addressed eye protection. In the end, we significantly increased the number of links to our site from other sites in our target market. Plus, we added about 10 additional pages of content to our site that our visitors enjoyed and we continue to link to. This helps significantly in search-engine placements.

4. Get equipped to evaluate your link partners. To make the most of your efforts, you don't want to spend too much time going after links from sites that the search engines don't think are valuable. While it isn't perfect, the Google Toolbar can help you decide which sites are quality link partners and which aren't. The toolbar integrates with your Web browser. It helps you by displaying the "page rank" of each site you visit. Put simply, page rank is a rough indicator of what Google thinks of a site. You can rest assured that if Google thinks it is a good site, it probably is. The higher a page ranks the better. One strategy is to try to link up with sites that have pages ranked as high as or higher than your own.

5. Locate quality link partners. There are many ways to find link partners, but the easiest way to find quality link partners quickly is to start at Open Directory and Yahoo!. Open Directory and Yahoo! are good places to start for three reasons:

These directories are both so difficult to get listed in that each potential link partner you find there is likely to be of a higher quality than those you would find elsewhere.

Yahoo! and Open Directory greatly boost a site's link popularity when they list a site. Your site will receive a little bit of that boost each time someone from one of those directories links to you.

The links you build don't help your link popularity in the search engines unless the engines know about the link. The search engines crawl the sites listed in Yahoo! and Open Directory on a regular basis, so by starting your linking campaign here you can be sure the search engines will find you new links quickly.

To find partners, simply start searching for terms that are related to the types of link partners you decided are best (step No. 3 above). While surfing your potential partner's Web site, keep your eye on their page rank (step No. 4).

6. Organize your findings. Again, there are many ways to do this, but it's always a good idea to keep it simple. Use a spreadsheet to keep track of the following:

• Full name of site owner or Webmaster.

• E-mail address of the site owner or Webmaster.

• Home page URL of link partner.

• URL of the page where you think your link belongs and why you think it belongs there.

• Page rank of the page where you think your link belongs.

• Something unique that you liked about the site.

• Date of initial link request.


For many sites, much of this information will not be available, but you should try to find as much of it as you can.

7. Prepare for contact. Now that you have a list of potential link partners, go through the list and send a custom e-mail to each one requesting that you trade links. Do not send a generic e-mail requesting a link; it will not get a response. Your link request should mention the following, most of which comes from your spreadsheet (step No. 4):

• Something you liked about their site; compliments go a long way.

• Why you think your link belongs on their site.

• The URL to exactly where you think your link fits on their site.

• The URL of where you'll be placing their link on your site.

• How you would like them to link to you. Provide a sample link and description. The easier you make it, the more likely they will post it.


8. Check for links. When building links, you are dealing with real people, so it can take some time. You may need to wait a month or longer before checking to see if anyone has linked to your site from your new partner. Usually it is best to do this step by hand, but you can use a link popularity tool if you have a lot to check.

9. Follow up with the cream of the crop. Once a month has passed, follow up with each site that hasn't linked to you yet. Save time and only follow up with the cream of the crop — those in your spreadsheet with the highest page ranks.

10. Set a schedule. You will find it easier to keep building links if you put yourself on some sort of link-building schedule. Consider doing a certain small amount (30 to 60 minutes) of link building each day. It will help prevent burnout, which is inevitable if you try to do your entire campaign in a couple of days.

By Vishal Sharma

SEO Guide for Beginners from Google

Is Google getting into SEO business? Well, such a move from Google would lead to a potential conflict of interest. But even Google is telling us that there’s nothing wrong with SEO, and Google’s official Webmaster Central Blog is now formally offering a free “SEO Starter Guide” with practical search engine optimization tips for new webmasters about how to improve their website’s performance in Google.

This search engine optimization guide comes in a 22-page, pdf format. Google uses the same principles inside Google for optimizing its own sites such as YouTube. This starter SEO guide from Google covers dozens of topics such as

• Title tag
• Description Meta Tag
• URL Structure
• Site Navigation
• Content Creation
• Anchor Text
• Heading Tags (H1, H2, etc.)
• Optimizing Images
• Effective of Robots.txt
• Rel=”nofollow”
• Website Promotion
• Webmaster Tools
• Web Analytics
• More Helpful Resources

The guide is well written and is aimed at new webmasters and website owners who are looking for basic training in SEO techniques. I feel it is a good guide for newbies, to cover the basics of SEO before they go for more advanced stuff.

SEO Tips for Blogger Blogs

How to add Description and Keyword metatags to Blogger blogs?

If you are a webmaster or site creator, you have to make sure that the site content reaches your target audience. One way of doing that is by carefully assigning title tags as well as meta descriptions and keywords to your web pages. Meta description tags also improve the chances of your site being found and clicked on in the SERPs.

Though Blogger is a Google product, blogs hosted on blogger do not have support for meta descriptions and keywords by default. If you have ever tried adding keywords or description meta tags to your Blogger pages, you might have seen that there is no easy way of implementing that. Here is a workaround to make changes to your blogger template in order to add description and keyword metatags of your choice to your blogger top page as well as to your posts.

In the Layout panel of your blog, click on Edit HTML.

Click on Download Full Template and save a backup copy of your template. This will come in handy to undo any changes in case the changes do not work as expected

Look for the following code in the template

Add the following code immediately after the code in step #3.

Replace the http://myurl.blogspot.com/ line with the URL of your blog top page.

Replace the word MY DESCRIPTION with a description for your blog top page.

Replace the word MY KEYWORDS with a list of keywords separated by commas, relevant to your blog top page.

You would need to to follow the steps 4 to 7 - for adding corresponding URL’s, descriptions and keywordsfor for all the individual posts from your blog. For example, if your first article is about your visit to New York, you’ll need to as follows.

Add this code again immediately after the

<b:include data=”blog” name=”all-head-content” /> line:

Replace the http://myurl.blogspot.com/ line with http://myurl.blogspot.com/my_visit to_newyork.html.

Replace the word MY DESCRIPTION with description of your visit to New York.

Replace the word MY KEYWORDS with keywords such new york, business visit, usa visit etc.

Please ensure that all the individual posts have titles and descriptions matching the page content. This will help you from preventing your posts to go in Google Sandbox.

Backlinks Building through Forum Posting

There is no doubt that quality backlinks from relevant sites are important for SEO success. If a page has good content, other websites will start linking to it in a natural manner; this is the main hypothesis for including backlinks as part of the search engine ranking algorithms. Thus, a page with better content will naturally have more backlinks, and will rank better. However, in practice, one will have go for other ways of gaining relevant quality backlinks, as a part of his SEO strategy.

Getting listed in web directories, article directories, posting in forums, and blogs are some of the acceptable methods of acquiring quality backlinks. Generally, search engines index forums frequently, so posting in forums is a good way to gain quality backlinks with the anchor text of your choice. While submitting articles to directories can be a time consuming process, it does not require much effort and time to post in forums; however, one has to do his homework and take some precautions in order to be successful using forums for gaining backlinks.

You must do some research before joining any forum. You should join forums that are relevant to the sites you want to get backlinks for. You should only choose forums that are popular and active. Backlinks for high authority forums are very valuable. The number of active members and the Google PageRank of the forum can give you a good idea about its popularity. You should keep your signature short and link it to your main website. You should never create posts that sound like a propaganda or which are irrelevant to the post topic. You should pay attention to the TOS of the forum, or you will risk yourself of getting banned and losing all the backlinks you built.

If you post something which is important or useful to other readers, they will visit the site in your signature. Thus, posting in forums can give a significant traffic to your website, apart from building relevant backlinks. Forums are also good for creating your brand or image – Some of the best bloggers, Internet Marketers and SEOs spend a significant time posting on forums to increase their publicity. SEOs like Aaron Wall became famous through the platform of SEO forums. That is another benefit you may get from forum posting apart from using it for link development strategy.

SEO: Google's Next Big Move archive copy

(Will your website be ready, or will you be playing catch-up six months too late? )

November 2003 might go down in history as the month that Google shook a lot of smug webmasters and search engine optimization (SEO) specialists from the apple tree. But more than likely, it was just a precursor of the BIG shakeup to come.

Google touts highly its secret PageRank algorithm. Although PageRank is just one factor in choosing what sites appear on a specific search, it is the main way that Google determines the "importance" of a website.

In recent months, SEO specialists have become expert at manipulating PageRank, particularly through link exchanges.

There is nothing wrong with links. They make the Web a web rather than a series of isolated islands. However, PageRank relies on the naturally "democratic" nature of the web, whereby webmasters link to sites they feel are important for their visitors. Google rightly sees link exchanges designed to boost PageRank as stuffing the ballot box.

I was not surprised to see Google try to counter all the SEO efforts. In fact, I have been arguing the case with many non-believing SEO specialists over the past couple months. But I was surprised to see the clumsy way in which Google chose to do it.

Google targeted specific search terms, including many of the most competitive and commercial terms. Many websites lost top positions in five or six terms, but maintain their positions in several others. This had never happened before. Give credit to Barry Lloyd of SearchEngineGuide.com for cleverly uncovering the process.

For Google, this shakeup is just a temporary fix. It will have to make much bigger changes if it is serious about harnessing the "democratic" nature of the Web and neutralizing the artificial results of so many link exchanges.

Here are a few techniques Google might use (remember to think like a search engine):

1. Google might start valuing inbound links within paragraphs much higher than links that stand on their own. (For all we know, Google is already doing this.) Such links are much less likely to be the product of a link exchange, and therefore more likely to be genuine "democratic" votes.
   
2. Google might look at the concentration of inbound links across a website. If most inbound links point to the home page, that is another possible indicator of a link exchange, or at least that the site's content is not important enough to draw inbound links (and it is content that Google wants to deliver to its searchers).
   
3. Google might take a sample of inbound links to a domain, and check to see how many are reciprocated back to the linking domains. If a high percentage are reciprocated, Google might reduce the site's PageRank accordingly. Or it might set a cut-point, dropping from its index any website with too many of its inbound links reciprocated.
   
4. Google might start valuing outbound links more highly. Two pages with 100 inbound links are, in theory, valued equally, even if one has 20 outbound links and the other has none. But why should Google send its searchers down a dead-end street, when the information highway is paved just as smoothly on a major thoroughfare?
   
5. Google might weigh a website's outbound link concentration. A website with most outbound links concentrated on just a few pages is more likely to be a "link-exchanger" than a site with links spread out across its pages.
   

Google might use a combination of these techniques and ones not mentioned here. We cannot predict the exact algorithm, nor can we assume that it will remain constant. What we can do is to prepare our websites to look and act like a website would on a "democratic" Web as Google would see it.

For Google to hold its own against upstart search engines, it must deliver on its PageRank promise. Its results reflect the "democratic" nature of the Web. Its algorithm must prod webmasters to give links on their own merit. That won't be easy or even completely possible. And people will always find ways to turn Google's algorithm to their advantage. But the techniques above can send the Internet a long way back to where Google promises it will be.

The time is now to start preparing your website for the changes to come.

By David Leonhardt

10 SEO Tips

From the obvious to the "Hey-I-never-thought-of-that-great-idea-before", here are 10 of the top 52 tips on how to optimize your website for its turbo-charge rocket ride up the search engine rankings.

Be bold. Use the tags around some of your keywords on each page. Do NOT use them everywhere the keyword appears. Once or twice is plenty.

Deep linking. Make sure you have links coming in to as many pages as possible. What does it tell a search engine when other web sites are linking to different pages on your site? That you obviously have lots of worthwhile content. What does it tell a search engine that all your links are coming in to the home page? That you have a shallow site of little value, or that your links were generated by automation rather than by the value of your site. Here is an example of deep linking, in this case to my personal happiness workbook.

Become a foreigner. Canada and the UK have many directories for websites of companies based in those countries. Can you get a business address in one of those countries?
Newsletters. Offer articles to ezine publishers that archive their ezines. The links stay live often for many years in their archives.

First come, first served. If you must have image links in your navigation bar, include also text links. However, make sure the text links show up first in the source code, because search engine robots will follow the first link they find to any particular page. They won't follow additional links to the same page. You can see this in action at the link to the home page on this web site monitoring page

Multiple domains. If you have several topics that could each support their own website, it might be worth having multiple domains. Why? First, search engines usually list only one page per domain for any given search, and you might warrant two. Second, directories usually accept only home pages, so you can get more directory listings this way. Why not a site dedicated to gumbo pudding pops?

Article exchanges. You've heard of link exchanges, useless as they generally are. Article exchanges are like link exchanges, only much more useful. You publish someone else's article on the history of pudding pops with a link back to their site. They publish your article on the top ten pudding pop flavors in Viet Nam, with a link back to your site. You both have content. You both get high quality links. (More on high quality links in other tips.)

Titles for links. Links can get titles, too. Not only does this help visually impaired surfers know where you are sending them, but some search engines figure this into their relevancy for a page.

Not anchor text. Don't overdo the anchor text. You don't want all your inbound links looking the same, because that looks like automation - something Google frowns upon. Use your URL sometimes, your company name other times, "Gumbo Pudding Pop" occasionally, "Get gumbo pudding pops" as well, "Gumbo-flavored pudding pops" some other times, etc.

Site map. A big site needs a site map, which should be linked to from every page on the site. This will help the search engine robots find every page with just two clicks. A small site needs a site map, too. It's called the navigation bar. See how the second navigation bar at the bottom of Last Minute Florida Villas is like a mini-site map?

By David Leonhardt

Five SEO Tips To Improve Your Search Engine Ranking

1. A picture might be worth a thousand words, but search engines don't read pictures. Make sure your key search terms are written out in text, not part of a graphic title you hire somebody to prepare for you. That also means you should not just show pictures of toys, but also write out the names, and possibly a keyword description with the title.
2. Have several pages of articles related to your website's topic. Use a different keyword search term for each article. For instance, one article might use frequently the term "safe toys for babies", while another might use the term "baby safety".
3. What's the URL of your website? Your name won't help you there. Your key search term will. In this instance, I might pick www.baby-toy-safety.com, for example (if that is one of your top keyword phrases). Hire somebody who knows what he is doing to develop the right keyword strategy for you BEFORE you choose your domain name.
4. What's the title of your page? I don't know how many times I see titles such as "Article" or "Contact us". Don't expect the search engine robots to get all excited about that term. And don't expect anybody to search for that term, either. Much better to title your page "Free article on safe toys for babies" or "Contact the *Baby Toy Expert* today". By the way, this is the single most important place to include your keyword phrases.
5. What about that navigation menu that appears on every single page of your website? Does it say "Contact the baby toy expert?" Or "about the baby toy expert". Or links about baby toys?" Need I say more? If your website is about life insurance, you have little hope of hitting the front pages of any search engine. "Life insurance" is such a competitive search engine marketplace. Unless, of course, people are searching for a very specific and rare niche. Even then, I suspect you will need much more than these five tips.

In fact, there are dozens, if not hundreds of things you can do to win the search engine race. These top five search engine optimization tips are a great start, whatever your website is about.

By David Leonhardt

SEO Basics

Maggie knows how to find what she wants. She lets her fingers do the walking - not in the Yellow Pages, but at Google.com. She wants to learn about bread baking, and you have just written Bread Baking Made Simple, and you sell some great baking tools. The good news is the Google and other search engines exist for one simple reason: to help Maggie find your website.

Google will show Maggie 534,000 resources on "bread baking". Unless she fails to find what she wants on the first page, or top 10 results, she will never find your website listed 124th in the results. (Actually, if she does not find what she wants in the top twenty or thirty results, she is likely to refine her search to "easy bread baking" or "home bread baking").

How do you get into the top 10 results so Maggie can find your website? You might have heard a lot about "search engine optimization" and "ranking analysis" and "algorithms". It all sounds very complex, but it really works on a simple 1 - 2 - 3 principle.

A search engine will show Maggie only resources (websites) it has on record. So make sure to submit your site to the key search engines and directories. You do not need to hire somebody who will charge you big dollars to do this. Nor should you fall for any of the auto-submit software or services. This should be done by hand, and anybody can do it. You can do it yourself.
The search engine will rank highest those websites it feels are most "important". This means you have to show that your website is most important. There are a few simple things you can do. First, make sure you have content. Text content equals importance on the Internet. Links, both coming in and going out, are key. Connectivity equals importance on the Internet. Get listed in the major directories (DMOZ.com, Yahoo.com, Zeal.com, JoeAnt.com, etc.), as this also is a measure of importance.

The search engine will show Maggie the most "relevant" high-ranking resources. Google might rank http://TheHappyGuy.com relatively very high, but it is totally irrelevant to a search for bread baking. How does a search engine know which websites are most relevant for Maggie's search? By the number of times "bread baking" shows up in text on your web page. By the variety of ways it shows up on your page. By number web pages you link to and that link to you with the words "bread baking" included. Are you ready to roll? Possibly. Some of this you can easily do yourself. But there are three places that are worth spending money to help all the Maggies out there find your website and your book.

The first is choosing the right keywords. It might look simple, but "bread baking" might not even be the best keyword phrase to focus on. It might be "easy bread baking" or "home bread baking". The most searched terms might not be the best, nor the term with the least competition.

The second is to prepare a link strategy. The "link exchange" pages that are getting more popular each day are also becoming less effective each day. Here are just a few of the linking factors that will affect whether Maggie discovers your book:

• The total number of incoming and outgoing links
• The importance of the sites you link to and from
• The relevancy of the sites you link to and from
• Which pages on their sites and on yours are being linked
• What you include in the incoming and outgoing links
• Where on the page the links are placed
• How many links are on those pages
• How many pages are linked to or have outgoing links
• The ratio of links to content on the pages involved

You can implement the strategy yourself, but it is worth hiring somebody to put it together for you. Ask the person what factors she would consider when building a strategy for you. If she does not mention several of the above, your money is better spent elsewhere.

The third place to invest is to have somebody knowledgeable review your html code. Chances are that you have missed numerous opportunities to let the search engines know your website is relevant, and possibly some opportunities to show it is important.

By David Leonhardt

High Page Rank Social Sites

9 http://slashdot.org/
8 http://www.bloglines.com/
8 http://reddit.com/
8 http://www.rojo.com/
8 http://www.technorati.com/
8 http://www.connotea.org/
8 http://del.icio.us/
8 http://stumbleupon.com/
8 http://digg.com/
7 http://www.bibsonomy.org/
7 http://www.newsvine.com/
7 http://www.nowpublic.com/
7 http://www.linuxquestions.org/
7 http://www.mister-wong.com/
7 http://www.43things.com/
7 http://www.squidoo.com/
7 http://www.blogpulse.com/
7 http://www.blinklist.com/
7 http://www.librarything.com/
6 http://www.feedmarker.com/
6 http://www.blinkbits.com/
6 http://www.clipmarks.com/
6 http://unalog.com/
6 http://www.indianpad.com/
6 http://www.yoono.com/
6 http://wists.com/
6 http://segnalo.alice.it/
6 http://www.linkagogo.com/
6 http://www.rawsugar.com/
6 http://www.kaboodle.com/
6 http://linkfilter.net/
6 http://tailrank.com/
6 http://www.icerocket.com/
6 http://de.lirio.us/
6 http://www.simpy.com/
6 http://www.backflip.com/
6 http://www.clipfire.com/
6 http://www.kinja.com/
6 http://popurls.com/
6 http://www.netvouz.com/
6 http://www.spurl.net/
5 http://www.shoutwire.com/
5 http://tweako.com/
5 http://www.givealink.org/
5 http://www.wurldbook.com/
5 http://www.beanrocket.com/
5 http://www.listible.com/
5 http://gibeo.net/
4 http://www.blogmarks.net/
4 http://www.fark.com/
4 http://www.bmaccess.net/
4 http://www.diigo.com/
4 http://ma.gnolia.com/
4 http://www.mecanbe.com/
3 http://reader2.com/
3 http://www.wazima.com/
3 http://socialogs.com/
3 http://www.rrove.com/
3 http://www.plugim.com/
High Page Rank SitesExchange Your Site's Link With High PR Sites and Get Your Site in Top Rankings.
PageRank 10
Currently 19 domains
Adobe.com - Adobe Systems, software company. In addition, several dozen pages on this domain are PR10. We won't list them all here because there are too many, but it seems to be most subfolders and every subfolder of the /products folder. A few of the most important ones are listed below.
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
http://www.adobe.com/education/
http://www.adobe.com/government/
http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/
http://www.adobe.com/help/accessibility.html
http://www.adobe.com/products/
http://www.adobe.com/products/*/ (i.e. /products/photoshop/ and /products/acrobat/ and so on)
Apache.org - Apache Software Foundation, open-source software
Apple.com - Apple Computer
http://www.apple.com/itunes/
http://www.apple.com/dotmac/
http://www.apple.com/macosx/
http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/
http://www.apple.com/support/
Cisco.com - Cisco Systems
CSAIL - MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Energy.gov - United States Department of Energy
ERCIM.org - European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics
Google.com - Google, search engine that assigns PageRank
Keio.ac.jp - Keio University, Tokyo, Japan (*)
IBM.com - International Business Machines, computer technology corporation
http://www.ibm.com/us/
Macromedia.com - Macromedia, software company
Microsoft.com - Microsoft Corporation, computer software company
MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
NASA.gov - NASA, U.S. government agency for the space program and aerospace research
NSF.gov - National Science Foundation, U.S. government agency for scientific research
Real.com - RealPlayer, music, video, games
StatCounter.com - tracking service
W3.org - World Wide Web Consortium
http://validator.w3.org/
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
http://www.w3.org/QA/
Whitehouse.gov - The White House

PageRank 9
Currently 148 domains
AAAS.org - American Association for the Advancement of Science
ACM.org - Association for Computing Machinery
AltaVista.com - AltaVista, search engine
Amazon.com - Amazon.com, shopping site
AOL.com - America Online, portal
APS.org - American Physical Society
Archive.org - Internet Archive
Arizona.edu - University of Arizona
ArXiv.org - ArXiv.org e-print archive
ASU.edu - Arizona State University
BarnesAndNoble.com - Barnes & Noble, bookseller
BBC.co.uk - British Broadcasting Corporation
Berkeley.edu - University of California, Berkeley
Blogger.com - Blogger, a weblog publishing tool
Bloglines.com - Bloglines, web-based news aggregator
Brown.edu - Brown University
BU.edu - Boston University
Cam.ac.uk - Cambridge University
CBC.ca - Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
CERN.ch - CERN
CMU.edu - Carnegie Mellon University
CNET.com - Cnet, technology portal
CNRS.fr - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Colorado.edu - University of Colorado at Boulder
Columbia.edu - Columbia University
Computer.org - IEEE Computer Society
Copyright.gov - U.S. Copyright Office
Cornell.edu - Cornell University
CreativeCommons.org - Creative Commons
Debian.org - Debian, open-source operating system
DHHS.gov - Department of Health and Human Services
DHS.gov/dhspublic/ - Department of Homeland Security
DOI.gov - U.S. Department of the Interior
Duke.edu - Duke University
eBay.com - EBay, auction site
Economist.com - news site
Elsevier.com - Elsevier, publisher of scientific and medical literature
EnergyStar.gov - Energy Star
EPA.gov - Environmental Protection Agency
ETHZ.ch - ETH Zurich, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
ErekAlert.org - science news site
Excite.com - Excite, portal
Expedia.com - Expedia, online travel agency
Flickr.com - Flickr, remote image hosting site
Freshmeat.net - Freshmeat, cross-platform software directory
FWS.gov - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
GameSpot.com - GameSpot
GNU.org - GNU Project
Google.co.uk - Google, UK version; several other versions are PR9 too, including French and Japanese versions
Grants.gov - unified site for interaction between grant applicants and the U.S. federal agencies that manage grant funds
Harvard.edu - Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA
HUJI.ac.il - Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
House.gov - U.S. House of Representatives
HP.com - Hewlett-Packard
HTMLHelp.com - Information on web authoring
IEEE.org - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
IETF.org - Internet Engineering Task Force
IIE.org - Institute of International Education
IMDb.com - Internet Movie Database
Indiana.edu - Indiana University system
Inria.fr - INRIA, French national research institution
Intel.com - Intel Corporation
internet2.edu - Internet2
IOM.edu - Institute of Medicine
Jalbum.net - photo album software
Java.com - Java programming language
JHU.edu - Johns Hopkins University
Linux.com - Linux Operating System
LOC.gov - Library of Congress
MamboServer - Mambo, open-source PHP content management system
MapQuest.com - MapQuest
Mozilla.org - Mozilla, open-source internet tools
MSN.com - MSN.com, portal
MSNBC.com - MSNBC.com, portal
MSU.edu - Michigan State University
MySQL.com - MySQL, open-source database engine
NAP.edu - National Academies Press
NAS.edu - National Academy of Sciences
NationalAcademies.org - Science, Engineering and Medicine research
Nature.com - Nature Publishing Group
Netscape.com - Netscape, portal
NewsForge.com - NewsForge
NYTimes.com - New York Times, news site
NIH.gov - National Institutes of Health
NIST.gov - National Institute of Standards and Technology
NOAA.gov - National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration
NREL.gov - National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Oanda.com - Currency conversion site
OpenSource.org - open source
Opera.com - Opera Software, web browser for desktop and mobile devices
Oracle.com - Oracle Corporation, software company
Oreilly.com - O'reilly, computer bookseller
ORNL.gov - Oak Ridge National Laboratory
OSTG.com - Open Source Technology Group
OX.ac.uk - University of Oxford
PBS.org - Public Broadcasting Station
Perl.com - Perl, scripting language
PHP.net - PHP, web scripting language
phpBB.com - phpBB, open-source PHP bulletin board system
Pitt.edu - University of Pittsburgh
Plone.org - Plone, open source content management system
Princeton.edu - Princeton University
PSU.edu - Pennsylvania State University
Python.org - Python Programming Language
Ranchero.com/netnewswire/ - RSS software for Mac
RealNetworks.com - RealNetworks
Realplayer.com - RealPlayer audio/video software
RedHat.com - Red Hat
Regulations.gov - portal for federal rulemaking
Rutgers.edu - Rutgers University
ScienceMag.com - Science Magazine
Section508.gov - Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
Senate.gov - U.S. Senate
SI.edu - Smithsonian Institution
Slashdot.org - Slashdot, technology news site
SourceForge.Net - Sourceforge, a directory of open-source development projects
Stanford.edu - Stanford University, California, USA
State.gov - U.S. Department of State
State.tx.us - Texas portal
Sun.com - Sun Microsystems
TRUSTe.org - web privacy organisation
UCI.edu - University of California, Irvine
UCL.ac.uk - University College London
UIUC.edu - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
UMD.edu - University of Maryland, College Park
UMich.edu - University of Michigan
UMN.edu - University of Minnesota
UN.org - United Nations
Unesco.org - United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UPenn.edu - University of Pennsylvania
USC.edu - University of Southern California
USDA.gov - U.S. Department of Agriculture
URGS.gov - U.S. Geological Survey
UTexas.edu - University of Texas at Austin
UToronto.ca - University of Toronto
VeriSign.com - VeriSign
Virginia.edu - University of Virginia
Vlib.org - World Wide Web Virtual Library
Washington.edu - University of Washington
WebStandards.org - Web Standards Project
WHO.int - World Health Organization
en.wikipedia.org - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (English version)
Windowsmediaplayer.com - (redirect) Microsoft's audio/video player
WinZip.com - WinZip, commercial archive utility
Wisc.edu - University of Wisconsin
WordPress.org - WordPress, open-source PHP blog script
Yahoo.com - Yahoo!, portal
Yale.edu - Yale University

What is Search Engine Optimization ?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is often considered the more technical part of Web marketing. This is true because SEO does help in the promotion of sites and at the same time it requires some technical knowledge – at least familiarity with basic HTML. SEO is sometimes also called SEO copyrighting because most of the techniques that are used to promote sites in search engines deal with text. Generally, SEO can be defined as the activity of optimizing Web pages or whole sites in order to make them more search engine-friendly, thus getting higher positions in search results.

One of the basic truths in SEO is that even if you do all the things that are necessary to do, this does not automatically guarantee you top ratings but if you neglect basic rules, this certainly will not go unnoticed. Also, if you set realistic goals – i.e to get into the top 30 results in Google for a particular keyword, rather than be the number one for 10 keywords in 5 search engines, you will feel happier and more satisfied with your results.

Although SEO helps to increase the traffic to one's site, SEO is not advertising. Of course, you can be included in paid search results for given keywords but basically the idea behind the SEO techniques is to get top placement because your site is relevant to a particular search term, not because you pay.

SEO can be a 30-minute job or a permanent activity. Sometimes it is enough to do some generic SEO in order to get high in search engines – for instance, if you are a leader for rare keywords, then you do not have a lot to do in order to get decent placement. But in most cases, if you really want to be at the top, you need to pay special attention to SEO and devote significant amounts of time and effort to it. Even if you plan to do some basic SEO, it is essential that you understand how search engines work and which items are most important in SEO.