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Simon Musgrove-Wethey
310k Internet Solutions Ltd

This is a common problem. Your web designer has created a beautiful page with nice graphics and great Flash animations. Unfortunately, it seems that search engines won't list your website no matter what you do.

This can have several reasons:

a) The HTML code of your web pages is meaningless to search engines. Search engines use very simple software programs to index your web pages. A web page that looks great to the human eye can be totally meaningless to search engines. Search engines cannot see content that is presented in images (GIF, JPEG, PNG, etc.), Flash elements, JavaScript and other script languages or other multimedia file formats. If you use JavaScript links for your website navigation then search engines might not be able to find your website page.

b) The HTML code of your web page contains errors. Some HTML errors can prevent search engine spiders from indexing your web pages. While most search engine spiders can deal with minor code errors, some of them will send faulty information to search engine spiders. For example, your web page could contain a tag at the top of the page that tells search engines "the web page ends here" although your main content has not been reached.

c) The HTML code of your web pages doesn't contain the right elements If you want to get high rankings for a special keyword then this keyword must appear in the right places on your web page. For example, it usually helps to use the keyword in the web page title. There are many other elements that are important if you want to have high rankings.

d) Your web server sends the wrong status codes some web servers send wrong status codes. When a search engine spider requests a web page from your site then your server sends a response code. This should be the "200 OK" code. Unfortunately, some servers send a "302 moved" or even a "404 not found" response code to the search engine spiders although the web page can be displayed in a normal web browser. In that case, search engines will think that the web page doesn't exist and they won't index the page.

The top 1% of searchers performs a full 13% of all searches

"If you extend this to the top 20% the number of queries increase to roughly 70%. So in contrast to the standard 80-20 pareto it appears that in web search there is roughly a 70-20 distribution. Are these high volume searchers the same every month or is there some churn amongst these top searchers?"

Tips for optimizing Ajax pages

"Many webmasters have discovered the advantages of using Ajax to improve the user experience on their sites, creating dynamic pages that act as powerful web applications. But, like Flash, Ajax can make a site difficult for search engines to index if the technology is not implemented carefully."

Google has $10m in prize

"Google Inc., owner of the world's most popular Internet search engine, plans to offer $10 million in prizes to developers who create applications for its mobile phone operating system, known as Android."

Ask.com's Barry Diller to Time Warner: name your price for AOL

"Who ever knows what will happen with the economy and will it affect the internet? There's so much pouring into the internet, I would doubt it, but I'm not the greatest predictor. But more than any media sector, I think the internet will hold up."

Northeastern sues Google over patent

"Northeastern University and a start-up company cofounded by an associate professor have filed a patent-infringement suit against Google Inc., claiming that database technology patented in 1997 was misappropriated by the world's most popular Internet search service."

SoE: Google is hugely dangerous – claims Times Online editor

"The editor of Timesonline today told the Society of Editors conference that Google was 'hugely dangerous'. [...] [online] is a high risk business, it's fast changing. It's very different from that loyal audience that we have on the newspapers. To be honest it's like operating in the Wild West."