Google’s rules

It seems that recently Google has become more severe in appraising the sites that it visits and that applies more penalization in comparison to the past. For those webmasters that earn money working on Internet, be in a condition in which the site is penalized and it doesn't appear in the search results, corresponds to a catastrophe.

Because the basic rule to earn money with a Internet site is very simple and consists in the being on the first page for the search. No visitors from the search engines, and we know everybody that Google is used from more than the 90% of the navigators, means no money for webmasters. It’s happened to me, too, to be victim of this last wave of the penalizations, and with this article I want to revise the rules of Google together with you; this has been useful for me and I hope for you, too.

The basic condition during the process of the preparation of a site and during its promotion is to examine and respect the rules given by Google, that can be found on the following page:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769.
Let’s see together the basic concepts. They are separated in three groups, and in this way I have prepared my exposure, adding something from my own experience.

Design and content

Shortly, it is advise to use the site structure with static link and that all the pages that want to be considered by, are linked from at least one other page: in this way the search engines can easily find all the resources of the site. The body text must contain the keywords, those tied to the topic of the site. Obligatorily use Title and Alt tag, and if Description tag is used, it should be at least 20 words long. There are also the councils how to organize dynamic pages, but my advise is to avoid them, when this is reasonable. Moreover, control that all the link are working and this is worth also for the connected images. The number of the link on a page would not have to exceed 100, considering the sum of internal and external links. At the end it is advised to write the important texts as text, not to insert them in the images; Google isn’t able to read the text inserted on the images.

Technical aspects of site

During the creation of the site and before putting it online, it is advised to control its “readability” using different browsers, as for example Microsoft Internet Explorer, FireFox, etc, in order to assure the compatibility and correct accessibility with all of them. It is important for the visitors, but also for the robots of the search engines, because they can interpret the same html code in a different way. I always try to produce the most simple HTML code possible, excluding Javascript, visual basic and css, where not closely necessary. These aspects contain also a series of the councils for the server settings, using the robot.txt files, and so on.

Quality requirements for the site

This part of the rules is the most important, because not respect of some of them can induce Google to penalize the website, as it declares explicitly. First of all Google insists to create your site for your visitors, and not for search engines. The fact is that if the site is enough good to attract attention of the surfers, the same should happened with the search engines, obviously if the site respects Google policy. There are the list of the “dangerous” actions that can cause the penalization or, still worse, expulsion of the site from the search results of Google. It’s prohibited use of hidden text (very used practice in the past, still remained in the memory of some webmaster), cloaking, the practice to show different pages to search engines and to visitors, duplicate content copied from other sites, and so-called doorway pages, the pages wrote only for the search engines, in order to obtain the placing for the several keywords.

On the other pages, connected to this with the guidelines, some details are explained, but the new ones can be found, too. One of this, very important, is the concept of the natural link, the fact that the site are linked spontaneously by other sites, duo to its quality. This concept produces another rule: no pay link, because buy links to own site isn’t natural. And here is another catch: also the links that link sponsors can be considered as pay link and your site can be penalized for this.

This rule is debatable, but the master (read Google) has always reason, so what can we do to resolve the problem.? Nothing fear, the solution is very simple and also confirmed by Google: it’s enough to insert the attribute rel=”nofollow” in all links that go to sponsors’ site.

More about Nofollow tag

Few days ago I was contacted by a webmaster that wanted to exchange index page link with one my site. I made a detailed analysis of his site, the thing I always do to be sure that it’s a good trade, and I discover that he has more then hundred links, about 130 if I remember well, on the index page, where my link should be inserted. One of the rule that I respect when I trade links is to not make exchange with pages with mode then 100 links (I consider together external and internal links), because this is against Google policy.

I responded to the webmaster that I’m not interested and I explained the reason. He let me know that for more then 60 links on the his page have nofollow tag, so he support the thesis that he has only about 70 links. I thought about and I concluded that nofollow tag shouldn’t influence the page rank vale passed to the linked page, because the concept is, as we can see from page rank formula, that the total number of links represent the probability that one of them would be clicked by a surfer that visits the site. So nofollow tag, that isn’t visible for a normal surfer (you must open the html source to see it), doesn’t increase the probability that other links, without it, be chosen by visitor.

I sent an e-mail to the webmaster, and I said him that I’m not interested due to my opinion that nofollow tag doesn’t change the real page rank values passed. I’m not really sure that my opinion is really right, but I put it in my know-how notes. Of course, the webmaster didn’t share my thought, but at the end of the story, we didn’t make a trade.

I want to conclude this article with ask a question that this days I make to me: where will be the next Google update of Tool Bar PR, and if Google will respect the regularity of this as it did the past year. However, Google updated at the end of January, but that update wasn’t visible on the Tool Bar.

Page Rank updated the last day of the year

This year, 2008, Google was updating very regularly, each 2 months, so everybody was expecting an update at November this year, but Google disappointed us, and lot of us webmasters thought that the regularity of the updating was finished and went back in the past, when this event seemed to be very casual. Today morning I switched on my modem and took up Internet connection, wanting to make some control about some of my new sites. I opened one of them and wow, there was Page Rank on the Tool Bar. After that, I controlled some my old sites and I noticed that there were some changes in PR, so Google was really updated it’s Tool Bar page rank. For all webmasters that work seriously this is a nice gift for the end of the year. Lets see the updates of Google this year, with some approximation: January 10, February 28, May 1, July 27, September 27 and finally December 31. Only this last one, is over 3 months.

Generally, my sites went very well with this last update. For some less important sites I lost some PR but the major part earned something, so now I have 2 sites with PR5, and that isn’t bad. I hope that this will take some money too, from my Internet business.

Hopping that this update was good for you too, I wish you happy new Year, and let your sites have good Page Rank and be on the first page of Google and other search engines. Happy new Year to all of you.

Pay attention while trading link

While you trade link with another site you must pay attention specially to one thing to avoid to be cheated. There are lot of webmaster that try to take advantage of the trade, taking backlink from you, without giving one back to you, and you can’t know if this happens if you don’t examine HTML code of the page where your link should be present. There are two most diffused technique to do this cheat.

There are webmaster who put in the head code of the page meta tag noindex for robots. This tag “forbids” to robot to elaborate the page. In this mode, when robot/spider of some search engine visits this page, he doesn’t index it, and you haven’t the link to your sites. The head meta tag mentioned is wrote like this: <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> .

Other webmaster instead use attribute nofollow in the anchor tag. This attribute says to search engine’s robots not to follow the link at which the attribute is related, and even here no backlink for your site. An example of this technique is this
<a href="http://www.mysite.com" rel="nofollow">Link to my site </a>
This concept can be done using meta tag, too, inserting the attribute nofollow. It’s less used way while all links on the page are not followed, including the inner links of the same site, and this is disadvantage for the webmaster who apply this method

When I exchange link with somebody, I always control inner code of page to see if there are some of this tags, and I make other 2 controls: I control if the page with my link is accessible from the main page of the site (often non honest webmaster hide the page from the rest of the site), and if the page is present in the Google cash: if not, maybe robot.txt prevent the page from scanning, so, in this case, I control the robot.txt file, too.

The rules of the Web communication: 7 rules of the digital darwinism

At the end of the 1999 and the beginning of the 2000, Evan Schwartz wrote a very interesting and useful book: “Digital darwinism”. The book was written in the time when Internet was on the top of its potential. The main point of the entire book is based on one simple concept, the theory of the evolution, already existing inside firms all over the world. The idea that Schwartz introduces it’s easy, in the nature you must be strong and adapt yourself in front of the changes, if you don’t adapt yourself you will be eaten . The same thing is with Internet. Today, we are all living in a dynamic world which is characterized by Internet and if you are not able to understand the new rules of the game you are out. It is also very important to underline the fact that Internet as our entire society is dynamic, everything is changing so quickly and Ewan Shwartz is helping us to understand this new, dynamic world by giving us some essential rules. Here are the rules:

1.You must create the name that solves problems for your future clients, you must enter in their heads and then create your brand. This is the only way to understand the customer. For creating a steady brand you need 4 things: distinction, significance, reputation and knowledge.

2. You don’t have to influence prices, leave them to follow the law of the request and offer. Remember that consumer know better the market and the offer but the producer knows better the consumer.

3. Create affiliate program and let your affiliate do marketing for you. The affiliate program was introduced in the 1996 by Amazon.com and it had great success. And remember to motivate your affiliates by giving them good percentage because if you don’t give a good percentage probably they will search for another affiliate program.

4. You need to suggest cumulative offers of information and services, because you need to justify the price you are asking. Remember to be original and exclusive and you will create the fidelity for your customers.

5. Sell before and then produce. Only when you have already sold your product it will be made in factory and this is very important because you don’t need warehouse anymore. But remember there is a negative consequence because: we are living in a world where people want exclusive products and if you already have made product and at the end you don’t sell it probably you will not be able to sell it anymore because it’s unique.

6. Give new value to transactions.

7. Integrate everything you can with online commerce and check out that your site is available not only from computers and use “smart card”, they have a microchip and they are easily carried. Remember that online commerce must be integrated with one physical point.

Reciprocal vs. non reciprocal link exchange

Link exchange with other webmasters is a good way to increase the number of links to own site. Reciprocal link exchange consists in putting the links on the two sites that trade links. Site A links site B, and site B links site A. The links can be inserted on index or link page. There are lot of webmaster that, for various reasons, don’t want to do reciprocal exchange. One of the most explicated is the fact that from August 2007 Google introduced a new policy which said that excessive number of reciprocal links can be penalized. Please note that on Google policy pages the “excessive number” isn’t quantified, and I’m sure that, lets say 50 reciprocal links are not excessive (reed carefully the page). The other reason, more ancient, is that putting a link on the own page drains the PR of the page (this fact is evident from the formula for PR calculation), and at this point was born non reciprocal linkage. There are two main modes to do non reciprocal linkage.

3 way link
Webmaster 1 has site A, while Webmaster 2 has sites B, and C. In the 3 way link site A links site B, and receives link from site C. In the correct trade, site B should link site C, too, but often this not happened. If I’m Webmaster 1, those with 1 site only (site A, in this case), I normally don’t accept this kind of exchange. You can ask me, why? Because there are many webmaster that grow site C (the site that link me) for this purpose, to give a link, and after a while they didn’t care more about, or brutally cut off the links towards this site, so I don’t receive an adequate PR from this site. In the reciprocal exchange, I’m sure that the site that links me is supported at least by the link from my site.

4 way link
4 way link trade is similar as 3 way, but both webmasters have 2 sites, and they link one site, and receive the link from the other. It’s better way (each of them can be dishonest :) then 3 way link, specially if two sites of the same webmaster are linked between them.

By the way, Google continues to update ToolBar Page Rank very regularly, each 2 months. The last update was about Sept. 27, but I saw results of this update from statistics of my sites already about Sept. 10. As usually happens, some of my sites improved the position, but some others lost rank on Google.

Trade link with directories

One of the bast way to have links towards your site is to submit it to the web directories. It’s some kind of reciprocal link trade: they put your link on their pages, and you put their link on yours, usually, link page. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to find good directories to submit your site.
When I say «a good directory», I think primarily that:

• category pages should be static;


• the sites listed should be linked with static URL;


• the category pages should have good PR and not so much links on page;


• shouldn’t have too much pages for one categories (when you submit your site you are on the first page, but after 3 months, your link will finish at the fifth page, that has no PR.

Example of static page (URL): www.mydir.com/bussines.htm
Example of dynamic page (URL): www.mydir.com?cat=12

A good directory will pass PR to your site. Here is a directory that I intend as a good one (excluding the fact that not all category pages have PR). All pages, and links are static, there are not too much links on page (maybe the fact that some pages are rather empty penalises PR of the same pages), and the pages with PR have decent 3 rank.

There are also directories that will list your site for free, without reciprocal link, and in this case doesn’t meter if the page is dynamic, with dynamic link, without PR; the link is free, so it’s your convenience to have it.

It’s not a good idea to submit to the pay directories, those that insert your link without reciprocal link, but you must pay for the service. This kind of listings are in contrast with Google policy, and Google penalises this links.