Does adding symbol characters to your title meta tags hurt your SEO? Our company has a title format of "-- Our Web Site : A Page --" and since we're going through a redesign I was wondering if it might be a good time to drop that convention.
posted on Jul 16, 2008 - 10 answers

How do I block Googlebot and other bots from indexing a certain part of a webpage? [more inside]
posted on Jun 9, 2008 - 16 answers

What are currently the best keyword research tools or software? [more inside]
posted on May 29, 2008 - 1 answers

Special characters in Search Engine Optimisation - anyone know what the deal is there - specifically '@' for an 'a'? [more inside]
posted on Mar 25, 2008 - 10 answers

Does a website that has had the full SEO treatment have to suck? [more inside]
posted on Mar 23, 2008 - 20 answers

Under the hood of Google Analytics. GA does a great job of segmenting paid and organic search metrics - traffic, keywords, etc. How does it know one from the other ? [more inside]
posted on Mar 13, 2008 - 3 answers

How do I get Google to recognize a search for "melophobe" is a search for my webpage "mel.opho.be"? If you search for "delicious" the first hit is del.icio.us, however if you search for "melophobe" my website is nowhere to be found. It's obviously the top hit in a search for "mel.opho.be" but honestly, people aren't going to be Googling it with the periods. I know there must be a solution, but I'm having a hard time figuring it out.
posted on Mar 12, 2008 - 10 answers

How dodgy is this third-party supplier's SEO practice? And if it is dodgy, how do we tell our customer? [more inside]
posted on Feb 7, 2008 - 14 answers

Why does my site keep showing up on search engines with out of date met descriptions and keywords? [more inside]
posted on Nov 30, 2007 - 7 answers

How did I get blacklisted from Google, and how can I get un-blacklisted? I realize this question is similar to one asked back in 2005, but was really hoping that things have changed significantly since then. [more inside]
posted on Oct 18, 2007 - 10 answers

Why have Google and Microsoft shunned my web site? And why does Google's sitemap control panel think my robots.txt file is unreachable? [more inside]
posted on Aug 27, 2007 - 7 answers

I'm starting a new job and need to get up to speed on web analytics and SEO. [more inside]
posted on Jun 26, 2007 - 8 answers

How can I parlay the sudden improvement of my freelance writing resume into career advancement? [more inside]
posted on Jun 22, 2007 - 6 answers

I am looking for someone to explain Google's search results. The reseach I have done says you need to have lots of good links coming into your site from other high PR sites. I am wondering why Google does not use website visitors. Ie. If you have 100,000 visitors per week, this must be better than a site with 1000 visitors per week, but has high PR incoming links.
posted on May 22, 2007 - 8 answers

.htaccess question -- how many redirects is too many? [more inside]
posted on Mar 30, 2007 - 13 answers

My website/blog has all but disappeared from Google. What happened, and what can I do to fix it? [more inside]
posted on Mar 30, 2007 - 10 answers

What are some good resources out there such that I can bring myself up to speed quickly on Search Engine Optimization? [more inside]
posted on Mar 27, 2007 - 13 answers

I need a piece of software or a web application that will help me track a URL's performance relative to specific keywords over time. [more inside]
posted on Feb 19, 2007 - 3 answers

Doing Search Engine Optimisation for companies, been recommended IBP but its alittle overpriced for the business licence. Any others like IBP that are equally as good for less? [more inside]
posted on Aug 28, 2006 - 2 answers

How can I get Google to re-index my site and how did it find it in the first place? [more inside]
posted on Aug 21, 2006 - 14 answers

What is the point of PageRank, and why do people think that's a silly question? [more inside]
posted on May 31, 2006 - 30 answers

I'm looking for a way to find out what keywords/keyphrases are being used on all search engines for my website. My stats program shows a few but there must be loads that I haven't found yet. Thanks for reading.
posted on Jan 20, 2006 - 5 answers

Occasionally our university web site gets solicitations from link-swapping programs. Although they are reputed to increase one's search engine rankings, I believe that they are of dubious value (at best) as I'm sure that Google is aware that links from such places are not as valuable as "real links" from "real pages" and deprecates them accordingly. However, I don't have any real data or sources to back up my hunch. Can you point me to some - or, if I'm wrong - correct me regarding their value?
posted on Dec 22, 2005 - 3 answers

Does anyone know of a free piece of software (or internet site) that can monitor a web site's ranking in various search engines using various keywords? [more inside]
posted on Nov 20, 2005 - 5 answers

I want to know who is coming to my website, what their doing, where they are coming from, and how I might optimize my website and marketing dollar.
Can anyone recommend a reasonable software / service to perform web analytics on my website. WebSideStory looks awesome, but also looks like it might be out of my league, maybe not. What type of features should I be looking for, and what do I need to consider? Any positive experiences with your website?
posted on Nov 3, 2005 - 18 answers

Stupid technical question: Why does CNet put the title of their articles in the URL for said articles? [more inside]
posted on Jul 7, 2005 - 10 answers

I need to shift one of my websites to a new domain - with the minimal amount of interruption to my Google juice. What is the best way to redirect traffic to the new site? .htaccess redirects? Something else? Other pointers?
posted on Jun 3, 2005 - 3 answers

I need help researching the effects of interlinked web pages in search results... [more inside]
posted on Mar 29, 2005 - 3 answers

What's the best way to promote your website? Of course, More inside.
posted on Jan 3, 2005 - 9 answers

Google Ad Optimization
posted on Nov 17, 2004 - 3 answers

GoogleBombing: Suppose I register 10 domains, and upload an HTML page to each domain that has a named link - for example, "Click here to buy Cheap Shoes" - and these named links all point to the same webpage....when someone searches on Google for "Cheap Shoes", will the page that has 10 domains linking to it stand a better chance of being higher up in the rankings?
posted on Oct 11, 2004 - 19 answers

What should be done (if anything) about a site that is capitalizing on my site's distinctive name and search engine ranking to popularize itself in a way that is totally unrelated to my site?

I run an RSS feed directory with a distinctive name, reasonably good content, and a decent rank in various search engines. Last night a "watch" application told me that 2 new sites now contain my site's domain name in their URLs.

I took a look at both of these sites, and they are simply embedding my domain name in their URLs so that they have a chance of matching on searches for the name. The actual pages are throwaway filler (as is the entire site).

I'm flattered and insulted.

My site's name is not a trademark (perhaps it should be), and I don't want to draw artificial attention to it by posting a link, and I certainly don't want to link to the offending sites.

Has anyone else had something like this happen to them? What can be done?
posted on Aug 25, 2004 - 0 answers

Can you recommend a tool that will let me track keyword performance on major search engines for a given site? I understand Web Position Gold goes this, but it's expensive and word has it that google doesn't like it.
posted on Aug 23, 2004 - 3 answers

Search engine optimization... I'm happy to buy a book, but are they worth it? Do I really need to know more than the basic best-practices for Google?
posted on May 24, 2004 - 3 answers

Every once in a while, when I search Google, I end up with some weird search results. All ads. It doesn't happen all the time and I don't know if it's Google stooping to a new low, or if it's me and some kind of adware. Note that I also get a pop-up window with this page that has a couple other ad links.
posted on May 20, 2004 - 17 answers

What is the "upstart, Linux-like cooperative" search engine mentioned in this Reuters about Google?
posted on Mar 23, 2004 - 2 answers

Yahoo! Japan search rankings - can you pay to improve your ranking? At work, we have been asked by one of our representative offices in Japan to pay AUD1,126.00 to boost our search rankings, but I am very skeptical of the truth in this. I have spoken to a couple of Japanese people (including one of our staff members) who use Yahoo! Japan's search engine a lot and they confirm that it is possible to pay a fee to improve rankings of a site. Can anyone definitely confirm or deny this? If it does improve our ranking, it would be worth paying, but I can't help feeling it is a scam.
posted on Mar 3, 2004 - 4 answers