SEO Questions

[mrlace2003]

I understand some what how SEO works. Title and description tags, content, link building and so on.

That being said, I have several questions to ask in regards to SEO:

#1, Search engines hate spam. What really is the meaning if spam? I know that the folling is looked at as spam: hidden text and/or links, doorway pages and link farms.

#2, Does keyword density really matter? If yes, is there any advice to give on this issue?

#3, Will link exchanges hurt your rankings or have your website banned from the search engines? Example: Your website is all about the art work. You exchange links with other art work related websites.

#4. What does the CLASS C IP mean in regards to SEO? I seen this all the time.

#5, Regardsin question #5, how you check for different class IP's?

#6, Will changing your website content, including title and description tags hurt your search engine ranks or have your site banned?

#7, You purchase a website that is five(5) months ago. You decide to have the site submitted to 500 well written directories including yahoo and dmoz. Will this be looked at as spam?

Thanks for any answers you can provide.

[SEFL]

#1: Anything done to game the search engines and not users is spam.

#2: There really isn't an optimum keyword density that I've seen. There are some people that believe it's 3%, 7%, 5%, but personally I suspect that its importance is slightly overblown. Mention your keywords and phrases in the important spots (heading tags, title, etc.) and where it reasonably makes sense to throughout a page and you'll be fine.

#3: Are you linking to other related sites because you feel they deserve a link, or because you want one back for search engine reasons? If you link for search engine reasons, eventually you get found out (and then you whine and complain and get sympathy from the ethical criminal element that represents the vast majority of the SEO community).

#4: Nothing important. A Class C IP (or a /24 IP) refers to the first three octets of an IP address.

How Stuff Works: What is an IP Address? (http://www.howstuffworks.com/question549.htm)

The theory is that getting links from the same Class C IP range won't help and can often hurt since an SEO could acquire a bunch of similar IPs for his/her server and start crosslinking sites.

The first problem with the theory is that the crosslinking of the sites is usually what kills the SEO effort, not the Class C IPs in and of themselves.

The second problem with the theory is that most IPs are shared IPs and that most sites run on shared IPs as a result. There are only so many IPs, and some are reserved for ISPs and for internal use (e.g. 10.*, 192.*)

If you get organic links that send you traffic, it really doesn't matter worth a damn what IP address they come from. One of my best referring links as of late is on the IBM corporate intranet, for example (mostly because I wrote about how much IBM ***** on my blog). It has no SEO benefit, but quite frankly, I don't care since it sends hundreds of visitors to my site. More importantly, the link sends hundreds of people who should be reading the blog entry and going "Hmmm...maybe this punkass is right. Maybe we DO suck."

#5: If you really want to check, open up a command prompt and ping the domain. You don't need to get a ping response; you just need the IP address the domain resolves to.

Alternatively, http://whois.domaintools.com/(domain) will work as well.

#6: Depends on what you're changing them to. If you do something silly like make a 100-word title tag that repeats keywords 50 times, yeah, you probably will. Otherwise, probably not.

Use common sense and good judgement here (you know, the common sense that almost no one ever has.)

#7: There aren't 500 well-written directories, and if there were, Yahoo! and Dumbass wouldn't be on the list. The problems here have been long documented and long unresolved; there are a few good editors like spectregunner, but unfortunately their voices are drowned out by the dinosauric majority.

Having said that, I'd say probably not as long as you don't go giving reciprocal links out in return. It would be too easy for a competitor to manipulate something like that and get a competing site banned.

Why would you purchase the site, anyway?

[mrlace2003]

Hi SEFL,

Thanks for your input :)

There's a website I am looking to purchase for $59.00! It has a very good domain name and excellent CSS. However, it has not made any $$$$ and needs help with touching up its SEO.

My thinking is to purchase this site and touch up its SEO and link building. Once both are complete, I'd turn around and sell the website for more $$$$.

[ihelpyou]

hmm. Just because it has good css means almost nothing. If you are asking about this seo stuff, then I doubt you will "touch" it up and sell for more. :)

You keep referring to "building links", etc. BUILD A GREAT SITE. That's how you build up links to it.

There are NOT 500 REAL directories out there in totality, let alone good ones.

[mrlace2003]

"hmm. Just because it has good css means almost nothing. "


Sure it does- a nice looking site makes a good first impression.

[Connie]

You can have a nice looking site without CSS. On the other hand you can add CSS to any site. I don't think the SEs care one way or another.

SEFL gave you some pretty good answers. I want to say a little more on one point.

What is SE Spam? Anything you do that is intended to fool the SEs. Whether it's hidden text or link exchanges, if it's done to try and increase your rankings, that is SE Spam, IMHO.

Use your common sense. Build a website for visitors. Don't build a site around what you think SEs will like.

[g1smd]

>> There's a website I am looking to purchase for $59.00! <<

So, it's just a website, not a real business then...

[Blue]

If you want to make money, you'll need to spend a lot more time and energy reading up so you fully understand SEO.

The old adage is true: "If you want to make money, you have to spend money."

The best advice you'll get is to "build your site for humans." If you do that, you'll have 99% of "SEO" licked. The other 1% consists of common sense, along with reading up on, fully understanding, and strictly adhering to the search engines guidelines.

[Dave Hawley]

Be very careful your cheap Website isn't considered a bad neighborhood. I would guess a 1 page blog would cost more!

[Arnabme]

#6, Will changing your website content, including title and description tags hurt your search engine ranks or have your site banned?


It depends on what you are trying to do. As SEFL said stuffing the title tag or the meta description with keywords will land you in trouble sooner or later.

But, if you want to target a different keyword and want to change the from the old targeted keyword to new targeted keyword then you can do so for which the ranking for the old keyword will be lost.

As this has been discussed a lot many times. Target keywords through different pages in your site that targeting 10 keywords per page.

[Blue]

Originally posted by Arnabme
Target keywords through different pages in your site that targeting 10 keywords per page. IMO, ten is WAY too many. I don't know where you got that number arnabme but it's way off base.

One should target at most 2-3 keywords/phrases per page.

[Connie]

Good catch Blue. I agree.

[Dave Hawley]

Blue, I read Arnabme statement as NOT trying to target 10 keywords/phrases per page.

[SEFL]

I read it the same way as Dave did. I think Arnabme meant to say "rather than 10 keywords per page".

[Dave Hawley]

NO! We can have an agreement here, so I'm going to read it differently to Blue and yourself ;)

[ihelpyou]

I knew what he wrote when he wrote it and he wrote it just fine.

[Blue]

Not really Doug. It is an improper use of English which can be misleading, which it was to at least myself and Connie.

In re-reading it however, I agree with Dave.

If Arnabme had used the word "than" rather than "that" it would have been more clear. And anyhoo, it's better to have it cleared up for our members now. :)

[Dave Hawley]

Blue, how's your Hindi :)

[Blue]

LOL! My Hindi is terrible. :) In fact, the word "Hindi" is the one Hindi word I know.

I have the utmost respect for those whom are multi-lingual.

My apologies to you Arnabme, for misconstruing your post. I hope you understand I was just trying to protect our membership. :cheers:

[Sambit]

Will changing your website content, including title and description tags hurt your search engine ranks or have your site banned?

The position in SERP will definitely change, but the site will not be banned.

[Blue]

I'd say the position in the SERPs will likely change rather than definitely. There is the remote possibillity that it might not change, for instance in the unlikely event that your page is the only one in the SERPs for a given search return, or possibly, if you change the word "or" to the word "and."

[Arnabme]

I understand that Blue. No worries for it. It was a typo error. It should have been "than" instead of "that."

In any case this forum gives quality information so any intention from my side is always to make this one a better place for newbies.

Thanks everybody.

[Sambit]

yes Blue,

I agree with you that the position will likely change and I should not say like that.

But, there is more chance of a change in position.