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Many times, we that work as SEOs and webmasters forget one very important point. Google is not designed or operated to make us money, get us more clients, or to rank us higher. Google is search. As an end-user, if I am searching for the topic “creative web design” using Google (or any other search engine), then my hope is that the #1 position belongs to the most creative web design information on the web. Since I am a busy person, maybe I don’t have time to click through several pages of websites that used black-hat techniques, link-baiting, paid links, or a very high marketing budget to put them on top. I, as an end-user of Google, want the #1 result to be the absolutely most relevant information available on the internet. Maybe that is why Wikipedia has nearly dominated the first page of the results for many keywords. They often have the most relevant, informative content.

As an SEO, web designer, and webmaster, I have to think like an end-user. Back to my keyphrase “creative web design”. What do I hope to find? Am I correctly targeting my market with my content. What is my content all about? Am I paying someone money to place my link on their website? If so, would they have placed my link there for free? Does my content merit such a link?

Yet, we must provide a value to our clients. They are paying us to position them competitively in the SERPs. How can we best provide that value? In my opinion, it is our duty to instruct the client that they must HAVE the most relevant information for that topic. If they only appear (by artificially manupulating the results) as the most relevant, but that relevance is only smoke and mirrors, then what? Who loses? The end-user and, eventually Google also loses it’s market share.

Google does not work for us nor for our clients. They work for the end-user of their services. Plain, simple fact. The sooner we SEOs realize that fact, they better job we perform for our client.

I always hear webmasters complaining about the SERPs, being penalized for spamming, etc. They are appalled that Google is doing such a thing to their businesses. Google doesn’t care about your business. Google cares about Google and it’s customers.

We that believe that have a reponsibility to work for our clients as well. It’s all about  the content.Technorati Tags: Community, google, search engine optimization, Webmasters Resources

Popularity: 47% [?]

If you are a web designer or web developer, then you know how important it is that the sites you design look and function the same in multiple browser environments. This is easily achieved by simply downloading the latest versions of Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Gecko, Konqueror, Opera and what ever you choose. But what about Microsoft Internet Explorer? It is next to impossible to run side-by-side versions of IE. Most designers use more than one PC to accomplish this. There are ways to hack earlier installations of Mirosoft IE to get the desired versions running on the same PC. This will not work however with Windows Vista. However, there is a relatively simple solutions to this problem.

First, you will need to download and install Microsoft VPC 2007. This a very simple install and shouldn’t take over 10 munites at the most.

Then, you need to download and extract this free version of XP released by Microsoft and specially designed to run on VPC 2007.

Once you have these files extracted on your hard drive, simply open VPC 2007, create a new virtual machine and point it to your extracted files.

That’s it…Technorati Tags: accomplish, aspx, browser environment, Community, CSS, designers, gecko, hack, installations, internet explorer, konqueror, latest versions, microsoft, mirosoft, mozilla firefox, opera, safari, simple solutions, vpc 2007, Web Design, Web Development, Webmasters Resources, web designer, web developer

Popularity: 57% [?]

Right now, thousands of webmasters are asking this very question. Did the PageRank toolbar export already complete leaving many of us in the dark as to our near-current PR values that we have worked so hard to get. Is Google moving towards the elimination of reporting the PR on their toolbar. Adam Lasnik, a Google employee who works closely with webmasters, dropped in on the Webmaster World forum and was hinting towards this very move by Google. He went so far as to ask members what they would like to see in place of the PR values.

I doubt if Google will do this, but if the data they export is outdated and at times inaccurate, why have it there to begin with. We all know that quality backlinks is the key to ranking well in the SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Pages) and that will not be changing. The patented PageRank will continue in the algorithms, of course. But maybe this will be one added ingredient to “Google’s secret sauce”.

In a few hours, Google Adwords control panel will be offline for 4 hours for system maintenance. Will they use the extra resources to push the export? We’ll have to wait and see…

Update: Still no changes as of 1:09am Sun Aug. 12th

Technorati Tags: added ingredient, backlinks, Community, google, google adwords, pagerank, search engine optimization, search engine ranking, secret sauce, serps, Webmasters Resources, webmaster world

Popularity: 30% [?]

How important is it to have original and quality content on every page of your website? In my opinion, this is the single most important aspect of Search Engine Optimization and website conversion. Let’s face it, if you own a website, then targeted traffic is what your main goal is, or should be. I am going to address this issue in two sections: Search Engine Optimization and Landing Page Conversion.

Search Engine Optimization

In case you haven’t yet noticed, Google recently removed the Supplemental Results tag from their search results for websites using the site: operator. When this was still being used, it was a useful tool used by many webmasters to identify and fix problems with their website. I’ve seen alot of complaints about this recent move by Google, so maybe they will bring it back. If not, it will be more important than ever to make sure that before you put a webpage online verify that all the text on that page is different from other pages in your website. This does not only apply to your main content area, but also your sidebars and footers. This is especially difficult with Content Management Systems such as Wordpress and Joomla. You should have only one HTML navigation system on your webpage or if you like to use two, have one set of links at the top or on one of the columns (i.e. Home, Products, Services, Contact Us) and your less viewed informational links in your footer (i.e. Privacy, TOS, Sitemap). If you use Flash for your navigation, then it is acceptable to also have this in HTML in your footer.

I recently was asked to analyze a website that has original, informative content in his main content area, yet in his left and right columns the same advertising and promotional text was used as “fillers” on every page of his site. As a result, most of those pages have dropped out of Google’s main search index and his only recourse as I see it  is to replace the duplicate content with original, relevant content, rename those pages, do a Redirect 410 to the old pages, and then wait and hope they will be indexed and become ranked.

From the search engine point of view, it is much better to have 5-10 pages of original, relevant content than 200-1000 pages of repeated content. In the case of the latter, the majority of those pages will be removed from the main index and probably will not generate much traffic.

Landing Page Conversion

A visitor to your website does not want to read the same information over and over again. With each click of the mouse, the visitor wants new and unique information about your website: what you sell, where you are located, and why he should choose you over the rest of your competetion. If he sees the same information over and over again with each click of his mouse, you are wasting his time and yours. Chances are the visitor will just move on and find what he is looking for elsewhere. You’ve just lost a lead!

If you write clear, original content on your webpage, optimize it well for the search engine, and people can find you for that information through a search engine, they might just click to other pages of your website. Maybe they will even find their way to your order or contact page. Remember the Kevin Costner movie from several years back. A very true phrase was coined “Built it and they will come.” But, you have to build it right or they may never return.

Technorati Tags: Community, content management systems, duplicate content, google, original quality content, Redirect 410, repeated content, Search Engine Marketing, search engine optimization, search engine optimization, Webmasters Resources

Popularity: 25% [?]

As a web designer, with every project that I do I have to ask myself which browser would be the best to use as my default for testing. Many argue that Mozilla Firefox is the best to use during the design process. And I must say that I agree somewhat.

My reason is quite simple. Conditional comments and the top-to-bottom page code. Unlike many designers, I do not use CSS hacks. They are ugly, they do not validate, and they confuse me. Instead, I design my websites for three basic users:

• Internet Explorer 6 users
• Internet Explorer 7 users
• Mozilla Firefox users

Conditional comments as I use them only apply to Internet Explorer need to follow a logical order or they will not work correctly.

Most people know that the best way to execute a stylesheet is by calling it in the head tag using <link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”foo.css” />.

You can execute as many stylesheets that you want in that manner. First, here is the order that I personally.

1. My Mozilla Sheet
2. My IE 7 Sheet
3. My IE 6 Sheet

Please note that the if you are using CSS Conditional Comments, the browser will first read the Mozilla CSS and then look for the stylesheet that applies to it and read that one for it’s proper rendering.

Here is the two formats that I use: One if for IE 6 and one is for IE 7.

<!–[if IE 6]>

<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” media=”screen” href=”ie6style.css”/>

<![endif]–>

and

<!–[if IE 7]>

<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” media=”screen” href=”ie6style.css”/>

<![endif]–>

Here are all of the rest of the valid formats, or at least the most common ones.

<!–[if IE 5]>  for all IE 5 browsers

<!–[if IE 5.x]> for specific IE 5 browser

<!–[if IE 6]> for all IE 6 browsers

<!–[if IE 6.x]> for specific IE 6 browsers

<!–[if IE 7]> for all IE 7 browsers

<!–[if lte x.x]> if less than or equal to IE x.x browser

<!–[if gte x.x]> if greater than or equal to IE x.x browser

And don’t forget to close the comment tag with <![endif]–> or your page will not render.Technorati Tags: conditional comments, CSS, firefox, Google index, ie 6, ie 7, internet explorer, print stylesheets, script code, Web Design, Webmasters Resources

Popularity: 49% [?]

In the midst of this, yet another export of Google’s internal pagerank values to the Google toolbar, I would like to explain what all the commotion is about and why webmaster’s are losing sleep this week waiting for the results of Google’s quarterly Toolbar PageRank Export, also incorrectly known as PageRank update.

First of all, according to most experts, once the values are made public after this process completes, you probably will not notice much change in the way that your web pages are ranked in the Google index. The reason for this is known as everflux, or the word coined to describe how the Google index is updated. Most SEOs agree that the Google index is constantly being updated. Pages are crawled on a more regular basis, those pages are analyzed and ranked according to several factors; quantity and quality of backlinks for the page, the anchor text used in the linking page, the keyword density and keyword prominance of the page, number of outgoing links, quality of outgoing links seems also to play a small part in the Google algorithm.

Contrary to popular belief, search engines aren’t just a means to gain more targeted traffic to the webmaster’s website. The true purpose of a search engine is expedite the “searching” of information on the internet. With billions of webpages currently on the World Wide Web today, it can be a daunting task to look for information that you want. Google has stepped up and delivered a mechanism that provides that user with the information he is searching for in the fewest number of clicks. That is precisely why nearly 80% of all search engine queries are handled by Google. Maybe more.

PageRank is

• an indication of how effective your backlinking strategy is
• the order in which a web page shows up in the Google index for a specific keyterm PROVIDING all other factors are identical.
• two identical pages with identical keyword densities: the page with the higher number of quality backlinks (PR) would be ranked higher theoretically.
• a measure of how much you can charge for text links on your webpage. The higher the PageRank, the more marketable it is.
• to many, myself included, a matter of pride

PageRank is not

•  something you can drastically change overnight, unlike keyword strategies
• a judgement on the quality of your actual website. I have seen many absolutely stunning websites with PR0s and PR1s, likewise I have seen horrific websites with PR7s and Pr8s.

So, take it as you will and make your own decisions concerning your own website. If you need and enjoy increased search engine traffic, want to make some extra money selling links on your blog or website, or simply want to brag about your PageRank…seek out quality backlinks that are relevant to your own sites content and watch the toolbar pr values increase next export.

 Technorati Tags: ads shopping carts, blog, blogs, datacenter, google, google pagerank update, Google index, pagerank, search engine optimization, Text Links, Webmasters Resources

Popularity: 24% [?]

A few hours ago I reported that http://72.14.205.100/ had finished a backlink export. This was noticed by most webmasters over at Digital Point Forums as well as webmasterworld.com. Well, seems like that datacenter has reverted back to the data it had before.

What does that mean for the PageRank Update? Honestly, I’m not sure since I don’t work for Google, but probaby we will have to wait for the BL export again. After that we should see a PageRank Toolbar Export.

The last update was 94 days ago…we wait.

UPDATE: 5:07am US, Looks lke it has finally started. Several datacenters have gone offline, on more than 1 Datacenter one of my sites went from PR3 to PR0. Should begin recalculating pagerank in a few hours (let’s hope).

UPDATE: 7:28am, Established websites are now starting to see changes at www.digpagerank.com on DC=18. Those veterans at DP are also confirming this…I’m now waiting to see how my sites have fared.

UPDATE: 3:24 am Saturday, According to inside sources, updating is now happening on multiple datacenters. This is most probably an update, not a rollback nor data flux. We are now waiting to see changes on the Vibrant DCs.

Technorati Tags: bl, Community, datacenter, google, Graphic Design, honestly, pagerank, search engine optimization, Webmasters Resources, webmasterworld

Popularity: 21% [?]

Yes, it looks like it has finally started. From the best I can determine, the backlink export has finished and can be viewed on http://72.14.205.100/ . This seems to be the most vibrant of the datacenters at the moment. I have been monitoring the thread at Digital Point Forums and alot of new domains and inner pages are receiving the update first. Keep in mind that a PageRank update can take about 8 days to finish and then the toolbar will receive the export.

So far we haven’t seen any changes to already established websites. We’ll keep updating our readers as new information becomes available. In the meantime, feel free to visit my new personal blog, simply davidrdavisjr.com.

If you would like my personal analysis of your domain and my predictions for this update, leave me a comment here.Technorati Tags: google, new domains, pagerank, personal blog, search engine optimization, Webmasters Resources

Popularity: 31% [?]

Well, forever is a very long time, but it seems like there has been a push by Google recently to “force” site owners to come up with original, quality content “or else”.

First, the label Supplemental Result has been removed from search listings. And it also seems like those site and pages that were labeled as Supplemental Results have been completely removed from the index.

These changes first started appearing in mid-July. Many (including myself) thought that it was attributed to a dance; data being transferred from one datacenter to another. But this seems to me to be a permanent algorithm adjustment.

 This may have very negative results for many (also including myself), but I believe that this change will benefit the end-user of the Google search engines.

Two-thumbs up, Google and now I’m off to improve my content. Technorati Tags: dance data, datacenter, google, negative results, quality content, search engine optimization, search listings, supplemental

Popularity: 11% [?]

DCGWS Internet Solutions is very proud to re-launch our new business website. We are focusing on Creative Web Design, Interactive Business Solutions, and Search Engine Optimization at the new site. We have enhanced our content,  improved our layout, and made it much more accessible and usable.

Please take a few moments to glance at it and feel free to make your comments and suggestions.

Note: This is an interim layout, final version late August. Sorry about the 4 links to the site, just working up the anchors to speed Mr. Googlebot up. Technorati Tags: business website, Community, creative web design, CSS, few moments, glance, Graphic Design, interactive business solutions, interim, late august, launch, new business, search engine optimization, search engine optimization, Web Design, Web Development

Popularity: 49% [?]