Ask Kalena

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Hello Kalena,

Something weird is going on with my website, which is the fact that google started indexing 2 different pages as one page. So now: www.mysite.com/index.htm (actual site provided) and www.mysite.com are indexed as the same page, though they are different pages. And when you view the cache of www.mysite.com/index.htm it gives you the cache of www.mysite.com. Can you please advise?

Regards, Mais

Dear Mais

I’ve looked at the URLs (provided), and yes indeed, the pages you’ve referenced are in fact completely different. It appears that you have an index.php (the default home page) and a different page at index.htm.

Historically there have been a number of “standard” or “default” filenames used for home pages (see list below), and the order of precedence for these is determined by your server configuration.

I suspect that the problem you’ve experienced has been caused by confusion (by the search engines) over which page is in fact your default one. I recommend that you rename your index.htm to something else (and adjust the links to it accordingly).

Listed below is a (possibly incomplete) list of the filenames that could be setup as a default home page.

To save confusion, I suggest that you try to have ONLY ONE of these files existing in any one directory. This list is roughly in order of precedence (but can vary depending on server configuration) :

1. default.html
2. default.htm
3. index.php
4. index.shtml
5. index.html
6. index.htm
7. home.html
8. home.htm
9. index.php5
10. welcome.html
11. welcome.htm

Regards,

Andy Henderson
Ireckon Web Marketing

Popularity: 8%

Dear Kalena…

Can you submit individual pages separately of a website to
the search engines - if so - how? My URL is: http://freewebs.com/jazzlist

Thanks
Cy

Hi Cy

Technically it is possible but you need to understand the way search engines index web sites in order to fully understand why this is often considered the wrong way to approach site submission.

With regards to your own web site http://freewebs.com/jazzlist there would obviously be an argument for individual page submission due to you not having a dedicated domain of your own and as your web site is not located in the root directory of the hosting site, there is little to suggest that submitting http://freewebs.com/index.html would have any bearing on your own web site’s performance.

The argument for submitting to search engines seems to have been around longer than the search engines themselves!

Some say that you need to submit only your homepage, usually index.html or similar and that the search engine will then index all links from this page and over time your site should be completely indexed.

There are variations on this theory the most common is submitting a properly formatted and structured sitemap alone to the search engine of your choice. the search engines then index all links from this sitemap alone. Formats vary but most popular are sitemaps written in xml, this version in particular is favoured by Google.

For further information: Google friendly site map protocols

Others say that you don’t need to submit any pages or sites to any search engines at all, instead you are better to create keyword rich and optimised content that, if written well enough should attract Google and the others along through social bookmarking sites and articles linking to your sites, a lot of people out there prefer this method as it is often considered a more honest approach to site submission.
I know of several websites that have never been submitted to any search engines but if these sites change content or write a new article then Google indexes this within 24 hours, proof indeed that if your content is rich and your site is attractive to the search engines then your site will become more successful based on its own content and merits alone.

The thought that you could submit a single page is a perfectly valid one but before you do this ask yourself this simple question…why do I need to do this?

The answer lies in the hosting and structure of your own website and your choice to follow a free/shared hosting option, this decision may have been made for any of several reasons. The truth is that as long as your site is hosted on a free, shared hosting solution your site will most likely struggle to achieve its full potential as you will no doubt come across issues when trying to optimise this kind of hosting solution.

The advantages and full control offered by a dedicated host/domain solution far outweigh any cost restrictions and in my opinion should always be the way to go.

I appreciate some people and businesses out there want to create a website for little or no outlay but as these are often clearly charging for what they provide perhaps they should consider what their visitors will think and how they will be perceived and judged in relation to their business acumen when the free hosting option is taken instead of creating a professional presence on the web.

Best regards

Andy Watson
Wildcat SEO

Popularity: 20%

Dear Kalena…

I am trying to find info about some search engines, but it is extremely difficult. With Ask.com and Lycos, are their default searches and or or - or are they both? Other sites seem to have the info available somewhere, but these two - arrrggghhh!

Thank You

Leah

Dear Leah

In the case of Ask.com, the default search is “or”. You can tell this by doing a search for “fish chips”. You’ll see that Ask throws up results for “fish chips”, “fish & chips” and “fish and chips”. Learn more about Ask’s Web Search works here.

Do the same search at Lycos and you’ll see results like “fish & chips” and “fish ‘n’ chips” as well as “fish and chips”, suggesting that Lycos also uses “or” as their default search.

Hope this helps!

Popularity: 8%

Dear Kalena…

I have recently optimized a friend’s website. The site was already listed with Google and Yahoo etc. I have noticed that since uploading the site a few weeks ago the new description and title for the home page is now listed and a few of the new page extensions.

In the SEO 201 course, you recommended submitting different listing descriptions for each search engine/directory. However, all the search engines are just using the title and description from each page they have listed.

1) Should I be listing pages not listed on the popular search engines or wait till the find them.

2) Should I only submit alternative descriptions where the site is not currently listed and do I only need to submit the home page?

With thanks

Peta

Dear Peta

You generally don’t need to submit sites to search engines as they will be discovered, provided there is at least one site pointing to them. But what you should make sure of is that each page on your site is being indexed. You can do this by creating an XML sitemap of your site and submitting it to Google via Webmaster Tools (also via Yahoo). More info is available at www.sitemaps.org.

Regarding different descriptions and titles - search engines will use whatever they think is the most relevant snippet from a page in relation to the search query. This could be taken from the title tag, the description or from the text on the page itself. You can control this to some extent by making sure each page on your site is optimized for a small range of target keywords/phrases so that each page has the opportunity to rank on it’s own merit.

When I talk about submitting different descriptions, I am generally talking about when submitting your site to niche directories and search engines that don’t automatically crawl sites to discover new pages.  If you use different descriptions for these submissions, you can easily track keyword referrals in your log files and recognize which sites are bringing you the most traffic. I hope this answers your question.

Popularity: 10%

Job Title: SEO Strategist
Job Reference #: 14743
Position Type: full time
Name of employer: Yahoo! Media Group
Location: Santa Monica, USA
Date Posted: 27-May-2008
Position description:

The Internet is a big, busy place, and Yahoo! are proud to stand out in the crowd. As the world’s number one Internet brand, servicing over a half billion people, they’re determined to maintain their commitment to delivering news, entertainment, information and fun… each and every day.

In order to maintain their position as one of the world’s most trafficked Internet destinations, they’re always on the lookout for people with big ideas and big talent to help them provide their visitors with the innovative products and services they’ve come to expect from Yahoo!. They’re looking for people like you.

How Big Can You Think?

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

This SEO Strategist position will work closely with designated Media properties’ product teams to help identify SEO opportunity and implement it. Working closely with the Product Managers (PMs), lead User Experience Designers, and lead Engineer(s) is required. The SEO Strategist should be deeply involved with PMs and product planners to provide competitive SEO product strategies to be baked into SEO Research Documents and/or Product Requirements Documents. They will also work closely with design leads to give wireframe recommendations and assist in crafting targeted on-page wording for optimal SEO, and with lead engineers to provide development SEO specs and enter bugs on the product for which the lead engineers and QA teams attend to and manage. The SEO Strategist may also work with editorial teams and/or product marketing on partner linking campaigns and press release optimization if necessary.

The SEO Strategist must understand and practice keyword & competitor research for upfront product planning. This position also requires an understanding and experience with content layout and design best practices for SEO, and an intimate understanding of advanced developer codes and techniques, including HTML, CSS, Flash ActionScript, JavaScript/AJAX implementations and dynamic content loading, and be able to look at various, often complicated code structures to identify and solve SEO issues that may arise within them.

The SEO Strategist will work SEO into designated property projects from initial product planning and strategy through to launch. It is imperative that the SEO strategist has an understanding of how to determine SEO opportunities and what to look for in SEO reporting to determine if SEO efforts are fruitful. The SEO Strategist will work closely with the SEO Specialist and the team in determining what to measure based on what was implemented, and how to communicate SEO results to Yahoo executives.

The ideal person for this position knows and understands all aspects of SEO (especially engineering-heavy), has corporate political finesse, can multi-task and prioritize with ease, and is able to find SEO opportunity and communicate results on a corporate level.

SEO Strategist is expected to:

• Modify meta tags and titles if/when the tools to do so are available.
• Produce SEO Research Documents (SRDs) for products/projects in planning stage.
• Enter and support SEO bugs on designated products.
• Work exclusively with Search Strategy Team designated properties; assist other additional properties only if all goals and needs for designated properties are met within the means of job limitations.
• Stay up-to-date on SEO industry trends.
• Use internal and/or team-designated reporting and tracking tools for documents and reports published by the team.
• Follow Yahoo SEO best practices as defined by Yahoo! Search and Media SEO.
• Have the ability and means to travel on a flexible schedule as needed, at least once a quarter and sometimes as often as twice a week.
• Meet or exceed specified team SEO goals as best possible within means of job limitations.
• Follow Yahoo employee guidelines for vacation and time off.
• Participate in annual Search Strategy and Media Marketing team offsites and focal reviews.
• Attend (physically or by webcast) all team and division all-hands meetings.
• Provide weekly status reports.
• Prioritize multiple projects based on what will potentially have the best results.

WORK EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS

• No less than 3 years of practicing SEO expertise within a large corporation.
• Experience working with each of the following teams: product managers, editorial, engineering (developers), design, and marketing.
• Experience setting tangible SEO goals and meeting them on time.
• Experience providing SEO workarounds for Flash, CSS, JavaScript/AJAX and image-heavy implementations.
• Experience in executing SEO research to provide a competitive product SEO plan outlining the opportunities and capabilities of outranking rivals.
• Experience in writing effective meta information on individual pages as well as batch meta templates.
• A well-rounded knowledge of all advanced SEO techniques is a must.
• Experience in measuring and communicating search traffic results.

Yahoo! Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. For more information or to search all of their openings, please visit http://careers.yahoo.com.

Salary range: Unknown
Closing date: Unknown
More info from: http://careers.yahoo.com
Contact: Send resumes via online form: http://careers.yahoo.com

For more search industry job vacancies visit: Search Engine College Jobs Board

Popularity: 7%