2. Your site and Google
Discovering Crawling Indexing Ranking and
Serving
3. Your content and Google
Getting pages in (and out) of Google’s index
Making your site accessible
…And smartly labeled
4. How Google discovers your site
Organic links
Add URL tool: http://www.google.com/addurl/
Sitemaps
5. Discoverability – Sitemaps
XML Sitemaps
Useful for:
Dynamic content
Websites with few incoming links
Large archive of content pages
Provides Google with information on:
When the site was last updated
How often it changes
The relative importance of pages on your site
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=40318
And http://www.sitemaps.org
6. Telling Google what not to index
You may wish to block from search engines…
Private information
Sections or pages “under construction”
Blocking options include…
Robots.txt
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?
answer=35302
Meta tags
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=93710
NOTE: Not to be used simultaneously to block the same set of pages.
7. Understanding accessibility
Accessibility is a critical component of web sites, enabling…
Effective crawling by Googlebot
Browsing and interacting on a mobile device
Understanding of content by the sight-impaired
8. Accessibility and Googlebot
Googlebot is good at crawling text:
HTML
PDFs, docs, txts, etc
More challenging for Googlebot:
Images and movies
Dynamic and rich content: Flash, JavaScript, frames, or dynamically generated
URLs
Advice: View your site in a text-only browser:
9. Making your images more accessible
<img src=“googlebot.jpg” alt=“googlebot with flowers”>
“Googlebot -- what a dreamboat. It's like he knows us <head>, <body>, and
soul.”
Describe the important content of each image in text
Use alt-text
Descriptive file names
10. Dynamic & media rich content suggestions
Design for accessibility Design with progressive
Focus on users enhancement
Multiple browsers Navigation in HTML, then add
Mobile phone your rich content
Screen readers Example: YouTube
For best uses of Flash:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/07/best-uses-of-flash.html
For best uses of Ajax:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/11/spiders-view-of-web-20.html
11. Importance of titles and descriptions
HTML Code:
<title>Google Webmaster Central</title>
12. Duplicate content
What is duplicate content?
Example: article and printer version of the site
Best practices:
301s
Preferred domain feature
Robots.txt file
For more helpful tips:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/09/demystifying-duplicate-content-penalty.html
13. Ranking – Relevance and importance
Sites listings are prioritized algorithmically according to pages’…
Relevance
Matching the search to the page
Taking into account geography
In some cases, considering a user’s web history
Importance
http://www.google.com/technology
http://www.google.com/history
Pigeons (http://www.google.
com/technology/pigeonrank.html)
14. Understanding PageRank
Now just one of more than two hundred ranking components
Based more upon quality (rather than quantity) of incoming and natural
links
Buying or selling links to pass PageRank is against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66356
Best methods to increase PageRank:
Create great content
Participate thoughtfully in relevant communities online and offline
15. Fluctuations in PageRank and ranking
Rankings fluctuate!
(Hundreds of ranking signals, with over 450 updated last year alone)
Algorithmic updates
Changes in your site’s contents
Changes in other sites’ contents
Violation of Google Webmaster Guidelines
16. Keeping your site strong: Webmaster Guidelines
Put yourself in your users’ shoes
Treat Googlebot the same way as your human users (don’t cloak!)
Make sure outgoing links point to relevant resources that reflect well on
you
Read our Webmaster Guidelines:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769
17. Google’s resources for webmasters
Google’s official blog, help center, discussion group, and beyond
18. Webmaster Central
Tools
Submit your content to
Google
Blog
Help Center Documentation
Discussion Group
Webmaster Central aims to provide relevant resources and tools to help
webmasters get the best experience with Google.
http://www.google.com/webmasters
19. Webmaster Tools – An insider’s view of your site
Google Webmaster Tools provides you a free and easy way to make your site
more Google-friendly. Using this tool, you and other site owners can:
Get Google’s view of
your website and
diagnose potential
problems
See how your site is
performing
Add a Sitemap
20. Webmaster Tools – Helping Google help you
Communicate with Google
Adjust crawl rates
Delete outdated sitelinks
Report spam and paid links
File a reconsideration request
21. Webmaster Tools – Discover more
Learn how to use Webmaster Tools more in depth:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/edu/quickstartguide/index.html
22. Google Webmaster Central Blog
The Google Webmaster Central Blog
Official Google communications directed at
Webmasters
Announcements
New Features
Information on indexing, ranking, guidelines
English: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/
German: http://googlewebmastercentral-de.blogspot.com/
Chinese: http://www.googlechinawebmaster.com/
23. Google Webmaster Help Center
Hundreds of articles in more than two dozen languages
Getting started guides, tips, guidelines, and more
24. Google Webmaster Help Group
The Webmaster Help Group can
be reached via the link in
Webmaster Central
Experienced webmasters and
Googlers answer your questions.
16 languages supported as of July 2008:
English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Dutch, Swedish,
Finnish, Danish, Russian, Hebrew, Hungarian, Turkish, and Chinese
26. Other useful tools and resources
Google offers many tools and products that can help you better
understand your site and enhance your users’ experiences.
Create and share compelling content
Gain a deeper understanding of your site’s visitors
Get insight into your competitors and competitive space
28. Deeper understanding of your site’s visitors
Google Analytics
http://www.google.com/analytics/
Discover where your visitors come from
Learn how they interact with your site
Website Optimizer
http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer/
Test different combinations of site content
Increase visitor conversion rates and
satisfaction
29. Research and keep track of your market
Trends – http://www.google.com/trends
Reader – http://www.google.com/reader
Alerts – http://www.google.com/alerts
http://www.google.
com/options