Meet the “robots.txt” File

When a search engine spider first arrives at a website, the spider looks for the “robots.txt” file. This is a text file that resides on the web server at the hosted domain. The “robots.txt” file has specific instructions for the search engine spider such as which parts of the site should or should not be indexed into their database.

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Now if we start off with a faulty foundation, it will be very easy for us to get discouraged from doing the right things or doing SEO at all on ours sites. That is why starting off right from the beginning is crucial to success. Try to think of your SEO efforts as a long term business plan. You may not see results today, but if you keep doing the right things, the results will come.

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When it comes to SEO, some people are just better at it than others, but why is that? Do the search engines just like them better than their competitors or maybe they have a direct connection to an insider at Google.

An SEO’s success or failure for that matter largely comes down to their experience and processes that they have refined over time. The people that are best at it have simply proven what consistently works over time.

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When it comes to the topic of search engine optimization (SEO), there tends to be a lot of confusion. You here all kinds of conversations on varying opinions about how to rank higher in the organic or free listings. Some SEOs even claim to know the Google ranking algorithm inside and out or Matt Cutts personally. The topic of SEO carries a certain mystique about it, even amongst SEOs.

It is true that there are technical details to SEO, but the true magic to SEO is really not that difficult at all. SEO breaks down into 2 basic categories which are on page optimization and off page optimization. On page optimization has to do with how the search engine’s view your site and off page optimization is how other sites link to you. This is commonly known in SEO circles as backlinks.

What the search engines do not want is for you to try to trick them. They do not want you gaming their system or manipulating their search results in anyway. If you try to deceive them, they will penalize you. Their are right and wrong ways to go about optimizing your site for the search engines and in this series on SEO we are going to set the record straight when it comes to all things SEO.

If you play by the search engines rules, all will go well but if you choose to try to game them, you risk losing all that you have worked for. You must know that there is no magic bullet when it comes to SEO, but if you execute solid SEO principles, you can obtain a coveted top ranking in the search engines.

According to Google, caffeine has changed the way that Google is indexing information into their data centers. Not only is Google delivering the results much faster ( by about 50%) they are indexing much more information as well. They are delivering more search results than ever before. As peoples’ expectancies for the best search results increases, so does Google’s desire to deliver the most relevant results. If you are an SEO, it is more important than ever to help your client deliver  quality content to their audience as well as get them quality back links. The game of SEO is ever changing, and the rules are different for each search engine. It is more important now, more than ever, to select an SEO company, that offers a full online marketing plan rather than just a simple SEO strategy.

Google is now pushing site owners to embrace a wider marketing strategy online, rather  than back linking alone. Blogs are more important than ever because they post new fresh content, and with Google showing real time results in their SERPs from social sites like Twitter, which gets well over 19 billion searches each and every month, businesses should jump on board rather than wait and react.

As more people search online and as Google has more data that tracks users’ search habits and queries, Google will only get better and the sites that make it onto that precious first page, will need to get better too!