Google says how: Improving your site's indexing, ... and ranking Options

[JohnMu]

An interesting idea, Google is turning user-friendly:
http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/02/impro...dexing-and.html

a step-by-step guide:

1) High-quality content
2) Follow the rules (webmaster guidelines, no hidden text, no kw stuffing, no bad seo)
3) No Link-Exchanges, no paid-for links

Is that last one something new? At least now it's official

Rant !

My main gripe is that they're trying to give newbie webmasters a "how-to-get-indexed" (one of the most common posts in the sitemaps group: I did a sitemap, why am I not in the index?) - while at the same time hiding the real triggers.

Sure high-quality content works, once you have visitors (who can / will link to you), and it's a good goal to go for. But seemingly implying that the newbie webmasters do not have high-quality content because Google does not want to index them is imho pretty arrogant.

Things like that get me worked up. People who spend hours, days, months working on their content (first website), pull out all their hairs working with MS-Frontpage or Word to turn it into something that a browser can display at all, only to have Google tell them they need to get "high-quality content".

Sigh, at least we have a statement, something new at any rate

John

[Nadir]

Well, there's nothing new, really. At the last Pub Cons conference, Matt Cutts said that to be at least indexed and rank somewhere, you should just create unique content, get natural links, and use clean code.
That's good information for newbies as you said.
But I don't think they wanna help anyone in their rankings here, they just wanna have more pages in their index, and thus show people how to get indexed.

This post has been edited by Nadir: Feb 13 2006, 02:22 PM

[kensplace]

I cant see a blanket statement saying dont use paid for links, it reads more like
dont use links of no value, ie ones just for pr purposes (attracting googlebot) - same for link exchanges, dont use them if they are not relavent or have no value for your visitors, but fine to use them if they do......

This post has been edited by kensplace: Feb 13 2006, 02:32 PM

[JohnMu]

My main issue is that the web used to be a place for everyone to put their information online, independant of how it looks ("clean code") and independant of who likes them ("natural links").

Looking back, I seem to remember Yahoo's tiny directory. You could put up a site about the "emotions of trees" and Yahoo would list it, you would get traffic. If you used clean code and didn't use the default design, you might even get a pair of sunglasses with the listing - cool site of the day .

Sure it's different now, the number of sites out there is past "countable". But somewhere I'm still a simple guy who has this strange feeling: "give everyone the same chances" - let them all get indexed and get a bit of traffic. If they don't have any links after a year or so and nobody clicks their links in the serps, who cares, or drop them then.

The idea behind it (stoping unnatural indexing) is admireable, but those who want to index their junk will always be able to game the machine and get indexed anyway (if only for a short time, or on other search engines). Once they get to the stage of publishing junk, web-spam, they already know the ropes (you would think, there are always newbie spammers :-)).

It just seems strange to me to allow spammers into the index (because they play the game) but not let new sites with possibly really interesting content even get a chance of getting some traffic, to be able to test their "quality content".

I know, that's just being as naive as can be, it's a dream .

John

[Nadir]

Yes, maybe. But you forget one thing, the web is the web, Google is what it is, they did everything they could to be the first search engine on this planet.

That means they "can" pretty much do anything they want, if you don't agree, fine. Don't forget that it's a business, they are not here to prone freedom in the web or anything. They sound like they are 'hippies', but that's far from being true. They are in war...

You see the web as a place of freedom where everyone can share his information with the world without any problem, that's how I see it too. The thing is, people always complain but never really act.

What stop us from accepting Google as the main search engine? We can change that. I talked about Kosmix the other day, it really looks like a good search engine, its technology is more promising and fair than Google. So I talked about it on my blog. If you like it, you can talk about it, too. Or you can spread the word about any search engine you like. You can even gather a few programmers and create one, why not?

Take the example of IE, Microsoft Office, etc. They are still leaders but with the effort of a lot of people, they are losing market share and better products are coming up.

This post has been edited by Nadir: Feb 13 2006, 03:38 PM

[JohnMu]

I know Nadir, Google doesn't have to do anything for me :-). If they would prefer to add 100's of scraper sites running Adsense, that's the way they can do it, no problem here.

It's just that the common (mis-?)conception is that Google is fair, treats sites equally, has an algorithm that can't be "played". We all know those are nothing but (empty?) words, but new webmasters don't. And that's the target reader of the posting I linked - new webmasters who want to know what they need to do to get indexed.

If they would at least mention something, anything about getting good links to your site in order to get it indexed, it would be fine by me. Good content is always a good selling point, but it won't get you indexed (directly). But as you say, it's their free service and they can provide the rules and by all means they can communicate what they want (truth or fud).

These things, similar to the recent BMW reinclusion as mentioned on Matt Cutts blog, just get me worked up. "We play fair and open (sometimes)" Oh well, they're just a company that needs our bucks .

John

This post has been edited by softplus: Feb 13 2006, 03:17 PM

[Nadir]

Yeah, you're right. For people who have just created their first website, when you say "you need links" that doesn't mean much for them. Where, who, how, why, how many?

Of course Google won't give you the answers to these questions, that would be way too much information

[travis]

Softplus,

Great find. Its always good to hear it from the horses mouth.

[DCrx]

1) High-quality content

While it is ambiguous, the content issue is usually blown right past. If a quarter of the inventive SE positioning thought were put toward content-driven SEO, more sites would rank. Content strategy hasn't matured along with SE strategy.

[Brandon_Cstone]

Now do they say that just having articles will get you ranked? Or do they just want to infer that the articles will get links and that will get you ranked?